“You’re right, it’s not,” Janet said. “That’s because I’ve solved it for you already.” She explained about providing each city with a positronic mayor, one who would have the best interest of all its inhabitants at heart. Including the long-term effects of having too much done for them.
“So in Wolruf’s situation, we’d use four learning machines, one for each species. Let them learn the separate mores of each culture, and then have them get together and coordinate their work so they wouldn’t step on each other’s toes.”
Derec watched his father watching his mother as she spoke. Avery’s jaw seemed to be dropping lower and lower with each word, until when she finally stopped, his mouth was hanging open in astonishment. He closed it just long enough to take a breath, then bellowed out a laugh that shook the walls.
“Oh, that’s rich,” he said when he could talk again. “I can’t believe it. I wouldn’t inflict these…these walking conglomerations of simulated neuroses on my worst enemies, and you talk about giving them to paying customers?”
“I do indeed,” Janet said. “Obviously, the final version will need to have the Zeroth Law programmed in from the start, but now that these three-excuse me-these four, “ with a nod to Mandelbrot, “have already worked it out, that shouldn’t be too much of a problem. “
“My God,” Avery said. “You really mean it, don’t you? You’d provide every city with a mechanical dictator who’s capable of slicing off a man’s hand just for shooting a robot.”
“I was protecting a being whose humanity is still not clear,” Lucius said, and Derec, hearing the emotion behind his words, suddenly realized that Lucius would be trying to solve that problem for the rest of his life, however many millennia that might be.
And thus are obsessions generated,he thought.
Avery waved his free hand expansively. “Oh, right, well, that makes it okay. It might have been human, after all.” To Janet he said, “Sorry, I’m not buying it. I’d rather do nothing at all than be part of your ridiculous scheme.”
“I was afraid you’d say that.” Janet’s tone of voice was a little too glib, her mouth just hinting toward a smile as she spoke.
“What?” Avery demanded. “I know that tone, woman! How many other nasty little surprises do you have in store for me?”
Janet was grinning openly now. “Just one,” she said. “Just one more.”
Chapter 9. The Final Accounting
They had to postpone the landing while a heavy rain washed over the jungle around the Compass Tower, but as far as Ariel was concerned, that was just as well. The longer she could delay the inevitable, the better she liked it. And besides, the storm had left a wonderful aroma of rain and ozone in the air, and the complete double rainbow arching over the deep green forest canopy below was one of the prettiest things she had seen in weeks. It almost made being here worth it.
A fitful breeze played around the welcoming committee on the roof of the tower, tousling hair that had been meticulously brushed only moments before. Ariel watched three hands on three different people automatically rise to groom their owners’ stray locks back into place. Belatedly she added a fourth to the tally; she couldn’t suppress the urge either. Only Wolruf seemed to be immune to concern over the position of her hair. Perhaps it was because she had so much of it.
Everyone had dressed for a party. Derec looked handsome in his yellow, blue, green, and orange tie-died suit, currently the rage on twenty planets. Janet wore a voluminous black and gold dress that billowed and flapped in great folds around her, and even Avery had foregone his usual austere jacket and tie for a pair of flamboyant fuchsia slant-stripe pants, a turquoise shirt, metallic silver suspenders, and a lilac jacket with epaulets. Ariel herself wore a skintight body suit in black with cutouts that should have shamed a mannequin, but she still wondered if she was underdressed.
Wolruf’s concession to fashion was a single yellow bandana tied around her left wrist and a gold stud in the opposite ear.
Ariel became aware of a soft tearing noise wavering in and out of audibility. It sounded as if it were coming from behind her. She turned around and held her hand to her forehead to shield out the sun, and presently she saw a silvery speck just above and to the right, lowering steadily. The spaceship drifted left, its engines growing louder as it drew nearer, and crossed into the sun’s disk. Ariel looked down, blinking, while the noise grew louder, louder, almost unbearably loud, then softer.
She looked to the open expanse of tower surface, but the ship hadn’t landed. It had passed over instead. Ariel turned around and watched as it dropped down below the level of the tower, dipped beneath the rainbow, and banked around to come in for a landing.
“Cute,” she muttered.
In a way she was glad for the gesture; it proved that nothing had changed. The pilot had obviously not seen himself fly beneath the rainbow, since a rainbow always outpaces the observer, but of course the entire stunt had been performed for its effect upon the audience, not upon the people in the ship. That told Ariel what she needed to know: the few shredded memories of home to survive her amnemonic plague were still accurate.
Its entrance properly announced, the ship wasted no more time in landing. Within seconds it returned to the tower, pirouetted once around, and settled on its landing skids. A ramp extended itself, and two robots descended to stand on either side of the ramp. A moment later two young men-also in tie-died suits, Ariel noted with satisfaction-emerged and stood in front of the robots.
Mandelbrot, his body plating burnished to a lustrous glow, and Basalom, his arm replaced and good as new, bent down and began unrolling a red carpet toward the ramp. Ariel was impressed with their aim: they hit it dead center with only a fraction too much cloth.
Better too much than too little,Ariel thought.
Mandelbrot and Basalom took their places slightly behind and to the side of the robots from the ship. A few seconds passed, then a shadow darkened the doorway. A pair of red shoes appeared, then a pair of oversized legs from the knees down, then a matching red dress covering an equally oversized body, the arms connected to it bearing at least a dozen gold bangles each; then came a pair of absolutely enormous breasts-thankfully covered-a triple chin, then a pair of gold glasses punctuating a round face shrouded in thin, violet-tinged white hair.
Ariel turned away to hide her giggle. Juliana Welsh had prospered.
The enormous apparition in red jiggled her way down the ramp and stood at the bottom, clearly waiting for the welcoming committee to begin their journey as well. Derec’s parents led off, side by side but careful not to touch one another. Derec held out his arm for Ariel, and they followed a few paces behind. Wolruf would come next, she knew, and Adam, Eve, and Lucius last.
It was a long walk. At the end of it, Dr. Avery bent down and retrieved one of Juliana’s be-ringed hands, kissed it, and said, “Welcome to Robot City.”
Ariel’s mother nodded her acknowledgement, then, looking from Wendell to Janet, said, “Well, it’s nice to see you two have gotten over your little snit.”
In the stunned silence following that pronouncement, she pushed her way through to Ariel and Derec. “ And you, my dears. Still together as well. I guess this one’s probably it, eh, Ari? When’s the wedding? Or have you already-”
Ariel could stand it no longer. “Mother!”
“Still have your tongue, I see. What’s this? You look interesting. My name’s Juliana.” She held her hand out to Wolruf.
“Mine is Wolruf,” Wolruf said.
“Delighted. Are you one of the customers?”
“Beta tester,” Derec said quickly.
“Beg your pardon?” Juliana asked, tilting her head to the side, not quite enough to actually look at him.
“She’s one of our beta testers,” Derec said. “It’s standard procedure on any new product to give a few copies out free for people to test, so they can catch bugs before they go out in the main production version, and so they can offer suggestions for improvements. Wolruf has helped us quite a bit with that already.” Derec winked at Ariel, and she squeezed his hand.