Intruder

Chapter 18. Avery Redux

Derec recognized the change in his father as soon as the man came into the room. Avery’s usually tense face, now drawn and tired with a sad darkness around his eyes, had relaxed. Its features were softer, and his eyes and mouth were not agitated by nervousness. Neither was his body. He moved with an uncharacteristic slowness. His fingers were still. That was the real oddity. His hands, usually so active, were not moving. Derec had become so used to the way Avery’s fingers drummed against things-furniture, his clothing-that their lack of movement was like a sudden silence in a jungle, too disturbing to cause calm.

Ariel looked a bit different, too, exhausted, eyelids drooping, mouth slack, no spring to her walk.

“Isn’t Wolruf with you?” Derec asked Ariel.

“She was, but she took off on her own. You know how she does.”

“I sent for her.”

“I don’t know anything about that.”

Derec nodded. His suspicions seemed confirmed. “I sent Bogie to bring her here, except that I don’t think it was really Bogie I sent.”

“What do you mean?”

He explained.

“You think somebody’s done something to Bogie?” Ariel asked.

“Possibly. Or it wasn’t Bogie at all.”

“How could that be?”

“I don’t know, but Timestep seemed to agree with me. He and Mandelbrot went after him.”

Avery, who had lingered at the door, stepped forward. “Maybe it was the individual you’ve been looking for. The one behind the city’s shutdown.”

Derec considered the possibility. “You may be right. It’s worth considering anyway. But could he disguise himself as Bogie?”

Avery shrugged. “When you don’t know the identity of your antagonist, there’s very little to conclude. We need hard evidence.”

“I heard that ‘we,’ “ Ariel said. “Does that mean you want to work with us?”

“It doesn’t mean anything,” Avery replied. “At least not what you insinuate. I may no longer believe I’m a robot, and you may be smug about how you prodded me back to normality with your cheap tricks and psychologizing, but it does not mean I am somehow, as your tone implied, your ally.”

“Well, pardon me,” Ariel said in mock anger. “Derec, I think the train’s returned to the station. Your father is his old self again.”

Derec didn’t know how much he could appreciate that. He had not liked Dr. Avery in their earlier encounters and didn’t relish having to deal closely with him again. And this was the man, after all, who had injected the chemfets into him, which had certainly turned out to be a mixed blessing. But Avery was also his father, and that had to count for something. If only the doctor would treat him like a son for a change.

“Well,” Derec said glumly, “we can use any help you might be able to give us.”

“Of course you could. The city is deteriorating. I’d want my help, too. I’d demand it. I didn’t put you in charge to oversee its decline and fall.”

Avery’s words stung Derec. It seemed as if the man was continually judging him, and finding him wanting.

“I think you two should get to know each other,” Ariel said. “You don’t need me around for that. I’m going to take a stroll. Perhaps I can find the missing Bogie. I mean, the real one.”

She walked out, an impish look on her face. She knew exactly what she was doing. The two Averys had to meet each other head to head, something neither of them could do with her around. She wasn’t sure why, but she thought something would have to happen between them, for good or ill.

After she left, Avery observed, “Well, your girlfriend’s ploy is quite obvious.”

“Stop! Don’t make her sound trivial by calling her my girlfriend.”

“Sorry. I thought you two were-”

“We are, but she means more to me than that.”

“I’ll choose better words. Do you like paramour, foxy lady, lollapalooza, some dish, the cat’s pyjamas, a tomato-”

“What are you talking about?”

“Just Earth slang. I’m a collector of ancient colloquialisms.”

“You told me something like that in a dream.”

“Did I?” Avery began to walk around the room slowly. He looked a bit more like his old self now, a shadow of it anyway. “Well, I don’t put much stock in dream mysteries. Symbols and clairvoyance and that sort of bilgewater scum. Buried in your brain somewhere, although you don’t remember it, you must remember observing me using the old slang terms.”

“Do you remember me observing you?”

Avery’s face softened. He looked almost kind.

“Yes. Many times. You used to come to my lab, sit on a high stool for hours, and watch me work. You not only picked up some of my scientific terminology, and probably my ancient lowdown slang, you were able to repeat a considerable number of my curses when you were a very young age. Embarrassed your mother no end-”

“My mother? She’s been in my dreams, too. She-”

“I don’t want to hear about your trivial dreams. You would probably assail me with sentimental theories, interpretations. I can do without psychobabble, believe me. Let’s get back to business, we-”

“No, wait. My mother, did she have blond hair, hazel eyes?”

Avery looked astonished. “Well, that’s true. I didn’t think you could, that is, I thought you had no memories of her.”

“No!”

The word was spoken so vehemently that Derec realized the subject must be difficult for him. Although he drew back from it, Derec had no intention of dropping it altogether. He would find out about her in any way he could.

“Was I a difficult child?” he asked instead.

Avery appeared ready to explode with anger.

“Can’t you get your bloody mind off nostalgic sentiment? We have to-no, wait, I’m sorry. I can be insensitive, I know that. It must be strange to you, having me as a father. I suppose an outsider might accuse me of having episodes of delusional paranoia, or perhaps intense megalomania. I hate such terms. Would-be interpreters of life hide behind words like that. Sometimes it seems that such words make them sound like they know something, instead of being the ignoramuses they are.”

Derec was confused by the changes in his father’s tone. He could sound like a normal father at one moment, even a rational human being, but then switch in mid-sentence to the sound of madness. Ariel’s treatment of him may have made him a more sensible human being, but clearly it had not completely cured him.

“Yes, Derec,” he said, his voice now eerily warm, “you had a more normal childhood than you suspect. Parents who doted on you and all that. You liked robots, and you picked up theories of robotics the way other children learn their letters and numbers. I helped you build your very own utility robot. You don’t remember Positron, do you?”

“No.”

He felt sad that he did not.

“That was the name you gave your robot. Of course, he was just a utility robot and didn’t even have a positronic brain, but I thought the name had a certain charm, and so I didn’t correct you. I suspect I didn’t have to correct you. Even that young, you probably knew what you were doing. You always know what you’re doing.”

“I wish that was true.”

“Isn’t it?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“Well, maybe the amnesia robbed you of some confidence, but you’re an Avery, as much as you resist the idea of being related to me. Itmay insult you for me to say it, but there are times when you do remind me of me.”

“It may surprise you for me to say it, but no, I’m not insulted. If I had your skills in robotics, I’d be, well, proud.”

Was it his imagination, Derec wondered, or did his father’s eyes momentarily glaze over? As he looked more closely into the man’s cool and detached eyes, he decided it must have been imagination.

“Well,” Avery finally said, “you’re pretty skilled in that area already. You may surpass me-and don’t say anything more about it now. We should pursue other subjects.”

“We will. Ina moment. I have to know one thing, then I’ll let you off the hook.”

“Just don’t mistake me for an affectionate father.”

“I could hardly do that.”

Avery had walked away from Derec, and his back was turned to him.

“You said we were once close,” Derec said. “Why did that change?”

The answer came out abruptly, bitterly.

“Your mother left me.”

“Tell me about her. “

“No.”

This time his “no” was spoken softly, but with no less firmness. Derec was going to have to work hard to find out anything about her, that was abundantly clear.

“Derec,” Avery said softly, “even talking with you is difficult for me. Don’t expect a plethora of revelations.”

Derec nodded. “All right, I won’t.”

He wondered if he should walk to his father, perhaps embrace him, perhaps ask him if they could start over, perhaps suggest that he would still like to sit on a high stool and watch Avery work.

He took one step toward his father but was interrupted by a noise at the door. Turning around, he saw Wolruf limp into the room. She was clearly on the point of collapsing.

Derec rushed to her and caught her before she fell. Gently he eased her to the floor and felt for her pulse. The slow rate of her pulse beneath her normally cold skin assured Derec that whatever injuries she may have sustained, she was alive and not in immediate danger.

Avery, reaching over his son’s shoulder, delicately spread areas of Wolruf’s fur apart. She winced with pain.

“There seems to be a bruise on her neck,” he said, “a big one.”

“He strruck me there,” Wolruf said in a raspy voice.

“Who?” Derec asked. “Who hit you?”

“The Bogie that iss not Bogie.”

“All right, Wolruf. I want you to tell me about it. But don’t strain your voice. Speak quietly, slowly.”

She explained what had happened when she had caught up with Bogie, and how Mandelbrot and Timestep had continued the chase.

“Okay,” Derec said when she finished, “you rest right here. We’ll get you to the medical facility as soon as we can.”

“No, Derrec. I will be fine ssoon. You have too much that’ss necessary to do now.”

“Well, we’ll see.”

Derec stood up and turned to his father, asking, “What do you make of it?”

“I have some suspicions, but you tell me what you think first.”

Derec felt an odd pride in the way Avery solicited his opinion, almost as if they were colleagues now.

“Well,” he said, “whoever attacked Wolruf, it wasn’t Bogie.”

“I agree, but why?”

“It simply wasn’t a Robot City robot. They are all programmed to accept her as a human. That is, although they know she is an alien, they are to apply the Laws of Robotics to her, too. If Bogie was stopped by her, he would have had to allow it, according to First Law. Instead, he retaliated.”

“Was he reprogrammed perhaps, while you were off-planet?”

“I don’t think so. He was a proper robot previous to this incident, applying all the Laws to his behavior. No, if Bogie attacked Wolruf, he was not Bogie. I sensed a change in him before I sent him on an errand. I rather liked Bogie, and this one simply did not respond like the Bogie I’d known. And, by the way, all indications are that the robot I ordered to go to Ariel never even tried to get there, another clue that I didn’t give the order to Bogie, who would have been compelled by Second Law to obey it. Furthermore, in responding to Wolruf’s leap upon him, he seems to have been using Third Law, that of protecting himself, but First and Second Law would have prevented him from doing so.”

“Okay, good. Then if he wasn’t Bogie, who was he?”

“An alien?”

“What alien? Except for Wolruf, I haven’t encountered any aliens. You have, what with Aranimas and your erstwhile friends, the blackbodies. None of them have any talent for disguise, nor have the few alien races that have been reported. A human might pull off such a disguise, get into a robot suit and do a fairly accurate imitation, but there is no evidence of any other humans but us on the entire planet. If I were still mad, we might have made out a good case for it being me.” He laughed softly, sardonically, then said reflectively, “I did so want to be a robot. I still say the role would have suited me. So, Derec, who do you think it might be?”

“How about a robot, one that’s not programmed in the same manner as a Robot City robot?”

Avery’s eyes raised in admiration. “Very good. You’re right on the line of my thinking. It’s a robot, I’m sure, but not an Avery robot.”

“Why are you so sure?”

“It would have to be some kind of rogue robot. Not my style at all. An Avery robot would not have so much confusion about the three laws. No, somebody else made this robot, and I have a sneaking suspicion who.”

“Who? Tell me.”

Avery shook his head slowly. “Not now. In a moment. I have some questions to ask you. I need to know about Adam and Eve. Your view of them. I know where they came from, what they’ve done so far. Adam gave me a pretty full history during our marathon sessions together. What do you think of them? Robotically speaking, I mean.”

“I’m not sure what you want.”

“Free-associate about them, if you like. “

“Well, I don’t know.” He paused, trying to collect his thoughts. “Sometimes they don’t seem like robots.”

“Uh huh. I’ve noticed.”

“One thing, they can be too mischievous. I know some of it’s curiosity and some of it has to do with their over-meticulous attempts to define some kind of impossible human being, an ideal we apparently fail to live up to. As a result, their hold on the Laws of Robotics is shaky.”

“That seems to be because they apply them too specifically. Rather than accept us as the perfect humans they seek, they strip us of our humanity in their minds, and the result is that they don’t always jump to our aid according to First Law, or obey us as Second commands.”

“That’s not all of it, though. They don’t seem to be certain that they are robots, in spite of all evidence. They accept it and don’t accept it simultaneously. It’s as if their mechanisms are so refined, they can’t be ordinary robots like the others.”

Avery winced. “By ordinary, you mean Avery robots.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I don’t like to think of my creations as somehow second-class models.”

Derec smiled. “If you say so, but I don’t think it’s a criticism of your skills as a roboticist. At any rate, their behavior is inconsistent. Sometimes they seem to be normal robots, at other times they are excellent copies of whomever they’ve imprinted on. Adam does a mean Wolruf, and Eve’s version of Ariel makes me edgy because it’s too accurate.”

“It’s this shape-changing ability that fascinates me, Derec. Explain it to me.”

Under Avery’s sharp questioning, Derec revealed what he had observed about the Silversides, about the differences in their cellular structure, about the sequences of physical transformation during the imprinting process, about the shifts in matter density when they took on the shapes of either smaller or larger beings, about the limits to which they could reduce or enlarge their mass. (Neither could approximate the size of small animals or insects, but could look like enormous versions of them. By the same token, if giants had been available, they could not stretch themselves to that size, either. When they had shaped their mass into a blackbody imprint, they had been about twice the size of that impressive flying alien.)

Excited by the information, revived by the challenge of a scientific dilemma, Avery seemed more and more his old self. He now stood by a desk, his fingers drumming in a fast, steady rhythm. His other hand kept touching his long white hair or bushy moustache. His eyes glowed again.

When Derec had related all he could remember, Avery balled up his hand into a fist and rammed it hard against his upper thigh.

“That’s it!” he cried. “That must be it!”

“I hope you’ll let me in on it, since I’m thoroughly confused now.”

“Bogie-the robot posing as Bogie is a Silverside.”

“You mean Adam or Eve? Really, I don’t think so. They weren’t even here when things started to go wrong. They were with me on-”

“I don’t mean literally Adam and Eve. I mean Silverside generically. There is another of these robots like Adam and Eve somewhere in Robot City.”

“Another one?” For a moment, Derec was appalled at the prospect of a third mischievous robot to contend with, but then of course, he said to himself, I’ve been contending with it for days now. “You mean it was being Bogie because it was able to change into his shape, to imprint upon him?”

Avery nodded and smiled oddly. “I guess we’ve got, as well as Adam and Eve, Pinch Me.”

Derec wondered if the doctor had slipped back into madness. Avery saw his son’s confusion and quickly explained about the children’s riddle he had tried out on Adam.

“Adam never really understood it. I tried to tell him it was just a joke, but he didn’t catch on.”

“I know what you mean. I’ve spent hours attempting to make Mandelbrot understand what humor is all about. But what really is our Pinch Me? For that matter, what are the Silversides?”

“They’rre demonss, ‘u know,” Wolruf said from the floor. She had been intently listening to the conversation. “‘U should lock them up and hide key until they grrow up. That iss my opinion.”

“I agree, Wolruf,” Avery said. “I’d like to get them into a cell and take them apart, see what makes them tick.”

“Don’t ‘u tell Ariel that. Rememberr what she said about dancerss.”

“Yes, that’s good advice, Wolruf.”

Derec had no idea what they were talking about, but, with so many immediate problems to deal with, he decided not to ask questions about it.

“Father, you said you had an idea who the Silversides are.”

“Yes, and I have a hunch I’m right. Sit down.”

“I’m too nervous-”

“Sit down!”

The tone in Avery’s command was so authoritative, Derec decided there must be a good reason for the order. He pulled up a chair and sat on the edge of it.

“I hadn’t wanted to talk to you yet about your mother, Derec. If I could avoid it, I’d never tell you about her. Unfortunately, circumstances now make it necessary.”

Derec realized why his father had told him to sit down. He felt as if the air had been knocked out of him. What could his mother possibly have to do with the crisis on Robot City?

Avery started to pace. His fingers kept busy as he walked.

“I’m not going to tell you her name. You can dream that, if you want. Suffice it to say that, like me, like you, she was, is, a roboticist. A very good one, the only one who could really challenge me. Perhaps it was, in fact, competition that kept me going, made me succeed, a competition that continued even after she left me.”

Wolruf was sitting up now, apparently to hear Avery better. She looked improved. Her eyes were clearer, and a sheen had returned to her fur.

“When I came back here and found the city deteriorating,” Avery continued, “I knew that somebody or something was behind it. It wasn’t until I had the long talks with Adam that I began to suspect that there might be a third robot like him in the city. However, until our little talk, Derec, I wasn’t sure. Now the evidence seems clear to me. There is another robot, one like Adam and Eve, and the creator of all three of them, I am positive, is your mother.”

That little piece of information really stunned Derec. He had to struggle to speak again.

“But how can you be so sure they come from her?”

“I admit there is some intuition involved, but it’s intuition supported by logic. The Silversides and, presumably, our mysterious controller can only be the work of a robotics expert as skilled as I. That isn’t ego speaking. There just simply isn’t another roboticist as meticulous and creative-and that includes all the incompetents at the Robotics Institute on Aurora-as I am. Except for your mother.”

Avery stopped to observe the effects of his words upon his son. Derec knew he was not disguising his emotions even though he very much didn’t want his father to see them.

“I am projecting her intellectual progress, of course. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen her. At that time she was not yet my equal, especially in the fields of positronics and integrals, but in the years since, working in isolation, she may have come up to my level. I don’t like admitting that, but she is younger, and in some ways I’ve slowed down. Plus, I’ve channeled my activities into the planning and development of robot cities, while she has been able, apparently, to concentrate on robots alone. Even knowing her skills and intelligence, these new robots represent an achievement that takes my breath away. Does that seem strange to you, son? That the great egotist can indeed give credit to someone else? You’re thinking that, I can see.”

“Have you added telepathy to your considerable talents?”

Avery laughed abruptly. “You may be a chip off the old block after all. That sarcasm was worthy of me. Wonderful!”

“Why is it that your praise sounds like an insult?”

“That’ss enough,” Wolruf interjected. “You two can have yourr silly arrgument laterr. There’ss much to be done.”

Avery nodded toward Wolruf. “She’s bossy for an alien.”

“I like that in aliens,” Derec said.

“Pleasse,” Wolruf said.

“All right,” Derec said. “Assuming that my mother is behind all this, what’s she up to? Why develop this new kind of shape-changing robot and then dump individual ones on different planets?”

“I can only speculate about that.”

Avery resumed pacing on the far side of the room. Derec paced a shorter path on his side. Wolruf was amused by the resemblances between the two men when they were pacing.

“What it might be is that your mother always had a special interest in anthropology. She could go on for hours about tribes, customs, rites, that sort of bilgewater.”

“You don’t put much stock in anthropology?” Derec asked.

“Oh, it’s all right, just not in my sphere of interest. I’m a creator, a builder, and I like to stay by myself. Going out and observing sentient creatures go through their dull, daily routines, and analyzing the meanings of courtship and aggressive rituals just simply isn’t my line. It’s a useful minor science, where you can showboat by delivering solemn conclusions without much hard evidence, but it’s for people who are butterfingers in a lab. On the other hand, your mother thought it was fascinating to study cultures, and she’d go off for weeks and months to take a peek at some social grouping or other. She told me I was an old fuddy-duddy whenever I said anything the least bit derogatory about her precious anthropology. I suppose her scorn may have contributed to my present antipathy toward the field.”

“But I don’t see how anthropology applies to the new-styled robots.”

“Well, seems to me two factors particularly are clues to the anthropological nature of her experiment. One is that the Silversides seem to have come to consciousness with the urge to define and discover humanity, which they are further convinced is the highest intelligence in the universe. But she has deprived them of any real information about what humans are. Therefore, as you’ve described it, whatever kind of sentient being they discover, they almost desperately try to find its humanity.

“The real kicker has been that, because they’ve come to believe that humanity represents the highest standards, genuine humans are found wanting by them. Derec, your mother couldn’t have foreseen such a tantalizing irony. When she finds out, she’ll be quite thrilled.

“See, if another kind of being were to enter the city tomorrow, and it was a shade smarter than us, as those blackbodies you told me about might have been, then they would be convinced the newcomers are the humans, and it’s goodbye, Derec, Ariel, Avery. It wouldn’t matter if the newcomers were covered with slime, smelled like erupting sewers, and killed each other for fingernail scrapings.

“Anthropologically speaking, the key information that’s been denied them by not being programmed with detailed knowledge of humans is the data which would inform them of the nature of our culture. Another aspect of the denial process would appear to be the absence in their knowledge of our unfortunate tendencies toward emotion. They can’t understand that culture and emotion define humanity as much as intelligence does.

“Since they don’t know what a human really is, they have the freedom to enter an alien culture and adopt its ways easily. Once they believe that culture is human, then all its customs, rites, behavior patterns become logical. What a fruitful arena for anthropological study this’d make. I mean, do you see, Derec?”

When Avery stopped pacing, Derec halted a short beat later. They faced each other. Wolruf found an excitement in the way the two of them were now so furiously working together. For the first time she realized they must be father and son.

“You’re saying that the Silversides and our mystery robot could be catalysts for, say, a study of what happens to cultures when they encounter robots like the Silversides?” Derec asked.

“Exactly. And also what happens to them when they are introduced to cultures. I think that’s where the shape-changing ability comes in. Once they join a culture, they become like the individuals in it. They are assimilated, a word dear to social scientists everywhere. Then these robots, sent to discover a culture, become integrated into it. They can become the leader, as Adam did with the kin. Or they can be corrupted by the culture itself, as both Adam and Eve were with the blackbodies. Or they can even disrupt its environment. We and the robots are the ‘culture’ here in Robot City, and our Pinch Me has been studying us, manipulating us.

“You know what the real clue is? The dancers and all the other little creatures. I suspect they’re some sort of genetic/robotic experiments Pinch Me has been conducting. They are, in a way, its own tiny anthropological studies.

“Without humans, or any kind of being other than robots, to examine, it started to create its own subjects, restricted cultures that it could study anthropologically. They failed for the most part, I think. At least it seemed to get bored with them and store them away in buildings allover the city. But somehow they are based on its acquired knowledge of humanity, knowledge derived no doubt from the computer.

“The trouble is, Pinch Me doesn’t know how to deal with applied knowledge, so he combined some robotics data with some genetic experimental information and created the dancers and the other groups. That he could do as well as he did is impressive, but he couldn’t quite get the hang of it all. So his experiments were failures, he couldn’t control the city, and he even messed up his foray among us in disguise.”

Derec nodded. “That’s all highly speculative, but it does provide some ideas that fit the facts we do know.”

Avery paced a few steps more, then said, “It’s your mother’s failure really. She’s conceived this intricate anthropological study, probably to study positronic minds in various cultural situations. Like our Pinch Me, her work is theoretical, almost playful. Just the way she was.”

Even though he felt a twinge of irritation at the mere suggestion that his mother could have botched her experiment, Derec seemed to be gradually getting a picture of her through Avery’s asides. He figured if he could keep his father talking, he’d find out a great deal about her, especially when Avery was in a bitter mood and not guarding his words.

“She never was practical in her work. I suppose that was another standoff in our marriage. She could go off on such flights of fancy that I couldn’t bring her back to ground.”

“I wish I could meet her.”

Derec’s words angered Avery.

“I can see what you’re thinking. If she’s behind these robots, then maybe she’ll be around to check on them. Well, forget that. She has to leave them alone, let things happen long enough for data to be collected. So she won’t be showing up to see how her little creations have evolved for some time, years maybe. Keeping a watch on the Silversides won’t bring about any reunions for you, Derec.”

Derec kept his anger in check. There was no point in irritating his father any further. Give him some time, and maybe he’d relent on the subject of Derec’s mother, although he did seem adamant in his hatred of her.

“I’ll keep all that in mind,” Derec said. “For now, we have to find this third robot. I hope Mandelbrot and Timestep haven’t lost him.”

“Now that we have a concept of what we’re looking for, we can-”

Avery was interrupted by the appearance of Ariel in the doorway. She was out of breath from running.

“Derec! Dr. Avery! Something’s happening outside. Buildings are, I don’t know how to describe it, they’re self-destructing or something. Folding inward, sliding into the ground, falling over, disappearing altogether. Come see.”

Derec began to run out of the room immediately, Avery close behind. Ariel led them out to the street just in time to see a structure down the block begin to tremble, then-without a sound-fall sideways against another building, which in turn fell forward.

“There’s an ancient game, dominoes,” Avery remarked. “Sometimes people lined them up and they fell, toppling each other, something like those buildings there.”

“What’s doing this?” Ariel yelled.

“I should have known,” Derec said and begun running down the street. “Our robot,” he yelled back to Avery, “he’s trying to destroy everything. He has to be at the central computer.”

“I think you’re right,” Avery said, and ran after Derec.

“What robot?” Ariel said before taking up her position as third in line.

Wolruf limped out of the doorway and watched the trio disappear around a corner.

In the distance there was a bright flash of light and a tall narrow building’s sides began to undulate before the whole structure seemed to collapse inward.

“No way to get any resst arround here,” she said and loped after them. As the pain worked its way out of her leg, she picked up speed.