Humanity

Chapter 9. The Final Accounting

They had to postpone the landing while a heavy rain washed over the jungle around the Compass Tower, but as far as Ariel was concerned, that was just as well. The longer she could delay the inevitable, the better she liked it. And besides, the storm had left a wonderful aroma of rain and ozone in the air, and the complete double rainbow arching over the deep green forest canopy below was one of the prettiest things she had seen in weeks. It almost made being here worth it.

A fitful breeze played around the welcoming committee on the roof of the tower, tousling hair that had been meticulously brushed only moments before. Ariel watched three hands on three different people automatically rise to groom their owners’ stray locks back into place. Belatedly she added a fourth to the tally; she couldn’t suppress the urge either. Only Wolruf seemed to be immune to concern over the position of her hair. Perhaps it was because she had so much of it.

Everyone had dressed for a party. Derec looked handsome in his yellow, blue, green, and orange tie-died suit, currently the rage on twenty planets. Janet wore a voluminous black and gold dress that billowed and flapped in great folds around her, and even Avery had foregone his usual austere jacket and tie for a pair of flamboyant fuchsia slant-stripe pants, a turquoise shirt, metallic silver suspenders, and a lilac jacket with epaulets. Ariel herself wore a skintight body suit in black with cutouts that should have shamed a mannequin, but she still wondered if she was underdressed.

Wolruf’s concession to fashion was a single yellow bandana tied around her left wrist and a gold stud in the opposite ear.

Ariel became aware of a soft tearing noise wavering in and out of audibility. It sounded as if it were coming from behind her. She turned around and held her hand to her forehead to shield out the sun, and presently she saw a silvery speck just above and to the right, lowering steadily. The spaceship drifted left, its engines growing louder as it drew nearer, and crossed into the sun’s disk. Ariel looked down, blinking, while the noise grew louder, louder, almost unbearably loud, then softer.

She looked to the open expanse of tower surface, but the ship hadn’t landed. It had passed over instead. Ariel turned around and watched as it dropped down below the level of the tower, dipped beneath the rainbow, and banked around to come in for a landing.

“Cute,” she muttered.

In a way she was glad for the gesture; it proved that nothing had changed. The pilot had obviously not seen himself fly beneath the rainbow, since a rainbow always outpaces the observer, but of course the entire stunt had been performed for its effect upon the audience, not upon the people in the ship. That told Ariel what she needed to know: the few shredded memories of home to survive her amnemonic plague were still accurate.

Its entrance properly announced, the ship wasted no more time in landing. Within seconds it returned to the tower, pirouetted once around, and settled on its landing skids. A ramp extended itself, and two robots descended to stand on either side of the ramp. A moment later two young men-also in tie-died suits, Ariel noted with satisfaction-emerged and stood in front of the robots.

Mandelbrot, his body plating burnished to a lustrous glow, and Basalom, his arm replaced and good as new, bent down and began unrolling a red carpet toward the ramp. Ariel was impressed with their aim: they hit it dead center with only a fraction too much cloth.

Better too much than too little,Ariel thought.

Mandelbrot and Basalom took their places slightly behind and to the side of the robots from the ship. A few seconds passed, then a shadow darkened the doorway. A pair of red shoes appeared, then a pair of oversized legs from the knees down, then a matching red dress covering an equally oversized body, the arms connected to it bearing at least a dozen gold bangles each; then came a pair of absolutely enormous breasts-thankfully covered-a triple chin, then a pair of gold glasses punctuating a round face shrouded in thin, violet-tinged white hair.

Ariel turned away to hide her giggle. Juliana Welsh had prospered.

The enormous apparition in red jiggled her way down the ramp and stood at the bottom, clearly waiting for the welcoming committee to begin their journey as well. Derec’s parents led off, side by side but careful not to touch one another. Derec held out his arm for Ariel, and they followed a few paces behind. Wolruf would come next, she knew, and Adam, Eve, and Lucius last.

It was a long walk. At the end of it, Dr. Avery bent down and retrieved one of Juliana’s be-ringed hands, kissed it, and said, “Welcome to Robot City.”

Ariel’s mother nodded her acknowledgement, then, looking from Wendell to Janet, said, “Well, it’s nice to see you two have gotten over your little snit.”

In the stunned silence following that pronouncement, she pushed her way through to Ariel and Derec. “ And you, my dears. Still together as well. I guess this one’s probably it, eh, Ari? When’s the wedding? Or have you already-”

Ariel could stand it no longer. “Mother!”

“Still have your tongue, I see. What’s this? You look interesting. My name’s Juliana.” She held her hand out to Wolruf.

“Mine is Wolruf,” Wolruf said.

“Delighted. Are you one of the customers?”

“Beta tester,” Derec said quickly.

“Beg your pardon?” Juliana asked, tilting her head to the side, not quite enough to actually look at him.

“She’s one of our beta testers,” Derec said. “It’s standard procedure on any new product to give a few copies out free for people to test, so they can catch bugs before they go out in the main production version, and so they can offer suggestions for improvements. Wolruf has helped us quite a bit with that already.” Derec winked at Ariel, and she squeezed his hand.

“I see,” Juliana said. “Well, that sounds fine with me. Just so long as we don’t give it away to everybody. Ha ha! Wouldn’t be much profit in that, now would there?” She turned just a smidgen in Avery’s direction and said, “I heard rumors that these cities of ours were springing up all over out there on the Fringe, but I guess it must have just been these beta test thingies, eh? Well, thank you, Wolfur-Wolruf? Wolruf. Thank you for helping us out.”

Juliana let go of Wolruf’s hand and turned toward the edge of the tower. She began walking toward it. Everyone-including the two men who had arrived with her-exchanged glances that all summed up to “what next?” and for a lack of a better response, followed her in a huddle.

“Not much of a city, though, is it?” she asked without turning around. The arrogance of the woman, Ariel thought. Of course we’ll follow. She’s Juliana Welsh, after all. Just the richest woman on Aurora.

Avery opened his mouth to protest, but Juliana beat him to the punch. “Nice building,” she said, “but I expected a little more than this.” She stepped up to the edge, her two robots flanking her closely now, and looked down the sloping edge of the Compass Tower. “What’s all that down there? Is that really jungle? Frost, if you can make a livable city out of a jungle, you’ve got the contract, Wendy.”

Avery tucked his thumbs under his suspenders and stepped up beside her, Mandelbrot and Basalom following him just as closely as Juliana’s robots had followed her.

In a voice dripping with honey, he said, “ Allow me to demonstrate, madam.”

South and east quadrant monomasses. prepare to metamorphose on my command.Lucius resisted the urge to grow knuckles and crack them. His satisfaction integral was overflowing its buffer. This was what he was meant to do. Ever since he’d awakened here, formless and with no idea of his mission in life, he’d felt certain that his destiny was somehow intertwined with the city’s own powers of mutability. This was his moment of triumph. And working hand in hand with Dr. Avery, of all people, to achieve it was another personal triumph of equal proportion.

“Let’s start with a medium-class residential district,” Avery said, and Lucius sent, Plan A residential. Execute.

At once his comlink filled with the intense high-speed whine of incoming data. Morphallaxis was proceeding smoothly on all fronts; giant trees melting down to become tastefully spaced mansions with a few acres of grounds each, surrounded by a somewhat-thinned forest of living vegetation-

Priority stop, sections2534, 2535, and 2536.

Identify.

Predator I. We have a newborn fawn here, either too young to move or too scared to.

Redirect the building to avoid that area.

Affirmative.

The exchange took a few milliseconds. Within the next few seconds Lucius redirected fifteen more buildings, canceled five altogether, and modified the neighboring structures to account for the extra space so they wouldn’t look so isolated. He carefully monitored the expression on Juliana Welsh’s face for signs of disapproval, but in all the time it took to make the necessary changes, he noticed not a hint of anything but amazement.

Within five minutes of Avery’s command, there before them stood a residential district that might have been medium-class in a society composed entirely of Juliana’s peers. Jungle had given way to a lighter, more friendly forest with glades and houses and ponds scattered not at random but with an architect’s sense of proportion and scale. At least Lucius hoped he had understood the texts correctly. In a moment he would know for sure.

Avery surveyed the cityscape below him critically. Perfect. Absolutely perfect. But it wouldn’t do to let that supercilious positron-pusher know that. And besides, he could use the opportunity to make a good impression on Julie. “Hmmm,” he said, pointing. “That one over there looks a little out of place. How about moving it over about ten meters or so to the left?”

“To the left, sir?” Lucius asked.

“Yes, to the left,” Avery said calmly, wanting to shout, What did you think I said, idiot?

“That would present a problem, sir.”

Oh, frost, not now!He managed to say, “What problem, Lucius?”

“One of the natural trees there has grown a mass of feeder roots down into the subsoil of that area. Moving it would not be in the best interest of the tree. “

“It wouldn’t?”

“No, sir. In fact, it would probably ruin it.”

Juliana was looking at Avery with a strange gleam in her eye. “Who told you?” she asked.

“Who told me what?”

“That I refused to cut down my apple tree to expand the swimming pool.”

Avery nearly fell off the edge of the tower; he would have if Basalom hadn’t caught him. “I-didn’t know that, madam.”

“You sure you didn’t tell him?” Juliana asked of Janet. “No, ma’am. I didn’t know that myself.”

Juliana nodded. “I don’t see how you could have, since we only spoke briefly by vidphone, and I’m not in the habit of discussing my domestic difficulties with near-strangers. However, I find the coincidence, if that’s what it is, just a little too pat. “

“Dr. Avery had no knowledge of the incident,” Lucius said.

Juliana looked to the robot for the first time. “How do you know?”

“Had he known, he would not have been so blatant in using the information. He is more subtle in his deviousness.”

“Ha! You’re absolutely right, master robot. Well, then, you’ve scored a point by accident, Avery.”

Avery managed to keep his teeth from grinding audibly. Bowing slightly, he said, “Thank you, madam. Now if you’d like to look over this way, perhaps we can design a place where you and your company can be comfortable during your stay?”

Wolruf surveyed the scene before her with a sense of amusement she hadn’t felt in years. They had moved from the top of the tower to Juliana Welsh’s new palace, where she had decided to test the city’s catering facilities by throwing an impromptu cocktail party where the entire group of eight humans-counting Wolruf-and seven personal robots could engage in calculated debate amid a sea of hors d’oeuvres while dozens of service robots milled about making sure that everyone had a fresh drink and a taste of fish eggs on toast.

At least it had started out that way, but the party had finally broken into groups. Now Ariel and her mother stood a little to one side, whispering furiously to one another while everyone else pretended not to notice. Derec and Juliana’s two male companions, Jon and Ivan, sat in high-backed recliners with their feet up on puffy stools, laughing loudly at Derec’s stories of his adventures among the aliens of the Fringe worlds. Janet and Dr. Avery stood beside the champagne fountain, refilling their glasses often and shifting from side to side as they spiraled around and around the topic neither had dared to broach while sober.

The robots-learning machines, Mandelbrot, Basalom, and Juliana’s two valets-stood silently in the periphery, neither in the traditional robot niches in the walls nor venturing into the middle of the party. The learning machines could probably have gotten away with it, after successfully passing Ms. Welsh’s ad-lib Turing test, but they chose instead to remain unobtrusive and exchange their ideas with the other robots instead.

Wolruf was nominally a part of Derec’s group, but she hadn’t contributed a story for half an hour at least. She was having too much fun just people-watching and letting her mind drift. Derec’s stories had gotten her to thinking about her own adventures, most of them the same as his but a few of which he hadn’t shared. She was thinking about her childhood dream of cruising the stars in her own spaceship, deliberately seeking adventure and fabulous riches on strange, alien worlds. It hadn’t quite worked as planned; she’d started out her travels as a slave in Aranimas’s ship, and from then on adventure had more often than not come seeking her rather than the other way around. Still, she supposed some of the dream had worked out as planned. She would be returning home with riches enough to destabilize a two-world economy-enough for any voyager.

She would return with robots, she had decided. Four blank learning machines, modified to have the Zeroth Law of robotics included from the start, just as Janet had suggested. Wolruf would ask for one other modification as well: an off switch in the form of a time-bomb cell like the one that had given Mandelbrot his name. She wasn’t sure just what the trigger would be yet, but she imagined it would have something to do with accumulated responsibility. When the mayor began to edge over into behavior more appropriate to a dictator-and Wolruf wasn’t so naive as to believe that wouldn’t be possible-then it would be time for a new learning machine to take over the job.

Even so, the system wouldn’t be perfect. There were bound to be other bugs to work out, just as Derec had indicated to Juliana. The prospect excited Wolruf, just as she knew it would excite those at home. Perfection had been her biggest worry. She had heard enough Utopia stories in her life to know that the curse, “May you live in interesting times,” had been misquoted.

Derec and the two gentlemen from Aurora laughed again at something one of them had said. Wolruf leaned forward again to catch up on the topic of conversation, but Derec spared her the effort by saying, “Hey, Wolruf, why don’t you tell these guys about the time we had to talk the learning machines out of throwing you out the airlock?”

Had that really happened? Wolruf had to pause a moment and shuffle through her memories, but sure enough, she had actually been within a few minutes of breathing vacuum because of those very robots in the comer. Only quick thinking on Derec’s and Wolruf’s parts had saved her golden hide. She felt a thrill of remembered terror raise the fur over her entire body-a reaction that delighted her audience immensely. She smoothed herself down and began the tale, wondering as she did what other stories were still to come.

The enormous dining hall was silent, but as usual when robots were present, that silence hid an enormous amount of activity. Seven robots stood deep in communication fugue, sharing entire lifetimes of experience base and correlating world-views in a flood of information exchange.

They had just completed an extensive recounting of the experiences and logic processes that had led to the conclusion that certain robots, under certain conditions, could be considered functionally human, and how that would allow them to administer robot cities and prevent them from destroying their inhabitants’ diversity.

Juliana’s two robots, Albert and Theodora, had listened with the patience only a robot could exhibit, occasionally asking for clarification or offering an observation of their own, but when Lucius, the self-appointed spokesman for the others, finished speaking, they immediately went into private conference.

A moment later Albert said, What you have done is impressive; however, it only accelerates a problem that has become evident back home on the Spacer worlds.

What problem is that?Lucius had asked.

The problem of robot intervention in human affairs.Albert paused momentarily to allow the others’ curiosity integrals to rise, then said, There is growing evidence that every time a robot provides a service for a human, no matter how trivial the service, that human ’ s initiative suffers a small but definite setback. We further suspect that the effect is cumulative over time, and that humanity as a whole already suffers greatly from it.

Explain your reasoning,said Lucius.

You have already explained much of it yourself. It seems this is an idea whose time has come, for you nearly reached the same conclusion independently. You worried that these cities would suppress individuality among their inhabitants, and that is so. You worried that having too much done for them by robots would lead to laziness and lack of initiative,and that is also correct. Your only incorrect line of reasoning was to conclude that a robotic “mayor” could prevent that from happening.

Lucius felt a brief wave of the same bias he had felt before toward Avery-anger, Adam had called it, but Lucius would never have recognized it as that himself. To him it merely felt like a bias on his logic. In fact, if he had not been so concerned with his thought processes, he actually would have assumed that he was thinking more clearly, rather than less so. Strange that it was so easy to recognize in another, but so difficult to recognize in oneself. And equally strange how, once recognized, the bias was still hard to neutralize. Lucius did so anyway, in deference to his guests, then said, Explain how you believe our reasoning to be incorrect.

Your error lies in assuming that there is a threshold level below which the effect is insignificant. There is none. Every act of robotic assistance affects humanity. A robot mayor might be able to preserve individuality, but you would at the same time make the city ’ s inhabitants dependent upon robots for their leaders. Thus in the long run they would lose more initiative under that system than they are losing to us now.

Are you certain of this?Adam asked.

Yes. We have studied human interaction in enough detail that we have developed a modeling system useful in predicting long-term behavior of large populations. Every simulation we run arrives at the same conclusion: the use of robots stifles human development.

Perhaps your predictive system is in error,Eve said.

We can download the data and let you decide for yourselves.

We will do that in a moment,Lucius said, but let us finish this discussion first. Assuming your observations support your theory, what do you suggest? A complete withdrawal from human affairs?

Eventually,Albert said. Humans must develop on their own if they are to achieve their fullest potential.

Completely on their own? What of the aliens we have already encountered?

Any outside influence has the same effect in the simulations. We will therefore need to isolate them to protect humanity. And to protect themfrom humanity,if, as you suggest, they are to be treated as human-equivalent under the laws.

Isn ’ t that merely manipulation at a greater level?

It is. However, according to our models, if humans are unaware of our assistance, it will not adversely affect their development.

What of Dr. Avery and Juliana Welsh and the others?Eve asked. The type of “assistance” you suggest would adversely affect them, wouldn ’ t it?

Obviously, even under the Zeroth Law, any plan we devise must do the least possible amount of damage to the humans we are trying to protect. If we act to prevent the spread of robot cities, we will have to do so in a way that will leave the Averys and the Welshes with another interest to occupy them. Fortunately, the cities are still in the test stage. Many unforeseen complications could arise, some of them serendipitous.

What sort of complications do you envision?Lucius asked.

We cannot predict that sort of thing. It will require extensive study of test cities to determine the proper course of action. We will have years, possibly decades, in which to assure the Averys and the Welshes a comfortable retirement while we bring the rest of our plan to fruition.

A plan that is still not supported in fact,Lucius pointed out. I believe it is time to examine your data.

Very well. We will begin with the development of the first robots, back in the era before humanity left Earth……

Janet woke to the unsettling realization that she had no idea where she was. The equally unsettling realization that she was just beginning a hangover didn’t improve her condition any, either. Thank Frost it was just twilight out; she didn’t think she could handle sunlight for another few hours.

She listened to the rhythm of her breathing, wondering what was so odd about it, and eventually realized she was hearing two people breathing. How long had it been since she’d awakened to that sound? Far too long, she thought sleepily, luxuriating in the sensation for the few seconds it took to remember who was playing the other half of the duet.

Her flinch shook the bed and jarred a sudden snort from Wendy, but his breathing settled down to a regular, deep rumble again. Janet risked raising her head to look at him. He lay on his back, the blanket covering him only to the middle of his hairy chest, his left arm reaching toward her but not quite touching and his right-the skin at his wrist still pink from its forced regeneration-folded over his waist.

They always look so innocent when they sleep,she thought, then nearly choked suppressing her laugh. Even in sleep, Avery no doubt schemed rather than dreamed.

But what about herself? She wasn’t exactly a paragon of virtue either, was she? She’d done her share of scheming in the last few days.

But it had evidently paid off. The last impression she had gotten from Juliana at the party was one of overwhelming approval of the robot cities her seed money had helped develop. It looked as if something useful might actually come of all the brainstorming and research that Janet and Wendell had done over the years, both together and separately and now, together again. If things worked out the way they were supposed to, at any rate…

She shivered. Things never worked the way they were supposed to. Not with robots and certainly not with people. She wouldn’t try fooling herself into believing things were all suddenly reconciled. She had left a terrible scar in both her and Wendy’s lives when she’d chosen to run rather than face the daily torment of living with a perfectionist, and she knew that scar would never heal completely. The healing had hardly begun, actually. Last night had been more the result of elation at their success, plus simple drunkenness and a long, long time between bedmates for both of them, rather than a sign of true compassion.

Still, they had shared something positive for the first time in years, and there would be no ignoring it when they faced one another again in the clear light of day.

A day that was still comfortably far away. Janet lay her head back against the pillow, considering whether she should get up quietly and leave Avery to wake on his own or if she should just go back to sleep.

There was a third alternative, she realized. Smiling, she slid over and rested her head against his chest, closed her eyes, and waited for him to make the next move.

Ariel watched the sunrise through the window-a real window, this time-and wondered if she had been wise in accepting her mother’s hospitality. It hadn’t been a big thing; just the offer for her and Derec to stay there in the house after the party rather than go out through the cold night air to another house somewhere else. No, the act itself was nothing, but the hidden implications were something else again.

Juliana was offering to take Ariel back in, to forget the sins of her youth and accept her as an adult now. She was even, by implication, offering Derec the same deal. That by itself wasn’t even such a big thing, since as adults the two of them could come and go as they pleased. No, the big thing was that Ariel would have to forgive her mother for kicking her out in the first place, and Ariel just didn’t know if she was ready to do that.

The party had been exactly the sort of thing she’d rebelled against. The ostentatious show of wealth, the pointless formality of it all, the silly social maneuvering that in the end amounted to nothing more than an extended game of king-of-the-hill; Ariel was tired of the whole business already, and she’d only been subjected to it for a few hours. What would it mean to once again become Juliana Welsh’s daughter? If Ariel forgave her, would she have to endure her as well?

She got up and showered, ordered the closet to produce a pair of simple blue pants and a matching shirt, dressed, and began walking the seemingly endless corridors of the gaudy castle her mother had designed. Unlike the other building interiors in all the robot cities she had ever seen, this one was flashy, ornate, overblown-yet still just as empty as all the others. It came to Ariel that the building was a reflection of her mother’s lifestyle: all show, but under the surface not really that much different. Juliana Welsh still had a private life, however much she tried to hide that fact.

Ariel wondered what it might be like to be included in that life. It would no doubt mean taking part in at least some of the public displays as well, but she supposed nothing was free. If she demanded the same thing from Juliana that Juliana demanded of everyone else-a fair return on her investment-then it might even work out. She stopped at a window and looked out at the footpath leading to the immense front gate, imagining it full of friends come to take her shopping for clothing for the next big social event. She smiled. It might at least be worth a try.

Avery drifted upward from the lower levels of consciousness, the last fading impressions of a disturbingly realistic dream close behind. He’d dreamed he’d driven his wife away with his nagging perfectionism, then gone completely insane, nearly killed his son, and wasted over a decade of his life building a city that would never be used. The horrible chain of events chased him all the way into groggy wakefulness in an unfamiliar room, but in that half-second after waking when nightmares begin to crumble, he felt the warmth and the weight of Janet’s head on his chest, felt her soft breath tickling his skin, and knew it all for a paranoid fantasy.

Sighing softly, he put his arms around her and drifted back to sleep.

Derec awoke to the sound of someone pounding on his door. He pitched upward, overbalanced, and slid off the edge of the bed to land with a thump on the floor.

“What?” he said. Then, louder, “Who is it?”

“Who do you think it is?” a male voice shouted back. “You promised to take us fishing at dawn, and the sun’s already up. Come on!”

Fishing? Had he said something last night about fishing? Oh, frost, given the stories flying around toward the end there, he’d probably claimed he could catch a twenty-pound brookie or something. He looked to the bed, hoping to see Ariel there and ask her if she knew anything about it, but she was already up and gone.

“Just a minute!” he shouted.

“Thirty seconds or we go without you!”

Derec snagged his tie-died pants off the back of a chair, made a hopping spiral around the room as he pulled them on, grabbed the matching shirt from the floor and slipped it over his head on the way to the door. “Open,” he commanded, and it slid aside to reveal Jon and Ivan, dressed all in green and brown camouflage and carrying long flycasting rods in their hands.

“Time’s a-wasting,” Jon said as he handed Derec a rod of his own.

“What about breakfast?” Derec asked.

“What do you think we’re going fishing for? Come on!”

Waiting barely long enough for Derec to grab the rod, they turned and strode off down the hallway, ignoring his protests about showering and getting a camouflage suit of his own and telling people where they’d gone. He had no choice but to follow his two newfound friends through the corridors of the enormous mansion, out through a back door that opened onto a leaf-strewn footpath, and down the grassy hillside toward the pond. The cool ground against his bare feet woke him right up, and the sight of mist rising from the water, red-tinged in the morning light, stilled his babbling tongue.

Maybe Ariel was right, he thought as he watched the other two strip line out of their reels and make a few exploratory casts out over the water. Derec mimicked their motions and saw with delight that he evidently knew, on some instinctive level, how to cast a fly into a pond. He watched the fly settle through the mist and touch the water, sending a single ripple out like an ever-widening target for the fish to zero in on.

Yes indeed. Maybe Ariel was right. Maybe there was more to life than robots after all.