Stephen Leigh - Changeling

You see, Master Derec? It was Beta, talking to him via the chemfets. All Robot City is now yours.

Good. Derec nodded and went to the window, looking out over the rooftops and up to the summit of the Compass Tower.

“Then we’ll let the rogue in if it wants in,” he said. “Avery didn’t know that I would come here. Even a rogue has the Three Laws built into it. Avery might be able to design a robot capable of destroying other robots, but I find it hard to believe that even he could build a robot that could knowingly hurt a human.”

SilverSide watched two of the cubs wrestling on the floor of PackHome. They rolled over and over on the dusty, broken stones, growling in high-pitched BeastTalk and nipping at each other with their sharp milkteeth. Finally one of them yelped in real pain and lay on his back, paws up and throat bared in submission.

It was ritual play modeled after the adults. SilverSide could hear one of the nursing mothers chuckling throatily as the victor gave a thin howl. She lunged and snapped at the triumphant pup from behind, and it screeched suddenly, leaping high into the air as the fur on its back ruffled in fright. The pup stumbled and fell, and the adults in the cavern laughed as it ran under SilverSide’s legs for safety. The pup peered out at them half-puzzled, half-embarrassed.

SilverSide reached down and lifted it in her hands. “You see, the leader always has to be ready for a new challenger,” she said to it in soft KinSpeech. She stroked the soft fur and set the pup down again.

The little one ran for its own mother.

“It’s always good to see the younglings playing,” LifeCrier said to SilverSide as the pup started to nurse. “It reminds you that even though our spirits leave here to go into the Void, OldMother will send them back again.” LifeCrier licked SilverSide’s face affectionately. “KeenEye will come back one day. She is not gone forever.”

“I am not concerned with KeenEye,” SilverSide said. “She is dead and doesn’t matter any more.” It was only true-there were no emotions in her positronic matrix, only the priorities built into it by the Three Laws. Yet SilverSide sensed that her uncaring words hurt LifeCrier, and she tried to explain to the gray-furred kin. “All that concerns me is how she died and why, and what I must do to stop that from happening again. You do not understand me, LifeCrier. You cannot see what is happening inside me.”

They were all staring at her now: LifeCrier, the rest of the adult kin, the younglings. Their obvious respect and dependence on her stirred the boiling cauldron inside. SilverSide felt pulled in a dozen different directions at once. Things had seemed very clear-cut and simple when she had hatched from the Egg. But now…

The part of her imprinted with the kin hated the VoidBeing who ruled the WalkingStones. Yet another part of her yearned to find this creature who seemed more advanced than the kin, who could fashion creatures from shiny stone and have them do its bidding.

LifeCrier had backed away a step in deference to SilverSide’s rank. He lowered himself slightly to indicate subservience. “I don’t understand KeenEye’s death,” he said. “The VoidBeing could have killed me or any of the others. Yet it didn’t. I saw it raise its hands and stop the WalkingStones from hurting the kin it had paralyzed. It held my head and did nothing but stroke it. It did not seem dangerous.”

“It killed KeenEye,” SilverSide repeated. “I could smell its presence on her fur.”

“I know. Still…”

“The WalkingStones seemed to obey it, you said. That would mean that the VoidBeing ranks higher than Central or these new Supervisors.”

“I suppose…”

“Then the VoidBeing must be an enemy of OldMother. It attacked you, even if it did not kill you. It saved the WalkingStones and left with them. It had a WalkingStone as a companion. It is an enemy.” SilverSide recited the facts in a monotone. Around her, the kin began to nod in agreement. Only LifeCrier seemed hesitant.

Inside SilverSide, synapses closed erratically. Her positronic mind no longer resembled that of any other robot; her life among the kin had changed it far more than her creator might have expected. In that sense, she was truly a rogue. No human standards worked for her anymore. She was an alien, and she had overlaid the Three Laws with an alien morality. She could not disobey them, but her vision of them was skewed.

“I must do what best protects us,” she told LifeCrier. “Nothing has changed. We still cannot leave PackHome; my attempt to destroy Central only made it more difficult to damage the WalkingStones. You tell me that this VoidBeing is a being of flesh, and flesh is very fragile and very tasty. It had its knife-stick, but even a SharpFang has its teeth and claws. If the gods had to send it from the Void, then we must have hurt the WalkingStones more than we know. Perhaps if we also kill the VoidBeing, then the OldMother will have won. What do you think, LifeCrier?-you are the one who knows the OldMother best.”

“SilverSide is the leader,” LifeCrier answered, using HuntTongue. “If she says that the OldMother wishes us to kill the VoidBeing, then we will kill it.”

Derec knew what the supervisor robot wanted before Gamma entered the room. The chemfets had told him, whispering into his mind.

“We’re going to have to change your name,” he told the robot. “Gamma-it shows a definite lack of imagination. But it can wait. What’s up?”

“There are wolf-creatures on the far hill, Master Derec. They are approaching the city boundaries.”

“I’m aware of it. They didn’t give us much time, did they? Is everything ready?” There was little need to ask-he could have found out via the chemfets, but somehow it seemed more reassuring to ask the supervisor. There was only so much information he could absorb from the flood the chemfets allowed him. Even if he wanted to control every function of the city, it would have been impossible.

When the chemfets injected into him by his father had first asserted their presence, Derec had thought that he was going insane. He couldn’t control them, couldn’t handle the eternal input. But he’d learned how to filter out most of it, learned to let the city take care of itself. The supervisors were invaluable, and the lesson Derec had been taught in the original Robot City was to delegate his authority. It was the only way to remain sane.

Derec yawned. He’d tried to sleep that afternoon, knowing the wolf-creatures would come at night, but he’d been too wound up. He yawned again, forcing oxygen into his lungs.

“Everything is set as you instructed, Master Derec.” The supervisor robot, identical to its counterparts Alpha and Beta, went to the balcony high up in a building near the Compass Tower. City lights gleamed red and yellow on the robot’s burnished skin. Mandelbrot came from the next room and went onto the balcony with Derec.

“I see them,” Mandelbrot said. “There-just below the tree line. There are six or perhaps seven of them.”

“Get your eyes fixed at last and you have to show off,” Derec chided Mandelbrot jokingly, but the robot missed the humor entirely.

“I am sorry, Master Derec,” he said. In retrospect, it was the only reaction Derec should have expected, but Derec suddenly knew how much he missed human company. Ariel, especially. I need to talk to her. Sometimes I feel half-robot myself with the chemfets chattering away inside.

There had been no time to contact her. Derec had known the wolf-creatures would come to the city again, and quickly. It was what Dr. Avery would have done, after all, and the rogue had to be Avery’s-it just made sense.