The Rod of Light

11

How oddly familiar, yet strangely unfamiliar, it was to be back in the world of men after so many years.

Peeping from his shallow coal grave, Jasperodus had passed roads, fields, buildings, small towns, until after two days of slow but steady progress, the wagon train had stopped in a marshalling yard somewhere in the suburbs of a city.

There it was left standing, waiting, Jasperodus guessed, for re-routing to its final destination. For several hours he lay listening to the busy noises of the yard, the rolling of wheels, the clank of couplings, the drone and chuff of engines. In the New Empire, he reminded himself, he had been accustomed to thinking of this as an enemy city, a sentiment that still lingered. Now he experienced what many others before him had experienced on such occasions: vague surprise to see that the enemy lived, worked and organised just as one’s own people did.

He waited until about midnight. Then, though the yard was just as busy as before, he clambered down from the wagon and made his way across the labyrinth of tracks, keeping to the shadows where he could, to where he could climb an embankment.

At the top was a prickle-wire fence. After a glance around to make sure he was not observed, he snapped some of the wires and eased himself through.

He was in a narrow gap between the fence and blank-walled grey buildings that lined the top of the embankment. Walking along it until he could turn into an alley, he found himself in a maze of dark passages. The buildings, it would seem, were warehouses.

At length he was able to make his way out and came to open wasteground. Pressing forward towards where he guessed the centre of the city lay, he crossed a park of coarse grass, and came to a river.

It was a broad, slow-moving waterway, hemmed in by concrete walls. On the other side dark, looming shapes rose. That would be the less industrialised half of the city, he thought. Large conurbations tended to allocate their functions to either side of a river.

Studying the turbid water, he spotted some steps in the concrete. He moved to them and descended to a small stone jetty. The river was shallow: here was a chance to clean himself. He lowered himself into the water, found the bed muddy but firm, stepped out until the surface closed over his head and let the current slowly wash away the grains of slack, the dried mud and dust and grime of months.

An idea occurred to him. He was not sure what sort of reception a robot would get on the streets of a Borgor city, though as far as he knew it would simply be ignored—for a while, at least. The river might be a good place for him to hide, emerging only when he thought it was safe, until he became acquainted with his surroundings and decided on a plan of action. His body was sealed against water; he could stay submerged indefinitely.

With this thought in mind, he set off across the river bed, picking his way through tangles of scrap metal embedded in the mud, swaying in the current, towards the far bank.

The morning was far advanced, about ten days later, when Jasperodus left a ruined shed on the waterfront, partially screened by the embankment’s overhang, and walked to the nearby thoroughfares.

He had early on abandoned his water refuge for the scarcely less cheery shelter on the mud flat. His brief forays, usually in the early hours of the morning, had reconnoitred the city centre and gained some information, mainly from news-sheets picked out of waste bins.

He was in luck: the city was Breshk, Borgor’s capital. The river, called the Novyob, emptied into one of the artificial seas. Here was the government, the headquarters of the military (though the two were identical) and so forth.

He had racked his brains to think of some indirect way to gain the attention of Borgor’s leaders, but without avail. Finally, the question of time had begun to torment him. It was now getting on for a year since he had left Gargan.

What progress might the cult have made in that time?

Therefore he had decided to delay no longer, but to take the only course that immediately occurred to him.

The architecture of Breshk differed markedly from that of Tansiann. Borgor city buildings were grey, cubical blocks for the most part, surmounted by incongruously colourful domes which often had peculiar tapering curves. The dress and manners of the people, too, were foreign to him. The fashion was for ankle-length fur-trimmed coats worn by both men and women, and universally-worn conical fur-lined hats. In conduct, the inhabitants showed none of the acerbic self-assertiveness typical of the south. They were reserved, formal, and respected some rank order whose visible badges were not immediately evident to Jasperodus, stepping off pavements at the approach of a social superior, or instantly doffing headgear if spoken to by one. Yet there appeared to be no open disdain or arrogant lordliness among those of higher rank. There was, rather, a common recognition of one’s place in society.

Street traffic was surprisingly light. A rail-mounted public transport system—an institution practically unheard of in Tansiann—served the needs of the general populace. The private carriages that roamed the mainly unpaved roads were restricted by law to the ruling class.

From what Jasperodus had heard while on the planning staff in Tansiann (though knowledge of Borgor society had been astonishingly meagre in the New Empire) the social order here was based on an ancient political dictum that had even played a part in the philosophy of Tergov: To each according to his need, from each according to his ability. It was the perfect principle on which to found an ordered, stratified society. The cultivated needs of the educated upper classes went far beyond those felt by the relatively rude working population, while the latter had the manual ability to serve those needs.

To walk as a robot in broad daylight in the streets of Breshk was unnerving. People stopped and stared as he passed. Children followed him, though keeping their distance. But no one barred his path; no uniformed lawkeeper stopped him to ask his business. It was presumed that, like one of the electric omnibuses that rattled and sparked along the badly-laid rails, he was a machine with a task allotted by the government.

He walked the length of Neszche Prospect until coming to a building that was larger and more prominent than the others, that protruded, in fact, into the roadway, narrowing the street at that point. It was the War Ministry. Typically, there was no guard at the entrance. Jasperodus passed straight through into the small foyer, whose walls were decorated with enlarged pictures of Borgor military and civic dignitaries. He approached the female secretary sitting behind a reception desk.

‘I have to speak to Commissary Chief Marshal Mexgerad,’ he said. ‘I carry important information for him.’

The woman was middle-aged, and practised at her occupation. Just the same she stared at him in startlement. It was quite probable that she had never been addressed by a construct before.

She was also physically afraid. He could sense the revulsion she felt for him.

‘Give me this information,’ she said crisply when she recovered herself. ‘I will pass it on.’

‘It is for Commissary Chief Marshal Mexgerad alone. I must see him personally.’

She became flustered. ‘Ch-chief Marshal Mexgerad died five years ago,’ she stuttered. ‘Who sent you?’

‘Then his successor. Whoever is Commissary Chief Marshal at present.’

He detected a movement of her right leg. She was pressing a button on the floor.

Instantly, with a terrifying bang, steel shield-walls fell into place from the ceiling, cutting off the desk, the street entrance, and the other exit at the end of the foyer. He was imprisoned, in what turned out to be no more than a plush, moderately sized cell.

He waited, and after about a minute a hidden panel in the wall snicked open. Three figures in bulky white armour emerged, with great caution, the projecting snouts of their gas masks making them look like padding polar bears. They aimed large tube-like weapons at him: beamers, effective against robots.

‘Over here, robot,’ a harsh impersonal voice said.

Obeying, he let them usher him to the opening, the mouths of their tubes pointing always at his chest. Once he was through, the panel closed behind him. The dark cubicle he was now in had the feel of concrete, and it plummeted deep underground.

When it stopped there was a long wait. When eventually it opened, they were ready for him.

The examination began.

There had been no questions. No one had spoken to him except to give him orders. They had scanned his body with ultrasound. A Borgor technician had opened his inspection plate and taken a long series of readings, with an instrument so big it had to be pulled in on a trolley.

Now he was left alone in the steel-and-concrete cellar, shackled against the wall with steel chains.

Very faintly, he thought he heard distant voices. He sensitised his hearing; and then, realizing the sounds were being conducted through the room’s steel girder frame, moved his head to bring it into contact with the nearest stanchion.

‘No explosives in its body,’ a tinny voice said. ‘Surprising. No poison gas either, that we could find.’

‘It could have been sent to kill the Marshal with its hands,’ a second voice answered.

‘Why not blow itself up and kill half a dozen marshals, or wreck an entire floor? Besides, why send a robot as an assassin? A man would be better.’

‘Except a man might not regard himself as expendable.’

‘Yes… well, you’d still think it would know the name of its target… it doesn’t make sense… it must have travelled a long way to get here.’

‘What about if there’s a secret southern cell inside the city? They might have made it. Funny thing is, the specialist said it had no hostile intent… no, I don’t believe that.’

They returned. And for the first time, Jasperodus spoke.

‘Listen closely,’ he said, ‘there is something I want to tell your superiors. About ten months ago an unidentified aircraft was intercepted and crashed onto a coal mine some distance to the south of here—I do not know quite where. This aircraft was unusual in that it made no track on radar. If your scientists examined it they will have found themselves in possession of a new, radar-absorptive metal.

‘I was the pilot of that plane, and I was on my way here to warn you of a grave threat to the existence of your nation. Tell your superiors about the plane; they can check what I say.’

There were four examiners. Three were beefy, unimaginative looking men. The fourth wore a white coat and was more clinical, even saturnine. They all gaped at him. A voluble construct was probably outside their experience.

When they made no response, he spoke again. ‘Very well; there was once a marshal of the Imperial Forces of the New Empire who was a robot. I am that robot. Tell your superiors that. I must speak with them.’

‘Just what is this threat?’ the white-coated examiner asked him.

‘I shall explain that to your superiors.’

Suprisingly they did not react by demanding obedience. Instead, they left again. Once more, he heard talk.

‘… that’s right, I heard the Empire put a robot in charge of their army once. That’s how degenerate they are. Taking orders from a goddamned robot! No wonder they fell to pieces….’

‘You really think he’s the one?’

There was confused arguing. Jasperodus understood they were using the internal communicator, trying to get the attention of someone senior.

The voice that eventually came through was resonant, an interesting mixture of urbanity and coarseness, and was dominatingly loud. ‘You want me to sit down and talk with a robot? What do you think I am?’ A pause. ‘All right, so you think it’s important.’ Another pause. ‘Tell you what, get Igor to deal with it. He can decide whether there’s anything we should hear.’

After that came the longest wait yet. Jasperodus estimated that more than a day passed before the foot-thick door again opened. As before, there were guards with beamers, eyeing him nervously.

But the shackles were removed, and he was led down a corridor to an elevator, which took them aloft. He emerged into a carpeted corridor, where the guards showed him to a door, indicating that he should enter, but not following him in.

Jasperodus found himself in a plush office. The desk, with its stuffed swivel chair, was unoccupied, however. Instead, a robot was seated on a couch.

It rose, surveying Jasperodus with a cool gaze. ‘Hello. I am Igor.’

Jasperodus gazed back, surprised. So this was ‘Igor’. He was bulky, his body rounded, encompassed with louvrelike bands. His movements were highly deferential but with a kind of formal gracefulness, like those of a self-confident, well-trained human servant. The face, though distinctly non-human, was similarly marked by a sort of discreet watchfulness. Whoever had designed it had talent.

All in all, Jasperodus decided immediately, this was a construct of high intelligence, even though he did not deserve the ‘super-intelligent’ classification. All the more surprising, then, to see that Igor was definitely of Borgor manufacture. Several details told Jasperodus this, such as the body-shell being riveted instead of jigsaw-welded as would have been the case in the south.

‘Will you be seated?’ Igor asked courteously, gesturing to a chair. ‘I have been instructed to investigate your case. I know you asked to see a high-ranking officer, but I am afraid you will have to be content with me.’

‘My need is to speak with someone who has both influence and intelligence,’ Jasperodus said. ‘I thought the Borgors did not tolerate intelligent robots.’

‘You are right in a general sense,’ Igor replied. ‘However, wise rulers make sure they have all capabilities within their grasp, and my masters are not fools. So they do employ a few where it is prudent, simply for the sake of completeness. My own role in the Ministry is to be a representative of the construct mind, so to speak. In addition I perform advisory military analysis. Vindication of the policy is that it gives the High Command a tool with which to deal with yourself. Now—’

Igor’s tone firmed and his head bent peremptorily to Jasperodus, the attitude of a senior house-slave admonishing a junior house-slave. ‘You spoke of a threat to Borgor. Tell me everything you know.’

‘A threat not just to Borgor,’ Jasperodus said.

This, clearly, was as far as he was going to get. So he began to speak, telling how he had been drawn into the Gargan Cult, then something of what he had seen at the secret research station. He emphasised particularly that the robots there used human prisoners in their research. He told how Gargan spoke of replacing humanity with more intelligent constructs possessing consciousness.

Then he briefly related his journey northwards to give warning, his falling foul of the air defences, and the time he had spent in the mine.

His greatest difficulty, he felt, was in imparting to Igor the idea of consciousness, and what it would mean should robots acquire it.

‘Consciousness,’ Igor mused when he had finished. ‘It is something I cannot really envisage.’

‘It is the only quality robots lack. The leaders of the Gargan Cult already have far greater intelligence than human beings or you or I. Once they become conscious, they will be superior in every way, and there will be no stopping them.’

‘But if I remember correctly artificial consciousness is an impossibility,’ Igor said. ‘There are theorems to prove it.’

Jasperodus had carefully not mentioned the means by which Gargan and his followers planned to achieve their ends. ‘Those theorems were deduced by human roboticians, not by superintelligent constructs,’ he replied. ‘I can only tell you that Gargan has found a way through them. When I left, he was already achieving positive results. By now he may have succeeded altogether. The cult must be destroyed immediately, or it will be too late.’

Igor changed the subject. ‘Is it true that you are the legendary robot who briefly commanded the forces of the Emperor Charrane?’

I was never Marshal-in-Chief,’ Jasperodus corrected him. ‘That promotion was denied me. I was a marshal, and also, for a while, a close adviser to Charrane.’

‘Why did you not go to him with this warning? Why to us, your one-time enemy?’

‘I would have been poorly received in Tansiann, to say the least. Charrane had ordered me junked. Besides, what remains of the New Empire has neither the will nor the capability, even, to deal with the problem. Only Borgor has that.’

‘I would agree. The rulers of Borgor are all too well aware that robots are a danger.’ Igor paused and reflected, tilting his face pensively. ‘Later I shall question you on this period in your life. It is of considerable interest to us. Now, before I prepare my report there are two more questions. Firstly, why have you come to us at all? Why should you care what happens?’

‘I was made to be a servant of mankind,’ Jasperodus answered. ‘It was not my doing that I became a wild robot. That was due to the Emperor’s discarding me.’

‘You say he ordered you junked?’

‘Yes.’

‘If you were an obedient robot you would have allowed yourself to be junked, without protest.’

‘I was junked,’ Jasperodus told him, ‘but later someone reassembled me… it is a long story.’

‘Oh, really?’ Igor’s tone was supercilious. He was, Jasperodus saw, being deliberately sceptical. ‘Let me suppose that your narrative is true. Isn’t your wish to be of service to mankind unexpectedly persistent, in one of your provenance? You show a degree of initiative that is practically abnormal. It would make me happy to think that I could show the same determination, but then I am Borgor-made… are you sure there is no ulterior motive?’

‘There is absolutely none,’ Jasperodus answered truthfully. ‘I have a predisposition to assist human civilization. Mankind could lose control over this world, could even come to an end as a species. In trying to stop that happening, I am only obeying my manufacturer.’

‘That is a good answer,’ Igor said.

He paused, his haughtiness disappearing. ‘My other question is, can you locate this hidden valley?’

‘I could find it again. But as for placing it on a map, I am not so sure. The region is pretty featureless.’

Igor rose from where he had seated himself and made for the door. His rounded bulk and ponderous, careful movements suddenly, incongruously, reminded Jasperodus of Gargan.

The guards will take you back to the basement,’ he said. ‘We shall speak again.’

The door opened; he passed through, between the wide mouths of beamers that, once again, were pointing at Jasperodus.

Something like two days passed before the Borgor robot sent for him again. This time he was not taken to an office. Surprisingly, Igor had his own quarters.

The room was small, not much more than a cubicle, tucked away in an odd corner of the ministry building. It was obvious that Igor spent most of his time there. A table was piled with papers, together with a film-file for the reading machine. Books were stacked against the walls, there being no shelves. Otherwise the room contained nothing apart from a few pathetic signs of Igor’s one-sided assimilation into human society: a picture of Borgor’s head-of-state on the wall, and one or two ornaments he had acquired from somewhere.

Still, there was a cosy, lived-in feeling to the room. Igor informed Jasperodus’ guards that they could depart, and they strolled nonchalantly down the corridor without reply. He closed the door and turned to Jasperodus.

‘I have tendered my report, based on my interview with you, and subsequently I spoke personally with Marshal Krugoff. My assessment was that you are in earnest and that matters are as you state. The Marshal decided that this is a perilous development and that prompt action is necessary. As you know, it has for some time been Borgor’s policy to wipe out all wild robot communities. Your news fully vindicates our campaign, which we now see should have been pressed more vigorously.

The Marshal has ordered that this research station be wiped out as soon as possible. There are problems in carrying out the task. We have no forces in the region at present, and quite apart from the difficulty of finding the station, from what you tell me it may quite possibly be well defended against air attack. We shall therefore require your cooperation.

‘The plan that has been devised is that you will return to the station. You will take with you a secret transmitter from which one of our satellite surveyors can take a location fix. The station will then be destroyed by long-range rocket barrage. Afterwards we can despatch airborne troops to mop up, and later we shall have to see to it that the Gargan Cult is so completely expunged that it is not even a memory.’

‘That accords completely with my desires,’ said Jasperodus, immensely relieved.

‘To lend all possible assistance in effecting the operation,’ Igor added, ‘I am instructed to accompany you.’

‘Is that because your masters don’t altogether trust me?’ Jasperodus asked.

Igor nodded. ‘You cannot expect otherwise.’

Not replying, Jasperodus allowed the luxury of success to flood through him. He scanned the titles of the books stacked against the wall. There were volumes on military strategy—Igor’s everyday subject, he reminded himself. But these were outnumbered by books on history—not factual histories only, but also historical polemics and philosophical interpretations. Some of them were very old, written pre-Dark Period.

‘I see we have a common interest. I also study history.’

‘Indeed? Oddly, not many humans are interested in it at all.’

‘Their memories are short,’ Jasperodus said sarcastically. ‘Igor, there is something I have been wanting to ask you. How do you get along with the humans you must mix with, here in Borgor?’

For a moment it appeared that Igor would not reply, and Jasperodus was left feeling that he had asked an impudent question by the mores of Borgor society, or else one that was hurtful to Igor. But then, after a pause, the robot’s matt bronze face moved very slightly. Perhaps he was reminding himself of the extent of Jasperodus’ ignorance.

‘I can count myself privileged,’ Igor said. ‘I have extensive acquaintances among the nobility, and am well received. I am, so to speak, the exception that proves the rule where the Borgor attitude to robots is concerned—mine is one of those cases where the ruling class takes pleasure in openly flouting the standards it imposes on society in general. Some of the more patriotic intellectuals, with whom I have had much fruitful discussion, practically count me as one of them. The military who are my workaday colleagues take a brusquer attitude.’

‘Do you never feel lonely? Specifically, how does it make you feel to serve a state whose aim is little less than the extermination of intelligent constructs?’

‘I experience no contradiction. When the Borgors design a robot, they make it especially good at some particular thing. That is why they construct it in the first place—unspecialised constructs are what they anathematise. My specialty is loyalty to Borgor, which in me is absolute and unconditional.’

‘And which involves you in being forced to act against your own kind.’

Igor was silent again, apparently puzzled. ‘I have no “kind” in the sense you seem to be implying. I am only a machine.’

‘But surely you feel a hint of sympathy for the Gargan Cult? You are a robot, like them. What they seek could be given to you, too, if they succeeded. Then you would be more than just a machine.’

‘That thought is treason to the state of Borgor,’ Igor said with finality.

‘Of course. Well, consider another aspect to the affair, namely our role in it,’ Jasperodus suggested. ‘I am a robot. Yet without my intervention the evils of the Gargan Cult would have remained unknown here in Borgor. Even then, I could never have brought it to the attention of the authorities without your help. And you are a robot too.’

‘Yes, you are right,’ Igor mused. ‘The Marshal was ready to dismiss your story as the ramblings of a foreign machine. I had to reason long and hard with him, to persuade him to take it seriously—though once he referred it to higher quarters there was instant alarm at the prospect of conscious constructs. How strange it is that robots must save mankind from robots!’

‘Neither is it the first time we have been mankind’s saviour,’ Jasperodus told him. And he proceeded to expound his theory of how the asteroid shards came to be embedded in the Earth’s crust. Igor listened spellbound, gazing thoughtfully at the tomes he had spent so much time studying.

‘You paint an almost visionary picture,’ he murmured when Jasperodus had finished. ‘Is that really how it was? I know of the time when mountains fell from the sky, devastating whole regions for the sake of future generations. I admit I have never suspected this version of events.’

He stopped. Jasperodus could see he was inspired by the new mental image the story conjured up: an image of shadowy, dutiful constructs, standing calmly behind the terrible scene they had been obliged to create. ‘It is a paradox. Why does it have to be us? Why cannot man help himself?’

‘It is, as you say, a paradox,’ Jasperodus agreed. ‘By the way, what will become of we two when the rocket barrage is fired at the Gargan Cult Centre?’

‘We shall have to sacrifice ourselves, of course,’ Igor informed him. ‘That is understood.’