“Reluctantly,” Avery growled. He remembered an earlier thought and asked, “Was that what you were attempting to do? Create your own aliens?”
“I was trying to create a true intelligence of any sort. Alien, human, I didn’t care. I just wanted to see what I’d get.”
“And you think you’ve got both.” Avery didn’t make it a question. He ran a hand through his hair, then let out a long sigh. “I don’t care. I’m tired. Call them what you want if it’ll please you, but keep ‘em away from me. As soon as this heals”-he nodded toward his right arm-”I’m leaving anyway, and you can do whatever you please.”
Janet shook her head. “No, you’re not going anywhere until we agree on a lot more than just my learning machines. I don’t much like your cities, either.”
“Fat lot you can do about that,” Avery said.
Janet smiled sweetly, but her words were a dagger of ice. “Oh, well, as a matter of fact, there is. You see, I patented the entire concept, from the dianite cell all the way up, in my name.”
Chapter 8. The Other Shoe Drops
The apartment was empty when Wolruf arrived. She padded softly through the living room, noting Ariel’s book reader lying on the end table by her chair and the empty niche where Mandelbrot usually stood, then went into Derec’s study and saw the bed there, still rumpled from sleep. The computer terminal was still on. She saw no cup in evidence, but the air conditioner hadn’t quite removed the smell of spilled coffee.
“W’ere is everybody?” she asked of the room.
“Derec and Ariel’s location is restricted,” Central replied.
Oh, great. Now they’d all disappeared. Unless… “ Are they at the same restricted location as before?” she asked.
“That is correct.”
Wolruf laughed aloud. She was learning how to deal with these pseudo-intelligences. She stopped in her own room just long enough to freshen up, then left the apartment and caught the slidewalk.
She found not only Derec and Ariel in the robotics lab, but an unfamiliar woman who had to be Derec’s mother as well. Derec was busy with the humaniform robot Wolruf had attempted to catch the last time she’d been near here. He was trying to remove the stump of its severed arm, and by his expression not having much success at it. Ariel was holding a light for him and Derec’s mother was offering advice.
“Try reaching inside and feeling for it,” she said.
Derec obediently reached in through the access hatch in the robot’s chest, felt around inside for something, and jerked his hand out again in a hurry. “Ouch! There’s still live voltage in there!”
“Not enough to hurt you,” his mother said patiently. “Not when he’s switched into standby mode like this. Would you like me to do it?”
“No, I’ll get it.” Derec reached inside again, but stopped when he heard Wolruf’s laugh. He looked up and saw her in the doorway.
“‘Ello.”
“Hi.” Grinning, Derec withdrew his hand from the robot and used it to gesture. “Mom, this is my friend Wolruf. Wolruf, this my mother, Janet Anastasi.”
“Pleased to meet you,” Wolruf said, stepping forward and holding out a hand.
Janet looked anything but pleased to be so suddenly confronted with an alien, but she swallowed gamely and took the proffered appendage. “Likewise,” she said.
Wolruf gave her hand a squeeze and let go. Looking over Janet’s shoulder, she noticed a huddle of four robots in the far corner of the lab: three learning machines and Mandelbrot. They looked to be in communications fugue. Nodding toward them, she said, “I ‘eard Lucius ‘urt Avery some’ow.”
“That’s right,” Ariel said. “He was trying to protect Basalom, here. We’ve got him in psychotherapy, if you can call four robots in an argument psychotherapy. They’re trying to convince him it’s all right.”
“It is?” Wolruf asked.
“Well, not the actual act,” Derec said, “but the logic he used wasn’t at fault. He just made a mistake, that’s all. He thought he was protecting a human.” Derec outlined the logic Lucius had used, including the First and Zeroth Law considerations that had finally made him do what he’d done.
Wolruf listened with growing concern. The Zeroth Law was just the thing she’d hoped for to reassure her that taking robots home with her wouldn’t destroy her homeworld’s society, but if that same law let a robot injure its master, then she didn’t see how it could be a good thing.
“I don’t know,” she said. “Sounds like a bad tradeoff to me.”
“How so?” Janet asked.
“I’m wondering ‘ow useful all this is going to be. Right now I’m not sure about regular robots, much less ones who think they’re ‘uman.”
“What aren’t you sure about?”
Was Derec’s mother just being polite, or did she really want to know? Wolruf wondered if this was the time to be getting into all this, to bring up the subject of her going home and to get. into all her reasons for hesitating, but she supposed there really wasn’t going to be a much better time. She knew what Derec and Ariel thought about the subject; maybe this Janet would have something new to say. “I’m not sure about taking any of these robots ‘ome with me,”
Wolruf said. “I’m not sure about w’at they might decide to do on their own, and I’m not sure about w’at might ‘appen to us even if they just follow orders.”
“I don’t understand.”
“She’s talking about protecting people from themselves,” Ariel said.
“Am I?”
“Sure you are. I’ve been thinking about it, too. The problem with robot cities is that they’re too responsive. Anything you want them to do, they’ll do it, so long as it doesn’t hurt anybody. The trouble is, they don’t reject stupid ideas, and they don’t think ahead. “
“That’s the people’s job,” Janet said.
“Just w’atone of the robots in the forest told me,” Wolruf said. “Trouble is, people won’t always do it. Or w’en they realize they made a mistake, it’ll be too late.”
Janet looked to Derec. “Pessimistic lot you run around with.”
“They come by it honestly,” he said, grinning. “We’ve been burned more than once by these cities. Just about every time, it’s been something like what they’re talking about. Taking things too literally, or not thinking them through.”
“Isn’t Central supposed to be doing that?”
“Central is really just there to coordinate things,” Derec said. “It’s just a big computer, not very adaptable.” He looked down at Basalom again, nodded to Ariel to have her shine the light inside again as well, and peered inside the robot’s shoulder. After a moment he found what he was looking for, reached gingerly inside, and grunted with the strain of pushing something stubborn aside. The something gave with a sudden click and the stump of the robot’s arm popped off, trailing wires.
“There’s also a committee of supervisory robots,” Ariel said, “but they don’t really do any long-range planning either. And they’re all subject to the Three Laws, so anybody who wants to could order them to change something, and unless it clearly hurt someone else, they’d have to do it.”
“No matter how stupid it was,” Janet said.
“Right.” Derec unplugged the wires between Basalom’s upper arm and the rest of his body.
Janet looked thoughtful. “Hmmm,” she said. “Sounds like what these cities all need is a mayor. “
“Mayor?” Wolruf asked.
“Old human custom,” Janet replied. “A mayor is a person in charge of a city. He or she is supposed to make decisions that affect the whole city and everyone in it. They’re supposed to have the good of the people at heart, so ideally they make the best decisions they can for the largest number of people for the longest period of time. “
“Ideally,” Wolruf growled. “We know ‘ow closely people follow ideals.”