The only robot Derec felt really close to was Mandelbrot. It wasn't a matter of trust or distrust. Robots were what they were programmed to be. You could trust even the Avery robots that built Robot City and the other robot cities, like the one here on the wolf planet, if you knew who had last worked with their insides. The only time you couldn't trust them was when someone like the irrational Dr. Avery deliberately altered their programming. He had, for instance, excluded Wolruf from protection when he revised the programming of the Robot City robots.
But Derec seemed to lack the upbringing to deal naturally with robots-Mandelbrot being a possible exception, or as much of an exception as to make it a rule-and now he was confronted with SilverSide, a being he had concluded from behavior and appearance must be a robot, yet a robot as unpredictable and unsettling as any he had ever dealt with.
Like the Avery robots-and like Mandelbrot's control of his arm-SilverSide had the ability to change shape by changing the orientation of his cells, which themselves appeared to be tiny robots-microbots-even smaller than the cells of Avery material. Derec had pretty well established that those microbots, during a metamorphosis, were being reprogrammed by SilverSide's positronic brain, much like some living organisms-lizards and amphibians-seem to reprogram their own cells in order to grow a new limb or a new tail.
Yes, he was quite uncomfortable with SilverSide, and as he went around gathering up supplies for their outing, he realized for the first time that he had begun to consider SilverSide actually dangerous. He had never felt that way about any robot before, not on Aurora or anywhere else.
The fact that Mandelbrot's remarks had distracted SilverSide and reduced his efficiency did not seem to be a reasonable cause, logically arrived at, for the quite serious offense of deactivating another robot. Robots could not go around knocking one another out-seriously risking amnesia in the victim-simply because the victim had been a source of distraction, no more than people could. SilverSide had done something Mandelbrot “would never do,” to use Mandelbrot's own words.
SilverSide was an alarming phenomenon, yet exceedingly fascinating. Derec knew the robot should probably be deactivated, but that was a step Derec could no more take than could many other scientists who were on the cutting edge of their disciplines and involved in experiments dangerous to the society they lived in.
Chapter 9. Insight
While she was eating breakfast, Ariel queried Jacob on the results of his nightlong cogitations.
“I have made a list,” Jacob said, “of the technical features that jump technology and discrete modulation of hyperwave have in common. Would you like me to project it on the screen?”
“Heavens, no,” Ariel said. “I don't understand that stuff. Transmit your list to Keymo over the comlink; see if he can deduce a parallel list that allows him to predict the characteristics of continuous modulation from the characteristics of Key technology, features they would likely share.
“And tell him I'd like an answer well before we go to the meeting with the aliens.”
She finished breakfast and stepped out onto the small open balcony to sample the fresh smells of morning. And she was assailed instead by the sterile, leftover smells from night in a brand new city; not even the yeasty smell of baking bread that characterized the city of Webster Grove at any time of day and was certainly to be preferred to the ozone and machine oil of Pearl City.
Until that moment she had not really come to grips with how much she disliked cities. She had put up with Robot City, and with Earth's caves of steel, and now with this city, just to please Derec, disliking it all the time but kidding herself into thinking she was having a great time.
She disliked cities, any city, and she disliked them most in the morning. Without thinking, she had expected to sample the new-mown hay of Aurora. Instead she was oppressed by the smells of a city she disliked intensely and yet was compelled to try to save. The thought of that negotiation, less than two hours away, lay-in its anticipation-not like an idea in her mind, but like a brick in her stomach.
With her nose wrinkled and breakfast roiling her gut, she turned and went back inside to dress for the meeting.
An hour later, she was dressed and sitting in the living room, still groping for some solution to the dome problem. Jacob was standing in his niche. She even preferred that in her present mood. She wanted no distractions this morning.
Quite edgy, she decided she could wait no longer for Keymo to communicate with her. She needed a solution to take to the meeting, any solution, even one for a minor problem.
“Jacob, raise Keymo on the comlink,” she said. “See if he's come up with anything on the hyperwave bit.”
“Keymo reports some limited success,” Jacob said. “He can now see certain features of Key teleportation that he had not seen before, features that might potentially serve as a method of instantaneous communication quite unlike current hyperwave communication.”
“Good. Could it be called continuous modulation?”
“Yes. But it modulates a sort of hybrid wave, not hyperwaves as we know them.”
“Good. That seems like a small distinction.” Particularly since she didn't know what any of it meant. “That must be what the aliens are talking about.
“Let's go,” she said.
“We're well ahead of time,” Jacob said.
“Drive slow,” she said as she walked out of the apartment with Jacob trailing closely behind.
He had requisitioned a small nonautomated runabout the night before, but not without some difficulty. With the evacuation at its peak, transport vehicles were in short supply.
Main Street was bumper-to-bumper with traffic, but it was all moving briskly so that Jacob, following her instructions to drive slowly, parted the traffic like a rock in a turbulent river. All eight lanes were flowing northbound to expedite the transfer of materiel.
Still, they arrived at the dome opening at 9:40 AM, more than twenty minutes ahead of time. At the dome opening, the street narrowed to four lanes and then turned into a dirt road a few meters north of the dome.
Wohler-9 was already standing vigil on the west side of the opening where the meeting with the aliens would again take place. This time she did not plan to make Wohler-9 a participant.
“Drive on north, Jacob,” Ariel said. “I don't want to appear anxious.”
She knew she must sound inconsistent, edgy to leave one moment, reluctant to arrive the next. She had to remind herself that he was just a robot and couldn't care, and so didn't judge her one way or the other. It was a good thing. She already felt inadequate enough.
Ten minutes later, Jacob said, “We are at the halfway turnaround point, Miss Ariel.”
She had been deep in her dome problem, still unable to think of anything that could serve to stall the aliens further. The closure of the dome seemed inevitable.
“Fine,” she said and glanced at him. “Let's turn around.”
For just a second, a quick thrill of affection for Jacob coursed through her mind. He was such a handsome hulk and so thoughtful and caring.
He was clad in an attractive, short-sleeve top of loose weave that she had picked out. She had selected it for this occasion because of its casualness. She was clad informally as well. She didn't want the aliens thinking she was toadying up to them, no matter that they might not be able to classify her attire one way or the other. It was more a matter of establishing the proper frame of mind-in her mind.
She reached over impulsively and patted him on the forearm. She put out of her mind the thought that he was incapable of not being thoughtful and caring, incapable of acting otherwise, and programmed so. And he was a handsome hulk.
He gave her a quick glance in turn.