Derec stood, uneasy after the last time. “It’ll be all right?” he asked the med-bot.
“I believe she understands the situation now,” the med-bot responded in a gentle, fatherly voice.
“I’d like to see her alone,” he told the others.
Euler nodded. “We’ll wait out here.”
He moved down the hall, unsure of his feelings. It had hurt him to see her in such pain, hurt him emotionally. She could get on his nerves so badly, yet seemed such an integral part of him.
He knocked lightly on her door, then opened it. She sat up in bed, her face still sad. She held her arms out to him. “Oh, Derec… ”
He hurried to the bed, sitting next to her, holding her. She began to sob gently into his shoulder. “I was so afraid,” she said. “I thought… thought… ”
“I know,” he said, stroking her hair. “Arion told me. I’m so sorry.”
“I don’t know what I’d do without you,” she said, then pulled away from him. “Oh, Derec. I know we’ve walls between us… but please believe me, I have no idea what this place is and what’s going on here.”
“I believe you,” he said, reaching up to wipe tears from her eyes. He smiled. “Don’t worry about that now. How are you doing?”
“Better,” she said. “The med-bot stuck me a couple of times, but it really helped. All I’ve got is a headache.”
Thunder rolled again outside. “Good,” he said. “It looks like we’re locked in for the night anyway. What do you say we send the robots away, get some dinner sent up, and compare notes. I’ve got a lot to tell you.”
“Me, too,” she said. “It sounds good.”
They had a vegetable soup for dinner that was the best thing Derec had eaten for quite some time. The rains pounded frenetically outside, but Derec didn’t worry so much since he figured the precautions taken by Euler and Rydberg would, at least, get them through the night. And the best he could do now was to live day to day. Even Arion’s entertainment was beginning to diversify. The CRT was exhibiting an animated game of tennis played by computer-generated stick figures on a slippery surface. It was actually quite amusing.
After the servo had cleared the dishes away and left, they made themselves comfortable on the couch and recounted the details of the day. Derec, for reasons he wasn’t quite sure of, left out the fact that there were no hyperwave transmission stations on the planet. Counting on Katherine’s experiences to help him, he listened alertly to her account of the discovery of the body.
“The fact that he looked just like you,” she asked when she’d finished, “what does it mean?”
“To begin with,” he said, “it finally knocks the idea of our trip to Robot City being an accident right out the air lock. We were brought here; why, I don’t know. The dead man is either the one who brought us or was brought himself. We’ll have to continue to ferret that out. What interests me more is the fact that the city-robot works independently. I believe that the city is somehow replicating itself as a defensive measure. If it operates independently, the supervisors may not be able to stop it.”
“What does that mean?”
He looked at her. “It means that I’ve got to.”
“That brings us back to our same old argument,” she said, darkening a bit. “The city or the murder investigation.”
“Not necessarily,” he said, standing. “This should make you happy.” He walked back to the patio door and idly watched the downpour, feeling now that it could, eventually, be beaten. He turned back to her. “I believe that David and the city alert and replication are inexorably linked.”
She jumped up, excited, and ran to him, throwing her arms around him. “You’re going to help me solve the murder, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” he laughed, returning the embrace. “Tomorrow we go back to the body and pick up where you left off.” He moved away from her and intertwined his fingers. “It’s all like this, all connected. If we can put a few of the pieces together, I’ll bet the rest fall into place. Whatever, or whoever, killed David, is the reason for the alert.”
“First thing in the morning, we’ll have Eve take us back there.”
“Not first thing,” he said. “First thing, I’ve set up a brief meeting with the supervisors at the Compass Tower.”
“Why?”
“Two reasons. First, I want to ask them some questions about their underground operations; and second, I want to be able to poke around the building for a bit.”
“Looking for the office?”
He nodded. “1-1 said it was fully furnished. I bet we’ll find answers there.”
Her face got suddenly serious. “I hope you find the kind of answers you’re looking for,” she said.
Chapter 9. The Office
A table had been set up in the meeting room. It was long and narrow and included seats for nine. Derec sat at the head of the table, with Katherine at his right. The supervisors took up the rest of the seats, still holding hands, with the two at the end of the line holding hands over the tabletop.
“Why do human beings lie, Friend Derec?” Supervisor Dante asked, his elongated, magnifying eyes staring all the way down the table. “The most difficulty we’ve had with you is your penchant for lies and exaggeration. It is what keeps us from trusting you completely.”
Derec licked dry lips and watched them all expectantly watching him. He knew he’d have to get beyond this hurdle if he were to work with them in solving the city’s problems.
“Robots receive their input in two ways,” he said, hoping his explanation would be adequate. He’d gotten up early to think it out and prepare it. “Through direct programming, and through input garnered through the sensors that is then tested in analog against existing programming. Your sensors record events accurately, with mathematic precision, and classify them through the scientific validity of several thousand years of empirical thought. You are then able, through your positronics, to reason deductively by weighing, again through analog, incoming data against existing data. You can make true second-level connections.”
“We understand the workings of the positronic brain,” Friend Derec,” Waldeyer said. “It is the human brain that confounds us.”
“Bear with me,” Derec said. “I want to pose you a question. Suppose, just suppose, that your basic programming was in error-not just in small ways, but in its most basic assumptions. Suppose every bit of sensory input you received was in total opposition to your basic programming.”
“We would spend a great deal of time reasoning erroneously,” Wohler said. “But human brains are not at the mercy of programming. You have the freedom to sift through all empirical data and arrive at the truth at all times.”
“That’s where you are wrong,” Derec replied. “The human mind is not a computer with truth as its base. It is merely a collection of ganglia moved by electrical impulses. Truth is not its basis, but rather ego gratification. Truth to the human mind is a shifting thing, a sail billowing on the wind of fear and hope and desire. It has no reality, but rather creates it from moment to moment with that same creative intelligence that you value so highly in us.”
“But the base program is available,” Euler said. “It is there for the human to use.”
“And it is also there for him to reject,” Derec countered. “You must observe your programming. My mind has no such chains on it. The human mind is painfully mortal. That particular truth in itself is more than most humans can tolerate. We are frail creatures, seeking permanence in an impermanent world. We lie to those around us. We lie to ourselves. We lie in the face of all logic and all reason. We lie because, quite often, the truth would destroy us. We lie without even knowing it.”
Avernus spoke. “How do robots that exist with humans on other worlds deal with the deceit?”
“They follow instruction according to the Laws of Robotics,” Derec said, quite simply. “They are not autonomous as you are, so they have no choice. The Laws were invented with the salvation of the species in mind. Robots protect humans from their own lies, and honor them because of what’s noble in the species. You saw Katherine’s grief when she thought I was dead.” He reached out and took her hand. “We are fragile creatures capable of great nobility and great ignominy. We make no excuses for ourselves. We are the creators of great good and great evil, and in the creation of robots, we were at the height of our goodness. Our species deserves praise and condemnation, and, in the final analysis, it is beyond rational, positronic explanation.”