She laughed. “What?”
“Forget it,” he said brusquely. “Never mind that part. Forget I mentioned it.”
“You like to sleep standing up?”
“I said forget it!” He shouted. “Besides, any robot can do that. Stop, I mean, in a fixed position. They don’t sleep, of course. That’s all I meant. They can all do that, can’t they? Huh?”
“Yes, they can. Take it easy. It’s okay.” She hesitated, realizing that she certainly couldn’t predict what would set him off on a tirade. “How old are you, Jeff?”
“Uh-eighteen. Sort of. In this life, I’m just a couple days old.” He laughed, much too hard. Then he stopped abruptly. “Actually, I don’t know how long I had this body before I woke up. I have no birthday any more, not in this body.”
“Eighteen? Really? I guess I thought you’d be older. Were you in school? I mean, before you got here.” She tried to sound as sympathetic as she could.
“I was on my way to college,” he said quietly.
She sensed that this was a sore subject, and dropped it. “Where are you from, Jeff?”
“The planet Aurora.”
“Really?” She said brightly. “I’m from Aurora, too, and I’m just a little younger than you are. In fact-” She hesitated, then decided to say it. “I’m Ariel Welsh.”
“Ariel Welsh…really? The famous one?”
“Well…” The reminder stung. “I guess so. Juliana Welsh is my mother.”
“So this is where you wound up! Wow. I’m really talking to you? You were in all the news and everything.” Suddenly he sounded his age, and guileless.
Ariel said nothing.
“That does it,” he said firmly. “You order those robots to transplant you. You’re sick, right? Well, you won’t be sick in a robot body. Unless the infection has reached your brain, too, of course. So you tell them, all right? Then after that, you can join me.”
Ariel was reeling. If it could work, it might stop the spread of the disease. Her body could be frozen while a cure was found, and she could go on living as a robot. Why hadn’t she thought of that?
“Hey! You there? Hey, Ariel!” He yelled.
Of course, she might have to stay on Robot City, in that case. Then again, as a robot, she would fit in a little better. No, much better. Nor would she feel that she was wasting her life here. The biological life expectancy of her body wouldn’t start up again until it was thawed out, whenever that could be arranged. Her brain would age normally if it was functioning in a robot body, but maybe the disease would not affect her brain, or at least not as fast. She could encourage the medical team to work on a cure. The First Law would require that, wouldn’t it?
“You still there?” Jeff demanded.
“Yes! Yes, I’m here. Don’t go-I’m interested.”
“You are?” He sounded surprised again, then he recovered. “Of course you are! I knew you would be. It’s better this way. We can take over the city together. Now, how about Derec?”
“Huh? What about him?”
“The transplant, of course! Aren’t you listening to me? What’s wrong with you?”
“He doesn’t have any reason to be transplanted.”
“Of course he does! That’s what I’ve been telling you! He can see better, hear better, and all that. He’ll like it. And the three of us can take over the planet. The robots will have to obey us. Think of it-an entire planet at our disposal.”
“I’m hot sure he’s going to see it that way.” She added to herself that Derec’s amnesia was in his mind. Transplanting his brain wouldn’t take care of that problem.
“Of course he will. It’s easy to understand. He’ll get it.”
“Why would we want to take over the planet?”
“So it would be ours, of course. What kind of question is that? We could run it.”
“Actually, the robots run it pretty well, don’t you think? Everything runs smoothly here.”
“But it would be ours!”
“But what would we do with it? What would be different? The robots would still do all the work, just like they do now.”
“It would be ours! Don’t you understand? The entire planet would belong to us.”
“Okay, Jeff, okay. But if nothing changes, those are just words. Ownership wouldn’t mean much, would it? The robots obey us already, so that won’t get any better.”
“You’ll see! If you get this transplant, you’ll understand. Then you’ll find out, just like I did.”
Ariel started to answer, then realized that the static had stopped: he was gone. She let out a deep breath, and sagged back in the chair with the release of tension. At this point, she didn’t mind having to wait a little while for the others to return. He had given her several things to think about.
Derec was breathless when he ran into the room, followed by his concerned but calm robot companions. “Is he still on the line? I want to talk to him.”
“Too late,” said Ariel. “I kept him on as long as I could, but I ran out of stuff to say.”
“We overheard part of it, but not too much.”
“He must have been using a very primitive radio set,” said Surgeon 2. “The quality of our reception varied greatly as we traveled through the city on our return trip.”
“Do you know where he is?” Derec asked.
“No. He was very suspicious, and, well, kind of strange.” She looked at the robots. “Was he like that before?”
“Like what?” Research 1 asked.
“He sounded almost paranoid. And he kept going through mood swings. One minute he’s laughing and the next minute he’s totally enraged. Then he forgets it all and makes ordinary conversation.” She shook her head. “It just wasn’t normal.”
“No,” said Research 1. “He was not like that in the brief time he was awake with us.”
“He was in a post-operative state at that time,” said Surgeon 1. “He was surprised, and perhaps shocked. Nor was he conscious when we first found him. His behavior during the brief time he was awake with us may not have been representative of his personality.”
“You mean he might always have been erratic and emotionally unstable?” Derec asked.
“Possibly,” said Research 1. “Our data is too limited for a sound conclusion.”
“I have another theory,” said Ariel. “Do you think something is going wrong with him in some way?”
“Clarify, please,” said Research 1.
“Well, he’s been through a lot,” she pointed out. “And at times he sounded normal and friendly. He was on his way to college somewhere. If he got accepted off-planet, outside Aurora, he was probably a good student.”
“Agreed,” said Derec. “You think the transplant has changed his personality, then.”
They both turned to Research 1.
“How likely is it?” Ariel asked.
“This is possible. The odds cannot be calculated under the circumstances. “
“Well-what do you think might have gone wrong?” She decided not to express the reason for her new interest in the transplant right now.
“Without precise medical data, I can offer two general possibilities. One is that the emotional shock of finding himself in a robot body has distressed him to the point of behavioral change. The second is that his brain is suffering from a chemical imbalance that has caused this problem. It might be nutritionally or hormonally based, or might indicate a flaw in our procedure or planning.”
“Can you help him?” asked Ariel. “If we catch him, I mean. He doesn’t seem too far gone yet.”
“That will depend on the precise nature of the problem, of course,” said Research 1.
“We may have a full solution to the larger problem of Jeff, however,” said Surgeon 1. “With your cooperation, Derec.”
“What? Mine?”
“We are capable of intricate surgical techniques,” said Surgeon 1. “And we have a great deal of information of certain types regarding human physiology and medical care. However, we lack certain basic information regarding gross anatomy and some details of all kinds.”
“I don’t know anything like that,” said Derec. “I don’t think it’s in the central computer, either.”
“You don’t need to,” said Medical Research 1. “We need your body as a model.”
Ariel stifled a laugh.
“How so?” Derec asked carefully. “What do you mean, as a model?”