"Asimov, Isaac - Robot City 01 - Odyssey - Michael P Kube-McDowell" - читать интересную книгу автора (Asimov Isaac)

And there were Third Law considerations as well. The Third Law went, ?A robot must protect its own existence, as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.?
How would a robot balance its responsibility to preserve itself with the increasing probability of its demise? It was as though the designers had concluded that there were things Darla was better off not knowing, and thrown up barriers to prevent her from finding out. They had kept her ignorant of herself, and even of her ignorance.
There was a disturbing parallel in that to Derec?s own situation. Is that what happened to me? he wondered. He had hoped almost from the first that his loss of memory was the consequence of whatever disaster had put him in the lifepod, perhaps along with the shock of a hard landing on this world.
Now he had to ask whether such selective amnesia could be an accident. He had read the schematic easily, but he could not remember where or why he had acquired that skill. Obviously he had some technical training, a fact which?if he survived?might prove a useful clue to his identity. But why would he remember the lessons, but not the teacher? Could his brain have been that badly scrambled?
Yet reading the schematic was a complex task which clearly required that his mind and memory be unimpaired. As well as he could judge, his reasoning was measured and clear. If he were in shock or suffering from a concussion, wouldn?t all his faculties be affected?
Perhaps this wasn?t something that had happened to him. Perhaps, as with Darla, it was something that had been done to him.
Derec grimaced. It was unsettling enough looking at the blank wall of his past, but more unsettling to think that hiding behind that wall might be the reason why it had been built.
By this time Darla had grown impatient. ?Have you found anything?? Darla asked with a note of anxiety.
Blinking, Derec looked up at the status board. ?The recorder?s tied in through a Maxwell junction. The junction won?t pass through to the recorder anything it doesn?t recognize, which is why you can?t find it with a trace. And why we?re not going to be able to read it through you. But there has to be a data port somewhere, probably on the outer hull??
At that moment, the whole pod lurched and seemed to become buoyant. Derec had the sensation that it was no longer in contact with the frozen surface of the asteroid. ?What?s going on?? he demanded.
?Please stay calm,? Darla said.
?What is it? Have we been found??
?Yes. I believe we have. But I am unable to say by whom.?
Derec gaped openmouthed for a moment. ?Put the exterior video up again! Quickly!?
?I am becoming concerned about your level of agitation, Derec. Please close your eyes and take several deep breaths.?
?I?ll do no such thing,? he said angrily. ?I want to see what?s going on.?
There was a moment?s hesitation, and then Darla acquiesced. ?Very well.?
The sight that greeted Derec?s eyes made his breath catch in his throat. The limpet?s cameras were no longer trained on the horizon, but down at the ground. A half-dozen machines, each different from the next, were arrayed around the pod. The largest was taller than a man, the smallest barely the size of a safesuit helmet. The tiny ones hovered on tiny jets of white gas, while the larger ones were on wheels or articulated tracks.
He could also see a portion of some sort of cradle or deck which seemed to be centered below the pod. And all of them?the machines, the cradle, and the pod?were moving, proceeding along together toward some unknowable destination like some sort of ice-desert caravan.
?What?s going on?? he demanded of Darla. ?Can you identify them? Did they make any contact with us??
?The device below us appears to be a cargo sled. I have no information on the other mechanisms.?
Derec reached for his helmet and unsnapped the catch holding it in place. ?I?m going out. I?m not going to let us be hijacked like this with no explanation.?
?Leaving the pod would be too dangerous,? Darla said. ?In addition, you will lose a minimum of four hours? oxygen opening the hatch.?
?It?s worth it to find out what?s going on.?
?I can?t allow that, Derec.?
?It?s not your decision,? he said, reaching for the harness release with his free hand.
?I am sorry, Derec. It is,? Darla said.
Too late, Derec realized that a Massey Companion was equipped to calm a distraught survivor not only verbally, but chemically. The dual jets of mist from either side of the headrest caught him full in the face, and he inhaled the sickly sweet droplets in the gasp of surprise.
Derec had barely enough time to be astonished at how quickly the drug acted. Both his arms went limp, the right falling well short of the harness release, the left losing its grasp on the helmet. His vision rapidly grayed. As though from a distance, he heard dimly the sound of the helmet hitting the floor. But between the first bounce and the second, he drifted away into the silent darkness of unconsciousness, and saw and heard nothing more.


CHAPTER 2

UNDER THE ICE

For the second time in one day, Derec awoke in strange surroundings.
This time, he was lying flat on his back staring up at the ceiling. There was a sour taste in his mouth and an empty, growly sensation in his stomach. He lay there for a moment, remembering, then sat up suddenly, his muscles tensed defensively as he looked about him.
As before, Derec was alone. But this time he found himself in more domestic surroundings?a four-man efficiency cabin, three meters wide by five meters long. The bed he had been lying in was a fold-down bunk, one of four mounted on the side walls. To his right as he sat on the edge of the bunk was a bank of storage lockers of assorted sizes. To his left was a closed door.
That damned Darla, he thought fiercely.
Though what he saw around him struck a vaguely familiar chord, Derec dismissed it as meaningless?there was a tedious sameness to all modular living designs. A more important question was whether the cabin was part of a work camp on the surface of the asteroid, tucked away somewhere inside a speeding spacecraft, or somewhere else he couldn?t imagine. The cabin itself offered no clue. Nor could it tell him whether he had been rescued or captured.
Glancing down at himself, he saw that he was no longer wearing the safesuit. His torso and legs were covered by a formfitting white jumpsweat, the sort of garment a space worker would wear inside his work jitney or augment.
It was clean and relatively new, but there was some wear on the abrasion pads at heel and knee and waist. It might have been what he was wearing under the safesuit, or?
?The suit,? he said with sudden dismay.
He jumped to his feet and looked around wildly. There was only one locker large enough to hold a safesuit. It was unlocked, but it was also empty. He went through the other lockers mechanically. All were empty.
No, they were more than empty, he decided. They looked as though they?d never been used.
Derec felt a twinge of panic. If he didn?t find the suit, he would never learn whatever information the datastrip on its name badge had to offer. And he had to find Darla as well, or lose the irreplaceable data stored in her event recorder.
Half afraid that he would find it locked, Derec crossed to the door and touched the keyplate. The door slid aside with a hiss. Outside was a short corridor flanked by four doors. The corridor was deserted, the other doors all closed.
To Derec?s left, the corridor terminated in a blank wall. The other end was sealed by an airlock, suggesting that the four rooms formed a self-contained environmental cell. Through the small window in the inner pressure door he caught a glimpse of another corridor lying beyond.
?Hello?? Derec called. There was no answer.
The door facing him was labeled WARDROOM. Inside, he found a table large enough to seat eight for a meeting or a meal, a compact autogalley, and a sophisticated computer terminal and communications center.