Robot Blues (25 page)

Returning from the
communal bathroom he shared with the other tenants of the building (or would
have shared had there been any other tenants), Grant glanced out a window and
was astonished to see the sun was sinking low into the smokestacks. The machine
was still flashing, still humming. Grant knew that it would continue to flash,
continue to hum. He knew that it was not going to explode. His faith had been
rewarded.

“Good work, men.”
He congratulated his squadron of research material.

Walking over to
the machine, with which he now felt sufficiently aquainted to be able to call
it by its correct name: Collimated Command Receiver Unit. Grant gave it a
moment of reverent, silent respect. His research had proven that the miracle
wasn’t so miraculous, but this had not lessened his awe. If anything, it had
enhanced it. He had formed a theory as to why the unit had suddenly been
activated. His theory was perfectly sound, borne out by his research, and if
what he theorized was true, then he stood a chance of making one of the
greatest scientific finds of this millennium.

First, Jeffrey
Grant must find the courage inside himself to touch the unit. He must type in
the correct command sequence to engage the Command Decoder. Just placing his
fingertips on the keys of the machine, such an old machine, was a sin of
immeasurable scale, but Grant reminded himself that this was for a greater
good. This was a Command Receiver Unit. It was now receiving. The manuals
described the method by which Grant could ask the unit for the coordinates of
the device which was sending the signal which had caused his Collimated Command
Receiver Unit to flash its message-received light.

What Grant was
about to do was something he had never before done in his life, something he
had never considered doing, something that, with all his imagining, he’d never
imagined himself doing. Picking up the machine, handling it with extraordinary
care and gentleness, Grant rested his trembling fingers on the keyboard.

After a few
moments of impotence, when his fingers refused to obey the admittedly weak
orders coming from his brain, Grant regained hold of himself. He typed in the
requisite series of commands. The screen went dark.

Grant experienced
a moment of fear that would have served him well had he ever faced any Corasian
fighters.

And then the
screen returned to life. Information scrolled rapidly past his wondering gaze.
The scrolling stopped.

He didn’t
understand most of it, but he didn’t need to understand most of it. All he
needed was a number, and there it was, at the bottom of the screen.

Grant copied the
number onto a pad, took the pad to his personal computer, pulled up a stellar
map, and typed in the numbers he had on the pad. The computer gave him his
answer.

He then placed the
unit in the old worn leather container in which it had been originally found,
strapped the straps, made certain the unit was still humming. He slid the three
disks into a pocket of the leather case. After a moment’s consideration on
proper wording, he wrote a note stating: “Closed. Indefinitely.”

He put on his hat
and coat and left the museum—a full half hour ahead of his usual time. Shutting
the door, he locked it, slid the key into his pocket, and posted the note on
the glass.

This done, he
stood a moment on the sidewalk, feeling tense and light-headed and buoyant and
nervous and, above all, determined.

“You can do it,
Captain,” he said to himself. “The admiral has every confidence in you.”

Tightening his
grip on the machine’s case, which was heavy and rather awkward to carry, Grant
walked down the sidewalk. In the distance was his home.

He took a
right—not a left—at the corner.

He did not go
home. He went to an automated bank, removed his entire life savings from his
account, indulged in a taxi ride to the nearest spaceport, and rented a
spaceplane.

“Destination?” the
attendant asked Grant, handing back his pilot’s license.

“Pandor,” said
Jeffrey Grant.

Now the dang robot’s
a-wearin’ my shoes.

I got the robot
blues . . .

Anonymous, “Robot Blues”

The robot was no
longer confused. It had received an answer to its signal. The Doctor had
responded. Directions were given. The robot knew now what it was supposed to
do, if not necessarily how to go about doing it.

The robot had been
busy during the night it had spent in the packing crate. It had taken the
opportunity provided it by the Rescuer to assimilate the situation, determine
what had happened in the past, decide how best to proceed in the present. Also,
during this time, the robot set its programming to work, studying the unknown
speech pattern of the Rescuer in an attempt to open channels of communication,
should that eventuality become necessary.

The robot did a
complete scan of its own memory banks, starting from the time that memory had
been initiated, up to the present. It had a memory of the Doctor, whose
commands must be obeyed without question, although the ‘bot was free to use its
own determination on how best to carry out those commands. It had a memory of
its spaceplane—a nonentity, as far as the robot was concerned; a mindless
machine that did what it was told to do in a plodding manner, had nothing to
say for itself, and was incapable of acting on its own. The robot also had a
memory of that spaceplane being shot down.

The Doctor had
Enemies. Information on the Enemy had been entered into the robot. Information
on evading the Enemy had been entered into the spaceplane.

If approached,
retreat.

If fired upon,
retreat.

If hit,
self-destruct.

At all costs,
avoid capture.

The robot had no
difficulty with these orders, but the spaceplane did, apparently. The plane had
been both approached and fired upon. The spaceplane had been unable to retreat
and should have blown up itself and the robot. Destruction had not occurred,
with the result that the plane had plummeted down through the atmosphere, ended
up by burrowing nose-first into an enormous sand dune. To give the plane
credit, it had attempted to self-destruct, but something had gone wrong. The
robot did not know this, however, and had, in its report—recorded on the way
down—castigated the plane quite severely.

At this point, the
robot noted a blip in its memory. Nothing really very serious, rather like a
hiccup, but there was definitely a segment of time missing. The robot
determined that this blip must have been due to damage sustained in the crash.
It had detected a loose connector in its neural pathway circuitry. Logic
dictated that the loose connector had been put back into place by the first
Rescuer, when that Rescuer found the robot in the storage closet.

As to what the
robot had been doing in the storage compartment—that was uncertain. The ‘bot’s
last memory before the blip was of the plane descending at a steep angle, the
robot sliding across the deck, the storage closet door flying open, sudden
darkness, and nothing.

Until the
Rescuers.

In the event that
any of the robots ran into trouble, the Doctor had provided them with a “help”
signal. The cry for help was not general, it would not bring ships from all
over the quadrant to the rescue. The cry was specific, would reach only the
Doctor and his team. The robot sent out its call for help as the spaceplane
descended.

Then came the
slide into the closet, the crash, the momentary blank-out. Then the Rescuer,
with repairs.

The robot found it
impressive that help arrived so quickly. And it noted, in its report, that
haste was probably the reason the Rescuers acted in such a peculiar and
illogical manner. The robot also noted, for future reference, that it would be
useful if the Rescuers spoke a language which the robot was programmed to
understand.

Looking back on
its encounter with the Rescuers, the robot could make very little sense out of
what had happened. However, since the incident involved humans, this was only
to be expected.

Rescuer A had
discovered the robot in the closet, repaired the robot, and then, instead of
bringing the robot out of the closet, had entered the closet with the robot.

When Rescuer B had
arrived on the scene—standing outside the damaged plane and yelling something
unintelligible—the robot had started to leave the plane to go to the Rescuer—as
it was programmed to do. Rescuer A, for some unknown reason, had attempted to
keep the robot inside the closet.

This was
illogical. The robot was not going to be able to perform its functions inside
the closet. And so it had left. Detaching the arm onto which the Rescuer was
holding, the robot had floated through the damaged plane, had reached the open
hatch. The robot had confronted Rescuer B, who had then behaved in the most
illogical manner thus far recorded.

Rescuer B had
screamed and run away.

Really, the Doctor
needed to hire better help.

The robot had
spoken to Rescuer A, who did not understand. Rescuer A had spoken to the robot,
who did not understand. The robot had scanned Rescuer A, discovered it to be a
mixture of human parts and machine parts—a cyborg. The robot had set about
recording the cyborg’s speech, storing it away, analyzing it in order to learn
the language.

The Rescuer had
been able to communicate his wishes to the robot by means of gestures. The
robot was able to deduce that the Rescuer wanted the ‘bot to accompany him. The
logic for this move became apparent when the robot saw the storage crate.

Which was where
the robot was now.

But not for long.

Safely tucked away
inside the storage crate, the robot assumed it would be placed aboard a plane
in order that it could, once more, commence with its duties.

The robot was
extremely discomfited when it found its crate being deposited in what its
scanners revealed to be some sort of storage facility for broken-down
machinery!

The robot was
willing to give the Rescuer the benefit of the doubt. The Rescuer obviously
thought the robot was in need of repair, did not realize that the robot was
designed to repair itself. Which reminded the robot—it was missing its #20 arm.
It needed to make a note to have the arm replaced. This accomplished, the robot
beamed its customary signal to the Doctor. Do I have my orders straight? Am I
supposed to return to duty?

Ordinarily the
response was immediate. This time, the wait was rather longer and, when the
response came, it was extremely weak. Investigation revealed that the signal
was emanating from a different portion of the galaxy. The signal was clear,
however. The robot was to carry on.

Escaping from the
storage crate was easy. The robot selected a tool built into one of its many
arms, adjusted a valve, which caused the air pressure inside the compartment to
increase. The pressure grew until the lid on the storage container popped
loose. Using a second arm, and a levering device, the robot pried the lid of
the container open. Activating its air jets, the robot floated out. The ‘bot
reattached its arm, then closed the lid to the crate. The crate had been really
quite comfortable. The robot did not want all these strange-looking machines
sitting around the crate to contaminate it.

Once free of the
crate, the robot began its search for a suitable transport spaceplane. The
robot’s spectrum analyzer isolated no less than forty different space-to-tower
communications. A launch facility must be nearby.

The robot tucked
its twenty arms up inside its head and soared off in the direction of the
communications tower of the spacefield.

Grasp the subject,
the words will follow.

Marcus Porcius Cato,
Ars Rhetorics,
I

“The topic of this
lecture is ‘Foreign Object Damage to Spaceplane Engines.’ I regret”—Xris
paused, repeated himself, with emphasis—”I
truly
regret the fact that
Colonel Jatanski, who is an acknowledged authority on this subject and who was
supposed to be here today to deliver this lecture, was called away last night
to serve at a court-martial proceeding. It has fallen to me to carry on in the
colonel’s absence. I’ll ... do the best I can,” Xris concluded, and, because he’d
moved his head too close to the antiquated mike, the last statement was lost in
ear-piercing feedback.

“Oh, sorry.”

Xris stepped back
hastily from the mike, nearly fell off the rostrum. He caught himself by
grasping hold of the podium. In the audience, Tess ducked her head, put her hand
over her mouth to smother her laughter. Xris recalled what she’d said yesterday
about imagining the audience completely naked. Contrary to popular opinion,
this did nothing to help his composure.

Unfortunately for
Xris, the turnout for the lecture was quite good. He’d been nursing a secret
hope that no one would show up. He couldn’t understand why anyone would want to
attend who wasn’t ordered to do so. A few whispered words exchanged with Tess
prior to the speech gave him the explanation.

“Life is so boring
on Pandor that any break in the routine, even a speech on foreigners stuck in
spaceplane engines”—she had grinned at him—”is a welcome change! I predict a
sellout crowd.”

“Wonderful,” Xris
had muttered. “You know what I said yesterday about fainting during
show-and-tell, that wasn’t exactly the truth. I didn’t faint. I threw up.”

“You’re not
joking, are you?” Tess had regarded him in concern. “You really hate this. It’ll
be over soon. I’ll buy you a drink later.”

“After last night,
I may never drink again. You made it back okay? The MPs didn’t stop you?”

“No, but then they
weren’t trying real hard. How about you?”