Asimov’s Future History Volume 6 Read online

  A new kind of life.

  She was like a microorganism here. A germ or a virus, standing in the middle of a creature that only let her live because of a few wires and a few bytes of binary information.

  Her throat itched. She rubbed her neck. Was she becoming sick? If she was, would a robot notice and medicate her? Would the medication cloud her thinking even more? If it did, would it be a good or bad thing?

  Her elbow itched. She scratched it, the effect of her sharp fingernails somewhat muted by her suit. The itch stayed.

  She stopped scratching. Maybe it would go away if she ignored it.

  It didn’t. It got worse. She tried not to think about it, but the sole result was another itching. On her chest. She scratched her breastbone. That itch, too, remained. Neither showed the slightest sign of diminishing.

  Where was Derec? she wondered as her fear of losing control aggravated her sense of helplessness, which in turn aggravated her fear of losing control.

  Oh, that’s right. He’s still with the robot.

  Hey, I’m all right. I know where I am. I was somewhere else a few seconds ago and I couldn’t get back. Come to think of it, is there someplace else I should be rather than here? Shouldn’t I be in the future somewhere?

  Then she tried to think of her name, and discovered she could not remember that, either. A name seemed like such a basic thing to forget. Nor did it seem that far away. But it wasn’t where it was supposed to be: uppermost in her mind, where she could find it whenever she wanted. It was buried in her pathways.

  Pathways. Robots had pathways. Was she very much like them?

  Was she still alone? If she wasn’t, would it make any difference? She felt like her mind was made up of discarded scraps of ideas and impressions that long ago, maybe, had made sense. Right now they just made a junk heap.

  She sat down, trying to focus her thoughts and her vision. Without realizing it, she had walked all the way to the reservoir. An ecological system that had been created — but not nurtured — by Dr. Avery. A world that had been left alone to create itself.

  She pondered the edible plants growing on the banks. A clear-cut case of evolution in action. Had Dr.

  Avery envisioned the possibility?

  What if other meta-life forms were evolving as well?

  Now her stomach and crotch itched. Painfully. Her skin felt like it was burning from spilled acid.

  She buried her head in her hands. Her temples throbbed and she feared every artery in her brain was about to burst. It was easy, all too easy, for her to imagine a hemorrhage, the blood seeping everywhere, destroying her involuntary processes, drowning her thoughts.

  Had she really wanted to be alone? Where was Derec?

  Oh, that’s right...

  She realized there was a difference, normally a barely perceptible one but in her heightened case very distinct, between believing you were alone and actually being alone.

  Dawn was coming to Robot City. The glow Lucius had created was diminishing rapidly as the sun came up, and the waters of the reservoir rippled with irregular flickers reflecting the rays.

  Rays that brought life. Ariel watched in fascination as the pebbles at her feet shifted and made way for a gray stalk that, within a matter of moments, twisted from the earth and unfolded two tiny leaves. She accidentally grazed the edge of a leaf, felt a sudden flash of pain on her finger. The wound was narrow, like a paper cut. A bubble of blood seeped from her skin.

  Damn, that smarts, she thought, watching as other stalks unfurled, twisting from the gravel. Her head continued to ache. She stood and staggered to a boulder and leaned against it, being careful not to crush any of the stalks beneath her feet. But it was hard to keep thinking of it, even when she was no longer moving. Hard to keep her mind on things, to remember.

  Her skin itched allover now, in waves that cascaded up and down as if she were being inundated by invisible radiation. She perspired. She shivered. She moaned.

  She leaned back, looked at the sky, at the billowing clouds. She opened her mouth wide and breathed deeply, trying to keep her mind clear.

  For the pervasive itch had begun to resemble something — a half-tickle, half-pinprick that brought back the memory of a walk on Aurora when she had sat down to rest and had felt something similar, only subtler, tinier. She had looked down to see an ant crawling up her bare leg. She had shrieked from the surprise of it, but had brushed it off before her concerned robots could reach her.

  The effect had been unsettling, to be so rudely touched by a mindless life-form that could be carrying who-knows-what form of infectious disease. She had instantly intellectualized the experience, of course; she had long ago decided the Auroran fear of disease had been taken to ridiculous extremes. Even so, an involuntary sense of revulsion and disgust at the experience, much greater than was warranted, overtook her. It had lingered until she had bathed in a whirlpool of disinfectants.

  That night she had dreamed of being swarmed by thousands of ants. The nightmare had been similar to what she was experiencing now.

  But the current feeling was much more vivid.

  She tried to convince herself that it wasn’t real, that neither she nor Derec had detected any form of metallic insect life on this planet. However, the robots had shown definite signs of intellectual evolution.

  Perhaps that meant the cells forming the city were capable of random mutation, which meant it was not unreasonable to assume that a form of insect life was capable of developing.

  Ariel was frozen to the spot with fear. She lowered her gaze, fully expecting to see a horde of ants swarming about her legs, moving up her boots and disappearing into her trouser legs, searching for just the right place to stop and begin gorging themselves, before they started carrying away tiny pieces of her.

  But when she closed her eyes, it was all too easy for her to imagine the ants with their big compound eyes, glistening like tin in the sunlight, with their piston-driven spindly legs and their nuclear-battery-powered thoraxes, and especially with the steady, mechanical motions of their mandibles searching over her epidermis like the rods of a geiger counter. She could not as yet feel the mandibles biting and tearing, but she was certain that the pain would come. Beginning at any second.

  Where were the robots when you needed them? Couldn’t any see her? Weren’t any around?

  No, of course not, she realized with an ever-sinking sense of futility. You’re at the reservoir, and they’re all in the city, pining about how there aren’t any humans around for them to take care of.

  There’s soon going to be one less. Oh, Derec, where are you? Why can’t you help me?

  Ariel was afraid to breathe. She thought that perhaps if she remained utterly stationary, like one who is dead, then the ants might think she was nothing but a dead rock. But how could she remain motionless for long without breathing? Wouldn’t the ants hear the sound of air moving in and out of her lungs?

  What did it matter? She had to do something, even if it was nothing. She felt the mechanical ants everywhere, crawling up her breasts, nestled in her armpits, inspecting her hair. Why didn’t they start eating? Weren’t they hungry? What kind of ants were they?

  They’re robot ants, she thought. Maybe they’re trying to see if I’m human. If they decide I am, they may not hurt me. If they decide otherwise

  Now she knew why primitive man had worshipped deities — to stave off the tremendous fear of the last moments of life, when there were profound good-byes to be said and resolutions to be imparted, but no one to tell them to, and no time left to tell them.

  “Airr-eee-ll?” someone whispered timidly. “Arre ‘u asleep?”

  Ariel’s eyes could not have opened wider or faster if she had received an electrical shock. She jumped back in stunned surprise at the sight of Wolruf squatting directly in front of her. And promptly smacked her head against the boulder.

  Things got woozy as the caninoid cocked her head. Wolruf held a clump of stalks in her left hand, and a few strands hun
g from the fur surrounding her lips. “Arre ‘u well?”

  “Of course I’m well! What does it look like?”

  “My annces’orrs would have said that ‘u had vize-atorr.”

  “Who? What kind?” Ariel snapped. She closed her mouth with a force of will, then tried to compose herself. She was only partially successful. “It should be obvious that until you showed up I was the only one here.”

  “Two rre-ponnzes: furrst, been watching ‘u all nite —”

  “What!?”

  “Man’elbrrot rreques’ed it. Thought ‘u woul’n’t apprresee-ate rrobut.”

  “Why that big hunk of —”

  “Pulice, let me finish. Seckon’: ancess’ors would have said ‘u weren’t only theeng in ‘ur mind at moment, and I wai’ed, wa’cheeng, thinking it would be best not to dis’urb ‘u or’ur vize-atorr.”

  “And exactly what made you decide to interrupt my strange interlude?”

  “‘U looked like’u were about to faint.”

  “I see.”

  Wolruf tipped back further on her haunches, so that her back was perfectly straight. Her posture struck Ariel as being almost humanly annoyed, especially when the caninoid crossed her arms and shook her head, as if in disappointment. She went to great lengths to avoid looking directly into Ariel’s eyes, first examining the buildings, the bank, the rocks, and then pointedly turning her back to Ariel, perhaps to have a better view of the reservoir.

  “Well, aren’t you going to ask me what my problem was?” said Ariel.

  Wolruf turned her head slightly. “Why sshhould I?”

  “I — I thought you must might want to know, that’s all.”

  “Nne of my bizzness. Not people’s way. Deafenly not mine.”

  “Aren’t you worried?”

  “No.”

  “Don’t you care?”

  “Didn’t hav’ to wa’ch ‘u all nite. Was migh’ily bored. Many times distrrack’ed. Could hav’ lef’ ‘u at any time and Man’elbrrot neither knowed norr carred.”

  Ariel suddenly felt as tired as she had ever been in her life. Even to shrug with a labored air of nonchalance cost her a tremendous effort. “How flattering,” she said sarcastically.

  She immediately regretted the words. Wolruf was stopping just short of saying she had stayed to watch because she was concerned for her welfare. There you go, Miss Burgess, Ariel thought. You really will go insane if you can’t recognize the good in people, whether they’re human or not.

  She sat down beside Wolruf and said, “I’m sorry. Please try to understand that in addition to all our other problems, my mental condition gets out of hand sometimes.”

  “Datzz all rite.”

  “It isn’t, it’s just that I don’t know what I can do about it right now. To make matters worse, it always gives me an excuse to misbehave, even if I don’t know at the time that that’s all it is.”

  Wolruf pulled her lips back against her teeth in a kind of smile. “So — are ‘u well?”

  “I’m better.”

  “There’s no rreazon to be upset about vize’t from tricks’ er. Izz how he makes us obey his will, by makin’

  us see wha’ he wantzz.”

  “That may be easy for your race to accept, but we humans aren’t so used to having strange beings make pit stops in our minds at their every convenience.”

  Wolruf nodded thoughtfully. “‘U simplee lack perrspec’ive.”

  Ariel nodded in return. She had half expected that as a result of her apology she would feel the haze of exhaustion lift, but instead she imagined each individual cell in her body deteriorating steadily. A little while longer and she’d be a quivering mass of protoplasm.

  “It’s an old Spacer saying that everybody likes to feel in control of their lives, but with Aurorans it’s only more so,” she said. “And why not? It’s not only an effect of our current culture, but an extension of our own history. As the first Spacers, we terraformed Aurora to suit our own tastes and purposes. We did everything we could to make our new planet a garden. We even brought with us the prettiest, best, and most useful Terran species, leaving behind the ones that would make life too unpleasant.”

  “If tha’ ‘ur plane’zz history, then the in’ivi’ual retlec’zz it.”

  “Yes, until I was exiled and cut off from my funds, I had a great deal of independence. Within socially acceptable limits — which I never really accepted anyway — I had complete freedom of action.”

  “‘U brroke those limitz —”

  “And lost control of my life. Funny how the details of my rebellion are so fuzzy now. Must be a side effect of my disease. Anyway, it’s funny how the one thing I always thought I still had perfect control over — my mind — seems to be slipping away from me now.”

  “Trry to relax. Take it from one who hazz seen many un’err thrroes of vize’torr. ‘U not control it,’u detlec’ it.”

  Ariel couldn’t help but laugh. “You mean that when insanity is inevitable, relax and enjoy it?”

  “Not insanity. Merely givin’ in to morre compellin’ fuch ‘ions. Derec does that. That izz why he hazz so many ideas.”

  “I wish I could believe the same thing was true with me.” Ariel paused as the implications of Wolruf’s remark began to sink in. “Is that what he’s doing when he spends so much time with Lucius, when he should be figuring out a way to get us off this hellhole?”

  Suddenly Ariel stiffened. Her eyes went wide.

  “Wha’ izz it?” Wolruf asked. “Wha’zz wrron’?”

  “I don’t know,” she replied.

  “Ano’herr vize-shon?”

  “I — I hope so.” She grimaced, closed her eyes, and turned her head to the sky. It’s not real, she told herself, it’s only something r m imagining. But if reality is something we make, how do we deal with the forces making us?

  But although she knew on one level that her neurological responses were going awry, her physical self nonetheless continued to respond realistically to the sensation of a distinct something, large and six-legged, distinctly within her lifesuit. A familiar something. There was only one this time, but it was bigger than she remembered. Much bigger.

  It was crawling up her stomach. She forced herself to open her eyes, fully expecting to see her suit clinging normally to her torso. Instead she saw — with a vividness she could not help but decide was absolutely real — the outline of a giant metallic ant moving beneath her suit. The cold touch of its six legs, each pressing delicately against her skin, sent chills of terror through her fragile, eggshell mind.

  The outline moved distinctly, delicately forward. She felt the cold brush of a mandible against her left breast, and watched in abject fear as the forefront of the outline moved to her right breast. And rested on it.

  Ariel screamed at the top of her lungs and ran headlong in the direction she happened to be facing. She was vaguely aware of Wolruf yelling behind her, but she was too busy to pay attention. She did not know where she was running, only that she had to make a beeline there.

  She jumped into the reservoir.

  She was in it for several moments, stunned senseless by the ice cold water, before she actually remembered diving in. Frantically, she tore open the snaps and buttons and zippers of her suit and put her hands inside, rummaging about, searching for the insect so she could pull the sucker out and drown it.

  But she found nothing. When it came to her ambition for revenge, this was a disappointing development.

  How she had anticipated seeing it squirm as it tried to get away from her in the water! But on another level, she was tremendously relieved. Insanity she could deal with; physical pain was definitely a cause for panic.

  Ariel imagined that perhaps the ant had been real after all, and had just torn through the suit on the way oat. But the water around her, while not exactly clear, was very still. There was no evidence of movement beneath the surface. Even the sand and dirt she’d raised upon entering had settled down by now.

  She calmed
herself with an effort, closed her eyes again, and waited.

  Soon she felt reasonably assured that the insect wasn’t real enough to attack her, but she stayed in the water just to be on the safe side. The water sent pinpricks of pain cascading through her very marrow — but even that kind of discomfort didn’t provide her with enough incentive to get out.

  Wolruf sat patiently on the bank. “Are ‘u well again?” the alien asked.

  “I think so,” she said. “I had another visit.”

  “Assumed as much.”

  “I think my visitor is gone now. I think I prefer looking at my episodes in terms of visitors, by the way.

  It’s making it easier for me to accept them.”

  “Good. Don’t ‘u wan’ come out of water now? ‘U mite catch cold.”

  “No. It feels rebellious, to be doing something prying robot eyes might disapprove of.”

  “Will wait.”

  “Thanks. I’ll just be a few more minutes. However safe my mind may feel while I’m in here, I don’t think my body can take much more of this cold.”

  Something brushed against her. She glanced down to see that something had stirred the dirt up.

  Something too big to be just an ant. Something that was real.

  “What’s that?” she exclaimed.

  “Wha’zz what?” Wolruf inquired.

  But Ariel could not bring herself to answer. Her teeth were clattering too much. Screwing up her courage — which she felt was in short supply these days — she gingerly ducked her head beneath the surface, keeping her eyes open in the frigid fluid with, an effort.

  A hunk of metal lay half buried in the bottom of the reservoir. The gentle currents had removed. enough of the dirt covering it to begin moving it back to the shore. Its stiff hand brushed again against her leg.

  Its hand?

  Ariel accidentally inhaled a noseful of water. She shot up to the surface, sputtering.

  “Air-eel?” asked Wolruf. “Wha’ is it?”

  “It’s a robot — there’s a robot down here!”

  “Wha’zz it doing there?” asked the caninoid, running to the edge of the water.