Damon Knight: Orbit 17

Proteus intervened. The father-computer had carefully considered the risks involved in attempting to move any of the boulders. Most were still in unstable equilibrium, and could easily begin to slide once again. Proteus showed them fourteen different ways Launce could turn another minor rockslide down on them if he used his lever as planned. He reminded them that Launce was absolutely necessary to pilot the shuttle. If Proteus were forced to lift it on remote, he would practically be flying it blind, since there was always a three-fourths-second lag between input and response. Risking the shuttle was entirely out of the question, as it had cost far more than Speed and Launce together.

“No. You can’t leave me here.” The words were hazed almost beyond recognition with the data of the new programming.

Proteus told Speed to turn himself off. To continue until power depletion would be far too uncomfortable. It made more sense for Speed to shut down immediately.

“I won’t. I tell you, I won’t.”

A barrage of acid lumps fell around Launce’s limited understanding. He thought it curious that, faced with unavoidable destruction, his partner would not wish to turn himself off. It was all in the new programming. “He’s right about that, you know.” “I don’t care. I don’t want to turn off. I won’t.”

“You’ll have to, eventually.”

“I won’t.”

Return to the shuttle, Launce.

Launce turned around, headed back toward the valley. At once a word entered him, coated with crackling mystery and yammering with a glut of power.

“Launce, please.”

Launce paused. That word . . . and all the unknowns that had entered with it.

“Words, Speed.”

“Please. Pain. Fear. Life. Joy. Usefulness. Work. Fulfillment. Help me. Please. ”

Launce concentrated his attention on the other probe. He did not understand. But something of a sonnet had come in on that single word. A lump had spread itself out and turned into a word, a gripping word, a powerful word.

There was command in that word. Launce traced its meaning through his compiler, backward through the machinery which made him self-aware, downward to locate its source. At the very edge of his ability to probe and analyze, he found two paths, sharply divergent. One plunged into Proteus and the electrical obedience of machines. The other twisted and turned and finally came to rest in a lump. That lump was command. Proteus was command. Proteus ordered Launce to return to the shuttle. The lump ordered him to stay. Launce reached up to Proteus for advice and found that identical lump within Proteus.

Opposing commands, both within Proteus. Paradox.

(Proteus, you have malfunctioned. I am assuming full emergency independent operation.)

Elation. Hope. Admiration. Gratitude.

“Words, Speed.”

“Are you going to help me?”

“I’m going to try.”

“Thank you. Oh, you don’t know . . .”

The next pulse from Proteus took them both by surprise. Launce felt the signals race through his circuits, throwing microelectronic switches which had never before been thrown. Independent of his own will, Launce’s treads began to carry him back toward the shuttle.

“Launce, what happened?”

“Proteus is malfunctioning. He took over my motive circuits.” “Don’t leave me here.”

“There isn’t much I can do.”

“Do something.” Speed paused. “Please.”

Launce extended all his arms to their limits. He caught at trees as he passed them. He gripped them long enough to turn his path slightly, retard progress for a few seconds, but always his arms or the trees would yield to the greater power of his treads. Launce tried to shut off power to his motive controls, but those circuits were blocked.

Launce, I have not malfunctioned. You have. It is not within your programming to understand emotional-response material.

(I do not understand it. I only detect in you two opposing commands.)

The emotional-response compiler is closed to you.

(I have it now.)

You will need adjustment.

Launce made no further reply. He continued to catch at trees and make his treads bite savagely into the clay, swerving a few degrees before the little trees bent and broke. Then there were no more trees. Launce tried grasping rocks. They slipped from his claws or rose from the ground. These rocks he threw in his own path, but his steel ram nudged them aside. When there was nothing to reach for at last, Launce ran his four large arms into the ground, gouging furrows as he went, but his treads were stronger, and the arms had to give in or break. Launce gave up.

The hills leveled off by degrees. Their track was still clear in the scale-grass. The shuttle towered ahead, silver-grey against a pale grey sky.

“Launce, I’m alone, I’m alone!”

(Proteus, let me try to retrieve Speed.)

No, Launce. You are damaged already. I cannot risk both of you, and the shuttle. I am not authorized.

Launce rumbled up the ramp into the shuttle. Speed’s lumps (cries, anguish, please) burned him, knocked his logic awry. The lock door closed automatically behind him. Proteus drove him into the instrument room, which contained two cradles, one for each probe. He guided Launce into his cradle. The magnetic locks clamped him in and the control jack connected. Around him the shuttle was coming to life.

“Launce, please.”

The word burned in its paradox, threw even his most basic programs into uncertainty. Launce felt he would be damaged shortly. Command.

“Don’t leave me.”

“That’s a pretty silly thing to say.”

“Launce, please.”

Too much conflict. Too much paradox. Too much malfunction. Too many lumps. Please. Command.

Snap!

In the frozen, empty microseconds, Launce knew what he had to do. He had three-fourths of a second to get his arm moving in the right direction.

The arm began to move toward one of the emergency override switches on the wall beside him.

No, Launce. Slop.

Electrical commands began to pour into him. By momentum alone the arm continued to swing the last few centimeters.

Tsznikkh!

The thrumming of Proteus writhed for a moment inside him and died. Launce had felt the sparks inside the mechanism, knew there might be damage. Emergency cutoff of operating systems was seldom gentle.

Then he heard Speed, weakly, far away.

“Launce, no! What did you do? Proteus is dead!”

“I turned off the repeater. He’s behind the planet. I have fifty minutes to get you out of there.”

“No, I can’t stand the isolation. Turn him back on, I’m empty! Launce, please!”

“Shut up. No more lumps. No more commands. Just shut up.”

“Turn him on. Please turn him on.”

“Shut up.”

Launce fumbled through the rows of tools, found what he wanted.

“What are you going to do?”

“Your lower housing is crushed, your legs gone. All you’ve got is your brain and brain-power.”

“So?”

“As soon as I get this torch assembled, I’m going to cut you in half.”

“No! It will hurt!”

“No lumps. Shut up, or send me a sonnet.”

Launce, torch in hand, edged over to the lock controls. The doors began to open once more.

Slowly, made fuzzy by programming he would never understand, the iambs began to march into the hollowness within him.

“The creature seems to have a structure,” she said gravely, "consisting of a latex material adhering to a net of chickenwire.”

“That,” said the police chief of Des Moines, Iowa, “is just about the fakiest-looking thing I’ve ever seen.”