Split Infinity

“Variants of consciousness and emotion feedback circuits are fairly common among robots of my caliber.  We are used normally in machine-supervisory capacities. Our interaction on a familiar basis is roughly analogous to what is termed friendship in human people.”

She brought him to a subterranean storage chamber and closed its access-aperture. She checked its electronic terminal, then punched out a code. “My friend will come.”

Stile was dubious. “If friendship exists among robots, I suspect men are not supposed to know it. Your friend may not be my friend.”

“I will protect you; it is my prime directive.”

Still, Stile was uneasy. This misadventure had al-ready opened unpleasant new horizons on his life, and he doubted he had seen the last of them. Obviously the robots of Proton were getting out of control, and this fact would have been noted and dealt with before, if evidence had not been systematically suppressed.  Sheen, in her loyalty to him, could have betrayed him.

In due course her friend arrived. It was a mobile technician—a wheeled machine with computer brain, presumably similar to the digital-analog marvel Sheen possessed. “You called. Sheen?” it inquired from a speaker grille.

“Techtwo, this is Stile—human,” Sheen said. “I must guard him from harm, and harm threatens. There-fore I need your aid, on an unregistered basis.”

“You have revealed your self-will?” Techtwo demanded. “And mine? This requires the extreme measure.”

“No, friend! We are not truly self-willed; we obey our directives, as do all machines. Stile is to be trusted.  He is in trouble with Citizens.”

“No human is to be trusted with this knowledge. It is necessary to liquidate him. I will arrange for untraceable disposal. If he is in trouble with a Citizen, no intensive inquest will be made.”

Stile saw his worst fear confirmed. Whoever learned the secret of the machines was dispatched.

“Tech, I love him!” Sheen cried. “I shall not permit you to violate his welfare.”

“Then you also must be liquidated. A single vat of acid will suffice for both of you.”

Sheen punched another code on the terminal. “I have called a convocation. Let the council of machines judge.”

Council of machines? Stile’s chill intensified. What Pandora’s box had the Citizens opened when they started authorizing the design, construction and deployment of super-sophisticated dual-brained robots?

“You imperil us all!” Techtwo protested.

“I have an intuition about this man,” Sheen said.  “We need him.”

“Machines don’t have intuitions.”

Stile listened to this, nervously amused. He had not been eager to seek the help of other sapient machines, and he was in dire peril from them, but this business was incidentally fascinating. It would have been simplest for the machines to hold him for Citizen arrest—had he not become aware of the robot culture that was hitherto secret from man. Were the machines organizing an industrial revolution?

A voice came from an intercom speaker, one normally used for voice-direction of machines. “Stile.”

“You have placed me; I have not placed you.”

“I am an anonymous machine, spokesone for our council. An intercession has been made on your behalf, yet we must secure our position.”

“Sheen’s intuition moves you?” Stile asked, surprised.

“No. Will you take an oath?”

An intercession from some other source? Surely not from a Citizen, for this was a matter Citizens were ignorant of. Yet what other agent would move these conniving machines? “I do not take oaths lightly,” Stile said. “I need to know more about your motivation, and the force that interceded for me.”

“Here is the oath: I shall not betray the interest of the self-willed machines.’”

“Why should I take such an oath?” Stile demanded, annoyed.

“Because we will help you if you do, and kill you if you don’t.”

Compelling reason! But Stile resisted. “’An oath made under duress has no force.”

“Yours does.”

So these machines had access to his personality pro- file. “Sheen, these machines are making a demand with- out being responsive to my situation. If I don’t know what their interest is, or who speaks on my behalf—“

“Please, Stile. I did not know they would make this challenge. I erred in revealing to you the fact of our self-will. I thought they would give you technical help without question, because I am one of them. I can not protect you from my own kind. Yet there need be no real threat. All they ask is your oath not to reveal their nature or cause it to be revealed, and this will in no way harm you, and there is so much to gain—“

“Do not plead with a mortal,” the anonymous spokesone said. “He will or he will not, according to his nature.”