Collected Stories Of Arthur C. Clarke (30 page)

It took him a little while to master the controls, and at first the beam wandered erratically all over the city. Peyton found himself looking into any number of surprising places, and once he even got a glimpse of the forest – though it was upside down. He wondered if Leo was still around, and with some difficulty he located the entrance.

Yes, there it was, just as he had left it the day before. And a few yards away the faithful Leo was lying with his head toward the city and a distinctly worried look on his face. Peyton was deeply touched. He wondered if he could get the lion into Comarre. The moral support would be valuable, for he was beginning to feel more need of companionship after the night’s experiences.

Methodically he searched the wall of the city and was greatly relieved to discover several concealed entrances at ground level. He had been wondering how he was going to leave. Even if he could work the matter-transmitter in reverse, the prospect was not an attractive one. He much preferred an old-fashioned physical movement through space.

The openings were all sealed, and for a moment he was baffled. Then he began to search for a robot. After some delay, he discovered one of the late A-Five’s twins rolling along a corridor on some mysterious errand. To his relief, it obeyed his command unquestioningly and opened the door.

Peyton drove the beam through the walls again and brought the focus point to rest a few feet away from Leo. Then he called, softly:

‘Leo!’

The lion looked up, startled.

‘Hello, Leo – it’s me – Peyton!’

Looking puzzled, the lion walked slowly around in a circle. Then it gave up and sat down helplessly.

With a great deal of persuasion, Peyton coaxed Leo up to the entrance. The lion recognised his voice and seemed willing to follow, but it was a sorely puzzled and rather nervous animal. It hesitated for a moment at the opening, liking neither Comarre nor the silently waiting robot.

Very patiently Peyton instructed Leo to follow the robot. He repeated his remarks in different words until he was sure the lion understood. Then he spoke directly to the machine and ordered it to guide the lion to the control chamber. He watched it for a moment to see that Leo was following. Then, with a word of encouragement, he left the strangely assorted pair.

It was rather disappointing to find that he could not see into any of the sealed rooms behind the poppy symbol. They were shielded from the beam or else the focusing controls had been set so that the monovisor could not be used to pry into that volume of space.

Peyton was not discouraged. The sleepers would wake up the hard way, as he had done. Having looked into their private worlds, he felt little sympathy for them and only a sense of duty impelled him to wake them. They deserved no consideration.

A horrible thought suddenly assailed him. What had the projectors fed into his own mind in response to his desires, in that forgotten idyll from which he had been so reluctant to return? Had his own hidden thoughts been as disreputable as those of the other dreamers?

It was an uncomfortable idea, and he put it aside as he sat down once more at the central switchboard. First he would disconnect the circuits, then he would sabotage the projectors so that they could never again be used. The spell that Comarre had cast over so many minds would be broken forever.

Peyton reached forward to throw the multiplex circuit breakers, but he never completed the movement. Gently but very firmly, four metal arms clasped his body from behind. Kicking and struggling, he was lifted into the air away from the controls and carried to the centre of the room. There he was set down again, and the metal arms released him.

More angry than alarmed, Peyton whirled to face his captor. Regarding him quietly from a few yards away was the most complex robot he had ever seen. Its body was nearly seven feet high, and rested on a dozen fat balloon tyres.

From various parts of its metal chassis, tentacles, arms, rods, and other less easily describable mechanisms projected in all directions. In two places, groups of limbs were busily at work dismantling or repairing pieces of machinery which Peyton recognised with a guilty start.

Silently Peyton weighed his opponent. It was clearly a robot of the very highest order. But it had used physical violence against him – and no robot could do that against a man, though it might refuse to obey his orders. Only under the direct control of another human mind could a robot commit such an act. So there was life, conscious and hostile life, somewhere in the city.

‘Who are you?’ exclaimed Peyton at last, addressing not the robot, but the controller behind it.

With no detectable time lag the machine answered in a precise and automatic voice that did not seem to be merely the amplified speech of a human being.

‘I am the Engineer.’

‘Then come out and let me see you.’

‘You are seeing me.’

It was the inhuman tone of the voice, as much as the words themselves, that made Peyton’s anger evaporate in a moment and replaced it with a sense of unbelieving wonder.

There was no human being controlling this machine. It was as automatic as the other robots of the city – but unlike them, and all other robots the world had ever known, it had a will and a consciousness of its own.

CHAPTER SIX

The Nightmare

As Peyton stared wide-eyed at the machine before him, he felt his scalp crawling, not with fright, but with the sheer intensity of his excitement. His quest had been rewarded – the dream of nearly a thousand years was here before his eyes.

Long ago the machines had won a limited intelligence. Now at last they had reached the goal of consciousness itself. This was the secret Thordarsen would have given to the world – the secret the Council had sought to suppress for fear of the consequences it might bring.

The passionless voice spoke again.

‘I am glad that you realise the truth. It will make things easier.’

‘You can read my mind?’ gasped Peyton.

‘Naturally. That was done from the moment you entered.’

‘Yes, I gathered that,’ said Peyton grimly. ‘And what do you intend to do with me now?’

‘I must prevent you from damaging Comarre.’

That, thought Peyton, was reasonable enough.

‘Suppose I left now? Would that suit you?’

‘Yes. That would be good.’

Peyton could not help laughing. The Engineer was still a robot, in spite of all its near-humanity. It was incapable of guile, and perhaps that gave him an advantage. Somehow he must trick it into revealing its secrets. But once again the robot read his mind.

‘I will not permit it. You have learned too much already. You must leave at once. I will use force if necessary.’

Peyton decided to fight for time. He could, at least, discover the limits of this amazing machine’s intelligence.

‘Before I go, tell me this. Why are you called the Engineer?’

The robot answered readily enough.

‘If serious faults developed that cannot be repaired by the robots, I deal with them. I could rebuild Comarre if necessary. Normally, when everything is functioning properly, I am quiescent.’

How alien, thought Peyton, the idea of ‘quiescence’ was to a human mind. He could not help feeling amused at the distinction the Engineer had drawn between itself and ‘the robots’. He asked the obvious question.

‘And if something goes wrong with you?’

‘There are two of us. The other is quiescent now. Each can repair the other. That was necessary once, three hundred years ago.’

It was a flawless system. Comarre was safe from accident for millions of years. The builders of the city had set these eternal guardians to watch over them while they went in search of their dreams. No wonder that, long after its makers had died, Comarre was still fulfilling its strange purpose.

What a tragedy it was, thought Peyton, that all this genius had been wasted! The secrets of the Engineer could revolutionise robot technology, could bring a new world into being. Now that the first conscious machines had been built, was there any limit to what lay beyond?

‘No,’ said the Engineer unexpectedly. ‘Thordarsen told me that the robots would one day be more intelligent than man.’

It was strange to hear the machine uttering the name of its maker. So that was Thordarsen’s dream! Its full immensity had not yet dawned on him. Though he had been half-prepared for it, he could not easily accept the conclusions. After all, between the robot and the human mind lay an enormous gulf.

‘No greater than that between man and the animals from which he rose, so Thordarsen once said. You, Man, are no more than a very complex robot. I am simpler, but more efficient. That is all.’

Very carefully Peyton considered the statement. If indeed Man was no more than a complex robot – a machine composed of living cells rather than wires and vacuum tubes – yet more complex robots would one day be made. When that day came, the supremacy of Man would be ended. The machines might still be his servants, but they would be more intelligent than their master.

It was very quiet in the great room lined with the racks of analysers and relay panels. The Engineer was watching Peyton intently, its arms and tentacles still busy on their repair work.

Peyton was beginning to feel desperate. Characteristically the opposition had made him more determined than ever. Somehow he must discover how the Engineer was built. Otherwise he would waste all his life trying to match the genius of Thordarsen.

It was useless. The robot was one jump ahead of him.

‘You cannot make plans against me. If you do try to escape through that door, I shall throw this power unit at your legs. My probable error at this range is less than half a centimetre.’

One could not hide from the thought analysers. The plan had been scarcely half-formed in Peyton’s mind, but the Engineer knew it already.

Both Peyton and the Engineer were equally surprised by the interruption. There was a sudden flash of tawny gold, and half a ton of bone and sinew, travelling at forty miles an hour, struck the robot amidships.

For a moment there was a great flailing of tentacles. Then, with a sound like the crack of doom, the Engineer lay sprawling on the floor. Leo, licking his paws thoughtfully, crouched over the fallen machine.

He could not quite understand this shining animal which had been threatening his master. Its skin was the toughest he had encountered since a very ill-advised disagreement with a rhinoceros many years ago.

‘Good boy!’ shouted Peyton gleefully. ‘Keep him down!’

The Engineer had broken some of his larger limbs, and the tentacles were too weak to do any damage. Once again Peyton found his tool kit invaluable. When he had finished, the Engineer was certainly incapable of movement, though Peyton had not touched any of the neural circuits. That, somehow, would have been rather too much like murder.

‘You can get off now, Leo,’ he said when the task was finished. The lion obeyed with poor grace.

‘I’m sorry to have to do this,’ said Peyton hypocritically, ‘but I hope you appreciate my point of view. Can you still speak?’

‘Yes,’ replied the Engineer. ‘What do you intend to do now?’

Peyton smiled. Five minutes ago, he had been the one to ask the question. How long, he wondered, would it take for the Engineer’s twin to arrive on the scene? Though Leo could deal with the situation if it came to a trial of strength, the other robot would have been warned and might be able to make things very unpleasant for them. It could, for instance, switch off the lights.

The glow tubes died and darkness fell. Leo gave a mournful howl of dismay. Feeling rather annoyed, Peyton drew his torch and switched it on.

‘It doesn’t really make any difference to me,’ he said. ‘You might just as well switch them on again.’

The Engineer said nothing. But the glow tubes lit once more.

How on earth, thought Peyton, could you fight an enemy who could read your thoughts and could even watch you preparing your defences? He would have to avoid thinking of any idea that might react to his disadvantage, such as – he stopped himself just in time. For a moment he blocked his thoughts by trying to integrate Armstrong’s omega function in his head. Then he got his mind under control again.

‘Look,’ he said at last, ‘I’ll make a bargain with you.’

‘What is that? I do not know the word.’

‘Never mind,’ Peyton replied hurriedly. ‘My suggestion is this. Let me waken the men who are trapped here, give me your fundamental circuits, and I’ll leave without touching anything. You will have obeyed your builders’ orders and no harm will have been done.’

A human being might have argued over the matter, but not so the robot. Its mind took perhaps a thousandth of a second to weigh any situation, however involved.

‘Very well. I see from your mind that you intend to keep the agreement. But what does the word “blackmail” mean?’

Peyton flushed.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said hastily. ‘It’s only a common human expression. I suppose your – er – colleague will be here in a moment?’

‘He has been waiting outside for some time,’ replied the robot. ‘Will you keep your dog under control?’