The Soul of the Robot

by Barrington J. Bayley

Genres: Science Fiction; Sci-fi Action & Adventure; Military Sci-Fi

Synopsis

Book by Bayley, Barrington J.

Release date: April 1, 2001

Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform

Print pages: 206

Sample

Out of pre-existence Jasperodus awoke to find himself in darkness.

Seldom can a sentient being have known such presence of mind in the first few seconds of its life. Patiently Jasperodus remained standing in the pitch-blackness and reviewed his situation, drawing upon the information that had been placed in his partially-stocked memory before his birth.

He became aware that he stood unaided inside a closed metal cabinet. The first intelligent action of his existence was to grope forward with his right hand until he found the knob on the inside of the cabinet’s door. He turned, and pushed. Then he stepped out to inspect the scene that met his eyes.

A man and a woman, well worn in years and dressed in smudged work smocks, stared at him shyly. They stood close to one another, like a couple who had grown old in each other’s company. The room smelled faintly of pine, of which wood workbenches and other furniture were fashioned: chairs, cupboards, a table and an assembly rack. Cluttered on these, as well as on floor, benches and hooks, was a disorderly array of components and of the curious instruments betokening the trade of an electronics craftsman.

Although the room was untidy and somewhat shabby, it had a warm, homely atmosphere. Its disorder was that of someone who had his own sense of method, and Jasperodus already knew how efficacious that method was.

His glance went back to the elderly couple. They, in turn, looked at him with expressions that tried desperately to mask their anxiety. They were gentle and blameless people, and in Jasperodus’ eyes rather pathetic since their eager expectations were doomed to disappointment.

‘We are your parents,’ the wife said in a hesitant, hopeful voice. ‘We made you. You are our son.’

She had no need to explain further, for Jasperodus knew the story: childless, and saddened by their childlessness, the couple had chosen this way of giving their lives issue. They looked to Jasperodus now to bring them as much joy and comfort as an organically born flesh-and-blood child might have done.

But like many an ungrateful son, Jasperodus had already made his decision. He imagined better things for himself than to spend his life with them. Jasperodus, the hulking, bronze-black all-purpose robot they had created, laughed harshly and moved purposively across the room to the door. Opening it, he walked out of their lives.

Looking after his retreating back, the man put his hand comfortingly on his wife’s shoulder. ‘We knew this could happen,’ he reminded her gently. It was true that they could have made their offspring with a built-in desire to cherish them; but that, they had both decided, would not be the right way. Whatever he did, it had to be of his own free will.

Yet, after their long, patient labours, their parents’ anguish was real. Jasperodus had some theoretical knowledge of the world, but no experience of it. His future was as unpredictable as his past was blank.

‘What will become of him?’ the woman said tearfully. ‘What will become of him?’

The rambling cottage stood alone in extensive countryside. Jasperodus took a direction at random and simply kept on walking. He walked first across a tiny patch of land that supplied his parents’ meagre needs. Two robot agricultural machines were at work, one harvesting high-yield crops of grain and vegetables and the other tending a few animals. More of his father’s handiwork, Jasperodus did not doubt, but they were primitive machines only, built for specific work. They compared to himself as a primitive insect compared to a man.

Five minutes brought him through the smallholding to rolling woods and wild meadows. Confident that if he kept going he would eventually meet with something more in keeping with his new-born sense of adventure, for the time being he contented himself with simply enjoying his first few hours in the world, admiring his body and all the faculties his parents had given him.

Jasperodus’ form was that of a handsome humanoid in bronze-black metal. His exterior, comprising flat planes mollified by brief rounded surfaces, aspired to a frankly metallic effect. To alleviate the weightiness of this appearance he was decorated all over with artistic scroll-like engravings. Altogether, his body exuded strength and capability.

His face he could not see and so had to postpone his inspection of it. His senses, however, he could explore freely. He switched his eyesight up and down the spectrum of radiation, well beyond the octave of light visible to human beings. His audible range was equally broad. His sense of smell, on the contrary, though adequate, was not as sharp as in many men and certainly did not approach the acuteness of some animals. As for his sense of touch, it was perfectly delicate where it concerned dynamics, but he was to learn later that it lacked the delicious touch-sensations that were available to organic beings; it meant nothing to him to be stroked.

Touch-sensation was a field his father had not mastered, indeed it was the trickiest problem in the whole of robotics.

His repertoire of sensory inputs was rounded off by a superb sense of balance and movement. Jasperodus would have made a skilful dancer, despite his weight of about a third of a ton.

All in all he was probably one of the finest robots ever to be built. His father, a master robot-maker, was well-qualified for the task; he had learned his trade first of all in a robot factory in Tarka, later spending nearly a decade creating unusual robots on the estates of the eccentric Count Viss. Finally he had enrolled with the supreme robot designer of them all, Aristos Lyos, for a further three years of special study, before retiring to this remote, pleasant spot to create the masterpiece that would fulfil his life. Jasperodus could well imagine the old man’s devotion, as well as the inexhaustible patience of his wife, who had prepared the greater mass of repetitious micro-circuitry.

Insofar as the machinery of his body went, all that Jasperodus had examined so far was of the finest workmanship, but not unique. More mysterious was the formation of his character … Here his father had shown his originality. It would have been an easy matter to endow him with any type of personality his parents had wished, but that would have defeated the object of the exercise, which was to give rise to a new, original person of unknown, unique potentialities. Therefore, at the moment of his activation, Jasperodus’ father had arranged for his character to crystallise by chance out of an enormous number of random influences, thus simulating the chance combination of genes and the vagarious experiences of childhood.

As a result Jasperodus came into the world as a fully formed adult, complete with a backlog of knowledge and with decided attitudes. Admittedly his knowledge was of a sparse and patchy kind, the sort that could be gained from reading books or watching vidtapes. But he knew how to converse and was skilled at handling many types of machinery.

He knew, too, that the planet Earth was wide, varied and beautiful. Since the collapse of the Rule of Tergov (usually referred to now as the Old Empire) some eight hundred years previously there had been no integrated political order. In the intervening Dark Period of chaos even knowledge of the planet’s geography had become vague. The world was a scattered, motley patchwork of states large and small, of kingdoms, principalities, dukedoms and manors. And although a New Empire was arising in the south of Worldmass – the great continent comprising most of Earth’s dry surface – that saw itself as a successor to the old and destined to resurrect its glories, the machinations of the Great Emperor Charrane made slow progress. The rest of the world heeded him but little.

On and on strode Jasperodus. Night fell. He switched to infrared vision, planning to walk on uninterrupted into the day.

After some hours he saw a light shining in the distance. He switched back to normal vision, at which the light resolved itself into a fierce beam stabbing the darkness and moving slowly but steadily across the landscape, disappearing now and then behind hillocks or stretches of forest. Eager to investigate, he broke into a loping run, crashing through the undergrowth and leaping over the uneven ground.

On topping a rise, he stopped. He found himself looking down on a track comprising parallel steel rails. The moving headlight rounded a curve and approached the culvert. Behind it followed a chain of smaller lights, glimmering from the windows of elongated, dulled-silver coaches with streamlined fluted exteriors.

He instantly recognised the apparition as a train. But its speed, he imagined, was unnaturally slow for such a machine – barely twenty miles per hour. Suddenly he heard a staccato chattering noise coming from the train, first in a long burst, then intermittently. The engine? No …

Machine-gun fire.

Jasperodus slithered down the embankment. The windowless leading coach swept majestically abreast of him, wheels hissing on the rails; locating a handhold he swung himself easily on to the running-board that ran the length of the outer casing.

He edged along the brief ledge, pressing himself against the curved metal skin of the vehicle and looking for a way in. Up near the roof he found a square sliding panel that made an opening large enough to admit him. Gracefully he levered himself to a level with it and dropped feet first into the brightness within.

He landed in a narrow tunnel with a rounded roof. At once the machine-gun started up again, making a violent, deafening cacophony in the confined space, and he staggered as bullets rattled off his body. Then there was a pause.

The big machine-gun was stationed at the forward end of the long corridor. Behind it squatted a man in blue garb. It appeared to Jasperodus that he was guarding the door to the control cab. He glanced to the other end of the corridor, but it was deserted. The gun controlled the passageway completely; the man’s enemies, whoever they were, were obliged to stay strictly out of sight.

Again the machine-gunner opened up. Jasperodus became indignant at the ricochetting assault on his toughened steel hide. He pressed swiftly forward against the tide of bullets, lurching from side to side in the swaying tunnel but closing the distance between him and his tormentor. At the last moment the gunner scrambled up from his weapon and clawed at the door behind him. He had left it too late. Jasperodus took the machine-gun by its smoking barrel and swung it in the air, its tripod legs kicking. The guard uttered a single grunt as the magazine case thudded dully on to his head.

Jasperodus stood reflectively, looking down at the blood oozing from the crushed skull. He had committed his first act in the wider world beyond his parents’ home. And it had been an act of malice. The machine-gunner had posed no substantial threat to him; he had simply been angered by the presumptuous attack. Letting fall the gun he opened the door to the control cab. It was empty. The train was fully automatic, though equipped with manual override controls. The alarm light was flashing and the instrument board revealed extensive damage to the transmission system. The train was in distress and evidently making the best time it could.

Steps sounded behind him. Jasperodus turned to see a grinning figure standing framed in the doorway and cradling a machine-gun of more portable proportions. A second new arrival peered over his shoulder, eyeing Jasperodus and gawping.

Both men had shaggy hair that hung to their shoulders. They were dressed in loose garments of a violently coloured silky material, gathered in at waist and ankles and creased and scruffy from overlong use. The sight of Jasperodus made the grin freeze on the leader’s face.

‘A robot! A goddamned robot! So that’s it! I wondered how you clobbered the machine-gun – figured you must have come through the roof.’

He brushed past Jasperodus and into the cab, slapping a switch after a cursory study of the control board. Ponderously the train ground to a halt.

Just then Jasperodus noticed that a gun in the hands of the second man was being pointed at his midriff. Impatiently he tore the weapon from the impudent fellow’s grasp, twisted it into a useless tangle, and threw it into a corner. The other backed away, looking frightened.

‘Cool it!’ the leader snapped. Jasperodus made no further move but stared at him. After a glance of displeasure the man turned away from him again, bent to the control panel and closed more switches. With a rumbling noise the train began to trundle backwards.

Then he straightened and faced Jasperodus. ‘Say, what are you doing here?’ he said in a not unfriendly tone. ‘Why did you kill the guard?’

‘He was shooting at me.’

‘Who owns you? One of the passengers? Or are you freight?’

‘No one owns me. I am a free, independent being.’

The man chuckled, his face breaking out into a grin that creased every inch of it.

‘That’s rich!’

His expression became speculative as his eyes roved over Jasperodus. ‘A wild robot, eh? You’ve done us a favour, metal man. I thought we’d never shift that bastard with the machine-gun.’

‘How did the train come to be damaged?’ Jasperodus asked. ‘Are you its custodians?’

‘Now we are!’ Both men laughed heartily. ‘We made a mess of things, as usual. She kept going after we detonated the charge. It should have stopped her dead. We damned near didn’t get aboard.’

While he spoke he was scanning the rearwards track through a viewscreen. ‘My name is Craish,’ he offered. ‘As well you should know it, since you may be seeing a good deal of me.’

The significance of this remark was lost on Jasperodus. ‘Robbers,’ he said slowly. ‘You are out to plunder the train.’

Again they laughed. ‘Your logic units are slow on the uptake,’ Craish said, ‘but you cotton on in the end.’

Excitement coursed through Jasperodus. Here was the tang of adventure!

After a short journey Craish once more brought the train to a halt. He flung open a side door.

They were parked on a length of track that rounded a clearing in the all-encompassing forest. Here waited more of Craish’s gang. With much noise and yelling they set about unloading the train, unlocking the container cars and carelessly throwing out all manner of goods. On the ground others sorted through the booty, flinging whatever took their fancy into small carrier vehicles. The procedure was ridiculous, thought Jasperodus. The freight train was a large one. Its total cargo must have been very valuable, yet the bandits would be able to take away no more than a small fraction of it. The band was badly organised, or else it knew enough to keep its nuisance value within limits.

Craish returned to Jasperodus, who still stood watching from the running-board of the control cab. ‘Go and help my men unload,’ he ordered.

The order was given in such a confident tone that Craish obviously had no doubt that it would be obeyed unquestioningly. Jasperodus was affronted. Did the man think of him as a slave? Craish was walking unconcernedly away. Jasperodus called out to him.

‘Where is this train bound?’

The other stopped and looked back. ‘The Empire, eventually. It’s a trading train, sent out by Empire merchants. It stops at towns on the way and barters goods.’ He looked askance at the robot, wondering why he needed to ask this question.

‘What will you do with it? Leave it here?’

‘Nah. Send it on its way. So they’ll never know where we jumped it.’

With that Craish walked away. Jasperodus pondered. The prospect of a trip to the Empire excited him but, he reminded himself, the train was crippled. Still, he could if he wished stay with the train on its long and monotonous journey, although he would meet with the opposition of the bandits, who plainly would not want witnesses to their deeds wandering abroad. Also, there might be trouble when the train reached its next stop. All in all, it might be better to stay with these ruffians. As his first real contact with human beings they were already proving entertaining.

Accordingly he contributed his superhuman strength to the unloading and sorting of the cargo. Eventually the forage trucks were filled to capacity and the bandits, who numbered about twenty, seemed satisfied. Some of the discarded cargo was actually put back on board; the rest was gathered in a heap and set alight, an inflammable liquid being poured over it to make a good blaze. As the huge bonfire glared fiercely at the sky the marauders brought forth another kind of plunder from the train’s single passenger coach: prisoners, all female as far as Jasperodus could see, linked together by a rope tied around their necks, jerking and protesting. The train pulled out, limping painfully under automatic control towards its distant destination.

They all set off through the forest. The forage trucks had big balloon tyres that enabled them to roll easily over the rough ground, but most of the men walked, as did the prisoners. The forest sprawled over rocky, hilly terrain through which they travelled for more than an hour. Finally they debouched into the bandits’ camp: a dell formed like an amphitheatre, having a large cave at its closed end.

The night was warm. Before long a fire was started in the centre of the dell, casting a glimmering light over the proceedings. Goods spilled to the ground as the forage trucks were tipped on their sides; the men began to go through the plunder like children with new toys, draping themselves with sumptuous raiment, shaking out bolts of expensive cloth, playing with the new gadgets and so forth. Jasperodus gathered that later most of it would be sold in nearby towns. But not, he guessed, the bottles of liquor: specially prized articles that were passed from mouth to mouth and emptied rapidly.

Casting his eye over the strewn booty, Jasperodus spied an object of immediate interest to him: a hand mirror, included among the valuables because of the gems that adorned its frame. Quickly he seized it and settled by the fire; now at last he would be able to see his face.

He had feared that his father might have given him the grotesque mouthless and noseless face seen on many robots, or even worse, that he would have committed a much greater travesty by sculpting a human face. The countenance that stared out of the mirror reassured him. It was a sternly functional visage – and, of course, it was immobile – but it was more than just a mask. Following the general conception of his body, it consisted mainly of machined flat surfaces and projections that gave it a solid but intriguingly machicolated appearance. A square-bridged nose ended in simple flanges perfectly adapted to its function as an olfactory device. A straight, immobile mouth, from which Jasperodus’ booming, well-timbred voice was thrown by a hidden speaker, was so well placed amid the angled planes of the jaw that it fitted naturally and without artifice; as did the flat, square ears, which contained an arrangement of small flanges serving the same purpose as those of the human ear: the abstraction of direction and stereo from the sound they received.

Eyes glowed softly by their own red light. Finally, the whole face was lightly engraved with the same intricate scrolls that decorated the rest of the body.

Jasperodus was well pleased. His was a non-human, robot face, but somehow it seemed to express his inner essence: it looked the way he felt.

Craish arrived and found him gazing into the mirror. Laughing, he tipped up a bottle and poured liquor over Jasperodus’ torso. ‘Admiring yourself, metal-man? A pity you can’t drink.’

Jasperodus laid down the mirror, but did not speak.

Unabashed, Craish sat beside him and swigged from the bottle. ‘We can certainly use you,’ he continued. ‘You’re strong, and bullets don’t bother you a bit. You look like you’re worth a lot, too – your owner must be plenty sore to lose you. You’ll stay with us from now on, understand?’

He spoke in the same matter-of-fact tone in which he had ordered the robot to work at the train. Jasperodus ignored him. Nearby, one of Craish’s men had laid down his sub-machine-gun and he picked it up to examine it. It was simply-constructed, but its design was good: merely a barrel, a repeater mechanism, a short stock and a handgrip. On one of his father’s lathes Jasperodus could have turned one out in less than an hour. The magazine was spherical, slotting over the handgrip, and contained hundreds of rounds.

‘An effective device,’ he commented, slinging the gun over his shoulder by its strap. ‘I will keep this.’

‘Hey, gimme my gun, you damned robot,’ objected its owner explosively. ‘Who do you think you are?’

Jasperodus stared at him. ‘You wish to do something about it?’

Craish intervened in a sharp tone. ‘Wait a minute! If I want you to carry a gun I’ll tell you, metal-man. So put the gun down. Just sit there and wait for your orders.’

‘You are very good at giving orders,’ Jasperodus said slowly, turni. . .