“Adam,” Wolruf said, taking Avery’s nod in Adam’s direction as her cue, “you scratch my back. Please.”
The small politeness made a difference, but not the one Wolruf had hoped for. Adam said, “I do not wish to offend, but I find that I must refuse as well.”
“Why?”Wolruf asked, slumping back into her chair, resigned to having an unscratched back.
“Wait. Wolruf, there’s one more robot here.”
Wolruf looked to Mandelbrot, standing directly behind Derec and Ariel’s chair. Mandelbrot didn’t wait for her order, but moved silently over to Wolruf and reached out to scratch the alien’s furry back.
“Thank you,” Wolruf said with a sigh.
“You are quite welcome, Master Wolruf,” Mandelbrot said, and Derec would have sworn he heard a slight twist to the word “master.” Could Mandelbrot disapprove of another robot’s conduct? Evidently so.
“Interesting,” Avery said. “Eve, turn around to face the wall.”
Silently, Eve obeyed.
“Hold your right hand out to the side and wiggle your fingers.”
Eve obeyed again.
“Adam and Lucius, follow the same orders I just gave Eve.”
The two other robots also turned to face the wall, held their right hands out, and wiggled their fingers.
“That’s a relief,” Avery said. “For a second there I thought they’d quit obeying altogether.”
“Relief to you, maybe,” said Wolruf, shifting so Mandelbrot could reach her entire back.
“It looks like they’ve independently decided what makes a human and what doesn’t. Am I right?”
Silence. Three robots stood facing the wall, their right hands fluttering like tethered butterflies.
“Lucius, am I right?”
“You are correct, Dr. Avery,” the robot answered.
“So what’s your definition?”
“We presently define ‘human’ as a sentient being possessing a genetic code similar to that which I found in the Robot City library under the label ‘human.’”
“A sentient being,” Avery echoed. “So those rats of yours still don’t qualify?”
“That is correct.”
“How do you know Avery has the proper code’?” asked Derec.
“He has medical records on file. We accessed them when the question first arose. We also examined yours and Ariel’s.”
“But not Wolruf’s.”
“There was no need. Her physical appearance rules out the possibility that she might be human.”
“Even though she’s obviously sentient.”
“That is correct. A being must be both sentient and carry the proper genetic code to be human.”
“What about the baby I’m carrying?” Ariel asked. “Isn’t my baby human?”
Lucius was silent for a moment, then he said, “Not at present. The embryo cannot formulate an order, nor does it require protection beyond that which we would normally provide you; therefore we need not be concerned with it.”
“That sounds kind of heartless.”
“We possess microfusion power generators. What do you expect?”
Adam spoke up. “May we stop wiggling our fingers? It serves no useful purpose.”
“No, you may not,” Avery said. “It pleases me to see you following orders.”
“Enough,” Wolruf growled, whether to Mandelbrot or to the humans neither knew. Mandelbrot stopped scratching her back as Wolruf stood up and said, “This is depressing. I thinkI’ll go check on our jump schedule.” She favored the three hand-fluttering robots with a sour look, then moved off toward the control room.
“Listen here,” Derec said when she was gone. “I order all of you to-”
“Wait,” Avery interrupted. “You were about to order them to follow her orders, weren’t you?”
“That’s right.”
“Let’s wait on that. Let’s see if-just a minute. You three, stop moving your hands.”
The robots stopped moving their hands. On their own, they dropped those hands back to their sides. Avery frowned at that, but said simply, “When I tell you to give me privacy, I want you to stop listening to our conversation. Filter out everything but the words ‘return to service,’ upon which you will begin listening again. Do not use your comlink in the meantime. In fact, this is a general order: Do not use your comlink for conversation between yourselves. Do you understand that?”
“We understand,” Lucius said, “but we-I-wish to protest. Using speech to communicate will necessarily slow our joint thought processes.”
“And it’ll keep you from locking up on us again. I order it. Now give us privacy.”
The robots made no motion to indicate whether they had heard or not.
“Wiggle your fingers again.”
No motion.
Avery turned to Derec and Ariel. “Okay, what I want to do is this: Let’s wait and see if they modify their definition of human to include Wolruf on their own, without our orders. Wolruf isn’t in any danger from them, and Mandelbrot will take her orders if she needs a robot.”
“In the meantime she gets treated like a subhuman,” Derec protested. “I don’t like it.”
“She is subhuman,” Avery said, “but that’s beside the point. Think a minute. You convinced me to let these robots go to Ceremya-and to come along myself-so we could see what kind of new developments they came up with. So here’s a new development. Let’s study it.”
Avery’s argument had merit, Derec knew. He didn’t like it, but it made sense. That’s why they had come, to study these robots in action.
“We should at least give her First Law protection,” he said.
“No, that’d skew the experiment. Look, your furry friend isn’t in any danger here; let’s just let it go for now. If anything happens, we can modify their orders then.”
“All right,” Derec said. “I’ll go along with it for now, but the moment she looks like she’s in danger…”
“Fine, fine. Okay, return to service.”
The robots shifted slightly. Eve asked, “May we turn away from the wall now?”
“I suppose so.”
The robots turned to face one another. “Since we must communicate verbally,” Lucius said, “I suggest we each pick a separate tone range. That way we may at least speak simultaneously.”
“If you do, do it quietly,” said Ariel.
“We intend to,” the robot replied.
Derec gave Ariel a last squeeze, then stood up and announced, “I’m going to talk to Wolruf. She sounded pretty unhappy.”
“Go ahead,” Ariel said. “I think I’ll read.”
Avery grunted noncommittally, his eyes already closed in thought again.
The control room was large enough for only two people. The ship was largely automatic, but in the interest of safety it also carried a complete set of manual controls. Derec found Wolruf in the pilot’s seat, a glimmering holographic star map floating over the controls before her. It was the only illumination in the cabin, save for the real stars shining in through the viewscreen. In the midst of the map a thin silver line connected five dots in a not-quite-straight line. One point was no doubt Robot City; the other Ceremya. The kinks in the line in between were jump points, places where the ship would stop along the way to reorient and recharge its engines.
A ship could theoretically make the entire trip in a single hyperspace jump, discounting the time it took to crawl slowly through normal space to the safe jump points in its origin and destination systems. That was seldom done, however, except for short trips. It was much easier, both for navigation and on the engines, to make a series of short jumps from star to star along the way, correcting for minor deviations in course and allowing the engines to rest each time.
“Looks like we ‘ave four jumps,” Wolruf said as Derec slid into the copilot’s seat beside her. “First one tonight.”
“Good. The sooner the better. Things are getting a little strange on this trip already.”
“Could say that, all ri’.”
“We didn’t tell them to follow your orders. Avery wants to see if they’ll decide to do it on their own.”
Wolruf nodded. The motion took her head into and out of the star field before her; for a moment she had a pattern of tiny white dots on her forehead.
“If you don’t want to be part of an experiment like that, I’ll go ahead and order them to. We don’t have to do what Avery says. He isn’t God.”