“Your city let a rogue robot get in and destroy your central computer,” Derec reminded Beta.
“The rogue has very special abilities,” Beta answered. “We have taken steps to insure that it cannot do this kind of damage again. One of those steps was to activate myself and the two other supervisors so that city control no longer resides only in one place. And as you can see, a witness robot accompanies each of us, coded with instructions to return immediately to a haven should the supervisor be attacked. That way, very little of the city’s knowledge would be lost should the rogue manage to destroy one of us. There are other supervisor units waiting to take over should that happen. We are also building new Hunter-Seeker units with special detection devices.”
“Great, but I doubt it’ll help much. I’d make you a bet that this rogue came from Avery,” Derec said. “It has all his earmarks: inventive, cunning, and very, very dangerous. Which brings us to another problem. You’ve said that this rogue leads the wolf-creatures?”
“Yes. It was seen directing a pack of them that attacked workers on the edge of the city. They have given the city problems since the beginning, harassing our workers clearing the forest. As we felt them to be hindering our directives and to be dangerous both to ourselves and to any humans who would stay here, the Hunter-Seekers were directed to find and kill them.”
Mandelbrot had swiveled to face Beta. “No,” it said. “You cannot do that.”
“I do not understand. All three of the Laws of Robotics demand it. By the Third Law, we must protect our own existence: they have damaged and destroyed units of this city. By the Second Law, we must obey the commands given to us by humans: they hinder us from following our basic programming. By the First Law, we must above all protect humans, and these creatures are undeniably dangerous. They attacked Master Derec and would have killed him had you not been there. How can there be any question about this?”
“Because it’s not exactly that simple, Beta,” Derec answered for Mandelbrot. “They’re not just ‘creatures’ attacking you because you’re here. I expect that they’re protecting their home the same way I would. They’re not just animals, Beta. They’re sentient. They use tools; they have a language.”
“Are you saying that they built the rogue?”
Derec sniffed. “Not a chance. They’re barely at a Stone Age level. This rogue sounds more sophisticated than anything here. “
“Then how did they get involved with the rogue?”
“I don’t know that, but I’m willing to bet that Avery had a hand in it somewhere. The thing to do now is to figure out how to proceed without harming the wolf-creatures, There’s a way to do that, I think.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“The first thing that has to be done is to inform all city units to view the wolf-creatures as human. The First Law applies to them as well-you are to do nothing that does them harm. Will you do that?”
“You can do it yourself, Master Derec,” Beta said. “We have reprogrammed the city to respond to the chemfets in your body. This Robot City is now under your direction. All you need do is give us your orders.”
Derec had paid no attention to the chemfets, silent and useless so long. Now he opened his mind to the sub-miniature replicas of Robot City material. He could hear the city now, roaring in his blood. The flood of information was almost too much to comprehend, and he hastily closed down most of the channels, leaving open only the direct links to the supervisors.
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.