The Rod of Light (Soul of the Robot)

The mage had given him a Zoroastrian aphorism: ‘The sun rules the light, the moon rules the dark.’ The dark, if Jasperodus had understood him correctly, was the realm of the robotic mind. Was this glimmering moonlit landscape, then, symbolic of the robot’s world? Seen but not really seen? He had often tried to imagine what genuine construct existence was like. Logically it was not like anything—it was not there at all. Yet it did contain thought; there was deliberation in it, and a machine awareness that was like a passive reflection of human consciousness, just as moonlight was a passive reflection of sunlight. In the same way the moon created a spurious version of the day lit world, so perhaps there was a reflected fictitious world of construct perception, and if one could look into this world perhaps one would see, as it were, a realm under the moon, not quite visible, mysteriously passive and asleep. Except that on this landscape, the sun never rose. Were it not that they knew no other world, one could pity robots for their cold, unillumined non-existence.

A cloud drew across the moon and blotted out the ghost landscape. Tuning up his vision to accommodate his eyes to the lower light level, Jasperodus trudged on.

Three days saw him out of the range of hills and onto a fairly level plain. Shortly after dawn of the next day, he approached the site of the archaeological dig.

It consisted chiefly of a long trench into which broad steps had been cut. Constructs moved slowly and carefully in the excavation, looking from a distance like metallic grubs. On the far side rested a large earthmover, and beyond that an air transporter that had brought the team here.

Jasperodus noticed that several craters, seemingly from bomb blasts, dotted the area. He sought out the team leader, a gangling figure by the name of Glyco.

‘Well?’ he demanded without preamble.

‘We shall be unable to remain much longer,’ Glyco informed him in a silvery voice. ‘Yesterday we were attacked by Borgor planes, in spite of our attempting to camouflage the site with a ground sheet. Our missiles drove them off, but they are bound to be back.’

Jasperodus was rueful. His journey had been wasted. ‘Best make preparations to depart. Are there any noteworthy finds?’

Glyco led him to a large awning. Beneath it numerous objects and fragments were laid out. ‘It is hard to say just what this installation once was,’ he said. ‘Not a town, not a single dwelling, not a factory. It seems somehow a mixture of all three. We have turned up many artifacts made of this curious substance.’

He handed Jasperodus an empty casing that was surprisingly light—lighter by far than any metal or wood, except perhaps balsa. Its pale lavender surface was perfectly smooth and shiny.

Jasperodus nodded. ‘The material was used extensively both before and during the Rule of Tergov. It is a hydrocarbon. In the course of manufacture it can be made plastic but quickly hardens, so it could very easily be moulded or pressed.’

‘One more example of Tergov’s technical elegance, then? Still, I had hoped I was showing you something new.’

‘I am afraid not.’ Jasperodus flexed the casing, admiring its strength-to-weight ratio. The material, known generically as ‘plastic’, was derived from a mineral oil once found in widespread natural deposits. Exhaustion of the natural oil reserves had forced manufacturers to revert to the more awkwardly worked metal and wood. Otherwise Jasperodus himself would probably have consisted of this ‘plastic’, as would nearly all robots—for such had been the case a thousand or more years ago.

For once there was something to be said for the cruder technology of recent times. Jasperodus liked his body of weighty steel.

Glyco handed him another object. ‘Is this more informative?’

It was a thin sheet of gold, measuring about one foot by two. Etched on it was what appeared to be a short extract from an oscillograph recording, marked by regular vertical lines that presumably represented time periods. Waves of various frequencies marched across the sheet, superimposed so that troughs and peaks met and diverged at random. Under the graph was a text inscribed in logic symbols, the neat signs of which also littered the graph itself.

Jasperodus examined the sheet closely. He had sent his team here because old maps had led him to think it might be the site of an ancient academic institute for the study of social change. Tergov had not fallen altogether unresistingly; learned men had suspected that collapse might be imminent, and had tried to gather data that might be used to allay the catastrophe.

‘It is a graph of social periodicities,’ he announced. ‘Impossible to interpret, unfortunately, since the parameters are missing. I cannot even say if the variations are economic or psychological … do you have more of these sheets?’

‘Not so far, Jasperodus.’