Chapter Sixty-One
In sentient machines, as in biological creatures, allegiance is always emotion-based. And that makes it notoriously unreliable.
—Thinker, internal observation
On the planet Ignem, far beneath the orbital ring containing the Inn of the White Sun, the flat-bodied robot moved with uncharacteristic vigor, examining each mechanical soldier in the parade formation, using his interface probe to check their operating programs.
Thinker had to move quickly. There wasn’t much time to get the army ready. Beyond the formation, he saw smoke drifting over a volcano. But that was normal for Ignem, and certainly not the problem that had him so very, very concerned.
Thinker’s sensor probe darted out of one hand and snapped into a port on the side of the robot in front of him, making its interface connection.
Data poured into Thinker’s analytical brain. After only a few seconds, he shook his head. Another defective machine. Too many of them. Simultaneously, his officer robots moved along the ranks, checking the battle fitness of other soldiers.
“Remove this robot from the ranks,” Thinker said to an aide behind him, “and take him in for servicing.” Thinker downloaded a list of needed repairs into the robot, disconnected his probe, and moved on to the next one.
The next in line was not really a robot at all. Giovanni Nehr stood ramrod straight, wearing machinelike armor that he had received after volunteering to serve the mechanical army. Gio’s request had been unusual, and totally unanticipated by the robot leader. At first, Thinker had resisted.
“I’ll be the best fighter in the army, sir,” he had promised. “Just give me the chance to prove myself, please.” He went on to admit that he’d had a falling out with his famous brother, and would prefer to follow an entirely new career.
“Well, this would certainly qualify as that,” Thinker had said.
The two of them had laughed and clasped hands, metal against flesh.
Now, Thinker thought the new recruit looked quite good despite the dents in his armor. It occurred to the robot leader, though, that he could not interface with this Human to download the contents of his mind, the way he could with the mechanical soldiers. How useful it would be, Thinker realized, if he had that ability, since he still had questions about Giovanni Nehr.
For several seconds, Thinker paused and allowed his internal programming to search through the various data banks, determining if a complete machine to Human interface was possible. The data revealed a number of obstacles, but he thought it just might be possible. At the first opportunity he would perform a deeper analysis, and see if the technology could be developed.
Saying nothing to Nehr, Thinker moved on down the line.
The recycled fighting robots looked at their commander with sensor-blinking surprise as he hurried among them, inspecting components and issuing terse commands. In the past he had moved slowly and deliberately, a robot of thought, not of action. But he always knew he could get around quicker if he had to; it had only been necessary to activate one of the backup programs he had for emergencies.
The situation he faced at this time was exactly that.…
In the afternoon, Thinker inspected his manufacturing and assembly plants, a hive of buildings constructed at the jewel-like base of a volcano. Like the robots under his command, and like himself for that matter, the structures and machinery inside were all cobbled together from whatever parts the enterprising robots could locate, scavenged from dump heaps all over the galaxy and brought here.
He could order replacement parts from the Hibbils, but that would be prohibitively expensive. Besides, he didn’t trust those deceptive little fur balls, having discovered some of the insidious programs they had installed in sentient machines. Thinker preferred to make his own new parts, or rebuild old ones. Here on Ignem, his blast furnaces heated up metals, plax, and other materials for re-use. He had assembly lines in which mobile and fixed robots worked on old bodies and interior components.
Deep in thought, Thinker strutted down the main aisle of his largest assembly plant. For a moment he paused to watch the blue light of a laser soldering machine as it fused the sealing strip on a synaptic board, one of the brain components of a Series 1405 automaton. He hated using such old machines, since they didn’t have nearly as many features as the newer ones, but at least this series had always been reliable.
Yet, his thoughts were elsewhere.
Jimu and his squad were supposed to have returned by now. Instead, Thinker had learned they were staying with the Doge, as members of his elite Red Beret corps. From the reports reaching Thinker, he knew that the initial mission had been successful, as Jimu had saved the Doge’s life. But in doing so, the infernal robot had ingratiated himself so much to Lorenzo that the nobleman had praised Jimu and offered him a career in the Red Berets … an offer that was accepted.
Jimu is no longer under my command, Thinker thought. He had sent numerous messages to Jimu by courier, but had received no responses. Still, Thinker had obtained a great deal of information about his activities.
At this very moment, the wayward robot was doing something very, very troubling. On the resource-rich planet of Canopa, under the auspices of the powerful Doge, he was increasing the number of fighting robots under his own command. The original squadron of twenty had multiplied, and at last report comprised more than four hundred. Jimu was highly intelligent, with fine internal programming. On more than one occasion, he had proven his survival abilities, and Thinker, recognizing talent, had promoted him.
But perhaps the promotion had been premature. In retrospect, it seemed to him that Jimu had been exceedingly emotional by robotic standards, overzealous and too dedicated to Humans. It was a fine line, but clearly Jimu had gone too far. He should have completed his mission, saving the Doge’s life, and returned. Now he was something of a loose cannon.
This concerned Thinker greatly, but not for selfish reasons, not because Jimu was in a position of high influence and becoming well-known in his own right. To the contrary, Thinker’s motivations were pure, and he honestly believed that Jimu needed guidance. A sentient robot couldn’t just go off half-cocked and start building an army. He needed extensive education and preparation before taking that step. He needed a great deal of wisdom and moral instruction, and a huge amount of specific knowledge in his data banks. Otherwise, the army would not receive the proper programming, and could become a liability instead of an asset.
In particular, without the fail-safe mechanisms that Thinker always installed in the programming of sentient machines who followed him, they could go out of control and cause a lot of damage. Thinker had seen it happen before. It was called a robotic chain reaction. After one machine went bad it infected others, and they all went bad. Like a mob or a wolf pack, they took on new and menacing personalities, wreaking havoc against any biological organism unfortunate enough to cross their path.
Jimu had the fail-safe in his own programming. Thinker had installed it himself when he interfaced with him. But Jimu still didn’t know how to build an army; he didn’t know how to reprogram other robots to keep them from breaking down, and perhaps going berserk.
Thinker had no personal concerns, no petty jealousies. If Jimu had expressed a desire to build an army himself, and if it made sense to do so, Thinker would have set him on a training course to make it possible. But that had never occurred. The proper procedures had not been followed.
I should have handled him more carefully, he thought glumly, given him a tight internal program that compelled him to complete the one mission only. I’m no perfect army builder myself.
Hearing a machine voice, Thinker swiveled his head and looked around. The plant superintendent, Saccary, stood behind him. A small robot with an unusual porcelain-like face containing synthetic Human features, Saccary asked, “I have a hundred more of these automatons backed up for repairs, with worn out synaptic board sealing strips , but I’m running out of parts.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“Thank you, sir. May I give you a list of other parts we need?”
Thinker nodded stiffly and then moved on, accompanied by the superintendent.
With the Jimu matter dominating his concerns, Thinker slipped into a deep mental state in which he split his exterior self away from the inner core of his consciousness. The exterior self continued to interact with Saccary, accessing data banks for information and conversing with him, but at the core of his conscience Thinker didn’t hear or sense any of that. A volcano could erupt, sending everything flying and tumbling, and if his brain survived he might go on with his line of deep, uninterrupted thought.
In all of the galaxy, no robot was more altruistic or loyal to Humans than Thinker, more totally selfless. He knew this to be so with an almost absolute certainty, since he had downloaded the programs of thousands of robots into his own circuitry, and had analyzed them. Thinker did not consider himself morally superior out of any sense of pride; rather, he knew it to be the simple, unadorned truth.
Now he needed to deal with the crisis quickly, before Jimu built a force that was too large. At the pace the rogue robot had been increasing his numbers, he would one day exceed Thinker’s own army, which had slowed its growth rate due to a limited availability of key raw materials. Jimu, with his central location and the blessing of Doge Lorenzo del Velli, had no such limitations.
And Thinker had another reason in mind, a very deep and specific worry, beyond any general concern about robotic breakdowns and chain reactions. Thinker had heard about the Doge’s attacks on Noah Watanabe, and was horrified by them. As far as Thinker was concerned, Noah was the machine leader’s own Human equivalent, the most altruistic and untainted of his kind. From the reports of travelers stopping at the Inn of the White Sun, Thinker had been inspired by stories of Noah Watanabe and the idealistic mission of the Guardians. He had always hoped to meet the man one day, and perhaps that day was coming.
Noah was the most indispensable member of his race, just as Thinker himself was to his own. Even robots, in Thinker’s alternate but highly informed way of looking at things, constituted a racial type. The mechanicals were sentient, after all, and had emotions and desires, just like biologicals. Intelligent machines were born in a sense, could reproduce themselves, and could die. Just because they had no flesh or cellular structures meant nothing. Thinker had his own definitions.
Of supreme importance, Thinker did not want Jimu’s force to contribute to the annihilation of Noah Watanabe … and he intended to counter that. He would still make efforts to contact Jimu and talk sense into him, but didn’t hold out much hope for that.
Like a sleepwalker, Thinker strutted across a landing field toward a gleaming white shuttle. With only a surface awareness of his surroundings. he boarded the craft for the ride up to the Inn of the White Sun.
In the few minutes required for the trip, Thinker searched his data banks for important information. With all of the facts that he collected around the galaxy, constantly interfacing with thousands of robots, he had the equivalent of an intelligence operation—a spy network—within his own internal circuitry. Following sightings of Noah Watanabe and his grid-plane on podships and in pod stations, Thinker traced the Guardian leader’s travels around the galaxy in recent weeks.
In actuality, the robot was going through a probability program. There were gaps in the information, but he had enough to determine that Noah was no longer on Canopa, and no longer on board his orbital station high over the planet, either.
The fugitive and a small entourage had—with near statistical certainty—escaped to a remote planet in the Plevin Star System.