Robert Thurston - Intruder

“Was he reprogrammed perhaps, while you were off-planet?”

“I don’t think so. He was a proper robot previous to this incident, applying all the Laws to his behavior. No, if Bogie attacked Wolruf, he was not Bogie. I sensed a change in him before I sent him on an errand. I rather liked Bogie, and this one simply did not respond like the Bogie I’d known. And, by the way, all indications are that the robot I ordered to go to Ariel never even tried to get there, another clue that I didn’t give the order to Bogie, who would have been compelled by Second Law to obey it. Furthermore, in responding to Wolruf’s leap upon him, he seems to have been using Third Law, that of protecting himself, but First and Second Law would have prevented him from doing so.”

“Okay, good. Then if he wasn’t Bogie, who was he?”

“An alien?”

“What alien? Except for Wolruf, I haven’t encountered any aliens. You have, what with Aranimas and your erstwhile friends, the blackbodies. None of them have any talent for disguise, nor have the few alien races that have been reported. A human might pull off such a disguise, get into a robot suit and do a fairly accurate imitation, but there is no evidence of any other humans but us on the entire planet. If I were still mad, we might have made out a good case for it being me.” He laughed softly, sardonically, then said reflectively, “I did so want to be a robot. I still say the role would have suited me. So, Derec, who do you think it might be?”

“How about a robot, one that’s not programmed in the same manner as a Robot City robot?”

Avery’s eyes raised in admiration. “Very good. You’re right on the line of my thinking. It’s a robot, I’m sure, but not an Avery robot.”

“Why are you so sure?”

“It would have to be some kind of rogue robot. Not my style at all. An Avery robot would not have so much confusion about the three laws. No, somebody else made this robot, and I have a sneaking suspicion who.”

“Who? Tell me.”

Avery shook his head slowly. “Not now. In a moment. I have some questions to ask you. I need to know about Adam and Eve. Your view of them. I know where they came from, what they’ve done so far. Adam gave me a pretty full history during our marathon sessions together. What do you think of them? Robotically speaking, I mean.”

“I’m not sure what you want.”

“Free-associate about them, if you like. “

“Well, I don’t know.” He paused, trying to collect his thoughts. “Sometimes they don’t seem like robots.”

“Uh huh. I’ve noticed.”

“One thing, they can be too mischievous. I know some of it’s curiosity and some of it has to do with their over-meticulous attempts to define some kind of impossible human being, an ideal we apparently fail to live up to. As a result, their hold on the Laws of Robotics is shaky.”

“That seems to be because they apply them too specifically. Rather than accept us as the perfect humans they seek, they strip us of our humanity in their minds, and the result is that they don’t always jump to our aid according to First Law, or obey us as Second commands.”

“That’s not all of it, though. They don’t seem to be certain that they are robots, in spite of all evidence. They accept it and don’t accept it simultaneously. It’s as if their mechanisms are so refined, they can’t be ordinary robots like the others.”

Avery winced. “By ordinary, you mean Avery robots.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I don’t like to think of my creations as somehow second-class models.”

Derec smiled. “If you say so, but I don’t think it’s a criticism of your skills as a roboticist. At any rate, their behavior is inconsistent. Sometimes they seem to be normal robots, at other times they are excellent copies of whomever they’ve imprinted on. Adam does a mean Wolruf, and Eve’s version of Ariel makes me edgy because it’s too accurate.”

“It’s this shape-changing ability that fascinates me, Derec. Explain it to me.”

Under Avery’s sharp questioning, Derec revealed what he had observed about the Silversides, about the differences in their cellular structure, about the sequences of physical transformation during the imprinting process, about the shifts in matter density when they took on the shapes of either smaller or larger beings, about the limits to which they could reduce or enlarge their mass. (Neither could approximate the size of small animals or insects, but could look like enormous versions of them. By the same token, if giants had been available, they could not stretch themselves to that size, either. When they had shaped their mass into a blackbody imprint, they had been about twice the size of that impressive flying alien.)

Excited by the information, revived by the challenge of a scientific dilemma, Avery seemed more and more his old self. He now stood by a desk, his fingers drumming in a fast, steady rhythm. His other hand kept touching his long white hair or bushy moustache. His eyes glowed again.

When Derec had related all he could remember, Avery balled up his hand into a fist and rammed it hard against his upper thigh.

“That’s it!” he cried. “That must be it!”

“I hope you’ll let me in on it, since I’m thoroughly confused now.”

“Bogie-the robot posing as Bogie is a Silverside.”

“You mean Adam or Eve? Really, I don’t think so. They weren’t even here when things started to go wrong. They were with me on-”

“I don’t mean literally Adam and Eve. I mean Silverside generically. There is another of these robots like Adam and Eve somewhere in Robot City.”

“Another one?” For a moment, Derec was appalled at the prospect of a third mischievous robot to contend with, but then of course, he said to himself, I’ve been contending with it for days now. “You mean it was being Bogie because it was able to change into his shape, to imprint upon him?”

Avery nodded and smiled oddly. “I guess we’ve got, as well as Adam and Eve, Pinch Me.”

Derec wondered if the doctor had slipped back into madness. Avery saw his son’s confusion and quickly explained about the children’s riddle he had tried out on Adam.

“Adam never really understood it. I tried to tell him it was just a joke, but he didn’t catch on.”

“I know what you mean. I’ve spent hours attempting to make Mandelbrot understand what humor is all about. But what really is our Pinch Me? For that matter, what are the Silversides?”

“They’rre demonss, ‘u know,” Wolruf said from the floor. She had been intently listening to the conversation. “‘U should lock them up and hide key until they grrow up. That iss my opinion.”

“I agree, Wolruf,” Avery said. “I’d like to get them into a cell and take them apart, see what makes them tick.”

“Don’t ‘u tell Ariel that. Rememberr what she said about dancerss.”

“Yes, that’s good advice, Wolruf.”

Derec had no idea what they were talking about, but, with so many immediate problems to deal with, he decided not to ask questions about it.

“Father, you said you had an idea who the Silversides are.”

“Yes, and I have a hunch I’m right. Sit down.”

“I’m too nervous-”

“Sit down!”

The tone in Avery’s command was so authoritative, Derec decided there must be a good reason for the order. He pulled up a chair and sat on the edge of it.

“I hadn’t wanted to talk to you yet about your mother, Derec. If I could avoid it, I’d never tell you about her. Unfortunately, circumstances now make it necessary.”

Derec realized why his father had told him to sit down. He felt as if the air had been knocked out of him. What could his mother possibly have to do with the crisis on Robot City?