“How is it attached?” he had asked.
“That doesn’t matter,” Derec had said irritably, “since they’re not going to be put on either one of you. Put it back on the table.”
“But we crave knowledge even when it has no practical function for us,” Eve had remarked.
“And I find this device aesthetically pleasing,” Adam had said as he replaced it on the table.
Derec had returned to his work and so didn’t notice the slow changing of Adam from humanlike to robotlike. When he did look up, he had seen that Adam was now what he had originally termed a WalkingStone, a humanoid robot. However, there was one major difference. He now had a duplicate of the remote upon his chest, as if welded there.
Passing his hand over its front, a band of light in the center had gone on, and, across the room, the computer screen had seemed to go haywire with flashing data as it transmitted information to Adam’s remote. This had been a new one for Derec. Adam could copy a device like this, attach it properly to his mimicry of a robot body, and make it work. His imprinting abilities were improving by leaps and bounds. How could they possibly control him?
Instead of letting Adam know he had achieved something interesting, he had hollered at him. “Stop that!”
“Why?”
“Because I say so. You are putting this place into jeopardy.”
“I am only receiving geographical information. What harm could that do, Master Derec?”
“With you there must be something!”
“You don’t seem to approve of us, Master Derec,” Eve had said. Derec had taken note of how the two of them had suddenly invoked the polite form of address for a robot to a human.
“Does my approval really matter to you, Eve?”
“Yes, it does. You and Ariel are the only humans we know. If you are indeed the high intelligence we are programmed to seek, if you are indeed the humans you claim you are, then we will be in your image. And, in your image, we must be acceptable to you. Is that a part of First Law?”
“No, it isn’t.”
“Well, it should be.”
Derec had given up. There had seemed to be no sensible way to control them. The more traits and features they copied, the more their chameleonic abilities were a threat-and the more power they could attain. The First Law should protect humans against them, but they were so clever, they could become the first robots to circumvent the law without destroying the letter of it, simply by denying people their status as humans. If they achieved power and could manufacture more of themselves, there was no telling what they might do. If they could add to their fund of human knowledge with imprints from every alien they encountered, they could eventually become the sort of world-conquering monsters, conglomerations of aspects and traits from many creatures, that robotics experts had always thought impossible.
Derec had clenched his fists tightly for a moment, to try to get rid of his ridiculous thoughts. This was the kind of thinking that had probably driven his father insane. Releasing the tension in his hands, he had returned to his work, ignoring the Silversides who grew bored, changed back to their human shapes and left the lab.
Later, Derec had discussed their charges with Wolruf, who had managed the best lines of communication to the Silversides. He was not sure why she was so successful with Adam and Eve. It was perhaps because Adam, when he had first emerged from his own metal egg, had encountered the kin. He had molded himself into kin shape and stayed in that form until he began to encounter other intelligent forms of life. Wolruf’s appearance (actually more doglike than wolflike) reminded Adam of the kin, perhaps making him comfortable with her.
“I’m confused,” he had said to Wolruf without a word of greeting to her. She stroked the side of her jaw with the backs of the sausagelike fingers of her left hand, a gesture he recognized as indicating concern or even worry.
“What botherss ‘u, frriend Derec.” Just as Wolruf’s s’s had the faint sound of a hiss in them, her r’s tended to be a bit extended too, reminding Derec of a whispered growl. The lupine structure of Wolruf’s mouth did not allow her to enunciate his language easily, although she had certainly improved her linguistic skills. The s’s and r’s used to be more pronounced and the 1 nonexistent. Once he had had to concentrate fiercely to understand, but now he never had much difficulty.
“Adam and Eve. They’re driving me crazy. How can we let them loose on any world?”
“Do otherrss haverreason to fearr them, ‘u think?”
“Darn right. Most human societies certainly. Look, many of us are quite superstitious. Back on Earth, a simple-function robot is looked upon with dread, and most robots are kept out of the way, and on the Settlers’ planets they’ve tried to ban robots altogether. I think there’s some of that kind of fear in all humans, even though the Spacers have managed to accommodate themselves to the situation by using robots as a servant class.”
“I wonderr: Should the Silverrsidess be trreated different from otherr rrobots?”
“It’s the shape-changing. Look, my people have a history of superstition toward what they perceive as unnatural. In our imagination we see monsters in closets, believe illogically in the possibility of blood-sucking vampires, werewolves who-”
“Excusse me, I know not the terrm werrewolvess.”
“Can’t tell you much. Evidently, at the time of the full moon on Earth (a time when, superstition has it, people tend to grow madder), certain humans get transformed into wolfshape and run about the countryside killing and ravaging until the moon sets.”
The brown and gold hair on the sides of Wolruf’s face had begun to stiffen and rise slightly. Derec recognized this as a physical sign that the alien was disturbed. And then he had recognized why.
“I’m sorry, my friend. I was thoughtless. It happens that, like robots, wolves are regarded with some fear.”
“And, to ‘umanss, would I be some kind of wolf?”
“Maybe, to some. Hey, old superstitions are hard to cope with. To most, you’d be more like a dog, and we humans have a bizarre fascination and love for dogs. Back on your home planet, don’t your people have some fears, some superstitions?”
“Don’t know what ‘u-well, perrhapss. A kind of inssect, verry tiny, that-”
“See? All I’m saying is that we’re a superstitious lot, we humans. Give us a robot who can look like anything he wants to and molds himself into a different shape right in front of our eyes, and we’re liable to back off in a hysterical fit. The Silversides change shape as regularly as most of us change clothes. And they are trouble. Wolruf, my friend, they’re two whirlwinds looking for villages to wreck.”
She had stared at Derec for a moment, her dark deepset eyes searching his face in a way that might have seemed sinister had he not known her so well. “Well,” she had finally said, “seems to me that the besst place forr them might be a worrld wherre they could not causse the harm you suggesst, and wherre itss inhabitantss wouldn’t even rreact to their shapechanging. Be good forr uss, too. We then study them furrther with the proper facilities, try to rrid them of their-what would ‘u call them?-inconsistenciess.”
“Yes, exorcise them of their demons. That’s a wonderful idea, Wolruf, but where is this perfect world?”
“Robot City.”
“Robot City? But I don’t want to take them to-wait, you’re right. Adam’s really bored with robots and there’re only robots there. He says he receives little satisfaction from imprinting on robots. I think he’s somehow relegated them to a lower order of species.”
“I don’t underrsstand. If manmade, can they be a sspeciess?”
“They’re not. But Adam perceives them that way, and has dismissed them. He’s searching for the highest order of being on which to imprint, and he sees no future in being a robot. Apparently his programming is to imprint on humans, but he still resists the idea that Ariel and I are the answer. And in Robot City she and I would be the only humans, unless my father showed up. It’s good. With us, and you, as the only nonrobots there, we might be able to keep them in check. If we couldn’t affect their programming, maybe we could bore them to death.”