“You’re not going to keep me here,” she said, opening the door that faced the spiral staircase.
“We would love to have you stay with us,” the robot said, “but we would never keep you here against your will.”
“Then why don’t you have the means on-planet for me to leave or call for help?”
“You act as if we brought you here under false pretenses,” Wohler said. “We did nothing. You came here uninvited. Welcome… but uninvited. Our civilization has not developed to the point where planetary interaction is possible. You can see that for yourself.”
“We’re wasting time,” Katherine said, and started through the door.
“Please reconsider,” the robot called. “Don’t put yourself in jeopardy.”
She stared hard at him. “I’ve been in jeopardy every second I’ve been in this crazy place.”
With that, she moved through the door, closing it behind her. She took the stairs quickly and entered the office. The angry clouds rolled up close to the viewers, making it seem as if she were standing in the midst of the gathering storm.
Searching the office, she found the ladder easily enough, climbing it to reach the windy platform above. The wind was so strong that she feared getting to her feet, and crawled to the edge where she and Derec had made their first treacherous descent into the city of robots.
For the first time since being freed from the sealed room, her fears began to overcome her anger at the situation as she turned her body to edge herself off the dizzying height to begin her climb downward. The wind pulled viciously at her like cold, prying hands; her ears and nose went numb, and her fingers tingled with the cold.
Though the pyramid was made from the same material as the rest of the city, it wasn’t the same in any other respect. It was rigid and unbending, its face set with patterns of holes that she and Derec had used as hand and footholds previously, and in which they had hidden the Key on their first descent.
Her mind whirled as she climbed, slowly, so slowly. How far down had it been? She had been moving fast, and Derec, carrying the Key, had been unable to keep up. They had stopped for a conference and decided to hide the Key and continue without it. How far down? A fourth of the climb, barely a fourth, in the leftmost hole of the pattern that ran down the center of the structure.
She continued downward, her fingers hurting now, her eyes looking upward, trying to gauge her distance just right. She began testing the holes in the repeated pattern, to no avail. She still hadn’t reached the place. Something wet and cold hit her hard on the back. Her hands almost pulled out of their holds reflexively. It was a raindrop, and it wet the entire back of her one-piece.
She was running out of time.
The pattern of holes repeated again as she inched downward, and when she looked up, squinting against the frigid wind, she knew she had reached the place.
Hugging the pyramid face with the last of her strength, she slowly reached out, sticking her hand into the leftmost hole of the pattern.
The Key was gone.
“No!” she screamed loudly into the teeth of the monster, and, as if in response, the rain tore from the heavens in blinding, bludgeoning sheets to silence her protests.
Derec stood at the exit door to the Extruder Station and listened to the rain pounding against the door, and watched the small puddle that had somehow made its way under the sealed entry. Katherine was out there somewhere, and Wohler. Nothing had been heard from either of them since before the start of the rain. Avernus had made contact with the Compass Tower, and though both had been seen there, neither was there now.
With the rain controlling the day, everything had come to a standstill, making searching impossible, making contact with the central core impossible, making everything except the almighty building project slow to nothing. It was maddening.
He pounded the door, his fist sinking in, cushioning. He wanted to open those doors and run into the city and find her for himself-but he knew what that meant. Most likely, nothing would be known until the rain abated the next morning.
He turned from the door and walked down the stairs to the holding area and the six robot supervisors who awaited him there. His mind was awash in anxiety.
“Supervisor Rydberg has proposed a plan, Friend Derec,” Euler said. “Perhaps you will comment on it.”
Derec looked at Rydberg, trying to bring his mind back to the present. Why did the woman affect him this way? “Let’s hear your plan,” he said.
“We can go ahead and devise our evacuation schedule for the robots working underground,” Rydberg said. “It seems that when morning comes, you will be able to contact the core and halt the replication. It will be too late to dig through to the cavern in time, but at least we will have the opportunity to spare our mine workers before the floods.”
“Why do you have to give up like this?” Derec said, exasperated. “You’ve heard the reasons for the defenses. Can’t you just stop them now and use the digging equipment to begin excavating the cavern?”
Waldeyer, the squat, wheeled supervisor, said, “The central core is our master program. We cannot abandon it. Only the central core can judge the veracity of your statements and make the final decision.”
“I’m going to reprogram the central core,” Derec answered, too loudly. “I’m going to change its definition of ‘veracity.’ And besides, the Laws of Robotics are your master program, and the Second Law states that you will obey a human command unless it violates the First Law. I’m commanding you to halt the mining processes and begin digging through to the drainage cavern.”
“The defensive procedures were designed by the central core to protect the city, which is designed to protect human life,” Waldeyer replied. “The central core must be the determining factor in any decision to abandon the defenses. Though your arguments sound humane, they may, ultimately, be in violation of the First Law; for if the central core determines that your conclusions are erroneous, then shutting down the defenses could be the most dangerous of all possible decisions.”
Derec felt as if he were on a treadmill. All argument ultimately led back to the central core. And though he was sure that the central core would back off once he programmed the information about human blood into it, he had no way to prove that to the robots who, in turn, refused to do anything to halt the city’s replication until they’d received that confirmation from central.
Then an idea struck him, an idea that was so revisionist in its approach that he was frightened at first even to think out its effects on the robots. What he had in mind would either liberate their thinking or send them into a contradictory mental freeze-up that could destroy them.
“What do you think of Rydberg’s plan?” Avernus asked him. “It will save a great many robots.”
Avernus-that was it-Avernus the humanitarian. Derec knew that his idea would destroy the other robots, but Avernus, he was different. Avernus leaned toward the humane, a leaning that could just possibly save himself and the rest of Robot City.
“I will comment on the evacuation plan later,” Derec said. “First, I’d like to speak with Avernus alone.”
“We make decisions together,” Euler said.
“Why?” Derec asked.
“We’ve always done it that way,” Rydberg said.
“Not any more,” Derec said, his voice hard. “Unless you can give me a sound, First Law reason why I shouldn’t speak with Avernus alone, I will then assume you are violating the Laws yourselves.”
Euler walked to the center of the room, then turned slowly to look at Avernus. “We’ve always done it this way,” he said.
Avernus, the giant, moved stoically toward Euler, putting a larger pincer on the robot’s shoulder. “It won’t hurt anything, this once, if we go against our own traditions.”
“But traditions are the hallmark of civilization,” Euler said.
“Survival is also one of the hallmarks,” Derec replied, looking up at Avernus. “Are you willing?”
“Yes,” Avernus answered without hesitation. “We will speak alone.”