Odyssey

Chapter 6. A Rock And A Hard Place

Analyst 17 did not follow, and Derec did not nap. He lay on his bunk and stared at the ceiling, trying to regain perspective.

The robots’ predicament was real and substantial. It was not only the matter of being frustrated in their attempt to fulfill their Second Law obligations to their master. They were tiptoeing along the edge of a First Law chasm, a paradox capable of paralyzing not only individual robots, but the entire community. He was their first obligation, and yet there was nothing they could do for him but beg him to save himself.

If it were not so serious, it would be laughable. It was as though a person suffering from hiccups had asked a friend, “Please surprise me.” How could he catch the robots off guard, even with Analyst 17’s collaboration?

On top of which, the whole idea of escaping was absurd. Without help from the robots, he couldn’t possibly reassemble the pod before the ship arrived. And even if he could, there was no way it could run from the approaching ship.

If he continued to think of both the robots and the strangers as enemies, there were no solutions to the equation. Only by assuming that the strangers were coming to help him, or would be willing to help him even if they had other purposes there, could he envision a way out. He could wait until the ship was in orbit, then go to the surface in an augment and radio to them for help.

Just then the bunk shuddered under him, and he sat bolt upright. He thought for a moment that he hadn’t felt it, or experienced the sudden start which sometimes comes just before dozing off. But then another tremor shook the room, and he could no longer think it was an illusion. He jumped to his feet and ran across to the wardroom.

Analyst 17 was still sitting there as Derec had left him. “What’s happening?” Derec demanded.

“We are under attack,” the robot said, gesturing toward the com center.

Derec stared at the screen. The ship had tacked to a position where half of its sunward side was visible, allowing Derec to see details for the first time. What he saw confused him. The ship seemed to have been not designed, but collected. It looked more like a space junkyard than a dangerous raider. But raider it was.

Just in the part Derec could see clearly, there were eleven distinct hulls, as well as a tangled matrix of connecting structures. There were ships old enough to be in a museum and others new enough to be a shipwright’s showpiece. Sleek transatmospheric profiles nestled against the cylinders and grips of deep-space haulers. All across the mass of the ship, small red and orange lights were blinking on and off.

“Who are they?” Derec whispered.

“Unknown.”

“Well, didn’t they hail us? What do they want?”

“There was no signal on any frequency commonly used for communication.”

Derec felt another vibration through the floor. “What kind of weapons are they using?”

“The ship’s armament appears to consist primarily of phased microwave lasers.”

“And what do we have to fight back?”

“The community has no weapons.”

“What?” Derec demanded.

The robot’s answer was patient and calm. “It is highly probable that the ship contains humans. We would not be permitted to use weapons against them.”

Derec stared at the robot, then at the screen. Unlike in careless fictions, there were no stabbing beams of brilliant light to betray the energies pouring down from the radar ship. There were only the winking lights, and the ground moving under Derec’s feet. “Are we in danger?”

“Yes.”

“How much?”

“The ship began its attack in the area of our only permanent surface installation, the antenna farm located 170 degrees east of the primary shaft-”

“These vibrations we’re feeling are from that far away?”

“Yes. The primary assault was successful and communications are out. A number of tunnels in the region have apparently collapsed. Firing pattern now appears to be random. The ship is currently in a nearly synchronous orbit with a slippage of two degrees per minute.”

“So in less than ninety minutes they’ll be overhead.”

“That is correct.”

It was obvious to Derec that he could wait no longer to act. If the ship breached the complex’s pressure envelope while he was still in the E-cell, he would never get out. The breathers couldn’t keep him alive in a vacuum.

And there was another danger, just as acute-that the power would be interrupted or the lifts disabled, and he would be trapped on the warehouse level. Even in low gravity he did not think he could climb up a lift shaft by hand.

Not that running about on the surface in an augment was as attractive a proposition as it had been a short time ago. The chances were that he would be taken not for a prisoner trying to escape but for an enemy to be destroyed. Even so, dying buried in the icy heart of the asteroid was infinitely less appealing than dying out in the open.

“This logic path that you devised-am I correct in thinking that you and Monitor 5 are the only Supervisors who were able to follow it without hitting a First Law conflict?”

“Yes.”

“Why? Why you?”

“My experience with human beings has provided me with a more sophisticated perspective on their nature and behavior.”

“You’ve had contact with other humans? Besides me?”

“Yes.”

“Who?”

“I am not permitted to say,”

Dead end. “Are the other robots even aware of what you asked me to try to do?”

“No.”

“How were you going to destroy the complex?”

“The material used to line all the tunnel walls contains an explosive. Once all the other Supervisors have been destroyed, the last Monitor and Analyst will together transmit the trigger signal. The resulting explosion should cause the entire excavated portion of the asteroid to subside.”

“I see,” Derec said. Great, he thought to himself. If I stay in the complex, the raiders will bring it down on my head. If I leave, the robots will blow it up under my feet.

Unless-

Unless there was some way to get off the surface, some source of thrust adequate to give him and his augment escape velocity. Considering the weakness of the asteroid’s gravity, escape velocity did not amount to much. He could probably put a ball in orbit just by throwing it as hard as he could. The leg servos of the augmented suit were likely powerful enough to permit him to literally jump clear.

Unfortunately, the safety regs on augment design required governors on the leg servos to prevent someone from trying exactly that. But what engineers had joined together, tinkerers could tear asunder-

At that moment, a bright flare seemed to appear on the body of the ship, and an instant later the energy beam burned out the eyes of the camera unit relaying the picture. Another camera some distance away took over, and the low angle at which it was focused showed not only the ship but the bilious clouds boiling off the surface where its weapons were trained.

The sight spurred Derec to action. “There doesn’t seem to be any escape for any of us,” he lied, wearing his best look of resignation. “I guess there’s nothing else for me to do but go prepare to die. I would be grateful if you could grant me privacy while I carry out the appropriate rituals.”

The lie passed. “I do not fully understand the purpose of such rituals,” the robot said, “but I will respect your privacy.”

Derec did not need long to put his rapidly developing plan in motion. Returning to his cabin, he swept up the pillows off two of the bunks, then ran to the airlock with them cradled in his arms.

“Open.”

The sound of the inner seal opening brought Analyst 17 out of the wardroom, but by then it was too late. Derec stepped inside the lock, and the door closed behind him.

“Cycle,” he said, fumbling with the straps of a breather.

When the outer door opened, he draped the pillows over the bottom sill of the hatch and then stepped out over them. Just as Derec had expected, the pillows kept the outer door from sealing, interrupting the cycle and imprisoning the robot inside. He did not know how long it would hold, whether there was some way for the robot to override the lock system, and he did not wait around to find out.

The line at the smelter included Supervisors, but they took no notice of him as he passed by. He rode the lift up to Level Zero, where he discovered that Monitor 5 had been busy taking precautions against his return. Two of the augments were missing, vanished as though they had never been there. The third was wedged against the wall by one of the tracked carriers, which in turn was barricaded in place by a four-legged auger unit.

He did not think the suit was damaged-tampering with safety equipment would almost certainly invoke the First Law-but it was going to take a little getting to. And part of the problem would be Monitor 5. The robot was seated at the console when Derec arrived, and rose and started for Derec the moment he stepped off the lift and placed it on standby.

Their paths intersected when Derec was a few meters short of the carrier. “The surface is a restricted area,” the robot said.

“I know that,” Derec said, circling and staying out of reach of the robot’s hands. “This equipment is improperly stored. I’m going to take care of it.”

But Monitor 5 was not going to be put off that easily.

“You may not leave. You are in no danger here,” it said, reaching for him.

Derec backed away and scrambled up the steps into the enclosed operator’s station. “Wrong. If I stay here, I’ll be killed when the ship destroys the station.”

“We will protect you.”

Derec wasted no time or breath arguing the point. “You can’t even protect yourselves,” he said, and slammed and locked the door.

The operator’s interface was standard, and the functions of those few controls which weren’t were clear at a glance. He touched the power switch, and the display came alive with information on the vehicle’s status. The most important item was near the bottom:

POWER CELL…100,000 Kw… OK

The robot was politely knocking on the window and trying to attract Derec’s attention, but Derec ignored it. With a touch on one of two small joysticks in the armrest at his right hand, Derec unshipped the small crane which lay crosswise behind the control cab.

Since the controls had been designed primarily for robots with their fine motor control, Derec found them a little touchy. But the crane was semi-automatic, so when he had managed to swing the boom out over the backend of the carrier and bring the auger in range of the crane’s camera, all he had to do was say, “Pick it up.” The crane handled the rest.

Monitor 5 seemed slow to realize what was happening. Derec couldn’t decide if that was because it was still experiencing some internal conflict, or if he was just seeing the difference between a Monitor and an Analyst. But when Derec lifted the auger off the floor of the chamber and began to swing it out of the way, the robot suddenly became agitated.

“Analyst 17 was in error,” it said, grasping the door latch and shaking violently. “Derec-you cannot escape. You cannot leave. I am required to protect you. I am responsible.”

Saying nothing, Derec used the dangling mass of the auger to brush the robot away from the side of the carrier and back it toward the wall. The robot’s protestations went up in volume, but Derec did not stop until he had gently pinned the robot against the wall ten meters to the left of where it had done the same to the augment.

“Reverse slow,” Derec said, and the carrier crawled away from the wall. “Stop. Standby.”

He jumped out and ran to the augment. As he wrestled the suit away from the wall, Monitor 5 was struggling to extricate itself. It was a race Derec had to win.

Finally the access door was clear, and Derec levered himself inside. At that moment, Monitor 5 clambered to the top of the auger, free from its makeshift prison. But it was too late to stop him. The access door was closing to seal Derec in the suit.

“Power on,” he said.

His next objective was the open control cab on the other side of the carrier, meant for use by workers in augments. But before he could reach it, Monitor 5 was again trying to block his way.

“I don’t want to harm you,” Derec said. “You can’t stop me. You’ve done your duty by trying. Now stand aside.”

“You are attempting to commit suicide. I am not required to comply with your orders under these circumstances.”

“I’m trying to save myself,” Derec said. “If you really want me to live, you’ll step aside and give me a chance.”

“I will take you to a safe place within the community-”

“There are no safe places here!” Derec shouted. “Don’t you understand?”

“I cannot allow-”

“I can’t stand here and debate it,” Derec said. “I’m sorry.”

As he spoke, he swung the right grapple of the suit in a sweeping arc that caught the robot in the neck and sent it sprawling. But Derec had barely taken three steps when it was back again, clawing at the suit’s emergency panel.

This time Derec reached down and grabbed the robot’s right leg, upending it and dropping it on its back. Catching its ankle with the other grapple, Derec pinched down hard until he heard the sounds of metal crumpling. When he released his grip, the robot’s leg was crippled, the foot frozen at an odd angle.

Derec climbed into the open cab unimpeded. As he backed the carrier away from the wall and turned it toward the ramp, he saw Monitor 5 still lying on the floor where he had left it, vainly trying to repair the damage Derec had done. It’s slitlike scanners followed Derec and the carrier across the chamber.

It was still watching him, its gaze somehow forlorn and somehow accusing, when Derec drove the carrier up through the lock and out onto the surface.