Intruder

Chapter 8. Creature Discomforts

Each time Wolruf stumbled or bumped into something, she cursed in her own language. Eve asked her what words she was speaking, but she replied that it was merely her own private nonsense.

The Silversides and Mandelbrot had no difficulty with the darkness of the streets. Equipped with precise sensory circuitry, they could proceed easily through such darkness. Wolruf, even with the keen senses she had developed in the wilds of her homeland, couldn’t detect every obstacle in her way.

“Is the lack of proper lighting bothersome to you?” Mandelbrot asked her.

“So true. I rememberr lightss coming on when walking these strreetss.”

“They do not seem to be functioning now.”

“Like so many other thingss here. What iss wrrong, Mandelbrrot?”

“I do not know.”

“What we have seen,” Eve asked, “is not necessarily like this place as you know it?”

“Verry different,” Wolruf answered. “Strreetlampss alwayss lit one’ss way.”

They walked a few more steps, turned a corner (with Wolruf’s shoulder painfully bumping into the side of a building), and saw flickering light up ahead.

“What is that?” Eve asked.

“Not sure,” Wolruf said, “but my nose tellss me apprroach cautiously.”

“Your nose speaks to you?”

“No, that iss rrendening of saying from my worrld into ‘uman wordss. We sense dangerr, we say we sniff it out with our nosess, even when there iss no actual scent there.”

Eve did not quite understand, but she chose to keep quiet, especially since Wolruf, assuming the role of scout, now sprinted ahead of the group.

“Adam?” Eve said.

“Yes?”

“Is this a strange place, this Robot City?”

“In my limited experience, where every place I have seen is strange to me, this one is, too.”

The glimmering light shone from an open area in between two tall buildings. Gesturing the three robots to stay put, Wolruf edged along the front of the building until she came to its comer. Looking around it, she saw that the light came from a bonfire in the middle of a vacant lot. Gathered around the flames doing an odd, jerky dance was a crowd of small creatures. Because the fire cast distorting shadows, she could not easily focus on the figures. Yet she was sure they were shaped like humans, but much more diminutive.

At first she thought they might be a group of children. Then a few danced into a clear patch of light. Wolruf saw that not only were they even smaller than she had thought, they were also not children. One male had a beard, a female had quite fully developed (in miniature) breasts, another had an aged, deeply lined face. Definitely not children. They were adults. Tiny, tiny adults.

The Watchful Eye no longer knew what to think about the new arrivals. Such contradictory behavior, it thought. The one called Ariel seemed all right, except when she decided to be affectionate with Derec. Derec cried and nearly murdered the new individual, Avery. Avery stomped around like a caged animal. Who were these creatures?

It knew from its earlier research that Avery might be the creator of Robot City, but the doctor’s behavior was so erratic that the Watchful Eye did not want to make contact with him. If Avery discovered it here in its safe haven, there was no telling what he might do.

Now, to further complicate matters, the second group had come upon one of the Watchful Eye’s Master Experiments. Series C, Batch 4, one of its better efforts. A failure like the rest, yes, but an interesting failure at least. Like some of the other humanic substitutes, they had developed a rudimentary society. Although none of these batches had contributed the insights about the Laws of Humanics that the Watchful Eye sought, they had, by banding together and rapidly evolving a few customs, provided an abundance of useful data about cultural tendencies.

Because there was so much for it to consider, the Watchful Eye now chose to retreat into its stasis state. In stasis, it shut off its senses so that it could concentrate exclusively on problems, this time the new and altered situations brought into its hermetic world by the intruders. It wanted to analyze how they would affect its overall existence and whether it would have to take any action against them. Before settling itself back into its safe haven, it sent out messages to its spies, Bogie and Timestep, instructing them to signal it if a new crisis developed. When that was done, it snuggled down into the haven, curled up into an embryonic state, and disconnected all sensory networks. Immediately it was welcomed into the calm comfort of nothingness, a place where it sometimes yearned to be forever.

“Well, we’re on our own for a while, kid,” Bogie commented after acknowledging the Watchful Eye’s message. “The Big Muddy’s spoke.”

“Big Muddy?” Timestep said. “Is that a proper name for-”

“Let me put it this way, pal. I wouldn’t speak it if the Big Muddy was looking over my shoulder.”

Timestep did a little clog routine from one of the dance tapes he’d studied.

“Nice moves, Tip-tap!”

“It’s Timestep.”

“You say so, Tip-tap.”

“What are we supposed to do now?”

“Keep tabs on Dick and Jane up there, send the Big Muddy signals if they get up to somethin’ it should know about.”

“What are they doing now?”

“Friend Tip-tap, we’ll just draw the curtain across that little scene.”

“All right. Then we should just stand here and wait for something to happen?”

“‘bout the size of it, big boy.”

They stood silently for a long while, a pair of silvery statues streaked with blue in the dim, reflected light at the foot of the Compass Tower.

“Bogie?”

“Yeah, kid?”

“Who is the Big Muddy?”

“Don’t know. Just the boss, far’s I know.”

“Have you seen it?”

“Nope. Nobody has, far’s I know.”

“Why has it taken over Robot City?”

“Beats me. Place has certainly changed since it breezed in, though.”

“I don’t feel comfortable about that. A while ago I had a safe, normal routine. Every day I did my job. I never questioned whether or not to do it. Then the Big Muddy came, and before I knew it, I had walked off the job. That’s when I found out I was a dancer. The Big Muddy told me.”

“Yep. Same for me. I had a compulsion to examine old movies, came from Big Muddy. I don’t mind it, though. There’s a lot of truth in flickerdom, kid. I’ve copped much more about human life now. You don’t trust society broads and you don’t rat on a partner, stuff like that. The flicks’ve helped me to see the vast potential of the humans we serve. I’ll be a better robot because of them.”

“You confuse me, Bogie. I am not certain all this is right. Once we were building and maintaining Robot City; now almost everything about the city has stopped. We are the servants of the Big Muddy now.”

“Maybe this burg needed a rest, kiddo. You worry too much. Dump it in a grocery cart and carry it out to the parking lot. We’ve got a job to do right now. Let’s do it.”

“Do you think the city looks the way it used to?”

“No, it don’t. But, like they say, that’s Chinatown, Jake.”

Timestep couldn’t understand half of what Bogie said, but he chose now to keep still until something happened.

A long time passed and nothing happened.

Finally he said, “I cannot stand still this way. I’ve got to dance.”

In the few pools of light, Timestep’s dance became a silhouette of a slow tap. He moved from one lighted area to another. Bogie, who’d seen some dancing in movies, judged that a human would have probably found the robot’s little routine bizarre, since it was tap dancing without music. The clunking noises as his feet made contact with the pavement echoed through the long street. They were grating sounds. Timestep should hire himself a band, Bogie thought.

Now that night had fallen, the darkness inside the Compass Tower office seemed total to Ariel. She stuck her head out from beneath the blanket and could not discern anything. After blinking her eyes a few times, however, details of the room appeared to emerge from the blackness.

“It’s eerie,” she whispered.

Derec, who had nearly fallen asleep, was startled awake and asked, “What did you say?”

“Eerie, the darkness in here. I mean, the room. Usually all those view-screens are on, transmitting scenes from the outside world.”

“They are on. There’s just so little light out there, you can hardly tell.” He sat up. “But it is awfully dark. Let’s take a better look.”

After adjusting their clothing, Derec led Ariel to the desk that dominated one side of the room. Flicking on a small desk lamp (it had been so dark, even that flimsy light pained her eyes), he pulled out the slab of controls from its position just beneath the desk blotter. Sitting down, Derec worked the controls, searching for clearer pictures or any kind of image that would be displayed recognizably on a view-screen. Most of the screens remained shadowy. Here and there they could see the shapes of buildings, sometimes a few dim stars in the sky.

He pointed one camera downward, and it picked up the pools of light near the Compass Tower. They came, he saw, from some light bands in a building across the way. Apparently the lighting system there had not broken down.

“Look there.” He pointed to the view-screen. “Something’s happening down there.” He zoomed in on the movement, enlarging the image until they could plainly see Timestep doing his dance. The robot, with a movement approaching grace, leaped from pool to pool. Derec turned up the volume on the sound pickup, and they could hear the hollow, plaintive, echoing, tapping sounds.

“Weird,” Ariel said. “Do you think that’s the dancer we met?”

“Looks like him.”

Timestep stretched his arms outward and tapped to the left, then he shuffled a bit and made the same move to the right.

“It’s not like human dancing,” Ariel said, “but it has its own elegance, its own special grace. You know, once-when I was about twelve or thirteen-I was given an old mechanical toy, some kind of precursor to robots, perhaps, but really just a toy that was wound up and run. It was a little metal man in a harlequin costume, and it stayed in one place, a tiny pole running up its back. When it was switched on, it did this queer, floppy dance. Its legs bent in right angles at the knees, then came down and hit its pedestal a couple of times, then resumed its stance with the right-angled knees, then down again, and so forth. I was fascinated by it, played with it for hours. I liked it better than all the technologically fashionable toys that were arranged in clusters around my room. But I think my mother sneaked in when I was asleep and took it away. I don’t remember who gave it to me. Look at that.”

Timestep had executed an extravagantly long soft-shoe glide, coming to a stop beside another robot she hadn’t previously noticed.

“Say, that’s-what did he call himself?-Bogie, wasn’t it? What are those two doing down there?”

“I don’t know, but it seems terribly coincidental that the two of them should wind up together and right near the Compass Tower entrance, don’t you think?”

“Maybe. I wish Timestep’d dance again. He couldn’t possibly be tired.”

“What did you get out of it? The dance, I mean. It might be a bit unusual, but it was just a robot dancing. They can do anything they’re programmed to do.”

“Don’t be so pragmatic. There was a beauty in his dance.”

“Only in your mind. A human doing the same dance with about the same ability, you’d find him awkward and minimally talented. That robot is about the same as the famous talking dog. It’s that he does it at all that’s amazing, but there was nothing remotely beautiful about it.”

Ariel muttered, “Have it your way, Mr. Critic-at-large.” She walked away a few steps, then whirled around to say, “But I liked it!”

Derec was used to Ariel being touchy on occasion, so he shrugged and said, “I’m sorry. Just my opinion. Let’s go down and pay these fellows a visit.”

“It’s not necessary.”

“C’mon. Maybe Timestep does encores.”

The three robots and Wolruf stayed outside the perimeter of the tiny creatures’ encampment. After a flurry of interest in the intruders, the small people had turned their attention back to their ritual by the bonfire. There was a definite pattern to the ritual. First they circled the fire in a line, each creature keeping a hand on the shoulder of the individual in front of it. Then they broke up into couples and performed a dance that featured a complicated but rhythmic sequence of high kicks. The kick dance was followed by a synchronized turning toward the fire, the move accompanied by a high pitched wail. Wolruf was reminded of the noises of a high-flying bird-like species from her home planet.

When the moaning had reached its loudest point, it stopped abruptly, and several of the small people dropped quickly to the ground. The ones left standing picked up their fallen comrades and dragged them away from the fire. After pulling them a short distance, they began arranging them in a number of piles. The wailing resumed, then the standing people clapped their hands three times, and the fallen bodies stirred and got to their feet. A short frenetic dance that looked like celebration followed. After that, another group took its place around the fire and executed the same ritual, step by step.

“It is strange,” Eve commented.

“What does the ritual mean?” Adam asked.

“I would speculate that it has something to do with death and resurrection,” Mandelbrot said.

“Why do ‘u say that?” Wolruf asked.

“Some information about such rituals on other planets that I have stored in my memory banks. The rite here suggests that some of them die, the ones piled up, and then are in some way resurrected. The reason for resurrection is not clear to me. To understand, I am afraid we would have to observe their culture at length.”

“I would like to do that,” Eve said. “They, too, seem to be human, Adam. Perhaps they would supply some data for our quest.”

“Perhaps.”

“But we have to meet Derrec and Arriel at the towerr,” Wolruf said.

“You two go ahead,” Eve suggested. “We will follow soon.”

“What will ‘u do?” Wolruf asked.

“Nothing dangerous, I assure you. I just wish to study them a while.”

“It would be best if you continued on with us,” Mandelbrot said.

“No,” Wolruf said, “ ‘u know these two. They get idea, ‘u can’t stop them.”

If Mandelbrot had been a nodder, he would have nodded. He and Wolruf quickly left the lot, heading toward the Compass Tower.

A moment later, Eve crossed into the area where the tiny creatures were busy with their ritual. They didn’t seem to notice her. Adam followed. They stepped carefully, putting their feet down only in clear areas. This kind of walking was easier for a robot than it would have been for a human. If there had been any danger of Eve or Adam putting their feet down upon one of the tiny creatures, they would have sensed it quickly and been able to balance on one leg for as long as it took until a safe step could be ventured.

When they were near the fire, Eve said, “They seem intelligent. Can we talk to them, do you think?”

“We can try, Eve.”

She crouched down, getting her head as low as she could without falling over. Reflected light from the bonfire seemed to move like the tiny dancers across her silvery surface.

“Hello,” she said.

Some of the dancers looked at her. They stopped, stood still, and stared up at her. “Can you understand me?”

They said nothing. A tiny, prettily formed woman stepped forward. She had large bulging eyes and a swelling by her right ear. Eve expected her to say something, but she did not. She merely scrutinized her visitor, a quizzical expression on her face.

“I am Eve.”

The small woman made some odd sounds in her throat and pointed up at Eve. Three others joined her, another woman and two men. They all appeared amused. The woman with the large eyes began jumping up and down, her odd raspy sounds getting louder. The trio behind her laughed merrily. One slapped his knee. Then they all began talking, if that’s what the chattering sounds they emitted were.

“There seems to be a language,” Adam said.

“Maybe we can learn it.”

Saying hello again, Eve reached out her hand toward the small woman, who, scared, took some steps backward. Then she appeared to get control of herself. She turned her back on Eve and resumed her place in the bonfire ritual. The other three followed her. Soon none of them were paying any attention to the gigantic silver intruder who hovered above them. The ritual appeared to get fiercer each time they repeated it.

Eve stood up and walked past the fire. Many of the small people were gathered in a corner of the lot, working furiously. She had to squat down again to see what they were doing. When she saw what it was, she called out to Adam to come and view it for himself.

Gesturing for him to hunch down beside her, she indicated the group in the corner.

“What are they doing, Eve?”

“Look. There are rows and rows of these small creatures on the ground there. Beyond that, there are more of them in piles.”

“Like the dance?”

“No, not like the dance. The ones in this pile are dead, Adam. The others are burying them in the ground, but there are too many dead ones and they are not able to keep up the pace. Look, over there, more are being carried here.”

From all points of the lot, it seemed, surviving creatures were hauling their dead compatriots to the burial ground. There was a slow rhythm to the way they walked, as if it, too, were part of the bonfire ritual. Eve noted that there was no human emotion on their faces. They were merely burying their dead methodically.

When each corpse had been covered over, the gravediggers turned to the next tiny plot of land and dug a hole for the next in line.

“Adam, I think there’s something wrong here. They are dying out, all of them. They will all be gone shortly. Yet I detect no signs of disease. No, it is more like they are just wearing out. Derec told us nothing of these creatures.”

“I do not understand, Eve.”

“I surmise that they did not exist a short time ago, when Derec and Ariel were first here. They have only existed for a short time, and now they are dying out. I suspect there is something sad in that.”

She turned her head and saw that one of the corpses now being conveyed to the burial ground was the small woman with the bulging eyes.

Even when he stood still, Timestep’s left foot kept tapping from side to side. Bogie recalled a character in a movie who had performed the same movement at the beginning of a dance number. He could not remember specifically because he rarely watched musicals, much preferring the mystery and action films that were so well represented in the Robot City Film and Tape Archives.

He was about to suggest that one of them should again station himself in the hallway outside the office when he heard the last few soft treads of Ariel and Derec as they came to the outer door of the Compass Tower. As Bogie glanced toward the tower, he saw the door beginning to form itself before letting them exit.

“Run,” he said to Timestep, “they’re coming out.”

They both started clanking up the street, but the Second Law of Robotics, that they must obey an order coming from a human being, made them stop running when Derec yelled for them to stop. As Derec and Ariel walked up to them, Timestep’s foot resumed its slow tapping movement.

“You two, you’re spying on us,” Derec said. His voice has assumed the firmness that humans often used when addressing robots. “Why?”

“We are not allowed to tell that,” Bogie said. “It is a confidential order.”

“From whom?”

“We are not allowed to tell you that.”

“Another one of your infernal blocks?”

“Yes.”

“It’s my father,” Derec said angrily. “Only he would think up tricks like this.”

“I still disagree,” Ariel said. “His tricks would be even more diabolical.”

“And there’s no way I can remove these blocks right now?”

“Only the one who put them there may remove them.”

“Did a human put them there?”

“I cannot say.”

“You cannot say because you don’t know or because my father put in those blocks?”

“I cannot say because I am prevented from saying.”

“Nice try,” Ariel whispered, “trying to trick him into admitting your father’s the perpetrator.”

“Well, tricks like that sometimes work, Ariel.”

“I know, you’ve been around the block a few times.”

Derec was about to continue his interrogation of Bogie when Mandelbrot and Wolruf rounded a corner and headed toward them at a fast pace. Wolruf was loping on all fours, as she sometimes did when she was tired. Since she stayed beside Mandelbrot, keeping at his pace, they looked like a man and his dog out for a stroll-if you didn’t look too closely.

“Where’re our two mischief-makers?” Derec asked when they reached him.

“A good question,” Wolruf said. She explained how they had left the Silversides behind to study the creatures they’d discovered, and she was surprised to see Derec’s eyes light up with interest. He turned to Ariel and said excitedly, “These may be more of the same pests that attacked us in that building. Let’s go see.”

“Good idea. Anyway, it’s never wise to leave Adam and Eve alone anywhere they could cause trouble.”

They started down the street, the way Mandelbrot and Wolruf had come. The alien and the ever-loyal robot walked right behind them. After a few steps, Derec glanced back at Bogie and Timestep.

“Hey,” he called back to them, “you’re going to follow us and spy on us anyway, you two. You might just as well come along with us.”

It was probably his imagination, but it seemed to Derec as if the two spies began their walk toward him with some eagerness in their stride.