Michael Kube-McDowell - Odyssey

Because somehow, somewhere, he had to meet the designer.

After a short break for a late lunch of the same monotonous foods, Derec set about installing the cellular arm in place of the robot’s original limb.

It was not an easy task, requiring both structural and functional marriages between two wildly divergent technologies. Derec worried about the functional link first, and not only because he expected it to be the tougher challenge. If the robot could not control the new arm, there was no point in going to the trouble of attaching it.

But the cellular arm apparently used the standard command set and carrier voltages. Though there was no evidence of any contacts or wiring in the stump end, the arm responded no matter where Derec attached the control bus.

Experimenting, he found that the arm responded even if he attached the control bus to the skin of the forearm, the palm of the hand, even the tips of two fingers. It seemed as though the cellular microrobots were smart enough to accept the command input from any location and channel it to the appropriate sites.

Once attached, the arm responded not only to all the robot’s basic motor commands, but even to some novel commands. With coaching from Derec, the robot was able to “think” an additional joint onto his arm between the elbow and wrist. In another test, Derec asked the robot to try to modify the cellular thumb and forefinger into long, slender microclamps.To his delight and amazement, it could. With the right command codes, the material of the arm seemed to be infinitely malleable.

But no matter how Derec prepared the mounting ring the arm was connected to, the right shoulder joint remained weaker than the left was or the original had been. At one point, the cellular arm broke loose completely when the robot tried to lift an object weighing less than twenty kilos. Even after he reattached it, Derec had doubts it would withstand the stresses of, for instance, a brawl.

“Looks like you’re going to have one strong arm and one smart one,” he told the robot. “Try not to forget which is which.”

“It is not possible for me to forget, sir.”

“This isn’t an off-the-shelf replacement,” Derec said sternly. “Until you’ve burned what it can do and can’t do into your pathways, you be careful with it. And never let anyone but me see you doing tricks with it, understand?”

While Derec was talking, the robot went rigid and its eyes dimmed. Derec knew what that meant, and fell silent. A moment later her heard the soft padding of Wolruf’s footsteps in the corridor. It was becoming a familiar sound, for it was Wolruf’s third visit to the lab that day. Aranimas, apparently occupied with the duties of “ship’s boss,” had managed only two.

Like the previous visits, this one was casual. Wolruf had no messages for him and no burning curiosity about what he was doing with the robot. It was almost as though she was using checking on him as an excuse to avoid other work, or trying to cultivate his friendship. But Derec kept up his guard. Wolruf was Aranimas’s lieutenant, no matter how sympathetic she might seem. Even her concern for him while he was being tortured, he had decided, was nothing more than a good cop, bad cop stage show meant to speed his surrender.

As before, Wolruf stayed but a few minutes, then continued on to some other task. As soon as she was out of earshot, the robot reanimated.

“I understand, sir,” it said, as though there had been no interruption.

“The next time you have to go down like that, you might spend your time trying to analyze the arm’s command set. Can you do that?”

“I can try, sir. It should be possible to separate those command codes which are valid from those which are nulls. However, I will have to be fully functional to test the valid codes and determine their function.”

“Let’s wait on that until we know we’re going to have some privacy.” He paused a moment to decide what he needed doing next. There was still the matter of reprogramming the robot, but that was also a job which required some assurance of privacy. The best opportunity seemed to be during shipboard night, which was also the best time to explore the ship.

Too much to do, too little time, Derec thought. But if he was going to make better use of the night hours than he had last night, he needed to be better rested. “Alpha.”

“Yes, Derec.”

“What time is it?”

“I do not know what time it is, since my temporal register has not been reset since I was deactivated. However, it has been fourteen decads since reinitialization.”

Decads were units of Auroran decimal time, Derec recalled. “I’m going to take a nap. Wake me in a Standard hour.”

“Yes, sir.”

But it was Aranimas, not the robot, who woke him.

“Are you finished? Is my servant ready?” he demanded, looming over Derec like some long-limbed water bird.

“Not yet,” Derec said sleepily, sitting up. He noted with satisfaction that the robot was standing inert by the workbench. It, at least, had not been taken by surprise.

“Then why do you rest? To keep me waiting?”

“I rest so I don’t get so tired that I make a mistake that’ll damage the robot,” Derec said. “Maybe your kind doesn’t have that need, but humans do.”

Aranimas did not take offense at Derec’s tone. “I have observed that humans are even less efficient than Narwe. You would make very poor workers, wasting one third of your time in rest.” He turned his back on Derec and went to where the robot stood. “But then perhaps that is why you have invented such machines, which labor in your service tirelessly. How is it done?”

“What do you mean?” Derec asked, coming to his feet.

“What is the source of energy?” Aranimasasked, tracing a line down the robot’s torso with his long fingers.

Derec knew that being evasive or pretending ignorance would only anger the alien. “A microfusion powerpack,” he said. “There’s one on the bench there, just to the left of the scanner.”

Aranimas picked up the damaged powerpack and studied it. “So small. How days’ service does it contain?”

“It depends on how hard the robot is working. The fuel capsule is good for several hundred days of light duty, like domestic service. A laborer would obviously need refueling more often.”

“Remarkable,” Aranimas said, returning the powerpack to the bench. One of his eyes seemed to focus briefly on the transplanted arm, then swung back toward Derec. “You are making progress?”

“I am.”

“How long until you are ready to activate it?”

“I’ll be ready to start testing its systems tomorrow or the next day. How soon it’ll be ready will depend on how much is wrong.”

Aranimas seemed to accept that. “The first job of this robot will be to help you make more robots.”

Frowning, Derec stepped forward. “How many more?”

“We will begin with fifty.”

Derec wondered if that figure represented the number of Narwe on board. He briefly enjoyed the thought of Aranimas replacing his browbeaten crew with an array of obedient robots, only to discover that, at a word from Derec, he couldn’t command them at all. But he could not kid himself or allow Aranimas to entertain unreasonable expectations.

“I don’t think you understand the complexity of these machines,” Derec said. “They’re not something you put together as a hobby, no matter how good a materials lab you have. And frankly, this isn’t a very good one. I’ll probably be able to get this robot put together and keep it repaired. But if you want fifty robots, you’re going to have to look somewhere else for them. I’m not magician enough to pull positronic brains or microfusion cells out of a hat.”