Hmm, can you call the shutdown of a robot "murder"? Derec asked himself. Or is murder too strong a word to use when talking about a machine, regardless of its level of sophistication?
A few moments later, however, Derec realized he wasn't ruminating on the incident so much as he was repressing a profound sense of outrage. During their few hours together, Lucius had begun to mean something special to him. True, there was the possibility that he was overreacting because of his already well established affinity for robots, but throughout his short life that he could remember, he had demonstrated a special appreciation for intelligent life in all its manifestations.
Lucius was a robot,Derec thought. But I fear I shall never see its like again.
Derec realized after the fact that he had paraphrased a line from Shakespeare's Hamlet. This reminded him of the promise he had made to Lucius, and he mulled over the implications of this promise for long minutes after Mandelbrot and Wolruf had escorted the robots carrying Lucius inside, after they had lain Lucius on a table. Evidently Mandelbrot or Ariel must have ordered the robots to depart, because Derec never recalled giving such an order.
For a while, as he looked at the battered and distorted face, Derec hoped he would discover that it was a dreadful mistake, that it really wasn't Lucius there after all, but some other robot. But the size was right. The model was right. The color was right. The unique identifying features that all city robots possessed to some degree were right. But most of all, the feeling in Derec's gut was right.
Lucius was indeed dead. Murdered. The logic circuits of its positronic brain had been removed with precision. But the personality integrals had been left in the brain cavity, left to be permanently damaged in the reservoir. So Lucius's unique abilities at logic might still exist, but the interaction between brain and body would probably never again be achieved. The personality was gone forever.
"Excuse me, everyone," Derec said, actually aware that his friends were staring at him, waiting for his reaction. "I'd like to be alone with Lucius for a few moments."
And then, after they had left, Derec cried. He cried in pity and remorse, not for Lucius, but for himself. This was the first time he could remember having cried. When he finished, he felt only marginally better, but he had some idea of what he had to do, and who to look to for an answer.
Derec found the ebony at the place he had come to think of as Circuit Breaker Square. Other robots of various models and intelligence levels stood around the building, watching its colors reflect the sunlight in muted shades. Occasionally, reflections thrown off by the smooth planes glittered against the robots and the other buildings. The overall effect of Circuit Breaker was more restrained in the sunlight. Doubtlessly that, too, had been part of Lucius's plan, to permit the building to become controllable and hence "safer" in the day, while the night unleashed its true energies. He would have to find out upon what principle the solar batteries worked.
That was another question Lucius would no longer be able to answer personally; however interesting it was on the purely scientific level, it did not seem especially important in light of recent events.
The ebony stood at the edge of the perimeter. Its head never turned to the building; it was watching the other robots instead, as if it was searching for some meaning in their activity. Or lack of it, as the case was. The ebony stood straight and tall, with barely a nuance Derec could call remotely human. It was easy for him to imagine a black cape hanging from the ebony's shoulders, easier still to imagine it standing on a hilltop and glaring in defiance at a gathering storm.
Blow wind. and crack your cheeks,Derec thought, recalling a line from King Lear.
Trying his best to look casual, as if he were simply taking a stroll, Derec walked to the ebony and said, "Excuse me, but didn't I see you here last night?"
"It is possible, master," replied the ebony, bowing its head and shoulders slightly as if to take note of the human's presence for the first time.
"With all the other robots?"
"I was in the square, but my circuits do not acknowledge the fact that I was with the other robots."
"I see by your insignia and model that you are a supervisor robot."
"That is true."
"Exactly what are your duties?" Derec asked casually.
With an almost stately turn of its head, the ebony turned toward Circuit Breaker and waited until the length of the silence between them became quite long-deliberately, for a kind of dramatic effect, it seemed to Derec. An answer was intended, but so was a space of waiting. Derec began to get a seriously queasy feeling in his stomach.
Finally, the ebony said, "My duties are floating. I am programmed to ascertain what needs to be done and then to do it or otherwise see to it."
"All of this is up to your discretion?"
"I am a duly designated rogue operative. The city requires a certain amount of random checks if it is to run at peak efficiency. If a machine breaks down gradually, the supervisor on the spot might not notice because it is there during every tour of duty. It would get used to the situation, would not even realize something was amiss, whereas I, with my extra-keen memory banks and an eye capable of perceiving individual levels of meta-cells, would notice it immediately."
"Once you actually look at the problem, that is."
"Of course. I doubt even a human can fix a machine before he knows if and where it has been broken. "
"Don't underestimate us."
"I shall strive not to. Do not think, sir, that my sole function is to act as mechanical troubleshooter. My tasks vary, depending upon the situation. Often central calls on me to provide visual and cognitive assistance if there is some problem with robotic efficiency-not that my comrades ever function at less than their peak, but because sometimes they cannot be certain that they are directing their energies to the best advantage of all."
"So you're a problem solver! You help devise solutions to the unforeseen shortcomings in central's program!"
Derec leaned against a building and saw Circuit Breaker weave back and forth like a balloon hung up in a breeze. He felt like someone had hit him on the back of the skull with a lug wrench. His lungs felt like paper. His ankles felt like the bones had turned into rubber putty. At first he was too stunned to loathe the ebony, but that feeling grew and grew, as he leaned there and tried to get his thoughts straight.
This robot has got to make decisions,Derec thought. The very nature of its job calls for analytical creativity! It could have viewed Circuit Breaker as so revolutionary to the robotic psyche that it constituted an obstacle to the laborers' duties. And then…then the ebony would have been forced to do something about Lucius.
There's nothing in the Three Laws about a robot being forbidden to harm another robot. In fact. First Law situations and Second Law orders may require it.
This is not proof, though.
For a moment Derec wondered what he would do once he had the proof. He would have to keep the ebony-or whichever robot the murderer was-functional for a time until the mechanics as well as the psychology had been checked for anomalies. The question of what came next would have to be decided after all the facts were in. It was possible that the ebony couldn't help itself.