Cyborg

Chapter 8. Hitting The Streets

Derec and Ariel stopped to rest on a small ridge of soil on the side of yet another construction site. As near as they could tell, the urban area of Robot City was expanding in all directions from its center, and they had been walking the perimeter of construction so they could question the robots they encountered. So far, they had traveled only a very small arc of the entire circle.

‘This isn’t doing us any good,” Derec complained. He lay down on the dirt and leaned back against the slope.

“What isn’t?” She looked carefully to make sure the slope behind here was smooth, then also leaned back. “Resting here or asking around?”

“Both, now that you mention it. But I meant asking robots at random like this. There are thousands of them, and they aren’t very observant of their surroundings unless it’s part of their job. They concentrate on their own tasks too much.”

“I haven’t thought of anything better.” She closed her eyes. “My feet hurt. I’m not used to walking so much.”

“I haven’t thought of anything else, either. There must be something, though.” He looked across the way, where a foreman robot was overseeing a large function robot of some kind. “Everything is so carefully organized. Nothing is wasted.”

As they watched, the function robot raised an arm with a nozzle on the end and began to spray a heavy, viscous liquid onto the bare, level ground in front of it. Even after the liquid had landed, it swirled and shifted and moved in active currents beyond those in motion by the pressure at the nozzle. As the spray continued, the liquid formed a flat floor and then began to grow walls up from the floor, leaving space for a doorway.

Ariel opened her eyes. “Did you ask that one robot earlier how the spray works? I went to talk to another one and didn’t hear your conversation.”

“Yeah. I didn’t understand the details, but apparently the molecules are all coded. They know where to go, and slide around in liquid form until they reach the right spot. Then they bond with their right neighboring molecules.”

“Just the way this whole city works,” said Ariel. “Except for us and our visitors. We don’t fit. That’s one thing we have in common with them, no matter who they are.”

“You think it over,” Derec said wearily. “Here comes another transport vehicle of some kind. I can see a humanoid riding in it. I guess I’ll go interrupt its day and ask it the usual questions.”

He got to his feet, and realized as he walked through a scrap area that his own legs did not have much more energy left, either. Most of the scrap was in huge, carefully stacked piles, but here and there individual pieces had fallen or been laid out to start a new stack. He noted with a mixture of interest and annoyance that none of the parts were recognizable. These Avery robots had an extremely ingrown technology.

Derec had learned how to shortcut this process somewhat. He first called out that he was human to get the robot’s attention, and then ordered it to stop. In turn, the humanoid robot ordered the function robot-the transport-to stop. This time, Derec’s questions paid off.

“I have seen two non-indigenous beings recently,” said the robot, looking down at Derec from the high cab of the transport.

“Identify,” Derec ordered, with excitement.

“I am Class 9 Vehicle Foreman 214.”

“What did they look like? What were they doing?”

“One was a robot that did not respond to my communication greeting. Apparently he was on a different frequency or malfunctioning. Also, his dimensions and proportions were not quite familiar.”

“What about the other one?”

“I did not see the other one clearly. It appeared to be no longer than a meter. This is an approximation. It had four extremities.”

“A kid,” said Derec. “A robot and a little kid. That’s weird…Did you speak with them?”

“No. They departed when I approached. “

“What were they doing when you first saw them?”

“Walking.”

“Did you hear them speak? Or have any contact with robots of any kind?”

“No.”

“Say-why did you try to communicate with them?”

“Because of their unusual appearance. I thought that if the robot required assistance to a repair facility, I would offer it.”

“Did you report the sighting to the central computer?”

“Yes.”

“When and where did it take place?”

“Two days ago. The time-”

“That’s good enough. Where?” Derec grinned. The sighting was not one of those he had found listed in the computer. Ariel came up to join them as Class 9 Vehicle 214 gave him the city coordinates of the sighting. Then the robot went on its way.

“It’s a start,” Derec said happily. “The sighting is two days old, but it’s solid.”

He filled her in on the details.

“A babysitter and a kid, maybe,” said Ariel. “They might have been ejected from a lifepod in a ship emergency, or something like that. But with the transportation in this city, they could be anywhere by now.”

“We have to start somewhere. Come on.” Derec started in the direction of the nearest thoroughfare back toward the heart of the city.

Ariel hurried after him. “It just doesn’t seem like much to go on. They must be long gone from there.”

“Oh, come on! After all this time, this is the best lead we have. Why do you want to be so pessimistic?”

“It’s not that, exactly.”

“Then what?” He demanded angrily. “Don’t you want to get away from here? Would you rather just give up?”

“Of course not! I didn’t say that.”

“Well, then, come on.” Derec stalked along, his upbeat mood lost. The worst part of it was his realization that she was right. Their lead out here on the fringe of the city had come to nothing; chasing a two-day-old sighting might be just as hopeless.

They marched in silence for a while, then topped on the edge of the avenue. Traffic here would be nonexistent until the next construction transport was ready to head into the city again. The trips were carefully planned and maintained, as the robots were too efficient to waste any fuel or time on unnecessary runs.

After Derec had cooled down a little, he said, “Maybe these two sightings do tell us something. I think our visitors landed outside the city and entered in search of, I don’t know-food and shelter, I suppose. The sighting on the fringe, here, was older. So if they went into the middle of the city for a reason, they may stay there.”

“It’s still a very big city,” Ariel said doubtfully. Suddenly, she gasped. “That’s it, Derec. What are they going to eat?”

“Well-I guess they’ll get a chemical processor from the robots…”

“But will they know that? Will they know to ask? Besides, the robots wanted you to solve a mystery for them, so we had special consideration.”

“Maybe, but if the robots learn of the problem, the First Law will make them help out.” He was stung by the fact that he hadn’t thought of this himself. “Yeah, this must be the only city to be found anywhere that doesn’t have a single restaurant or anything like that.”

“This is our first real lead,” said Ariel with a new excitement. “Once we get back to the tunnel system, let’s split up. I’ll follow up on our latest sighting and see if I can find a food source around there.”

“Why? I thought you didn’t consider that lead worth much.”

“Oh, Derec, stop griping. You need to get back on the computer and see if you can locate food sources through it. This way we can cover two leads at once, that’s all.”

“Well, I can’t argue with that. Come to think of it, if they haven’t found any food, they could be in bad shape by now. We don’t want them dying on us.” He waved for her to follow him, pressed by a new sense of urgency.

“We can’t walk all the way to the tunnel stop,” she said, but she was smiling. “It’s good to see the old enthusiasm back.”

They actually walked some distance before a vehicle came by to give them a ride, but the walk paid off. The vehicle had departed from somewhere within the construction perimeter and would not have passed them out there. As Ariel had suggested, they split up in the tunnel system. He returned home to their computer console, while she went on to the site that Class 9 Vehicle 214 had reported.

Derec sat down at the console, glad to have another approach to use; but he hadn’t forgotten that this report had been lost somewhere in the system. He started by calling up a list of stores that were edible to humans. The only inventory was in the tank of their chemical processor, according to the screen. So either the visitors were getting hungry, or they had a food source not recorded this way.

Next, he called up other materials that had been converted to edible form. Again, everything was accounted for. He asked if another chemical processor had been made or requested. Nothing like that had been recorded.

As far as Derec knew, Robot City did not have any animal life that could be caught and eaten, even by the most desperate humans. Perhaps a very talented human could build a chemical processor without the help of the robots, but it would still require parts. Nor could it produce any food without raw materials of some kind.

On the assumption that the visitors had landed outside the city and entered the perimeter where he and Ariel had first gone, he narrowed the focus of his requests and asked again if any robots in that area had sighted the strangers. Nothing turned up that way. He got the same result when looking for a record of their landing.

The only certainty Derec had was that the computer was unreliable. The answers about the chemical processor and the foodstuffs might be accurate, but the visitors were here, and that meant they had landed somewhere on the planet in a spacecraft that could, in all probability, lift off again. There had to be some way to track them.

He couldn’t think of anything. With a sigh, he got up and paced idly around the small room. So far, the computer hadn’t helped any this time; he wished he had gone with Ariel.

He doubted she was in much danger, especially if the visitors were a robot and a small child. Besides, he knew she could take care of herself pretty well. His attitude toward her had changed, though, ever since he had learned of the seriousness of her illness. She didn’t seem quite so intimidating any more, though she was still older and more self-assured than he was. Ever since the day she had told him of the severity of her disease, and had cried in his arms, he had felt a growing protectiveness toward her.

She seemed to be okay now, though. He figured she might just laugh if he tried to tell her how he felt.

His jaw muscles tightened with the determination to prove what he could do with the computer. He sat down again and started calling up everything he could think of regarding space: records of astronomical observations, spacecraft landings, liftoffs, fly-bys…what else?

The computer gave him nothing on recent soft landings of spacecraft, or crashes. Nor had there been any reported sightings of landed spacecraft. Astronomical observations had not recorded any craft in orbit, either. He had to assume that either the sensors had failed in some way, or that the information was simply lost in the computer.

Food, he thought. The visitors required nutrition. That was still the best lead he had, if he could only think of a way to exploit it.

Ariel walked out of the tunnel stop and located the coordinates of the last sighting of the visitors without any trouble. Her only problem was what to do next. She was in the middle of the city, standing still as a moderately heavy traffic of robots passed her, either on slidewalks or in vehicles.

“Well, what would I do for food here?” she asked herself out loud. “Ask around, I suppose.”

As always, the robots were moving with their single-minded deliberation. The bland buildings reflected that attitude in their austere efficiency of design. No stranger, she reflected, would expect to find food in this neighborhood.

She stopped the nearest robot passing, by calling out, “I am a human who needs questions answered. Stop.”

The robot stopped.

“Have you seen a robot traveling with a human child?”

“No.”

“Do you know where I might find food?”

“Food. This is the energy source for humans, is it not?”

“Yes. It must be provided in a certain chemical form.”

“I am not familiar with it. I do not know where to locate any. Are you in urgent need of energy?”

“I’m not,” said Ariel, “but I think a small human in the company of a certain robot probably is. Almost definitely. I need to find them before the child starves. That is, runs out of energy.”

“This constitutes a First Law requirement, then. I will help you search for them.”

“Identify.” Ariel suddenly realized that this argument could be used to harness every robot in Robot City.

“I am Courier Foreman 189.”

“You supervise couriers? What do they do?”

“Couriers are function robots that carry small items to specific locations. Objects and distance vary.”

“All right. Listen. You don’t have to interrupt your work at all. Just spread the word to other humanoid robots as you go about your duties that a First Law problem requires their aid in locating a human child in the company of a robot, and also another human wandering around by himself.”

“Understood.”

“And tell them not to include me-I’m Ariel Welsh-or Derec.”

“Understood. I will contact other robots through my comlink.”

“Good! I have to tell Derec about this right away.” Ariel turned and ran for the tunnel stop.