"Allen, Roger MacBride - Isaac Asimov's Robot Mysteries 02 - Isaac Asimov's Inferno" - читать интересную книгу автора (Allen Roger Macbride)

IV
A Robot May Do Anything It Likes, Except Where Such Action Would Violate the First, Second, or Third Laws.



THE SPACER-SETTLER STRUGGLE was at its beginning, and at its end, an ideological contest. Indeed, to take a page from primitive studies, it might more accurately be termed a theological battle, for both sides clung to their positions more out of faith, fear, and tradition rather than through any carefully reasoned marshaling of the facts.
Always, whether acknowledged or not, there was one issue at the center of every confrontation between the two sides: robots. One side regarded them as the ultimate good, while the other saw them as the ultimate evil.
Spacers were the descendants of men and women who had fled semi-mythical Earth, with their robots, when robots were banned there. Exiled from Earth, they traveled in crude star- ships on the first wave of colonization. With the aid of their robots, the Spacers terraformed fifty worlds and created a culture of great beauty and refinement, where all unpleasant tasks were left to the robots. Ultimately, virtually all work was left to the robots. Having colonized fifty planets, the Spacers called a halt, and set themselves no other task than enjoying the fruits of their robotsТ labor.
The Settlers were the descendants of those who stayed behind on Earth. Their ancestors lived in great underground Cities, built to be safe from atomic attack. It is beyond doubt that this way of life induced a certain xenophobia into Settler culture. That xenophobia long survived the threat of atomic war, and came to be directed against the smug Spacers--and their robots.
It was fear that had caused Earth to cast out robots in the first place. Part of it was an irrational fear of metal monsters wandering the landscape. However, the people of Earth had more reasonable fears as well. They worried that robots would take jobs--and the means of making a living--from humans. Most seriously, they looked to what they saw as the indolence, the lethargy, and the decadence of Spacer society. The Settlers feared that robots would relieve humanity of its spirit, its will, its ambition, even as they relieved humanity of its burdens.
The Spacers, meanwhile, had grown disdainful of the people they perceived to be grubby underground dwellers. Spacers came to deny their common ancestry with the people who had cast them out. But so too did they lose their own ambition. Their technology, their culture, their worldview, all became static, if not stagnant. The Spacer ideal seemed to be a universe where nothing ever happened, where yesterday and tomorrow were like today, and the robots took care of all the unpleasant details.
The Settlers set out to colonize the galaxy in earnest, terraforming endless worlds, leapfrogging past the Spacer worlds and Spacer technology. The Settlers carried with them the traditional viewpoints of the home world. Every encounter with the Spacers seemed to confirm the SettlersТ reasons for distrusting robots. Fear and hatred of robots became one of the foundations of Settler policy and philosophy. Robot hatred, coupled with the rather arrogant Spacer style, did little to endear Spacer to Settler.
But still, sometimes, somehow, the two sides managed to cooperate, however great the friction and suspicion. People of goodwill on both sides attempted to cast aside fear and hatred to work together--with varying success.
It was on Inferno, one of the smallest, weakest, most fragile of the Spacer worlds, that Spacer and Settler made one of the boldest attempts to work together. The people of that world, who called themselves Infernals, found themselves facing two crises. All knew about their ecological difficulties, though few understood their severity. Settler experts in terraforming were called in to deal with that.
But it was the second crisis, the hidden crisis, that proved the greater danger. For, unbeknownst to themselves, the Infernals and the Settlers on that aptly named world were forced to face a remarkable change in the very nature of robots themselves...

--Early History of Colonization, Sarhir Vadid,
Baleyworld University Press, S. E. 1231





PRELUDE

THE ROBOT PROSPERO stepped out of the low dark building into the night. He approached the man in the pale grey uniform, the man who was standing well away from the light, near to the shore. Fiyle, the manТs name was.
Prospero moved with a careful, steady tread. He did not wish to make any sudden moves. It was plain to see that his contact was jumpy enough as it was.
The valise was heavy in ProsperoТs hand, the small case packed solid. It seemed proper that it be heavy, with all the futures that were riding on this transaction. If anything, the case seemed rather light, if one considered all the freedom it would buy.
Prospero came up to the man and stopped a meter or two from him.
ДThat the money?У Fiyle asked, the nasal twanginess of his voice betraying his off-world origins.
ДIt is,У Prospero said. ДLetТs have it, then,У Fiyle said. He took the case, set it down on the ground, and opened it. He pulled a handlight from his pocket, switched it on, and directed the light down onto the bag.
ДYou donТt trust me,У Prospero said. It was not a question.
ДNo reason why I should,У Fiyle said. ДYouТd be willing and able to lie and cheat if you had to, wouldnТt you?У
ДYes,У Prospero said. There was no point in denying something that everyone knew about the New Law robots. Robots that could lie. The idea seemed strange, even to Prospero.
But then, the idea of a criminal robot was a little strange as well. Fiyle offered the light to Prospero. ДHere,У he said, Дhold this for me. У Even here, now, it happened. Even this man, this Settler, deep inside the rustbacking trade, did not give a second thought to ordering a New Law robot around. Even he could not remember that New Law robots were not required to obey the commands of a human. Unless the man was merely manipulating him, playing games. If that was the case--
No. Prospero resisted the impulse to resist, to protest. This was not the time or place to argue the point. He dare not antagonize Fiyle. Not when the human had it in his power to bring the law crashing down on them all. Not when a blaster bolt between the eyes was the standard punishment for a runaway robot. The others were depending on him. Prospero held the light, aiming so the man could easily see the interior of the case. It was filled with stacks of elaborately embossed pieces of paper, each stack neatly wrapped around its middle. Money. Paper money, in something called Trader Demand Notes, whatever those were. Settlers used them, and they were untraceable, and they were of value. That was all Prospero knew--except that it had taken tremendous effort to gather these stacks of paper together.
Absurd that so many robots could be traded for something as silly as bits of fancy printing. The man ran his hands over the stacks of paper inside, almost caressing them, as if the gaudy things were objects of great beauty.
Money. It all came down to money. Money to bribe guards. Money to hire the pull artists who could remove the supposedly unremovable restrictors from a New Law robotТs body. With the restrictor in place, a New Law simply shut down if it moved outside the prescribed radius of the restrictor control signal beamed from the central peak of Purgatory Island. With the right money paid, and the restrictor taken out, a New Law robot could go anywhere it pleased.
If it could manage to find a way off the island. Which is where men such as Fiyle came into the equation.
Fiyle lifted one of the stacks out and counted it, slowly and carefully, and placed it back in the case. He repeated the procedure with each of the other stacks. At last, satisfied, he closed the case.
ДItТs all there,У he said as he stood.
ДYes, it is,У Prospero agreed, handing the light back. ДShall we get on with the business at hand?У
ДBy all means,У the man said, grinning evilly. ДMy ship will be tied up at the North Quay. Slip Fourteen. At 0300 hours, the guard watching the security screens is all of a sudden not going to be feeling so good. His staff robot will help him to his quarters, and the screens will be unattended. Because he wonТt be feeling well, heТll forget to turn on the recording system. No one will see who or what gets onto my ship. But the guard expects that heТll be feeling better and back at his post by 0400. Everything has to be nice and normal by then, or else--У
ДOr else he turns us all in, you make a run for it, and my friends all die. I understand. DonТt you worry. Everything will go according to plan.У
ДYeah, I bet it will,У Fiyle said. He lifted the case and patted it affectionately. ДI hope itТs as worth it for you as it is for me,У he said, his voice suddenly a bit lower, gentler. ДThings must be damned hard for you here if youТre willing to pay this much to try and get away.У
ДThey are hard,У Prospero said, a trifle taken aback. He had not expected any show of sympathy from the likes of Fiyle.
ДBet youТll be glad to get out of here, wonТt you?У the man asked.
ДI am not going,У Prospero said, looking toward the quays and the ships and the sea. ДIt is needful that I remain here and coordinate the next escape, and the one after that. I cannot cross the seas to freedom. У
He turned his back on the sea and looked toward the land, the rough, hardscrabble island, and the contradictory, half-free, half-slave existence that was all he had ever known.
ДI must remain here,У he said. ДI must remain on Purgatory.У