“That would be unwise,” Basalom protested. “If they did cease functioning, it might have been the result of a hostile act. It would be foolish to go into the same area yourself.”
Janet hated being coddled by her own creations, but she hadn’t lived to have gray hair by taking stupid risks, either, and Basalom was right. Going into an area where something might have destroyed three robots was a stupid risk.
“Okay,” she said. “Take us down a little farther away, then. And once we’re down, you can go have a look.”
Ariel heard Wolruf enter the apartment and pad softly into her own room. Shortly afterward she heard the soft hiss of the shower running, then the whoosh of the blow drier. A few minutes later Wolruf made her appearance in the living room.
Ariel looked up from her book-its milky white face currently displaying a field guide to jungle ecosystems she had downloaded from the central computer-and said, “Hi. Have a good run?” She pushed the bookmark button and a winking arrow appeared in the margin next to the first line, then she switched off the book.
“ An interesting one,” said Wolruf. She disappeared momentarily into the kitchen, reappeared with a steaming plate of what looked like hot bean salad, and sat down in the chair beside Ariel. She didn’t begin eating immediately, but instead gazed around her at the room, awash in bright sunlight streaming in through half a dozen windows along three walls. Easily visible through the windows, the tops of the forest’s largest trees stood like sentinels above the canopy formed by their shorter neighbors.
“Viewscreens,” Ariel said, noticing where Wolruf’s attention was directed. She’d forgotten; Wolruf had left the apartment before they had discovered them.
“Pretty good effect,” Wolruf admitted. “But sunlight wouldn’t be coming in from three sides like that.”
Ariel shrugged. “I wanted to try it. You want me to change it back to normal?”
“No, I don’t mind.” Wolruf began spooning bean salad into her mouth and swallowing noisily. The smell of it was more like oranges, though, Ariel thought. Oranges and soy sauce, maybe, with a pinch of nutmeg. She was glad it was Wolruf eating it and not her, but she knew Wolruf thought the same thing about the food she ate, so they were even.
Wolruf finished about half the plateful before she spoke again. “Most of the forest out there turns out to be artificial, too,” she said.
Ariel nodded. “We found that out. Kind of a surprise, isn’t it?”
“Not sure I like it.”
“Why not?”
Wolruf took another few bites, said, “Not sure. W’at does it matter, really? It looks just the same. Works just the same, too.”
“Maybe even better.” Ariel described her and Derec’s experience with the automat in the tree.
“Never thought of that,” Wolruf said. “If I ‘ad, I’d probably ‘ave asked one to make me a shower.”
“I bet it would have, too.” Ariel laughed. “That gives a whole new meaning to the idea of a treehouse, doesn’t it?”
“Tree’ouse?” Wolruf asked.
“You know. When you’re a kid, you find a big tree and make a platform up in the branches and call it a treehouse. Human kids do, anyway, if they can sneak away from the robots long enough to get away with it. What about you? Didn’t you build treehouses when you were young?”
Wolruf shook her head, an exaggerated gesture that Ariel suddenly realized had to have been learned from her or Derec. Wolruf was growing more and more human every day, it seemed. “No,” she said. “We seldom played in trees. “
Ariel heard the note of wistfulness in her voice, and immediately regretted bringing up the subject. It had been years since Wolruf had been home, and she’d been feeling more and more homesick lately; Ariel hadn’t meant to remind her of it. “Ah, well, it doesn’t matter,” she said. “We’ve got all the trees we could ask for now. Even if they are fake.”
Wolruf looked out one of the viewscreen windows as if to verify Ariel’s statement. Softly, she said, “That, I think, is part of the problem. “
Just as softly, Ariel asked, “How so?” She didn’t know whether Wolruf was talking about homesickness or fake forests or something else entirely.
Wolruf turned from the window, fixed her eyes on Ariel instead, and said, “Derec makes a slight error in judgment, and an entire planet is transformed. On a whim, Dr. Avery sends his robots out into the galaxy to populate w’ole new planets-and two civilizations are disturbed, one forever. And maybe more that we don’t know about. I go for a walk in the forest and ‘ave granted a wish I didn’t even know I was making. That one affected nobody but me, but if I ‘ad made the wrong wish I could ‘ave done as much damage as Derec or ‘is father. Simply with a casual thought.”
She growled deep in her throat, a soft, almost purring sort of a growl. “We play at being gods. It’s too much power for a few people to ‘ave. Maybe for any number of people to ‘ave. I fear for the galaxy with this much power running loose in it. Can you imagine Aranimas with this kind of power? ‘E wouldn’t use it to make a forest; ‘e’d use it to enslave everyone within reach.”
“He couldn’t,” Ariel said. “The Laws of Robotics wouldn’t let him. The robots wouldn’t do anything that would harm a human, and you’ve seen how quick they can be to accept other intelligent species as human.”
Wolruf ate another few mouthfuls before saying, “ And ‘ow quick they can be to reject that same person. There are ways around those laws. We’ve seen plenty of them already. I don’t wish to risk my entire species on a robot’s interpretation of our ‘umanity. “
Ariel saw Wolruf’s point, maybe even shared her feelings to some degree, but she knew enough history to know what happened to people who thought as Wolruf did. “1 don’t think you have much of a choice, really,” she said. “People who embrace new technology use it to expand, almost always at the expense of those who don’t. Just look at Earth for an example of that. They don’t like robots either, and for centuries they stayed stuck on their same dirty little overpopulated planet while my ancestors used robots to help settle fifty spacer worlds. Earth is starting its own colonies now, but without robots I don’t think they’ll ever catch up.”
Ariel looked up and saw Mandelbrot watching her from his niche in the wall beside her reading chair. She wondered what he might be thinking about this discussion, but if he had an opinion he kept it to himself.
“Do they ‘ave to catch up?” Wolruf asked.
Ariel shrugged. “Maybe not, but they’re going to have a lot tougher time of it than we had if they don’t.”
“And you think my people will ‘ave to start using robots as well, whether we want to or not?”
“If you want to keep up with the rest of the galaxy, you will. Like it or not, the secret’s out. The Kin know about them, the Ceremyons know about them, Aranimas knows about them, and who knows who else he told? It won’t be long before robots are as common as grass on just about every world in the galaxy, and maybe beyond. “
Wolruf nodded. “That’s what I’m afraid of. We will all ‘ave robots, and the robots will grant everyone’s wishes. Even if no one wishes to go to war, we will still be conquered, by the robots themselves. No one will strive to accomplish anything anymore, no one will-”
“Oh, pooh.” Ariel tossed her head. “That’s the same old tired argument the Earthers use. So what have they striven to accomplish lately? Nothing. It’s been we Spacers-we and our robots-who’ve been advancing human knowledge.”
“And you ‘ave gone too far, in my opinion.” Wolruf tried a smile, but her mouth wasn’t really built for it. “I don’t mean you personally, Ariel, or Derec either. I’m talking about Avery. I’m afraid of what ‘e and ‘is cities will eventually do to us. And these new robots, Adam and Eve and Lucius. W’at happens if they start spreading out?”