“You sound surprised,” said Ariel. “I’m not. It’s tearing me apart, too.”
Derec left the robot and went back to Ariel, sitting beside her and wrapping her in his arms.
“I wish it wasn’t.”
“Me too.”
“What can I do to help?”
Ariel shook her head. “I don’t know. Yes, I do. Just don’t push me, okay? I know you want to keep it, but I’ve got to decide on my own whether or not I do. Once I know that, we can talk about what we’re actually going to do. Okay?”
“Okay.”
As if to confirm her independence, Ariel pulled away and closed her eyes in thought. Derec leaned back in the grass and looked up through a tangle of leaves at the sky. An. occasional cloud dotted the blue.
Did every new parent go through this? he wondered. Could what he and Ariel were feeling be normal? Did Avery and his mother agonize over whether or not to have him? He couldn’t imagine Avery agonizing over any decision. His mother must have, though. She must have wondered if Derec would be worth the effort of childbirth. Evidently she had decided so, probably before she became pregnant, come to think of it, since she’d had no reason to believe she was infertile as Ariel had.
She and Avery must have been in love then. What a concept; someone loving Avery. Or was she just like him? Had their decision to have a child been nothing more than the practical way to acquire someone to experiment on?
It didn’t matter. He and Ariel were in love; that was what mattered. The thought of staying with Ariel until their child grew up didn’t scare him. Derec knew that parents on most planets didn’t worry about that kind of responsibility-even parents more fond of one another than his own-but he intended to. The thought of raising a child gave his life direction, gave him a sense of purpose he hadn’t even realized until now he was missing.
Ariel, evidently realizing he wouldn’t pressure her whether he held onto her or not, lay down in the grass beside him, resting her head on his chest. His arms went around her automatically, and it felt perfectly natural to be holding her so. It felt right. For a time, as they watched the clouds drift past overhead, the rooftop garden seemed to become their whole universe, and it was a good universe.
Ariel’s thoughts had evidently been paralleling his own, but along a different track. “I’m glad we’re not on Earth any more,” she said suddenly. “I’d feel even worse there.”
“No kidding.” Derec shuddered. With a population in the billions, Earth was no place to be having children. There, where the population density in the enclosed cities could be measured easily in people per square meter, every new mouth to feed was a tragedy, not a blessing.
And what was worse, too few of the people there were worried enough to do anything about it. Here stood an entire planet covered with city, full of robots eager to share it, yet Derec doubted if he could find enough people in all of Earth to fill even the section he could survey from this one rooftop. Most of them hated space, hated robots, and on an even more fundamental level, hated change. They wouldn’t leave Earth even for a better world.
A few of them would. After a long hiatus, Earth had once again begun settling alien worlds, but the fraction of its population involved was insignificant. The birth rate there would replace its emigrants before they could achieve orbit.
It was a sobering thought. Derec recalled Lucius’s words to Ariel at their first meeting, his assertion that no thinking being would want every human who might possibly exist to do so, but it seemed as if Earthers were doing their best to ensure just that. They seemed intent on turning their entire biosphere into a teeming mass of humanity.
An irrational fear washed over him, the fear that Earth society would somehow intrude upon his happiness even here, that its riot of bodies could somehow threaten even Robot City. Derec felt his heart begin beating faster, his breathing tighten, as he considered his child’s potential enemies.
Hormones! he thought wryly a second later. Paranoia was evidently a survival trait.
“To space with Earth,” he said, tickling Ariel playfully in the ribs. “We’re beyond all that.”
The sun had shifted position considerably when Derec awoke. He couldn’t tell whether it was from the simple passage of time, or if the building had moved beneath them while they slept. Probably both, he decided. He lay in the grass, Ariel still sleeping with her head on his shoulder, while he decided whether or not to get up.
A noise from beyond the edge of the building made the decision for him. Someone had screamed! Derec was up in an instant, leaping for the railing around the edge and peering down.
A hunter-seeker robot-a stealthy; black-surfaced special-function ‘bot with advanced detection circuitry-stood in the center of an intersection, pivoting slowly around in a circle. A rustle of motion in a doorway caught its attention and it stopped. It raised its right hand, pointing with the forefinger extended, and a bright red laser beam shot out from its finger toward the doorway. Another scream echoed off the buildings.
Derec looked up the street. Every intersection, for as far as he could see, had a hunter-seeker standing in it. Avery had ordered them to clean up the rodents-his way.
Stop!he sent to them. Cease hunting activity.
The hunter closest to him looked upward, and Derec felt a momentary urge to back away from the railing. Any robot-and Derec as well, for that matter-could tell what general direction a comlink signal was coming from, but a hunter-seeker could pinpoint the source-and shoot at it. But the robot couldn’t fire at him. It would see instantly who he was, and the First Law would prevent it. Derec stayed at the railing and sent, You are ordered to cease killing those creatures.
I am sorry, master Derec. I already have orders to kill them.
“What’s going on?” Ariel asked sleepily from his side. She leaned against the railing and looked down.
“Avery’s ordered the robots to kill all of Lucius’s rodents. I’m trying to get them to stop.” I order you not to kill them, he sent. You should respect life.
I respect human life. That is all.
Those creatures carry human genes.
That has been explained to me. That does not make them human.As the hunter spoke, another rodent made a dash for safety, but the hunter twitched its hand in a blur of motion, the beam shot out, and the rodent tumbled end over end in the street, screaming. The hunter fired again and the screaming stopped.
They certainly have human vocal apparatus, Derec thought.
Damn it, you’re upsetting me. Stop it!
The hunter robot paused at that, but evidently Avery had warned it to expect such a ploy. I regret that I cannot,it said. Your displeasure is not as important as your safety. These creatures could pose a safety hazard.
You don’t know that.
I have been ordered to consider them as such.The hunter turned its attention back to the street. It resumed its search, shooting again at another rodent. This time the rodent died silently, and Derec realized that the robot was attempting to limit his discomfort by making a clean kill.
Derec tried to think of a way to get around Avery’s programming, but no solution came to mind. Avery had made his orders first and stressed that they were to be followed no matter what Derec said; there was very little Derec could do to counter them now.