Various Fiction, page 252
“You will not allow any aliens to come busting in; especially the two-headed kind with their feet on backwards.”
“Very well, sir,” Max had no sense of humor when it came to aliens. “Do you have the password, Mr. Halloran?”
“I got it, Max. How about you?”
“I have it, sir.”
“OK, See you later.” Halloran left the camp.
After examining the real estate for an hour and finding nothing of interest, Halloran came back. He was pleased to see PR-22-0134 patrolling along the perimeter. It meant that everything was all right.
“Hi there, Max,” he called. “Any messages for me?”
“Halt,” the robot said. “Give the password.”
“Cut the comedy, Max. I’m in no mood for—”
“HALT!” the robot shouted, as Halloran was about to cross the perimeter.
Halloran came to an abrupt stop. Max’s photoelectric eyes had flared, and a soft double click announced that his primary armament was activated. Halloran decided to proceed with caution.
“I am halted. My name is Halloran. OK now, Maxie?”
“Give the password, please.”
“ ‘Bluebells,’ ” Halloran said. “Now, if you don’t mind—”
“Do not cross the perimeter,” the robot said. “Your password is incorrect.”
“The hell it is. I gave it to you myself.”
“That was the previous password.”
“Previous? You’re out of your semi-solid mind,” Halloran said. “ ‘Bluebells’ is the only password, and you didn’t get any new one because there isn’t any new one. Unless—”
The robot waited—Halloran considered the unpleasant thought from various angles, and at last put words to it.
“Unless Captain Beatty gave you a new password before he left. Is that what happened?”
“Yes,” the robot said.
“I should have thought of it,” Halloran said. He grinned, but he was annoyed. There had been slipups like this before. But there had always been someone inside the camp to correct them.
Still, there was nothing to worry about. When you came right down to it, the situation was more than a little funny. And it could be resolved with just a modicum of reason.
Halloran was assuming, of course, that PR robots possess a modicum of reason.
“Max,” Halloran said, “I see how it probably happened. Captain Beatty probably gave you a new password. But he failed to tell me about it. I then compounded his error by neglecting to check on the password situation before I left the perimeter.”
The robot made no comment. Halloran went on. “The mistake, in any case, is easily corrected.”
“I sincerely hope so,” the robot said.
“Of course it is,” Halloran said, a little less confidently. “The captain and I follow a set procedure in these matters. When he gives you a password, he also transmits it to me orally. But, just in case there is any lapse—like now—he also writes it down.”
“Does he?” the robot asked.
“Yes, he does,” Halloran said. “Always. Invariably. Which includes this time too, I hope. Do you see that tent behind you?”
The robot swiveled one sensor, keeping the other fixed on Halloran. “I see it.”
“OK. Inside the tent, there is a table. On the table is a gray metal clipboard.”
“Correct,” Max said.
“Fine! Now then, there is a sheet of paper in the clipboard. On it is a list of vital data—emergency radio frequencies, that sort of thing. On the top of the paper, circled in red, is the current password.”
The robot extended and focused his sensor, then retracted it. He said to Halloran, “What you say is true, but irrelevant. I am concerned only with your knowledge of the actual password, not its location. If you can state the password. I must let you into the camp. If not, I must keep you out.”
“This is insane!” Halloran shouted. “Max, you legalistic idiot, it’s me, Halloran. and you damned well know it! We’ve been together since the day you were activated! Now will you please stop playing Horatio at the bridge and let me in?”
“Your resemblance to Mr. Halloran is uncanny,” the robot admitted. “But I am neither equipped nor empowered to conduct identity tests; nor am I permitted to act on the basis of my perceptions. The only proof I can accept is the password itself.”
Halloran fought down his rage. In a conversational tone he said, “Max, old buddy, it sounds like you’re implying that I’m an alien.”
“Since you do not have the password,” Max said, “I must proceed on that assumption—”
“Max!” Halloran shouted, stepping forward, “for Christ’s sake!”
“Do not approach the perimeter!” the robot said, his sensors flaring, “Whoever or whatever you are, stand back!”
“All right, I’m standing back,” Halloran said quickly. “Don’t get so nervous.” He backed away from the perimeter and waited until the robot’s sensors had gone quiescent. Then he sat down on a rock. He had some serious thinking to do.
It was almost noon in Regulus’s thousand-hour day. The twin suns hung overhead, distorted white blobs in a dead white sky. They moved sluggishly above a dark granite landscape, slow-motion juggernauts who destroyed what they touched.
An occasional bird soared in weary circles through the dry fiery air. A few small animals crept from shadow to shadow. A creature that looked like a wolverine gnawed at a tent peg, and was ignored by a small blue robot. A man sat on a rock and watched the robot.
Halloran, already feeling the effects of exposure and thirst, was trying to understand his situation and to plan a way out of it.
He wanted water. Soon he would need water. Not long after that, he would die for lack of water.
There was no known source of potable water within walking distance, except in the camp.
There was plenty of water in the camp. But he couldn’t get to it past the robot.
Beatty and James would routinely try to contact him in three days, but they would probably not be alarmed if he didn’t reply. Short-wave reception was erratic, even on Earth. They would try again in the evening and again the next day. Failing to raise him then, they would come back.
Call it four Earth days, then. How long could he go without water?
The answer depended on his rate of water loss. When he had sustained a total liquid loss of between ten and fifteen percent of his body weight, he would go into shock. This could happen with disastrous suddenness. Bedouin tribesmen, separated from their supplies, had been known to succumb in twenty-four hours. Stranded motorists in the American Southwest, trying to walk out of the Baker or Mojave Deserts, sometimes didn’t last out the day.
Regulus V was as hot as the Kalahari, and had less humidity than Death Valley. A day on Regulus stretched for just under a thousand Earth hours. It was noon, he had five hundred hours of unremitting sunshine ahead of him without shelter or shade.
How long could he last? One Earth day. Two, at the most optimistic estimate.
Forget about Beatty and James. He had to get water from the camp, and he had to get it fast.
That meant he had to find a way past the robot.
He decided to try logic. “Max, you must know that I, Halloran, left the camp and that I, Halloran, returned an hour later, and that it is I, Halloran, now standing in front of you without the password.”
“The probabilities are very strongly in favor of your interpretation,” the robot admitted.
“Well, then—”
“But I cannot act on probabilities, or even near-certainties. After all, I have been created for the express purpose of dealing with aliens, despite the extremely low probability that I will ever meet one.”
“Can you at least give me a canteen of water?”
“No. That would be against orders.”
“When did you ever get orders about giving out water?”
“I didn’t, not specifically. But the conclusion flows from my primary directive. I am not supposed to aid or assist aliens.” Halloran then said a great many things, very rapidly and in a loud voice. His statements were pungently and idiomatically Terran; but Max ignored them since they were abusive, tendentious, and entirely without merit.
After a while, the alien who called himself Halloran moved out of sight behind a pile of rocks.
After some minutes, a creature sauntered out from behind a pile of rocks, whistling.
“Hello there. Max,” the creature said.
“Hello, Mr. Halloran,” the robot replied.
Halloran stopped ten feet away from the perimeter, “Well,” he said, “I’ve been looking around, but there’s not much to see. Anything happen here while I’ve been gone?”
“Yes, sir,” Max said. “An alien tried to enter the camp,” Halloran raised both eyebrows. “Is that a fact?”
“Indeed it is, sir.”
“What did this alien look like?”
“He looked very much like you, Mr. Halloran.”
“God in heaven!” Halloran exclaimed. “How did you know he was not me?”
“Because he tried to enter the camp without giving the password. That, of course, the real Mr. Halloran would never do.”
“Exactly so,” Halloran said. “Good work, Maxie. We’ll have to keep our eyes open for that fellow.”
“Yes, sir Thank you, sir.”
Halloran nodded casually. He was pleased with himself. He had figured out that Max, by the very terms of his construction, would have to deal with each encounter as unique, and to dispose of it according to its immediate merits. This had to be so, since Max was not permitted to reason on the basis of prior experiences.
Max had built-in biases. He assumed that Earthmen always have the password. He assumed that aliens never have the password, but always try to enter the camp. Therefore, a creature who did not try to enter the camp must be presumed to be free of the alien camp-entering compulsion, and therefore to be an Earthman, until proven otherwise.
Halloran thought that was pretty good reasoning for a man who had lost several percent of his body fluids. Now he had to hope that the rest of his plan would work as well.
“Max,” he said, “during my inspection, I made one rather disturbing discovery.”
“Sir?”
“I found that we are camped on the edge of a fault in this planet’s crust. The lines of the schism are unmistakable; they make the San Andreas Fault look like a hairline fracture.”
“Sounds bad, sir. Is there much risk?”
“You bet your tin ass there’s much risk. And much risk means much work. You and I, Maxie, are going to shift the entire camp about two miles due west. Immediately! So pick up the canteens and follow me.”
“Yes, sir,” Max said. “As soon as you release me.”
“OK, I release you,” Halloran said. “Hurry up!”
“I can’t,” the robot said. “You must release me by giving the current password and stating that it is canceled. Then I’ll be able to stop guarding this particular perimeter.”
“There’s no time for formalities,” Halloran said tightly. “The new password is ‘whitefish.’ Get moving, Max, I just felt a tremor.”
“I didn’t feel anything.”
“Why should you?” Halloran snapped. “You’re just a PR robot, not an Earthman with special training and finely attuned sensory apparatus. Damn, there it goes again! You must have felt it that time!”
“I think I did feel it!”
“Then get moving!”
“Mr. Halloran, I can’t! It is physically impossible for me to leave this perimeter without a formal release! Please, sir, release me!”
“Don’t get so excited,” Halloran said. “On second thought, we’re going to leave the camp right here.”
“But the earthquake—”
“I’ve just made a new calculation. We’ve got more time than I had thought. I’m going to take another look around.” Halloran moved behind the rocks, out of the robot’s sight. His heart was beating heavily, and the blood in his veins felt thick and sluggish. Bright spots were dancing before his eyes. He diagnosed an incipient sunstroke, and forced himself to sit very quietly in a patch of shade.
The endless day stretched on. The amorphous white blob of the double suns crept an inch toward the horizon. PR-220134 guarded his perimeter.
A breeze sprang up, turned into half a gale, and blew sand against Max’s unblinking sensors. The robot trudged on, keeping to an exact circle. The wind died down and a figure appeared among the rocks some twenty yards away. Someone was watching him: was it Halloran, or the alien? Max refused to speculate. He guarded his perimeter.
A small creature like a coyote darted out of the desert and ran a zigzag course almost under Max’s feet. A large bird dived down in pursuit. There was a thin, high scream and blood was splashed against one of the tents. The bird flapped heavily into the air with something writhing in its claws.
Max paid no attention to this. He was watching a humanoid creature stagger toward him out of the rocks.
The creature stopped. “Good day, Mr. Halloran,” Max said at once. “I feel that I should mention, sir, that you show definite signs of dehydration. That is a condition which leads to shock, unconsciousness, and death, unless attended to promptly.”
“Shut up,” Halloran said, in a husky, heat-parched voice. “Very well, Mr. Halloran.”
“And stop calling me Mr. Halloran.”
“Why should I do that, sir?”
“Because I am not Halloran. I am an alien.”
“Indeed?” the robot said.
“Yes, indeed. Do you doubt my word?”
“Well, your mere unsupported statement—”
“Never mind. I’ll give you proof. I do not know the password. Is that proof enough?”
When the robot still hesitated, Halloran said, “Look, Mr. Halloran told me that I should remind you of your own fundamental definitions, which are the criteria by which you perform your job. To wit: an Earthman is a sentient creature who knows the password; an alien is a sentient creature who does not know the password.”
“Yes,” the robot said reluctantly, “knowledge of the password is my yardstick. But still, I sense something wrong. Suppose you’re lying to me?”
“If I’m lying, then I must be an Earthman who knows the password,” Halloran explained. “In which case, there’s no danger. But you know that I’m not lying, because you know that no Earthman would lie about the password.”
“I don’t know if I can assume that.”
“You must. No Earthman wants to appear as an alien, does he?”
“Of course not.”
“And a password is the only certain differentiation between a human and an alien?”
“Yes.”
“Then the case is proven.”
“I’m still not sure,” Max said, and Halloran realized that the robot was reluctant to receive instruction from an alien, even if the alien was only trying to prove that he was an alien.
He waited. After a while, Max said, “All right, I agree that you are an alien. Accordingly, I refuse to let you into the camp.”
“I’m not asking you to let me in. The point is, I am Halloran’s prisoner, and you know what that means.”
The robot blinked his sensors rapidly. “I don’t know what that means.”
“It means,” Halloran said, “that you must follow Halloran’s orders concerning me. His orders are that I must be detained within the perimeter of the camp, and must not be released unless he gives specific orders to that effect.”
Max cried, “Mr. Halloran knows that I can’t let you into the camp!”
“Of course! But Halloran is telling you to imprison me in the camp, which is an entirely different matter.”
“Is it, really?”
“It certainly is! You must know that Earthmen always imprison aliens who try to break into their camp!”
“I seem to have heard something to that effect,” Max said. “Still, I cannot allow you in. But I can guard you here, just in front of the camp.”
“That’s not very good,” Halloran said sulkily.
“I’m sorry, but it’s the best I can do.”
“Oh, very well,” Halloran said, sitting down on the sand. “I am your prisoner, then.”
“Yes.”
“Then give me a drink of water.”
“I am not allowed—”
“Damn it, you certainly know that alien prisoners are to be treated with the courtesy appropriate to their rank and are to be given the necessities of life according to the Geneva Convention and other international protocols.”
“Yes, I’ve heard about that,” Max said. “What is your rank?”
“Jamisdar, senior grade. My serial number is 12278031. And I need water immediately, because I’ll die without it.” Max thought for several seconds. At last he said. “I will give you water. But only after Mr. Halloran has had water.”
“Surely there’s enough for both of us?” Halloran asked, trying to smile in a winning manner.
“That,” Max said firmly, “is for Mr. Halloran to decide.”
“All right,” Halloran said, getting to his feet.
“Wait! Stop! Where are you going?”
“Just behind those rocks,” Halloran said. “It’s time for my noon prayer, which I must do in utter privacy.”
“But what if you escape?”
“What would be the use?” Halloran asked, walking off. “Halloran would simply capture me again.”
“True, true, the man’s a genius,” the robot muttered.
Very little time passed. Suddenly, Halloran came out of the rocks.
“Mr. Halloran?” Max asked.
“That’s me.” Halloran said cheerfully. “Did my prisoner get here OK?”
“Yes, sir. He’s over there in the rocks, praying.”
“No harm in that,” Halloran said. “Listen, Max, when he comes out again, make sure he gets some water.”
“I’ll be glad to. After you have had your water, sir.”
“Hell, I’m not even thirsty. Just see that the poor damned alien gets some.”
“I can’t, not until I’ve seen you drink your fill. The state of dehydration I mentioned, sir, is now more advanced. You are not far from collapse. I insist and I implore you—drink!”
