Cyborg

Chapter 10. Bacon

Derec ran his hand through the bristly hair on the side of his head and stared morosely into the screen. Maybe he was just too worn out to concentrate any more. He hoped that was the problem. If not, then the reason he couldn’t think of anything else to try with the computer was that he had already tried everything. He straightened in surprise when Ariel burst into their quarters.

“How did it go?” He looked up hopefully.

“I got us some help for a change,” she said brightly. “As soon as I run to the personal, I’ll tell you about it.”

He felt a kind of disappointment that he didn’t have any good news to report, but waited patiently until she had returned.

“You got us some help? Who is it? How’d you manage that?” He tried to cover his envy.

“I was talking to one of the robots, and the argument just came to me. I told a couple of them that there were humans lost in Robot City who were starving. That gave them a First Law imperative to help.” She fell into her chair with a sigh. “I’ve been on my feet enough for one day. But at least I accomplished something out there.”

“Good job,” he conceded. He sat back from the console, glad for an excuse to quit for a while. “But what about their regular duties? Didn’t they resist leaving them?”

“I just told them to continue their duties, and to keep an eye out for the human visitors while they did. Oh, and for them to pass the word on to other robots, of course.”

“Yeah, that’s a good idea. That way they don’t feel a conflict between their duties and a rather vague First Law obligation.”

“Did you tell them to report to the central computer?”

“Of course. But, uh…” She inclined her head toward his console with a pointed smile. “As I recall, your department hasn’t been exactly on top of everything.”

“Yeah, I know. Whether it gets on record where I can find it is an open question.” Derec acknowledged the point with an embarrassed shrug. “At least it improves our chances.”

“Anyway, I wanted to tell you about the new First Law argument right away. With the robots helping us search, we don’t have to do the legwork any more. Have you gotten anywhere?”

“Yeah-well, no, not really.” He sighed and looked wearily at the screen. “I’ve eliminated a number of areas as having no source of food. As near as I can tell, the only place to find edible plants and other plants with processible content is the reservoir area. They haven’t been sighted anywhere in that direction at all.”

“Maybe we should go out that way ourselves, and give this First Law argument to the robots working there, just in case.”

“I guess it couldn’t hurt. At the moment, I’m too tired to plan strategy.”

“We can do some more planning tomorrow. What else have you figured out? Or is that it?”

“No, that isn’t it,” he growled. “I’m sure now that the only chemical processors are ours, and the one that the robots used to feed us when we first arrived. Before, it was just a good surmise. Now I’m certain.”

“Where does that leave us now?”

Derec stifled a yawn and looked at the clock. “It leaves me beat, for one thing.” And too worn out to argue, he thought to himself as he shut off the console.

“It’s not that late, but I’m worn out, too. Besides, with the robots contributing, there’s a chance something will happen even if we aren’t killing ourselves every second.”

“I’m going to eat and then go collapse.” Derec got up and punched a code into the chemical processor. “Want anything?”

“As much as I’d rather not, I guess I’d better. I’m so sick of all the stuff it makes. I guess it doesn’t even matter very much what it is. Make it two of whatever you’re having, okay?”

“Coming right up.”

She was walking toward him when she suddenly gasped and bent forward at the waist, her eyes bulging, clutching her abdomen with one arm.

He moved quickly to catch her by the shoulders. Gently, he eased her into a chair. “What is it? Can I do anything?”

“No,” she whispered hoarsely. She was still doubled over. “Just give me a minute, okay?” Her eyes were fixed on the floor in front of her as she held her position. She had broken out in a sweat, and her face was pale.

He backed up a little, but remained standing, watching her apprehensively. When the processor buzzed that their late meal was ready, he took out the plates and set them down. He sat down in his chair, trying not to make her more self -conscious than she already was, but he was too worried to start eating.

Finally, she straightened and drew in a deep breath. “I’m okay,” she said weakly. “Really.” Her face was shiny with sweat. “It’s passing. Go ahead and eat. Don’t wait for me.”

He tried to phrase his question carefully. “Could it be something, uh, ordinary?”

“Sure.” She forced a faint smile. “It was just a dizzy spell. I’m worn out from running around all day. Besides, I haven’t eaten enough today. That’s all it is.”

Derec nodded. Neither of them believed it, but they couldn’t do anything about her disease, anyway. Stating the obvious wouldn’t accomplish anything. A feeling of helplessness kept him just sitting there, looking at her.

After a moment, she reached for her plate, and they ate in silence.

He did not go to bed right away, after all. Instead, he kept thinking of little chores to do, cleaning up and pacing about, for as long as she remained up. He wanted to be on hand if she had another dizzy spell, but she seemed all right.

Finally, she retired, probably sensing that he was going to stay up as long as she did. He went to bed, but worry kept him awake for some time. As he lay in the dark, the terrible puzzle kept taunting him: at least one spacecraft had landed somewhere on the planet, but they could find no way to locate it. And if they couldn’t get Ariel to medical help of some kind, somewhere…

He refused that line of speculation. How could they find the spacecraft; that was the question. He turned over restlessly, gradually starting to doze and to dream of vague shadowy figures running away down the fast lane of the slidewalks, always just out of reach, agile and elusive despite their imminent starvation.

The next morning he awoke to a pleasant, familiar, salty aroma drifting in from the other room. Could their chemical processor have produced that? He could hear Ariel moving about, and got up full of curiosity. When he opened his door, she was standing at the chemical processor, just turning to face him.

“Look what I managed to get out of this thing,” she said with a smile, holding out a plate.

Derec took one of the long, flat strips from it and bit off the end. “Mmm-bacon!”

“Simulated bacon, anyway. Healthier than the real thing, probably. I’ve been up for hours, and thought I’d try experimenting with the processor.” She laughed. “I’ve had the recycler going all morning with my failures. So far, this is the best improvement on what we’ve been eating.”

“It’s great. Practically got me out of bed, in fact. It smells great. Got any more?”

“No problem.” She entered a code into the processor. “It does smell good, doesn’t it?”

“Robots just don’t understand decent food. I can’t blame them, exactly, but-frost! Just imagine what we’re missing! The first thing I want to do when we get to a real city is eat some good food for a change. A hot Kobe steak, say, with Magellanic frettage on the side and a bowl of ice cold-”

‘That’s it, Derec! The smell!” She spun around suddenly, with an excited smile. “Don’t you get it?”

“What?”

“We should bring our hungry humans to us. Use the exhaust fan to send out different food smells. We figure they’re starving, right? We couldn’t find them by chasing around, and now we have the robots doing that kind of search for us, anyway. In fact, I’ve been sending food smells outside all morning. It ought to work better, though, if we do it systematically.”

“Couldn’t hurt,” he said cautiously. “Well-yeah! That could work! In fact, I can do something to help it along right now.” He stuffed the rest of the piece of bacon into his mouth and sat down at the console. “The aromas alone won’t go too far before they dissipate, but I’ll enter this into the computer. It can alert robots to the fact that these smells represent substances edible to humans. So if our visitors ask, they’ll be directed this way.”

“I’ll try to get more organized with this,” she said. “I’ll work up a rotation of dishes-protein, carbohydrates, and so on. After all, we don’t know exactly what’s most likely to get their attention.”

“If they’re really starving, they aren’t going to be particular, but I’ll leave that to you. Let’s get to work.”

Ariel had the most to do this time. She coded for various dishes and set them under the fan until they cooled. By the time one dish had stopped giving off its aroma, two more were ready. She put one of them under the fan, or even both, then reheated the preceding one. When each dish had dried out to no more than a shapeless, unrecognizable, desiccated blob, she scraped the remains into the recycler and punched the code for something else.

At one point, he requested more bacon, which interrupted her sequence for a short time. He took a break to work on the fan, and managed to squeeze a little more power out of it, but not much. They were still relying a great deal on chance and the help of the robots, who could direct their quarry to them.

Derec devoted the rest of his time to streamlining the central computer some more, or at least doing what he could. He had no more ideas left for locating alternate food sources, even now that he was fresh, so they were gambling entirely on her plan. As the day wore on, however, he began to feel a new kind of tension. He was restless, anxious to take some kind of action, but there was none to take. This plan simply called for waiting patiently until the bait worked.

“Most of this stuff really stinks,” said Ariel. She left a new dish under the exhaust fan and started to wash her hands. “That bacon is the only one that really came out. I’m going to take a break and sit down.”

“You’re supposed to make the odors enticing,” Derec said impishly. “We want to bring them in, not make them sick.”

“Frost, Derec! You want to try it?” She demanded. “You try to figure out those stupid codes. Or stand here and inhale the fumes on some of these dishes that don’t come out.”

“Hey, take it easy. That was a joke.”

“Some joke, smart guy. I don’t see you helping us any.”

“Oh, yeah? I suppose you could have done all the computer work I have since we’ve been together?” He turned from the screen to look at her.

“I didn’t say that, and you know it.”

“Maybe I’m not so sure. Maybe you do think I’m just along for the ride, now. Or don’t you want me to streamline the computer anymore, like you were asking me before?”

“You’re just pouting because I thought of the First Law point yesterday and the idea of sending out cooking smells today, that’s all.” She pulled her chair up facing her and sat down in it backwards, straddling the seat. “Admit it.”

“It’s not that simple. You told me you were out looking for adventure, remember? Wasn’t that one of the reasons you left home?”

“One of them,” she said icily.

“And you didn’t get the kind of fun adventure you were thinking of, did you? Even getting away from Rockliffe Station the way we did was more glamorous than this. Going one-on-one with these robots all the time is more of a chore than an adventure.”

“I’m also sick-remember?” she said quietly.

Derec broke eye contact, stung with embarrassment. Last night, in a moment of caring, they had carefully avoided the word. Now he’d let his temper ruin that.

“This computer work is getting to me,” he said, also speaking softly. “I, uh, just can’t seem to get as much done as I want.”

“That’s how I feel. There’s too much work to do and nothing ever seems to help.”

“It’s the waiting, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, partly. Just waiting here all day for someone to show up. And we don’t know if they’re within kilometers of here. They could be anywhere on the planet.” She folded her arms across the back of the chair and leaned her chin down on them.

“We could take turns getting out. You know, just go for a walk. The city is pretty big; we haven’t seen large parts of it, even now. You know, if we didn’t have to work so hard at getting out of here, this would be an interesting place.”

“I think I could use a walk. If you’ll take the first shift here, maybe I’ll get away from that processor for a while.” She got off the chair with some effort. “What do you say?”

“Fair enough. While you’re out, see how far away you can smell anything, okay?”

“Okay.” She grinned over her shoulder in the doorway. “If it really does stink out there, I’ll let you know.”