Refuge

Chapter 13. Robot City Again

“Paulins,” said R. Jennie. “They are used to cover machinery in the fields against rain and dew. There are no tents available in the immediate vicinity of St. Louis. Perhaps in a day or two there will be a tent.”

The plasticated canvas of the big paulins worked as well as a tent, strung over a couple of poles and tied to a tree limb. It was needed more for shade than shelter. This move to the country had not been a simple one, nor could they keep it up for more than a day or two.

But it was such a relief!

Ariel could tell that Derec felt the same sense of escape that she did. The sky of Earth was wide and blue and very high, and little puffy clouds ambled slowly across it, all framed by the pointed opening of the “tent.” The sunlight was just right. The plants were the familiar green of Earth life everywhere, and they too seemed just right. Except in greenhouses, she had probably never seen Earthly plants in the natural light of the sun in which they evolved. Even the heat was not unpleasant.

“We won’t need a tent, if we have to wait that long,” said Derec grimly.

“You should return to the City as soon as you can,” R. Jennie said. “Mrs. Avery is far from recovered from the fever.”

Ariel felt quite recovered from the fever, though her memory was returning slowly. Weak as she undoubtedly was, she thought with concern, she could have wrestled Derec two falls out of three and won. But he said nothing about his own condition.

“Everything’s so…ordinary,” said Ariel, looking out at the kind of birds and plants and small animals she had seen all her life. A squirrel is a squirrel, and sounds just the same on Aurora. Even the shrilling of the unseen insects was familiar. Humans had taken their familiar symbiotic life-forms with them to the stars. She had expected Earth to be more exotic.

The reality was a relief more than a disappointment.

“It must have been a bad time for you,” she said to Derec, when R. Jennie had stepped out to the…kitchen. They had been supplied with something called a “hot plate” and a dielectric oven.

Derec moodily watched the robot prepare the packaged meals, designed for people with high enough ratings to permit them to eat in their own apartments. This was luxury for their rate.

“Bad, well.” He shrugged, clearly not wishing to discuss it. “I did learn one thing from R. David: there’s a spaceship belonging to Dr. Avery in the New York port. If we could get there-”

“How, if our rating doesn’t permit us to travel that far?”

“We’ll have to get him to make ID with higher ratings for us-”

R. Jennie stepped under the opening with a tray holding coffee and juices. When she had gone, Ariel said, “I hope they don’t discover the apartment.”

“I suspect the Terries know all about it, but won’t make trouble. They want us gone before we get mobbed or something. We’ve been very lucky.”

“Couldn’t we ask Donovan for assistance?” she asked wistfully.

“We could. I thought of it,” Derec said, broodingly. “But that’d be above his level, surely. If Earth can ignore us, it won’t be so badly embarrassed if we’re discovered here, investigating-or spying on-Earth people. But if they have helped us in any way, they can’t deny having known about us.”

“Helping us would be seen as condoning our presence,” she said grayly. “I understand.” Politics seemed to be the same everywhere. “So what can we do? Get new ID-will the Terries spot that, do you think?”

“Frost, I don’t know-”

R. Jennie gave them fruit cups and whipped cream, returned to the kitchen, a rustic scene in the frame of the tent opening.

The fruit was good, but unusual-compotes served in what she thought of as unsweetened ice cream cones. It was like eating warm ice cream with strong fruit flavors. All yeast, she supposed.

“If they do spot us at it, I suppose they’d look the other way. But what worries me is that it would alarm them. They’d know we weren’t telling everything, they’d realize that R. David-or someone-has ID duplicating equipment. They might well raid the apartment.”

Ariel thought about that for a moment. As long as they weren’t arrested and the Key to Perihelion taken from them, it didn’t matter.

“Oh. The Key is focused on the apartment,” she said. “We’d be unable to retreat to it.” She remembered well the occasion when they’d had to do so.

“We will be in any case; we couldn’t begin to explain our reappearance,” Derec said. “They’d guess too much-”

“Zymoveal,” said R. Jennie. “There is also a chicken wing for each of you. Chicken soup, made of real chicken with yeast enhancement. Bread, real potatoes, gravy.”

A simple, hearty meal. Ariel ate with good appetite, but her stomach seemed to have shrunk. Weeks of eating little in hospital had altered her eating habits. Derec, however, carried on grimly, eating long after it became obvious that he’d had all he wanted, eating on to the edge of nausea.

When the robot had retreated, Ariel said, “I see. It’s all or nothing. Well, if so I won’t weep. If we could just get to New York!”

“Don’t think I haven’t thought about it. I’d be tempted to walk-it’s on this continent-but it’s a couple of thousand kilometers, and we’d starve.”

“Too bad. Derec, why do you go on eating when anyone can see you’re full?”

He looked up at her grimly, harassed, his eyes sunken, his face thin and lined…I’ve not been eating enough, or sleeping well enough. Everybody says so. I need to get my strength back now that you’re well.”

“Have you really worried that much about me?” she asked, her heart thumping. She felt flattered, and also dismayed, as if it were her fault.

“Well, it isn’t just that.” Derec lowered his fork, swallowed coffee, looked queasy. “I’ve been upset. I haven’t been sleeping. I-I keep having this strange stupid dream. About Robot City.”

Ariel stared at him…, A stupid dream made you look like a walking wreck?”

“Yes.” He looked…frightened. “Ariel, there’s something unusual about this. I-I keep dreaming that Robot City is inside me. We’ve got to get back there.”

Robot City!

Ariel’s mind was flooded with a hundred images, sounds, odors even, of the great robot-inhabited planet, where the busy machines worked away like so many bees, building and building for the ultimate good of humans. It was an Earthly City without a roof, populated by robots rather than humans. They’d been trapped there, first by the robots themselves, then by their mad designer, Dr. Avery.

“Go back there?” she whispered tensely. “I’ll never go back!”

“We must,” said Derec, his voice just as low and determined, but also indifferent. It was as if he was speaking not to her but to himself. “I’m dying or something. I don’t know what Dr. Avery did to me, but…”

What had he not already done? Derec had lost his memory long ago, and only Dr. Avery could have removed it. She had known that as soon as she realized that he had lost all memory of her. Human beings were less than robots to Avery, they were guinea pigs.

Go back? To save Derec’s life?

But I’m cured! she wanted to cry. I can go back to Aurora and say to them: Look, the despised Earthers cured me after you cast me out! You don’t need to watch your sons and daughters lose their memories and die-you can cure them. If you can persuade the Earthers to tell you how!

There need be no more of this aimless existence, running from planet to planet, looking for a cure, for an excuse to go on hoping. There could be a home, a place in society, all the wealth of associations that membership in the human society meant.

They could even consider the Keys, the existence of aliens, Robot City itself-they could report Dr. Avery, turn the Key over to the proper authority, shift the burden to other shoulders.

Ariel sighed.

“You don’t look good,” she said.

After all, how much did she owe him, anyway? At lot of apologies, if nothing else. She’d blamed him wrongly for too much.

“I hope there are star charts in the ship,” he said. Derec put a hand to his brow. “If we can get back to Kappa Whale, we can take both ships back to Robot City. That’ll give us a spare. Dr. Avery won’t think of that-I hope.” He rubbed his face slowly; his eyes squinted as if the light were too bright.

“Is it getting dark?” he asked.

“Not yet,” Ariel said. “The sun will be setting in a little while, but it won’t start to get dark for another hour.”

“Oh.”

“What kind of dreams have you been having?” she asked skeptically, thinking that they might have been right: if he’d not been eating, or sleeping, it might all be strain-

“Like I said, I dream that Robot City has been shrunk into my bloodstream. I don’t know why it frosts me so, but it does. I can’t shake it off. It’s a -a haunting feeling.” He rubbed his face again, haggard.

Ariel didn’t know what to say. “It…doesn’t sound like an ordinary dream.”

“I’m sure it’s no dream,” he said instantly, looking sick. “Something’s going on.” R. Jennie entered the opening of the tent and he said, dully, “R. Jennie, what are chemfets?”

“I do not know, Mr. Avery.”

“Derec-”

“I wish I could sleep. It drives you crazy if you don’t have real dreams.”

“Derec, you really look-awful.” Ariel felt a stab of real fear. “Oh, Derec!”

He looked as if he were about to throw up. Drooling, he pushed his light camp chair back, starting to get up. He fell over.

“ Derec!”

R. Jennie came with a rush, cradled him as Derec’s arms and legs started to flail. “He is having convulsions. I do not know what is wrong,” she said. “Help me hold him-”

Ariel was too weak herself to be of much help, but after a few moments Derec’s seizure eased, he sighed heavily, and he began to breathe in a more normal fashion instead of inhaling in great tortured gasps. His limbs relaxed, and R. Jennie warily lowered him to the carpet-covered grass of the tent floor.

“He seems to be much better, but this is not a natural sleep,” said the robot. “Unfortunately, there is no communo in the area, nor do I possess a subetheric link. I must go for help. Ariel, you must watch him.”

“What do I do if he…has another seizure?” she asked, huskily.

“Hold him. Do not put a spoon in his mouth.” And with that puzzling admonition, the robot began to run toward the City.

Greatly to her relief, Derec awoke within ten minutes. “How are you?” she whispered, frightened.

“I’m okay,” he said faintly. He did look greatly relieved. “Chemfets,” he said.

“What?”

“Robot City is inside me, in a manner of speaking.” Derec struggled with her weak help to a sitting position. “I’m thirsty.”

Hastily, Ariel poured him some juice. He drank carefully, seeming a little dizzy.

“We keep thinking of robots in terms of positronic brains,” he said, seemingly at random. “But computers existed before positronic brains and are still widely in use. At least a dozen computers of different sizes for every positronic brain, even on the Spacer worlds. And for a long time there’ve been desultory attempts to reduce computers in size and give them some of the characteristics of life.”

“Derec-are you all right?”

He looked at her seriously, haunting knowledge in his sunken eyes. “No. I’ve been infected with chemfets. Microscopic, self-replicating computer circuits. Robot City is in my bloodstream. When I fell asleep just now, the monitor that Dr. Avery implanted in my brain opened communication with them.”

“What…what are they doing?” Ariel could scarcely grasp it, it was so strange. What would a chemfet want? Was it truly alive?

“Growing and multiplying, at the moment. I don’t think they’re anywhere near…call it maturity. The monitor…I don’t think it’s of any use yet. It’s as if they have nothing to say to me yet.”

“But they may later?” she asked swiftly.

“I suppose.” He looked at her, haggard. “I wonder if they’ve been programmed with the Three Laws?”

Ariel grunted. “Yes. I suppose they’ve been upsetting your body systems. No wonder you’ve been sick. Will… will the dreams continue?”

He thought about it, shook his head. “I don’t think so. I think those were just the monitor trying to open contact. Once the channel is opened, it won’t be worked unless they have something to say.”

“How about if you have something to say to them?” Ariel asked, with a flash of anger.

“I suppose…if I learn how to work the monitor,” he said dubiously.

“And tell them to get out of your body because they’re killing you! First Law,” she said.

Then: “I hope they’re programmed with the Three Laws.” Frightened, she looked at him.

Strength and purpose seemed to have flowed back into him: knowledge of what was going on, a drop in the subtle pressure the monitor had been putting on him, relief, a good meal. It was something merely to know what the problem was.

“We’ve got to get back to Robot City,” he said with determination. “I now know that part of my feeling on that was due to the pressure of the monitor. The chemfets want me back there for some reason. But we have our own reason for going back. We’ve got to confront Dr. Avery and make him reverse this -infestation. “

Ariel nodded in angry agreement. “Yes! Dr. Avery has played his games with us, and especially with you, for too long.”

He stood up, and though he leaned on the table, he seemed much stronger. “But how do we get off Earth?”

“We’ll have to consult with R. David. If we can get back to the apartment without a lot of…”

“Where’s R. Jennie?”

“She’s gone for help. You had-convulsions.”

“No wonder my muscles are sore. She’s gone for-doctors? I can’t let them examine me-”

Ariel grunted in understanding. “We’d never get away-they’d hospitalize you.” She looked at him. “They might even be able to cure you.”

Derec said, “I’ve come to have a lot of respect for Earth ‘s doctors, but this is a matter of robotics. I think we’d better go back to the source. I’d like to know what reason Dr. Avery had for this-what did he hope to accomplish?”

Ariel could only shake her head. “Just using you as a guinea pig, I suppose.”

“Yes, but that shows that he has some reason for developing chemfets, even if he doesn’t care about me. There must be some use for them.” As he spoke, Derec was groping in his pockets. He produced the Key to Perihelion. “At least, with R. Jennie gone, we can vanish without any questions being asked.”

“Questions will be asked,” she warned him.

“Yes,” Derec said, pressing the corners and taking her hand. “But not of us.”

Perihelion’s gray nothingness surrounded them. “They’ll assume some sensible explanation, involving the imaginary institute that sent us to Earth,” Derec added, looking around in the gray fog.

“I guess so,” she said dubiously. “As long as we aren’t spotted in the City. “

“Or any other City.”

The apartment appeared around them, and Derec sagged with the return to gravity. Alarmed, Ariel threw her arm around him and instantly R. David was there, supporting him from the other side.

“Mr. Avery! What is the matter?”

Derec obviously hadn’t prepared an answer.

“Derec is sick,” said Ariel swiftly. “We must get him to Aurora for treatment. The spaceship is at New York City Port. How can we get there the soonest?”

“The fastest means of travel on Earth is by air,” said R. David. The robot hesitated, bending over to assure itself that Derec wasn’t dying at that moment.

“I’ll be okay,” said Derec, his voice low but firm.

“What’s the fastest means of travel that our rating will permit us to use?” Ariel asked.

“Air travel,” said the robot. “Isn’t it rationed?”

“No,” said the robot. “You see, on Earth, necessities are rationed on an as-needed basis. Scarce luxuries, such as real meat and fish, or larger and better quarters, are rationed mostly on a basis of social standing. Some of the less-scarce luxuries, such as candy and birthday cards, are available partly on a rationing basis and partly on a cash basis. These are the so-called ‘discretionary luxuries,’ minor items not everyone wants.

“Finally, luxuries in large supply are distributed purely on a monetary basis, and this includes air travel. The air system was designed for emergencies. Since Earth people hate to travel by air, the excess is freely available. It is expensive, but your bank account cards are amply charged.”

Ariel fumbled through her wallet for the window with the cash card. Was it a real memory, or did she dream that she had dropped her purse on the expressway? A dream; or else R. David had replaced the ID. “Will our use of cash be monitored?” she asked.

“That is not possible. The privacy laws of Earth forbid scrutiny or oversight of these monetary transfers, so the provision doesn’t exist.”

Since money could only be used for “minor luxuries,” no wonder. “How do we get to an airport?”

R. David gave minute directions for taking the expressway to something he called Lambert Field, and after Derec had rested for a few minutes they went out to the communo and called for reservations on the next flight to New York. After two hours of fearful waiting for the knock of the TBI on the door, they ventured out for what Ariel devoutly hoped would be the last time through the corridors and ways of the City.

Each step of that passage brought back memories from just before the crisis of the amnemonic plague. This time they rode the way only to the north-south junction, changed ways, and rode north for longer than they had ridden east on their previous excursion: BRENTWOOD, RICHMOND HEIGHTS, CLAYTON, UNIVERSITY CITY, VINITA PARK, CHARLACK, the forgotten political divisions of a simpler time. ST. JOHN, COOL VALLEY, KINLOCH.

And then, after thirty minutes of standing and holding on, fearing every moment that Derec would collapse, they saw LAMBERT FIELD AIRPORT, EXIT LEFT.

The airport was a sleepy place, considering St. Louis City’s seven million people. There was but one ticket window, the clerk there seemed subdued, and the few people in the waiting rooms never spoke or smiled. Presently their plane was announced.

Not only was the passage to the place covered, but the runway it took off from was also roofed over! There were no windows in the place, so they had a choice of sleeping or of watching the continuous news and entertainment feed in front of each seat. Earthers scheduled most flights for night, and the five other passengers-only five! Ariel remembered the crowded millions on the ways-the other passengers elected to sleep, those who could. Most were too nervous to try. Derec slept all the way to New York, to Ariel’s intense satisfaction. She slept most of the way herself. Best of all, in the air and the airports, nobody spoke to them or even looked at them.