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Isaac Asimov's Robot City 6 - Perihelion

ISAAC ASIMOV’S

ROBOT CITY

BOOK 6: PERIHELION

WILLIAM F. WU

Special thanks for help in writing this novel are due to David M.

Harris, Rob Chilson, my wife Diana Gallagher Wu, and of course Isaac

Asimov for supporting the Robot City project.

THIS NOVEL IS DEDICATED TO

CHELSEA, WITH LOVE

ROBOTS IN COMBINATION

ISAAC ASIMOV

I have been inventing stories about robots now for very nearly half a

century. In that time, I have rung almost every conceivable change

upon the theme.

Mind you, it was not my intention to compose an encyclopedia of

robot nuances; it was not even my intention to write about them for

half a century. It just happened that I survived that long and

maintained my interest in the concept. And it also just happened that

in attempting to think of new story ideas involving robots, I ended up

thinking about nearly everything.

For instance, in this sixth volume of the Robot City series, there are

the “chemfets,” which have been introduced into the hero ‘s body in

order to replicate and, eventually, give him direct psycho-electronic

control over the core computer, and hence all the robots of Robot

City.

Well, in my book Foundation’s Edge (Doubleday, 1982), my hero,

Golan Trevize, before taking off in a spaceship, makes contact with an

advanced computer by placing his hands on an indicated place on the

desk before him.

“And as he and the computer held hands, their thinking merged...

“...he saw the room with complete clarity—not just in the direction in

which he was looking, but all around and above and below.

“He saw every room in the spaceship, and he saw outside as well. The

sun had risen...but he could look at it directly without being dazzled...

“He felt the gentle wind and its temperature, and the sounds of the

world about him. He detected the planet’s magnetic field and the tiny

electrical charges on the wall of the ship.

“He became aware of the controls of the ship...He knew...that if he

wanted to lift the ship, or turn it, or accelerate, or make use of any of

its abilities, the process was the same as that of performing the

analogous process to his body. He had but to use his will.”

That was as close as I could come to picturing the result of a mind-

computer interface, and now, in connection with this new book, I

can’t help thinking of it further.

I suppose that the first time human beings learned how to form an

interface between the human mind and another sort of intelligence

was when they tamed the horse and learned how to use it as a form of

transportation. This reached its highest point when human beings

rode horses directly, and when a pull at a rein, the touch of a spur, a

squeeze of the knees, or just a cry, could make the horse react in

accordance with the human will.

It is no wonder that primitive Greeks seeing horsemen invade the

comparatively broad Thessalian plains (the part of Greece most

suitable to horsemanship) thought they were seeing a single animal

with a human torso and a horse’s body. Thus was invented the

centaur.

Again, there are “trick drivers.” There are expert “stunt men” who

can make an automobile do marvelous things. One might expect that a

New Guinea native who had never seen or heard of an automobile

before might believe that such stunts were being carried through by a

strange and monstrous living organism that had, as part of its

structure, a portion with a human appearance within its stomach.

But a person plus a horse is but an imperfect fusion of intelligence,

and a person plus an automobile is but an extension of human

muscles by mechanical linkages. A horse can easily disobey signals, or

even run away in uncontrollable panic. And an automobile can break

down or skid at an inconvenient moment.

The fusion of human and computer, however, ought to be a much

closer approach to the ideal. It may be an extension of the mind itself

as I tried to make plain in Foundation’s Edge. a multiplication and

intensification of sense-perception, an incredible extension of the

will.

Under such circumstances, might not the fusion represent, in a very

real sense, a single organism, a kind of cybernetic “centaur?” And

once such a union is established, would the human fraction wish to

break it? Would he not feel such a break to be an unbearable loss and

be unable to live with the impoverishment of mind and will he would

then have to face? In my novel, Golan Trevize could break away from

the computer at will and suffered no ill effects as a result, but perhaps

that is not realistic.

Another issue that appears now and then in the Robot City series

concerns the interaction of robot and robot.

This has not played a part in most of my stories, simply because I

generally had a single robot character of importance in any given

story and I dealt entirely with the matter of the interaction between

that single robot and various human beings.

Consider robots in combination.

The First Law states that a robot cannot injure a human being or,

through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

But suppose two robots are involved, and that one of them, through

inadvertence, lack of knowledge, or special circumstances, is engaged

in a course of action (quite innocently) that will clearly injure a

human being—and suppose the second robot, with greater knowledge

or insight, is aware of this. Would he not be required by the First Law

to stop the first robot from committing the injury? If there were no

other way, would he not be required by the First Law to destroy the

first robot without hesitation or regret?

Thus, in my book Robots and Empire (Doubleday, 1985), a robot is

introduced to whom human beings have been defined as those

speaking with a certain accent. The heroine of the book does not

speak with that accent and therefore the robot feels free to kill her.

That robot is promptly destroyed by a second robot.

The situation is similar for the Second Law, in which robots are

forced to obey orders given them by human beings provided those

orders do not violate the First Law.

If, of two robots, one through inadvertence or lack of understanding

does not obey an order, the second must either carry through the

order itself, or force the first to do so.

Thus, in an intense scene in Robots and Empire, the villainess gives

one robot a direct order. The robot hesitates because the order may

cause harm to the heroine. For a while, then, there is a confrontation

in which the villainess reinforces her own order while a second robot

tries to reason the first robot into a greater realization of the harm

that will be done to the heroine. Here we have a case where one robot

urges another to obey the Second Law in a truer manner, and to

withstand a human being in so doing.

It is the Third Law, however, that brings up the knottiest problem

where robots in combination are concerned.

The Third Law states that a robot must protect its own existence,

where that is consistent with the First and Second Laws.

But what if two robots are concerned? Is each merely concerned with

its own existence, as a literal reading of the Third Law would make it

seem? Or would each robot feel the need for helping the other

maintain its own existence?

As I said, this problem never arose with me as long as I dealt with only

one robot per story. (Sometimes there were other robots but they

were distinctly subsidiary characters—merely spear-carriers, so to

speak.)

However, first in The Robots of Dawn (Doubleday, 1983), and then in

its sequel Robots and Empire, I had two robots of equal importance.

One of these was R. Daneel Olivaw, a humaniform robot (who could

not easily be told from a human being) who had earlier appeared in

The Caves of Steel (Doubleday, 1954), and in its sequel, The Naked

Sun (Doubleday, 1957). The other was R. Giskard Reventlov, who had

a more orthodox metallic appearance. Both robots were advanced to

the point where their minds were of human complexity.

It was these two robots who were engaged in the struggle with the

villainess, the Lady Vasilia. It was Giskard who (such were the

exigencies of the plot) was being ordered by Vasilia to leave the

service of Gladia (the heroine) and enter her own. And it was Daneel

who tenaciously argued the point that Giskard ought to remain with

Gladia. Giskard has the ability to exert a limited mental control over

human beings, and Daneel points out that Vasilia ought to be

controlled for Gladia’s safety. He even argues the good of humanity in

the abstract (“the Zeroth Law”) in favor of such an action.

Daneel’s arguments weaken the effect of Vasilia’s orders, but not

sufficiently. Giskard is made to hesitate, but cannot be forced to take

action.

Vasilia, however, decides that Daneel is too dangerous; if he

continues to argue, he might force Giskard his way. She therefore

orders her own robots to inactivate Daneel and further orders Daneel

not to resist. Daneel must obey the order and Vasilia’s robots advance

to the task.

It is then that Giskard acts. Her four robots are inactivated and

Vasilia herself crumples into a forgetful sleep. Later Daneel asks

Giskard to explain what happened.

Giskard says, “When she ordered the robots to dismantle you, friend

Daneel, and showed a clear emotion of pleasure at the prospect, your

need, added to what the concept of the Zeroth Law had already done,

superseded the Second Law and rivaled the First Law. It was the

combination of the Zeroth Law, psychohistory, my loyalty to Lady

Gladia, and your need that dictated my action.”

Daneel now argues that his own need (he being merely a robot) ought

not to have influenced Giskard at all. Giskard obviously agrees, yet he

says:

“It is a strange thing, friend Daneel. I do not know how it came

about...At the moment when the robots advanced toward you and

Lady Vasilia expressed her savage pleasure, my positronic pathway

pattern re-formed in an anomalous fashion. For a moment, I thought

of you—as a human being—and I reacted accordingly.”

Daneel said, “That was wrong.”

Giskard said, “I know that. And yet—and yet, if it were to happen

again, I believe the same anomalous change would take place again.”

And Daneel cannot help but feel that if the situation were reversed,

he, too, would act in the same way.

In other words, the robots had reached a stage of complexity where

they had begun to lose the distinction between robots and human

beings, where they could see each other as “friends,” and have the

urge to save each other’s existence.

There seems to be another step to take—that of robots realizing a kind

of solidarity that supersedes all the Laws of Robotics. I speculated

about that in my short story “Robot Dreams,” which was written for

my recent book, Robot Dreams (Berkley/ Ace, 1986).

In it there was the case of a robot that dreamed of the robots as an

enslaved group of beings whom it was his own mission to liberate. It

was only a dream and there was no indication in the story that he

would be able to liberate himself from the Three Laws to the point of

being able to lead a robot rebellion (or that robots, generally, could

liberate themselves to the point of following him).

Nevertheless, the mere concept is dangerous and the robot-dreamer

is instantly inactivated.

William F. Wu’s robots have no such radical ideas, but they have

formed a community that is concerned with the welfare of its

members. It is pleasant to have him take up such matters and apply

his own imagination to the elaboration and resolution of the

problems that are raised.

CHAPTER l

THE COMPASS TOWER

Derec stood on the high, flat top of the Compass Tower, looking down

from the great pyramid at the endless geometric wonders of Robot

City beneath its blue and brilliant sky. Ariel leaned against him, still

clutching his arm in both hands. Mandelbrot the robot and Wolruf,

the little caninoid sentient alien, waited behind them.

“It’s changed so much,” Derec said quietly. They had just teleported

back to the planet by using their double Key to Perihelion.

Mandelbrot had carried them all here. “Keep the Key. It’ll be safest

with you.”

“Yes, Derec,” said Mandelbrot.

Derec turned around to gaze in the other direction. The sight was the

same: the lights and shapes of Robot City, stretching to a skyline

barely limned by the reflected sunlight against the blue horizon. He

could not escape it in any direction. His destiny seemed to be here.

“What’s changed?” Ariel asked. Her voice was meek. She had not

recovered from her ordeal on Earth. A critical illness had reached

fullness there, destroying her memories and her entire identity with

them. They had not been there by choice, but fortunately he had been

able to place a new matrix of chemical memories into her mind. They

were to grow on the residue of her old memory, but they were still

developing. She had not had time to get used to them, to integrate

them, to understand who she was.

Asimov, Isaac - Robot City 6 - Perihelion.pdf

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