The Watchful Eye jumped over the fallen alien and tried to continue its run, but Timestep, with a dancing twirl, tripped it up. It stumbled, but this time did not fall. When it regained its balance, it ran at Timestep so quickly that the robot did not have time even to consider his Third Law responsibility.
It wrestled Timestep to the pavement but then, in an abrupt move, broke its hold and raced away. It had progressed half a block before Mandelbrot stood up. However, since he regarded Wolruf the same way he did humans, First Law compelled him to kneel down beside the fallen alien to see if she was in need of help.
“I am fine,” Wolruf said in a faint voice. She could barely talk. “ ‘U go on. Continue purrsuit. I will go to Derec.”
Wolruf watched Mandelbrot and Timestep chase after the strange robot. When they were out of sight, she struggled to her feet. The pain from her legs seemed to be traveling through her whole body.
Her run to Derec was done at a much slower pace then usual.
The Watchful Eye wished it had been able to imitate a robot’s speed, but its mimicry did not automatically give it full physical control. Unlike a normal Avery robot, it skidded around corners and bumped into obstacles. Each little delay was allowing its pursuers to get closer.
It had one advantage over Mandelbrot and Timestep. It knew where it was going.
The tunnel was not too far away now. After looking back at its pursuers, it quickly calculated the time it would take them to close the gap between them and it. It was likely they would overtake it a few meters from the tunnel entrance.
It needed a diversion.
It flashed into its mind a map of the area and discovered that there was a building coming up on its right that stored several of the results of its genetic experiments. This had been one of its latest experiments, and many from this batch of creatures were still functioning.
If it went through this building, which had a rear exit, and could slow down its pursuers by doing so, it could reach the tunnel entrance easily.
As Mandelbrot’s footsteps became louder, sounding as if he were ready to climb onto its back, the Watchful Eye took an abrupt right turn toward the building. It ran at such velocity that it hit the entrance with an impact that sent the thick door flying open.
Inside, bright light illuminated an enormous room. Spread across its floor, on shelves, sprawled over furniture, was a large group of rejects from the Watchful Eye’s experiments.
The beings of this particular group, the one it had created just before the arrival of the intruders, were somewhat larger than the dancers and built with less delicacy. They were thick-muscled, with bulges all over their bodies, bulges that did not actually correspond accurately with the protuberances of the human body.
Toughness was their chief trait. Continually knocking against each other and starting fights, playing games that usually ended in fierce brawling, executing odd practical jokes, or banding together into groups and staging small battles that contained more strategy than one would expect, they had some resemblance to frontier people on the Settler planets and in Earth’s history.
In contrast to the roughness of their natures, they had organized themselves into a fairly intricate society, including a government laden with bribery and graft. The Watchful Eye had been quite taken with this group, but had had to reject it because it exhibited too many weaknesses, and outside of their corrupt politics and a tendency toward lively song, they had displayed minimal intelligence.
Most of its experiments were failures because they turned out to be too limited, even though each group displayed different characteristics. It had wanted to discover more about the Laws of Humanics (which stated, more or less, that human beings must not harm themselves or allow others to come to harm, must not give robots dangerous orders, and must not harm robots unless the action could save other human beings), but its experimental creations generally became too independent, forming their own societies and proving nothing about the ethics that were the foundation of the Laws.
On one side of the room, a large group was singing a raucous song, while a wild melee ensued near the Watchful Eye’s feet. Stepping carefully into spaces the tiny creatures tended to create when one of the larger entities came into the room that was their world, it managed to get about one-third of the way across the room before Mandelbrot and Timestep came through the open doorway. The Watchful Eye looked back for a moment and saw what it had expected. The two robots had come to a standstill. Uncertain of how to wind their way across the overpopulated room, they further wondered if their actions here should be governed by the First Law of Robotics. They were not sure if the law even applied to this situation. It walked on, knowing that even if there were creatures under its foot as it came down, they were used to visitors and adept enough to scamper out of the way. It easily reached the other side of the room, where some of the male citizens performed odd mating rituals with the females. (There had been no actual mating in any of the experimental creatures’ societies, although pairing off and flirtation were not uncommon.)
Before Mandelbrot and Timestep could work their way cautiously across the room, the Watchful Eye was on a new street and making its way toward its tunnel escape route. In its mind, coolly analytical in spite of the danger around it, it continued to formulate its plan for the destruction of Robot City.
Chapter 17. Adam And Eve And Pinch Me
Adam found Eve standing at the entrance to a small park set in the middle of one of several Robot City building clusters. This cluster included a small art museum, a library, an auditorium meant for music performance, and one of those plazas with customerless commercial shops that dotted the city. The park itself was a circle of trees just inside a small metallic picket fence, with attractive groupings of benches, bushes, and flower beds throughout.
Although Eve stood still and looked into the park, it was clear to Adam that she was not studying its landscape or evaluating its function. She was staring at a particular comer, assuring herself that the activity she had just completed there had left no trace.
He stood by her side for a long while before speaking. She continued to resemble Ariel, while Adam had changed from Avery back to Derec. An outside observer might have judged them to be as romantically involved as the two humans were, the way they stood together silently against the park’s romantic setting. But that was only another facet of their mimicry, and romance was not a part of their repertoire, unless their creator had some later surprise to spring upon them.
“This is where the dancers are?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“You have buried all of them someplace in this park?”
“Some of them. Others are elsewhere.”
“Do you know why you have performed this ritual?”
“It seemed appropriate. When we encountered the first group in that lot, they were burying their dead. I finished that job, so it seemed to me balanced that I do the same task for the dancers. I thought that, whatever they were, someone should perform the rites that appeared to be appropriate to their society. Am I wrong?”
“I would have no way of knowing that. Right and wrong seem to be the kind of polarity to which beings like Derec and Ariel and Or. Avery give importance. They are concerned with moral values. We do not have to be, except as they apply to us.”
“I thought we were moral beings, too.”
“We are. But we do not have to fret in the way that they do about values. And ours are less complicated, governed only by the distinctions of set codes of behavior. You have seen how they cannot even agree among themselves on an issue.”
“Yes. Dr. Avery seems almost like an enemy of Derec and Ariel, while Derec and Ariel do not always get along with each other. Why cannot they agree on proper rules of conduct, Adam?”