Suspicion

Chapter 7. One-One

Katherine’s first thought had been that it was a monument, but then she realized there were no monuments on Robot City. It was set on a narrow pedestal about one hundred feet in the air. Located in the middle of a block, the city had simply built itself around the object in a semicircle, leaving it set apart from all other structures by a gap of fifty feet. She had spent several hours walking the changing topography of Robot City without success, but she stopped the moment she came upon this place. If she wanted to compare the workings of the living city to a human body, this room atop the pedestal was like a wound, sealing itself off with scar tissue to protect it from the vital workings of the rest of the body.

It was no more than a room. Katherine stood at ground level staring up at the thing. A box, perhaps five meters square, totally enclosed. The robots took the workings of their city for granted and simply accepted this anomaly. To the creative eye, it stuck out like a solar eclipse on a bright afternoon.

Katherine continued to stare up at it because she didn’t want to lose it. Even now, the city continued to move, to grow before her eyes, and as the buildings turned in their slow waltz of life, she turned with them, always keeping the room within her vision. Eve, meanwhile, was trying to round up a supervisor who could effect a means of getting inside the structure and checking it out.

During the course of this excursion, Katherine had begun to develop a grudging respect for the workings of the city. Obviously, things were not going well right now, but in the long run such a system could be quite beneficial to the humans and robots who inhabited it. The safety factor alone made the system worthwhile. Derec’s harrowing ride down through the aqueduct resulted in nothing more than fatigue and a few bruises, all because the system itself was trying to protect him. To Katherine’s mind, such a journey on Aurora would have caused Derec’s death. She smiled at the thought of a Derec-proof city.

She’d also had time, while waiting for Eve to reach a supervisor, to notice the changes taking place around her. She felt as if she were visiting a resort at the tail end of the off season, all the seasonal workers arriving and getting the place shipshape for the influx of visitors. Clocks were being installed in various parts of the city, and street signs were beginning to go up. The largest change taking place, however, was the increased production and distribution of chairs. Robots had no need for sitting or reclining, and chairs were at a premium; but as they tried to make their city as welcome as possible for humans, they worked diligently to do things just right, despite the fact that the city’s emergency measures were forcing many of them into extra duty. She wondered if she’d be this gracious if it were her city. The thought humbled her a bit.

Despite the differences, despite the bind the robots had put them in, they really were trying to make this world as perfect as they could for the travelers, travelers whom they suspected of murder. She had never before considered just how symbiotic the binding of humans to robots really was and, at least for the robots, how essential. She hoped that they would, eventually, have their civilization, complete with humans to order them around stupidly. She found herself smiling again. Her mother had a phrase that could apply to the robots’ longing for human companionship-a glutton for punishment.

She heard a noise behind her and turned, expecting to see a supervisor arriving. Instead she saw two utility robots moving toward her, carrying between them what looked for all the world like a park bench. Without a word, they moved right up to her and placed the bench just behind. She sat, and they hurried off.

She sat for barely a decad before Arion came clanking around a corner, along with a utility robot with a bulky laser torch strapped on his back. It took her back for a second, a seeming replay of the scene Eve had described to her when David had first become trapped in the sealed room.

“Good afternoon, Friend Katherine,” Arion said as he moved up to her. “I see you are taking advantage of one of our chairs to rest your body. Very good.”

“What’s that on your wrist,” Katherine asked, “a watch?”

The supervisor held up his arm, displaying the timepiece. “A show of solidarity,” he said.

“You’re in charge of human-creative functions on Robot City, aren’t you?” she asked.

“Human-creative is a redundant term,” Arion replied. “Creativity is the human stock-in-trade. I hope you’ve found satisfactory the entertainments I’ve provided for you.”

“We’ll talk about that later,” she answered.

“Of course.”

“I thank you for coming so promptly,” Katherine said.

“This is a priority matter,” the robot said, gazing up at the sealed room. “You believe this to be the location of the body?”

“I’m certain of it.”

“Very good. Let’s take a closer look.”

Katherine stood and walked to the base of the tower with Arion. The pedestal was approximately the size of a large tree trunk, just large enough that she could almost reach around it if she tired. Arion reached out and touched the smooth, blue skin, and magically a spiral staircase with railing jutted from the surface and wound around the exterior of the tower.

“After you,” the robot said politely.

Katherine started up, the design of the staircase keeping her from any sense of vertigo. As she climbed, she could feel that the air was cooling down, the presage to another night of destructive rain. Behind her, Arion, the utility robot, and the witness followed dutifully, and she realized that she was in the lead because it was the natural position for her in regard to this inquiry. This was her notion, her case-the robots at this point were merely her willing cohorts. Finally, she could give orders again and have them carried out!

She reached the top quickly. The flat disc of the pedestal top curled up and inward all around to make it impossible for her to fall off. That left the room itself. Uncolored, it was a natural gray-red and perfectly square. She walked completely around it looking for entry, but her first assessment had been correct: it was locked up tight.

“What do you propose at this point?” Arion asked her, as he followed her around the perimeter of the room.

“We’re going to have to get inside,” she said, “and see what there is to see. I suppose there’s no other way to get in except by using the torch?”

“Normally, this situation would never arise,” Arion told her. “There are no other buildings in the city that behave like this. There is no reason to seal up a room.”

“You mean you don’t know why or how the rooms have sealed themselves up?”

“The city program was given to us intact through the central core, and only the central core contains the program information. Other than through observation, we don’t know exactly how the city operates.”

Katherine was taken aback. “So, the city is actually a highly advanced autonomous robot in its own right, operating outside of your control.”

“Your statement is basically inaccurate, but containing the germ of truth,” Arion said. “To begin with, it is not highly advanced, at least not in the same sense that a… supervisor robot, for example, is highly advanced.”

“Do I detect a shade of rivalry here?” she asked.

“Certainly not,” Arion said. “We are not capable of such feelings as competitiveness. I was simply stating a known fact. Furthermore, the city’s autonomy is tied directly to the central core. Although it does, in fact, operate outside of supervisor control.”

“Can you affect the city program, then?”

“Not directly,” Arion said, running his pincers up and down the contours of the building as if checking for openings. “The central core controls the city program, and the supervisors do not make policy by direct programming.”

“I think I’m beginning to truly understand,” Katherine said, motioning for the robot with the torch to come closer. “The data contained in the central core is the well from which your entire city springs. All of your activities here are merely an extension of the programming contained therein, for good or ill.”

“We are robots, Friend Katherine,” Arion said. “It could not be otherwise. Robots are not forces of change, but merely extensions of extant thought. That is why we so desperately need the companionship of humans.”

“Cut here,” Katherine said pointing to the wall, and the utility robot waited until she had backed away to a safer distance before charging the power packs and moving close with the nozzle-like hose that was the business end of the laser torch. She turned to Arion. “Does cutting through the wall like this break contact with the main program?”

“No,” the robot answered as the torch came on with a whine, its beam invisible as a small section of the wall glowed bright red, smoking slightly. “The synapses simply reroute themselves and make connection elsewhere.”

There was a sound of suction as the torch broke through to the other side of the wall, a sound that any Spacer knew well, the rushing of air into a vacuum. The room had sealed totally and airlessly. The torch moved more quickly now, cutting a circular hole just large enough for a human being to get through without working at it.

The edges tore jaggedly, the walls that seemed so fluid under program fighting tenaciously to hold together otherwise. Despite Arion’s claims, Katherine was still the city-robot.

The welder was halfway done, pulling down the jagged slab of city as he cut. Katherine had to fight down the urge to run up and peer through the opening already made, but her fear of the torch ultimately won out over her impatience.

“Are you capable of doing autopsies here?” she asked Arion as an afterthought.

“The medical programming is in existence, and at this very moment several medically trained robots are being turned out of our production facilities, along with diagnostic tables and a number of machines. Synthesized drugs and instruments are coming at a slower rate. So much of the city is geared toward building right now, and these considerations never became a problem for us until David’s death.”

“Done,” the utility robot said, the cut section falling to clang on the base disc.

“Witness!” Arion called, as Katherine hurried to the place and climbed through the hole.

The naked body lay, face down, in the middle of the floor. Katherine walked boldly toward it, then stopped, a hand going to her chest. She had been so intent upon fulfilling her mission that she had failed to consider that it was death-real death-she’d be dealing with. It horrified her. She began shaking, her heart rate increasing.

“Is something wrong?” Eve asked from the cut-out.

“N-no,” she replied, her eyes glued to the body, unable either to move forward or pull back.

“If there’s a problem,” she heard Arion say, “come out now. Don’t jeopardize yourself.”

Come on, old girl. Get yourself together.“I’m fine,” she said. You’ve got to do this. Don’t stop now.

She took a deep breath, then another, and continued her walk to the body. Bending, she touched it gingerly. The surface was cool, the muscles tight.

“Is everything all right?” Arion asked.

“Yes,” she said. Won’t they leave me alone?

There was no sign of decomposition, and she realized that it was because the room had been airless. At least that was something.

She examined the body from the back, her heart rate still up, her breath coming fast. Looking at the foot, she could see a small cut on the left instep and realized immediately what had caused it. Something stupid. Something she had done herself before. A misstep, perhaps a broken fall, and the bare feet came together, a too-long toenail on the other foot scraping the instep. It was nothing. There was some dried blood on the side and bottom of the foot, but that was it. She was going to have to roll the body over.

She moved to the side of the body, reaching out to try and turn it over, finding her hands shaking wildly. Will this be me soon-fifty kilos of dead meat? She tried to push the body onto its back, but there was no strength in her arms.

“Could you help me with this?” she called over her shoulder. Arion came through the cut-out to bend down beside her. She looked up at the nearly human-looking machine. “I want to roll it over.”

“Surely,” Arion said, reaching out with his pincers to push gently against the side of the body. It rolled over easily, dead eyes staring straight at Katherine.

She heard herself screaming from far away as the shock of recognition hit her. It was Derec! Derec!

The room began spinning as she felt it in her stomach and in her head. Then she felt the floor reach up and pull her down; everything else was lost in the numbing bliss of unconsciousness.

“Don’t try to leave without me to lead you!” Avernus called to Derec as the boy waded into the churning sea of robots. “You could become hopelessly lost in these tunnels.”

“Don’t worry!” Derec called back, thinking more about the danger of the main chamber than the labyrinthine caves.

He moved slowly through the throng, walking toward Rydberg. It was damp, musty in there, plus a bit claustrophobic, but Derec was so fascinated by the spectacle of the eleventh-hour plans that he never allowed his mind to dwell on the all-too-human problems of the location.

Rydberg saw him approaching, and turned to stare as Derec closed on him. He climbed atop the cart and joined the supervisor.

“What are you doing here?” Rydberg asked, the words crackling through the speaker atop his dome. “It is too dangerous underground for you.”

“I talked Avernus into bringing me down and protecting me,” Derec replied. “What’s going on here?”

“We’re trying to tunnel up to the reservoir,” Rydberg said. “We are trying to work out a way to drain off some of the reservoir into the deserted tunnels below to keep it from flooding.”

Derec felt an electric charge run through him. “That’s wonderful!” he yelled. “You’ve made a third-level connection-a creative leap!”

“It was only logical. Since the water was going to come into the mines anyway, it only made sense that we should try to direct it to parts of the mines that would cause the least amount of damage. Unfortunately, our estimates show such a move could only hold off the inevitable for a day or two longer. It may all be in vain.”

“Why are you digging by hand?” Derec asked. “Where are the machines?”

“They are tied up in the mining process,” Rydberg said. “The current rate of city-building must take precedence over all other activities.” The robot turned his dome to watch the excavations.

Derec put his hands on the robot’s arm. “But the city-building is what’s killing you!”

“It must be done.”

“Why?”

“I cannot answer that.”

Derec looked all around him, at the frantic rush of momentum, at a civilization trying to survive. No, they weren’t human, but it didn’t mean their lives weren’t worthwhile. What was the gauge? There was intelligence, and a concerted effort toward perfection of spirit. There was more worth, more human value here in the mines than in anything he had seen in his brief glimpse of humanity. And then it struck him, the reason for all of this and the reason for the state of emergency and security.

“It’s defensive, isn’t it?” he said. “The city-building is a way for the city to defend itself against alien invasion?”

Rydberg just stared at him.

He grabbed the robot’s arm again, tighter. “That is it, isn’t it?”

“I cannot answer that question.”

“Then tell me I am wrong!”

“I cannot answer that question.”

“I knew it,” he said, convinced now. “And if it coincided with David’s appearance in the city, then it is somehow tied to him. For once, Katherine’s in the right place.

“This whole thing is a central core program,” Derec said, “and obviously the program is in error. There must be some way you can circumvent it.”

“Robots do not make programs, Derec,” Rydberg said.

“Then let me into it!”

“I cannot,” Rydberg replied, then added softly. “I’m sorry.”

Derec just stared at him, wanting to argue him into compliance, and fearing that the argument would simply present the robot with a contradiction so vast it would freeze his mental facilities and lock him up beyond hope. He didn’t know where to go from here. He’d had a tantalizing glimpse of the problem, yet, like a holographic image, it still eluded his grasp.

“You still have not told me why you came down into the mines,” Rydberg said. “Humans have such a poor sense of personal danger that I fail to see how your species has survived to this point. If you cannot present me a compelling reason for your presence, I fear I must send you away now.”

“If humans have a poor sense of personal danger,” Derec said, angry at Robot City’s inability even to try to save itself, “then it has been justly inherited in your programming. I’ve come down to visit 1-1 on a matter not of your concern. Would you please point him out to me?”

“Our first citizen?” Rydberg said, and Derec could tell the robot wanted to say more. Instead, he turned up his volume. “WILL ROBOT 1-1 PLEASE COME FORWARD.”

Within a minute, a small, rather innocuous utility robot with large, powerful looking pincer grips moved up to the cart. “I am here, Supervisor Rydberg,” the robot said.

“Friend Derec wishes to speak with you on a personal matter,” the supervisor said. “Do as he asks, but do not take an excessive amount of time.”

Derec jumped off the cart. “I hear you were the first robot awakened on this planet,” he said.

“That is correct,” the robot said.

“Come with me,” Derec said. “Let’s get out of the confusion.”

They moved through the rapidly widening chamber to the place where Avernus had first dropped him. “I am searching through the origins of Robot City,” Derec said, “and that search has led me to you. You were the first.”

“Yes. Logical. I was the first.”

“I want you to tell me exactly what your first visual input was and what followed subsequently.”

“My first visual input was of a human arm connecting my power supply,” the robot said. “Then the human turned and walked away from me.”

“Did you see the human face?”

“No.”

“What happened then?”

“The human walked a distance from me, then disappeared behind some machinery meant to help in our early mining. I was to wait for one hour, then turn on the other inoperative robots in the area. Then we were to begin work, which we did.”

“Of what did that original work consist?”

“There were fifty utility, plus Supervisor Avernus. Twenty-five of us built the Compass Tower from materials left for us, while Supervisor Avernus and the other twenty-five began the design and construction of the underground facilities and commenced the mining operations.”

Derec was puzzled. “Avernus didn’t supervise the construction of the Compass Tower?”

“No. It was meant as a separate entity from the rest of the city. It was fully planned, fully materialized. There was no need for Supervisor Avernus to take an interest in it.”

Derec heard an engine noise and saw lights, far in the tunnel distance, gradually closing on his position. “What do you mean when you say it was ‘meant as a separate entity?’ ” Derec asked.

“The Compass Tower is unique in several respects, Friend Derec,” 1-1 said. “It is not part of the overall city plan in any respect; it has the off limits homing platform atop it; and it contains a fully furnished, human administration office.”

“What!” Derec said loudly, as he watched the mine tram rushing closer toward him in the tunnel. “An office for whom?”

“I do not know. Perhaps the person who awakened me.”

“You’ve never spoken of this with the supervisors?”

“No one has ever inquired before now.”

“Why did you call it the administration office?”

“The construction plans are locked within my data banks,” 1-1 answered. “That is what it was called on the plans.”

The tram car screeched to a halt right beside Darren, the huge bulk of Avernus stuffed in its front seat. “We must go,” the supervisor said.

“Just a minute,” Derec said. “Why did you call it a homing platform?”

“We must go now,” Avernus said.

“It was designed as a landing point of some kind,” 1-1 said. “Nothing is ever allowed on its surface, or within twenty meters of its airspace.”

Avernus took hold of Derec’s arm and gently, but firmly, turned him face to face. “We must go,” Avernus said. “Something has happened to Friend Katherine.”

Derec reeled as if he’d been hit. “What? What happened? Is she all right?”

“She is unconscious,” Avernus said. “Beyond that, we do not know.”