Caliban

Caliban stopped at the next intersection, by the entrance to some sort of store. He considered his options. He consulted the city map in his datastore and saw that there was a great deal of the city he had not seen yet. He had walked great strips and swatches of the town, but he had had no reason to quarter it systematically, block by block, street by street. What he had established from his wandering was that the datastore city map was not very detailed, and far from being complete or accurate. The city had changed since the map had been made. He himself had witnessed some of that change happening the night before. Whole buildings were missing from the datastore map, or on the map but missing from the real city. Clearly he could not rely on the datastore.

It would have to be in the area of town he had already seen, then. But even there his knowledge was far from complete. Where could he

“You! Help my robot with those packages and follow me to my aircar.”

Caliban turned around in some surprise. There was a heavyset man behind him, followed by a personal robot, coming out of the store. The robot was carrying a huge stack of packages, piled so high it could not see over them.

“Come on, come on. The damn store’ s robots are all out on deliveries, and damned if I’m going to play seeing-eye guide to a robot.”

Caliban did not move. He had learned last night, the hard way, the danger in blindly obeying orders, and the danger in associating with humans.

“What’s the matter with you?” the man snapped. “You under superseding orders already, waiting for your master, he tell you not to help anyone or some damn thing?”

“No,” Caliban said.

“Then help my robot. That’s a direct order!”

But Caliban knew now there was no safety in playing along, mimicking other robots. Suppose this man ordered him into his aircar and flew him to some unknown place, someplace off the map in his datastore? Suppose this man was collecting robots for the thrill of destroying them, just as the woman had been the night before?

Caliban wanted no part of it. Best to get away from this man, get away and find a place to hide from all the humans.

He turned his back on the man and walked away.

“Hey! Come back here!”

But the lessons of the night before were Burned deeply into Caliban ‘ s brain. He determinedly ignored the man and walked on. Suddenly there was a hand around his arm. The man was grabbing at him, trying to restrain him. Caliban pulled himself free. The man reached out to grab him again, but Caliban sidestepped him. At last he decided to run. There was much he did not understand, but he knew he did not want to be in this place any longer than necessary.

Without a backwards glance, Caliban stepped into the street, lengthened his stride into a smooth, steady run, and took off down the avenue.

CENTOR Pallichan watched in astonishment as the big red robot ran away. Pallichan was utterly flabbergasted and more than a little unnerved. The robot had refused a direct order, and shaken loose from Centor’s grip in the bargain! That was tantamount to violent behavior, violence against a human being, and refusal of orders to boot. With trembling fingers, not even entirely sure what he was doing, Pallichan pulled his pocketphone out, flipped it open, and punched in the police emergency code.

He put the little phone to his ear. There was a half moment’ s silence, and then the robot operator came on. “Sheriff’s Department Emergency Line. Please state the nature of your difficulty.” It was a smooth, calm, perfectly modulated voice. It soothed Pallichan ‘ s agitated mind, helped him think clearly, as no doubt it was meant to do.

“I wish to report a major robot malfunction. A robot, a big metallic-red robot, has just refused my direct order, and then shook me off when I took him by the arm. He ran away.”

“I see. Now establishing lock on your present location. Sir, what direction was he moving when he ran away?”

“Ah, oh, let’ s see. “ Pallichan had to think for a moment and get his bearings. He forced himself to think clearly, struggling to keep from getting flustered. “North,” he said at last. “Due north from here, heading up Aurora Boulevard.”

“That would be in the direction of Government Tower?” the deferential robot voice asked.

Pallichan looked up the avenue and saw the tower. “Yes, yes, that’s right.” The dispatch robot must have consulted a map system and located an obvious landmark Pallichan could use to confirm position and direction. Damned clever of the police to have the robots verify things that way.

“Thank you for your report, sir. A top-priority rapid-response aircar is now being dispatched to investigate. Good day to you.”

The line went dead, and Centor Pallichan snapped his phone shut. He dropped it back in his pocket with a proud feeling of civic-mindedness. He led his robot, still patiently carrying his packages, back toward his aircar and managed to get everything packed away without help from any other robots.