The Forgetful Robot, page 8
Then I saw Professor Dixon standing at the other end of the corridor with another Shadow Person beside him.
I zeroed my close lens in on his face and saw that it was thinner, and he had the look humans get when they are not very well.
Sight of him brought some more inconsequential data from my memory bank. I wondered if his pipes were being kept clean and if his socks had holes in them.
When he bought me, he told the salesman, “I need a robot that can look after things and exercise a little personal judgment, but I suppose that’s too much to ask of an electronic mechanism.”
The salesman told him that was true—of any other make but a Wellington. I’d been wired and programmed, the salesman said, to accept general orders and draw on a highly sophisticated logic component in order to carry them out.
This surprised Professor Dixon. He hadn’t known that research in the field had brought about such results. It surprised me too, for that matter.
So Professor Dixon bought me, and from the very first, he treated me more like a human than a machine—the way Larry and Janet did.
Another thing I noticed as I looked at him was that he needed a haircut.
The Shadow Girl chirped. I didn’t know what she said, but there was a happy tone in her voice, and she evidently told Professor Dixon she had a robot with her, because he called out, “Barney?”
I said, “Yes.”
His words tumbled out in the way I’d grown used to. “Oh, wonderful! I hadn’t dared hope! Now, be very careful, Barney. The corridor is mined with lignite fuses. You know what they are, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
Lignite fuses are little invisible force fields. They are a by-product of the higher frequencies in the quaser group of reactives. Each fuse is held together by a beta nucleus.
But it isn’t what they are but what they can do that matters. They are created and anchored on a surface by a gamma transformer, and they can be set to detonate against the touch of visible matter. That means they go off when you step on them.
Lignite fuses don’t blow anything to pieces. They ignite invisibly in a chain reaction that destroys oxygen. If one had gone off in that corridor, it would have burned the oxygen out of the whole undercity. That would have included the oxygen in the lungs of all the Earth people and the Shadow People too, I suppose. They were certainly air breathers also.
Professor Dixon said, “Barney, Gay knows exactly where the fuses are. She will lead you through the field. Follow her very carefully and step only where she steps.”
“Yes.”
Gay was the Shadow Girl’s name. She patted me on the arm and chirped and then started leading me through the field.
Now I understood what Bennett and Wilson had been talking about when they said Professor Gardner would have the tunnel walled up. That way the fuses, if they went off, would not be effective beyond the corridor and the room where Professor Dixon was hiding. If they went off, only Professor Dixon would be killed.
We twisted our way slowly along through the mine field. Then when I stepped into the room behind Gay, Professor Dixon rushed to me and grasped my arm.
“Barney, I was never so glad to see anyone in my life! When Gay and Pie told me a ship had come and that there was a robot aboard, I could only pray, because my ability to communicate with those wonderful people is limited. They understand far more of our language than I can understand of theirs. So they couldn’t describe to me what sort of a robot you were. I thought you were perhaps another killer. Gay was very brave even to approach you out there.” Professor Dixon gestured in the quick, distracted way that was characteristic of him, indicating the other Shadow Person with him. “This is Pie, Gay’s brother. They were my assistants while I was doing research, and they have remained loyal to me. They are my eyes and my ears, Barney. Without them I would be lost. They go into the outside world and bring me all the news, even though they themselves have also been condemned to death and would be safer if they just lost themselves in the undercity.”
I didn’t think Gay and Pie understood all he said, but they got the gist of it, because they smiled and looked pleased, twisting in embarrassment.
Professor Dixon went on, “But Barney—tell me the rest. Tell me everything. Why were you brought here? Why did Larch and Slezak return? I already know they are in your party. I’m amazed that they dare face Roger Gardner again.”
I told him all that had happened, about the Ravencrafts and the rest of it. When I came to the part about the buried treasure, he said, “Oh, so that was it! I supposed they’d gotten clean away with their loot after they stole it, and used you to help them across the desert. They, of course, altered you or you would never have obeyed them.”
Professor Dixon was very indignant about the Ravencrafts being victimized.
“Those scoundrels!” he said. “Involving innocent people! I met them at the Space Museum one day—quite casually—after I’d gotten my permit. I was most favorably impressed, because Slezak seemed so sincere. So I brought them along rather than selecting assistants who would have actually been more qualified.”
I knew, of course, that the meeting hadn’t been casual at all. Professor Dixon’s permit made him very valuable to them.
“When we got here,” he went on, “I was delighted to find Roger safe and unharmed, but—” Here Professor Dixon’s face took on a sad, confused look. “But he’d changed. He’d become—well, militant, Barney—yes, militant. I no longer understood my old friend.”
Professor Dixon spoke to me as though I were a human, the way he always had. He seemed to be trying to convince me. “Roger was a good man, Barney. He still is a good man. Something happened to him after he got here.
“But even with the change that had come over him, Roger was glad to see me. He was taking no interest in the research himself, but he allowed me complete freedom, that is, until Larch and Slezak betrayed me and escaped—so I supposed—with the treasure that belonged to the Zarkians. Then Roger turned on me as a fellow conspirator. There was a ridiculous mock trial, and I was condemned to death. Pie and Gay were also condemned because they’d worked with me.
“But Roger is not a bad man, Barney. Can you understand that?”
I said, “I do not have enough data to understand it fully.”
“What makes you doubt it?”
“If Professor Gardner changed after he got to Zark, why did he steal the killer robot from the museum?”
“He did not actually steal it. He was in charge and had rights and privileges. He took the robot for defense on a dangerous mission. For no other reason.” My logic component could not completely rationalize that, but it was not too important.
I said, “Yes.”
Professor Dixon peered at me critically. “Barney—how badly did they damage you?”
“Only my memory bank—partially.”
“Then you will be able to help me.”
“What do you want me to do?”
Fie waved his hands in the impatient gesture that was a part of his image pattern. “I don’t know. It looks hopeless. But you must help somehow.”
This would have been too vague an order from anyone but Professor Dixon. And it would have been meaningless to any robot except a 69S Wellington. But Professor Dixon had conditioned me to general orders. Like: “Barney, I left my glasses somewhere. I haven’t the least idea where. Find them.” Or: “Barney, I don’t want to go to Mrs. Pettifog’s dinner tonight. Think of a good excuse.”
Orders such as those allowed me to search for pertinent data upon which to move intelligently. And even though Mrs. Pettifog may still have been offended, I did my best.
My first question in seeking data on this particular situation was, “What happened to the air cars you and Professor Gardner used to reach Zark from Colony City?”
“Mine was wrecked a few miles from here. Don’t you remember?”
“No. That has been blocked out of my memory bank.”
“Professor Gardner dismantled his to get parts for other installations.”
Then the cars could no longer be factors in any escape plan. Also, it didn’t make any sense to me that Gardner would imprison Professor Dixon here behind lignite fuses that were as much a danger to him as to Professor Dixon, so I asked about that.
He said, “Roger restricted me to my room and put Gay and Pie in with me. He posted the killer robot to guard us, but Gay and Pie got out through a small aperture in the ceiling and then made it large enough for me.”
“Did they bring you here?”
“Yes. They arranged this sanctuary before they helped me escape. But they didn’t understand exactly what lignite fuses are. I brought them along for use against possibly dangerous microbe life in exploration. They knew the things were dangerous, but that was all. The Zarkians are simple people, you understand. But loyal and wonderful.”
Professor Dixon stopped to take a deep breath, and shrugged with a wry smile. “So here we are—with no place to go. Risking the desert was, of course, suicide. We can only hope Roger’s lunacy will pass. As I’m sure it will. You have seen and talked with him. What is your reaction?”
“I would say the possibility is negligible.”
“Then—?”
“But crossing the desert would no longer be suicide. I am sure, with my spare batteries, that I could carry you to New Mars.”
He considered that for a few moments, then asked, “What about the Ravencrafts?”
“I could bring help back.”
“In time to save their lives?”
“The percentages are against it.”
“What about the radio in your ship?”
“Slezak and Larch incapacitated it when we set down. Then Bennett and Wilson damaged it further.”
“So I am the only one who could be saved?”
“With any certainty of success—yes.”
“Then I won’t go. We’re all in this together, Barney, and we will stay together. What about the ship you came in?”
“The killer robot cut the port open. The ship would have to be repaired before we could escape in it.”
“Then there is no hope.”
“There is always hope.”
I’d heard humans say that, and it seemed a logical position to take now, because the future is always unpredictable. A computer or a robot’s logic component can tell you what will happen on the basis of known data. But data keep changing, so no prediction of coming events is ever infallible. And I wanted to believe there was hope here, so I did.
Professor Dixon patted my arm. “Good old Barney! Ever faithful.”
I didn’t see why that was worthy of comment, because a robot cannot be anything else. I said, “Professor Gardner plans to wall up the tunnel into this room. When he does this, it will be sure death for you, so you should leave here.”
“But he has not walled it off, Barney!”
“No.”
He spoke as though this were a victory of some kind. I could not understand why he considered it so until he said, “Doesn’t that prove that he has no real intention of carrying out his threats?”
“I cannot evaluate that as being a certainty. He may feel that you will not commit suicide, and he can therefore wall the tunnel up when he chooses to.”
Professor Dixon shrugged. “The point is academic, because there is no safer place to go. We would certainly be apprehended quickly anyplace else in Zark. If there were a safer place, you can be sure Pie and Gay would have known about it.”
I could not refute this with any logic, so I said nothing.
Professor Dixon gripped my arm suddenly and said, “Barney, I think it would be better if all of us were together.”
“Do you mean here in this room?”
“Yes. The Ravencrafts. Larch and Slezak too. We all have a common cause, and we should face our danger as a group.”
This was practically a direct order, so there was no point in doing other than integrating it into my planning. Whether it was a wise or unwise move remained to be seen.
I said, “I do not know where they are or if there is any possibility of helping them to escape.”
“Pie and Gay know. They are in a deep pit somewhere in the undercity. A primitive but effective method of imprisonment.”
“Could Gay and Pie show me where it is? I could go there and evaluate the situation and bring you a report.”
“But they told me Professor Gardner has put you to work. If he finds you’ve run away and he gets his hands on you again, he won’t let you out of his sight.”
“He switches me off every night, but that shouldn’t be any problem.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It would be very simple to disconnect my activator switch so that when he uses it nothing will happen.”
“Your optube would remain lit.”
“If I concentrate I can dim it down to a faint glow. Professor Gardner’s mind is full of big thoughts—forming armies and fighting wars. I don’t think he would notice so small a thing as an optube.”
Professor Dixon shrugged. “I can disconnect the switch easily enough.”
He opened my torso box and went to work. Gay and Pie watched, and I had a chance to examine them more closely. They were pale and almost fleshless by Earth standards. Earth humans, I was sure, would have called them ugly—something I could not hold against them, because I’m pretty ugly myself by those same standards. But there was more to them than that. The loyalty and intelligence Professor Dixon had spoken of glowed in their deep-set eyes.
Professor Dixon finished and closed my panel. He said, “That’s it, Barney. The switch is disconnected. What is your immediate plan?” This was an exceptional thing for a human to say to a robot, but Professor Dixon was an exceptional man.
“I had better get back to my work,” I replied. “I’m sure Professor Gardner will deactivate me tonight before he goes to sleep. If you could explain to Gay and Pie and ask them to wait for me outside his quarters, we can proceed from there.”
It was not necessary for them to lead me back through the mine field because I had recorded the safe path and could not have made a mistake. On the way back I formulated several excuses to cover my absence, but it was not necessary to use any of them. My absence had not been discovered.
I finished the work and went back and stood in Professor Gardner’s quarters as I had been instructed. After a while, he came in.
“Did you finish the work?”
“Yes.”
“All right. We’ll move the furniture tomorrow.”
He paid no more attention to me, going back to his tapes and language books, and for a long time the room was full of recorded chirps and twitterings of the Shadow People. I tried to understand the words myself, but with very little data to go on, I didn’t get much out of them.
Two Shadow People brought him his dinner, and when he was ready to sleep, he snapped me off. I concentrated on dimming my optube, but it wasn’t necessary. He didn’t look at me again and probably forgot I existed… .
10.
The Pit
I waited for half an hour after the lights had dimmed and Gardner appeared to have gone to sleep. Then I slipped out into the corridor, walking slowly and carefully to keep my impervium feet from sounding on the stone floor.
Gay and Pie were waiting, and Pie showed me the rope he had wound around his waist under his loose gray garment.
They led the way down the corridor and off into a side passage that took us past the big room where Roger Gardner had held the trial.
Just beyond was another big room. First I saw the killer robot and then the big circular hole he was guarding.
Gay and Pie held back now. They were afraid of the killer, which was entirely natural. I think I was afraid of it myself.
Killer robots are dangerous and unpredictable except to the humans who program them. They are keyed to aggression and destruction. Besides assassination and other criminal acts, killer robots are also used for sport in the wilder and less civilized parts of the planets and the asteroids. A good fighting robot is valuable because its owner can win a lot of money with it.
One interesting thing is that nobody knows what makes one fighting robot better than another. I mean, two of them can be built by the same manufacturer with exactly the same specifications. But one will have that small edge of ability that makes it win. In two humans exactly alike this might be called heart. So maybe it is the same in robots too.
Anyhow, all that made me evaluate Gardner’s killer robot very carefully. It was standing about thirty feet in front of the pit, and everything depended on its orders. It might have been told to charge any moving thing that came within range of its optube. Or it could have been equipped with a siren to signal for help.
Its weapons were the same as during the trial—a saw-edged knife and an acid spray gun.
I moved forward slowly, and when I got inside the door, I circled around toward the far side of the pit. The killer robot turned with me, keeping me in its optube, but did not charge. And no sirens went off on it.
This was encouraging, but far from safe. I kept on moving, and the robot kept on turning. It began to look as though its job was to keep anyone from entering the thirty-foot circle around the pit.
The pit itself was about twenty feet across and too deep for me to see down inside from where I was. I kept moving, and the robot let me get to the far side of the pit opposite him. I was still outside his thirty-foot circle, and having the pit between us was comforting. The spray gun would have a range of about twenty feet if it was standard, and I had to stay that far away until I decided on an aggressive move of my own.
There was another danger. I didn’t dare stir the robot into action with the pit between us. If he fired the spray gun at me, the acid would fall into the pit and kill whoever was down there.
I kept moving in a circle, coming a little closer to the thirty-foot perimeter. By the time I reached it, I saw to it that the pit was no longer between us.
Gay and Pie were watching. They’d come closer now and were standing inside the doorway. I could see their eyes glowing as they watched.
