Intruder

Chapter 9. Trouble Right Here In Robot City

Even though Wolruf had described the vacant lot’s strange colony to him, Derec was unprepared for what they found there.

First, the bonfire had gone out. It now smoldered pathetically, a few wisps of smoke rising from what proved to be some type of synthetic wood. The wood, now a jumbled pile of charred curls, gave off a strong chemical odor that reminded Ariel of a broken-down food synthesizer, never one of her favorite smells.

Next, Derec saw the dancers. They were still a circle, but no longer moving. They were on the ground, some face down, some face up, their hands still joined, but clearly dead. Their bodies had not been moved because the carriers and the gravediggers had died out now. As he walked around the yard, he had to step over more than a hundred undersized corpses.

Finally, he saw Adam and Eve at the half-completed graveyard. Eve was delicately picking up the creatures’ bodies, one by one, and placing them in a row of graves she had quickly dug with her hands. It was an odd action, Derec thought, one that seemed to indicate compassion on her part. While she could have some understanding of human feelings, he thought it doubtful she could feel such compassion herself.

Still, Adam and Eve were a new breed of robot, one that had appeared as if by magic on two planets now (Adam having found Eve on the blackbodies’ planet after himself coming into sudden existence on the planet of the wolflike creatures, the kin), and so anything was possible. The way the Silversides kept surprising him, he might never get a fix on them. Perhaps they were indeed the prototypes for emotional robots, a concept that did not correspond with Derec’s present knowledge of robotics.

“Where did they come from?” Ariel said, looking down at the many bodies.

“I don’t know. They seem to be one more thing that’s gone wrong with the city.”

“Are they the same ones who attacked us in the warehouse?”

“Maybe. Or that might have been another bunch.”

Ariel shuddered. “You mean they may be allover the city, living in open spaces or dark places like rodents?”

“Rodent may not be the proper analogy. They do seem to have been human or humanlike. What do you think, Adam? Eve?”

Adam was holding one of the little corpses in his left hand while he poked at it with a finger of his right. The figure appeared to be a gaunt young man with a short beard. His body was extremely thin.

Adam, while still strongly resembling Derec, had taken on some of the corpse’s appearance. His face had thinned and there was a hint of metallic bristles on his chin. He seemed to have grown taller and slimmer, also.

“They seem to be miniature versions of humans, inside and out,” Adam observed. “I sense a musculature, a bloodstream, arteries and veins, small fragile bones.”

“Bound to seem fragile. Anyone of us could crush anyone of them.”

“Do you have to say things like that?” Ariel said.

“Sorry, thought you were tougher.”

She looked ready to slug him for making that remark.

“Since when does good taste indicate weakness? Huh, Derec, huh?”

“Okay, you made your point. I’m a bit dense when my world is disrupted this violently, okay?”

She touched his cheek with the back of her hand. Her touch was so gentle, he immediately wished he could devote all his time and energies to her.

“Adam,” he said, “you seem to have imprinted partially on the corpse. Have you learned anything from that?”

“Only that I cannot do it very well. Before it died, I started to study it. I found I couldn’t imprint on it successfully. It was as if there was very little life in it when it was alive.”

Derec nodded. “Well, it was already dying perhaps.”

“Yes, but it was more than that, Master Derec. There was simply very little awareness inside here.” He held out the corpse. Derec flinched a bit. The corpse’s tiny, delicate face was twisted in pain. “The impression I had was similar to what I have received from small animals. What I concluded was that they resembled humans but were not human.”

“I do not agree,” Eve said. Adam looked toward her. Derec wondered if Adam could possibly feel the discomfort that he always felt when Ariel challenged his opinion. There was a sense of competitiveness between him and Ariel that sometimes interfered with their ability to communicate. But Adam and Eve should not, as robots, have that kind of communication difficulty, and there was no reason for them to compete with each other.

“We saw very little of them,” Eve explained, “but there was a definite society here. They interacted with each other, joined in a complex ritual together, did indeed combine together into a sort of colony. They had a need to dispose of their dead. Are not these proofs that they had at least a rudimentary society?”

“She’s got a point there,” Ariel observed.

Derec glanced at Eve. Her face seemed to alter slightly, becoming even more like Ariel’s whenever Ariel talked.

“What matters right now,” he said, “is not what they were, but why they were here.”

“Do you have any answers?” Ariel asked.

“Not many. Only my father. These creatures may be the result of some lousy experiment he’s done down in his mysterious underground laboratory. He’s let them loose to-to do I don’t know what. With him how can you-”

“Let’s not give you too much rope to hang yourself with,” Avery said, as he strolled into the lot, again emerging from some dark place. “Yes, don’t say it, son-your old dad was eavesdropping again. I would have remained hidden, but I’m tired of your trying to hang the blame on me for everything that goes wrong here. After all, you’re the one in charge, Derec. Try considering it could be you who’s to blame.”

“I haven’t even been here since-”

“I know, I know. And of course you’re not at fault. But I was away, too, remember.” He sauntered around the lot, examining the ugly scene. “This place was once a small park as I recall. I remember programming these for the city, soil and all. I never expected the dirt to be used for burials.” He wrinkled his nose. “They’re decaying at an above-normal rate, these corpses.” He reached down, picked up one of the bodies. “Interesting workmanship,” he muttered.

Ariel charged forward, angry. “Workmanship! How can you-”

“How can I analyze this dead thing so coldly? Objectivity. I am a scientist, my dear. It’s my mind-set, if you will. Anyhow, this was not a true living being. Although realistic and cleverly designed, with a great deal of genetic accuracy, I suspect this is merely an android, a kind of dime-story copy of a humaniform robot, with admirably realistic detail.”

Ariel thought of Jacob Winterson and how he was just as “dead” as the tiny body Avery held so casually in his hand. “I don’t believe you,” she said, although to herself she admitted the doctor might be right.

“Well, my dear, of course I can’t be sure. I admit I can detect no mechanisms in this particular miniature. But a well-crafted miniature has to be what this is. Do you know about miniatures in art? They’re quite wonderful. On a small surface, sometimes made of vellum, sometimes ivory or copper, the artist would render exquisitely detailed little landscapes or portraits or whatever. Often the painting was done with the patient strokes of a single-strand brush. The details might astound you. You’d swear that you were looking at an intricate painting that had been mechanically reduced or done with microsopic brushes.”

“What was the point of them? I mean, why choose a small area when you could have a whole canvas?”

“Perhaps the challenge, perhaps the artistry of working on a small scale, or perhaps commercial motives. You see, miniatures were often encased in jewelry-lockets and such-and so a pretty penny could also be earned from such a specialized craft. When photography came in, and you could place a small photo in a locket, the need for miniatures diminished and painters had to look elsewhere for pla(;es to cash in on their talents”

“You sound bitter, Dr. Avery,” Ariel said. “As if you were an artist yourself.”

“I am, in a way. I started out as an architect, and architecture, when done right, is an art form, too. Robot City was my masterpiece-until my son allowed it to get out of hand.”

“Don’t say that!” Derec shouted. “It wasn’t my fault, what happened to the city.”

“I didn’t mean to say it was. All I meant is that it is your responsibility. Please excuse me now. I want to get this specimen to a laboratory to examine it before it is fully decayed.”

Holding the tiny figure aloft, the way he might have held a beaker with volatile contents, Avery rushed off the lot. Derec, his eyes glowering, stared after him.

“Don’t let him get to you,” Ariel said.

“He hasn’t gotten to me,” Derec said sullenly.

“Sure, and this place doesn’t stink. Let’s get out of here.”

Derec and Ariel led an entourage that included Wolruf, Mandelbrot, Adam, Bogie and Timestep out of the lot. Eve insisted on staying behind to finish the burials. Although Derec found her behavior peculiar, especially for a robot, he did not argue with her. There were, after all, more important problems to occupy his mind, and anyway, the task would keep her out of trouble for a while.

When he looked back at her, she was gently placing a body into a minuscule grave in the delicate way a child might put a doll into a toy crib.

Bogie and Timestep took up the rear of the bizarre little march through the dark city streets.

“Hey, kid,” Bogie said, “whattaya make o’ that scene back there?”

“I did not know I was supposed to interpret it,” Timestep said. “None of the humans made that request of me.”

“Yeah, I know. But I just wanna know about these little people so we can figure out our duties if we ever meet any live ones. Are they human and covered by the Laws, or what? After all, these guys don’t seem to know what they are. If they’re human, they’re our concern, too, right?”

“It would seem so.”

“On the other hand, if their fate is inevitable, as Derec and the others seem to be saying, there’s not much we can actually do for them. If they live a very short time then pop off, no interference or help on our part is going to stave off their destiny. Then we may not have to help, except perhaps to protect them from immediate dangers.”

“That may be true.”

“So what do we do?”

“I don’t know.”

“Me neither. We’ll have to wait and see, just chug on up the river and hope the leeches don’t suck us dry.”

“Well, one good thing,” Ariel said, “the city is more peaceful this way. Remember how there used to be a hum of activity even in the dead of night? All these anomalies may be beneficial.”

“Ariel, the city is decaying, and fast, just like those corpses. It’ll be-”

“Hey, lighten up. I wasn’t serious.” They walked almost a block in sullen silence before she spoke again. “Don’t take everything on your shoulders, Derec. The city is important to me, too-as are our lives, as you are.”

Without breaking stride, he took her hand and held it. In response, she squeezed his.

“Your father’s not looking too well,” she said a few steps later.

“An understatement if I ever heard one.”

“He’s your father. I’m a bit hesitant to come right out and say he’s bonkers. But he is. Somebody should talk to him, try to help him.”

Derec stopped walking and smiled, slyly. “Would you like that job?”

She wasn’t prepared for the question or the challenge contained in it, but after a moment of consideration she said, “Yes. Yes, I would.”

“It’s yours then. Catch him if you can.”

“I’ll find a way.”

“I bet you will.”

After they had proceeded a little farther, their steps clicking hollowly on the pavement and the city seeming to envelop them from above, Derec said, “I’ve been thinking. The taming of Adam and Eve is the main reason we returned to Robot City, and we’ve lost sight of it. But I’ve got to work out what’s wrong here.” He stopped walking again, took both her hands in his. “ Ariel, will you take charge of the Silversides, see what you can do to, well, civilize them? With your psychological expertise, perhaps you can figure out how to get into the minds of these new-styled robots. I know they’re a mystery to me.”

“Sure, I’ll do it. You knew I would. Any other miracles you’d like me to perform today?”

He smiled. “That’ll be sufficient for now, thank you very much.”

“What are you going to do in the meantime?”

“I’m not sure. Seems to me the clue to the anomalies has to be in the computer somewhere. I think Mandelbrot and I will take a trip down to the central core, see if we can detect anything. I’ll take these two with me, too.”

He gestured toward Bogie and Timestep, both of whom had also stopped walking, while staying a precise two steps behind. If he had looked closely, Derec might have noticed that Bogie stood oddly, the slightly tilted stance that robots sometimes adopted when they were in communication with each other.

“Do you think a tap-dancer and a wise-cracker can help? I mean, as robots go, they’re weird. Talk about your anomalies…”

“By the same token, I don’t particularly want them out of my sight.”

“Gotcha, hot-shot.”

“Your language is deteriorating. If you don’t watch out, you’ll sink to Bogie’s level.”

“Hope not, kiddo.”

“Stop.”

They agreed to keep each other informed on the progress of their tasks. Ariel told Wolruf and Adam to come with her, and Derec continued on, the silent Mandelbrot at his side, and Bogie and Timestep trailing after.

As soon as Bogie heard that Derec intended to travel down to computer level, where he knew the Watchful Eye was, he obeyed its instructions to rouse it if there were any danger. The signal (“This is your wake-up call, pal.”) was sent, and the Watchful Eye came abruptly to consciousness.