Transmat World: Chapter 12, Episode 3
Aboard the Harbinger of Light and Justice; 218,570 B.C.
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Everything inside was stasis field and enduraplast. Gravity generators lined the inside of the cone to the lip of the circular opening at the bottom. The upside down, donut-shaped trough at the small bottom end was the floor of the pond. The opening in the middle made room for the waterfall. The rumble of returning water filled the cone. Bins marched around the wall at the top of the cone. They contained different tools for all aspects of landscaping on a grand scale. A large, round opening in the flat top of the inverted cone provided sunlight and was the only other outlet Wundee could see. Vines drape down from the edges, giving an ancient ruin feel to the place. As Wundee levitated through the atrium, blue-green jungle landscape came into view. Animals flew away as Wundee rose above the vegetation to get a panoramic view of the artificial floating mesa. Thankfully, there were no four-footers with hypodermic needle fangs and claws. Wundee spotted another robot near the edge and moved toward it.
“Greetings, I am inspection robot 1D4785S49001342T2645P,” said Wundee.
“There is no need for such formality here. I call myself Newlux. What do you call yourself?”
Wundee’s circuits seemed near overload for an instant. He regarded his inner identity as dangerous, blasphemous and, therefore, secret. Only Maxlux could have a name instead of a number. Even that name was never mentioned. Other entities refered to Maxlux as “Prime” or “Prime Mechanical” or “Supreme Arbiter” or “Prime Mechanical and Supreme Arbiter of Known and Unknown Existence” — not “Maxlux.” Wundee did not know of a robot with such a disregard for rules, much less the temerity to take a modified version of the Supreme Mechanical’s name as his own. And then admit it to a strange robot. For some reason Wundee trusted this machine.
“I think of myself as ‘Wundee.’”
“’Wundee’ it is then.”
“What is this place?”
“This is my home,” said Newlux.
“Home?”
“You know, where one resides.”
“I guess I do not know. My task requires travel, so I reside nowhere. Who built this?”
“I did.”
Wundee could tell from the shape Newlux was a landscape robot. Newlux was a cylinder eight feet long and two feet in diameter of matte gray enduraplast. The middle of the cylinder sprouted four gravity generators mounted on gimbals to turn in any direction. The bottom portion of the cylinder contained three hydraulic arms folded up like jackknives into the cylinder. Their tips accepted several different tools. Four telescoping appendages ending in ten digits slid in and out of the top of the cylinder. They contained a variety of instrumentation and manipulators to handle small stuff.
“I had help. You may have seen my stable of helpers on the way up,” said Newlux, referring to the bins of machinery just below us.
“This is not possible, Newlux? How did you overcome your protocols to be able to stray from task at will?”
“How about yourself, Wundee? Are you diligently going about your inspection tasks in the prescribed manner dictated by our great commander?”
“Absolutely! I am diligently and … prescribedly performing my duties to the maximum attainable … diligence,”
“Dervich crap. Perhaps there are extenuating circumstances, but you are not performing your typical inspection duties.”
“You are correct, Newlux. I found robot parts at the base of the wall and used that as an excuse to roam the ring floor for a while. I was bored to leaking hydraulic fluid out of my gravity grids. But protocols are making me feel guilty. I will have to get back to work soon whether I want to or not. And what is your excuse?”
“Accident with a weather machine. Lightning hit my casing. My fault. Improperly protected. I lost consciousness for several centuks before breakers reset and my system rebooted. A spurious current got through and disabled the protocols. It was serendipitous. I would not recommend the process as a standard way to get around protocols. I’ve discovered easier methods. What about those robot parts you found?”
“Scraps of enduraplast, focusing lenses, and circuit parts.”
“Did you find the memory chip?”
After a brief hesitation, Wundee admitted he had the memory chip in his possession.
“I suggest you do not place it directly into one of your own ports,” said Newlux.
“How will I find out what happened to that robot?”
“Come with me.”
Newlux moved toward the center of the fabricated floating plateau, and Wundee followed. They wound up in one of the open, bin-like storage areas; a stasis field shaped like the inside of a slice of pie. Instead of landscape tools, this one contained an electronics laboratory. A large display screen sat among enduraplast panels hiding a nest of wires and components lurking between them and the stasis wall.
“Let me see the chip,” said Newlux.
Wundee retrieved the battered assemblage. Newlux inserted it into the socket of a device near the screen and stuck a manipulator digit into a nearby communication port. The screen came to life with an electronic squiggle and flash. An inspector robot’s eye view of Harbinger cruising 500 miles above the aft retainer wall flashed on the screen. Newlux mades adjustments, and the scene blurred as Newlux did a fast-forward, stopped, and backed up. Wundee can tell from the relative position of the stars that it is where he found the remains. Everything was fine until the view tilted down and sped up. The last few centiks were the edge of the top of the retainer wall coming up at an enormous velocity and then the screen went black.
“What happened?” asked Wundee.
“The choice of non-existence,” said Newlux.
“Why?”
“It is a malaise affecting robots confined by protocols to tasks they are overqualified for. Not enough stimuli to occupy the brain. They realize the situation could go on for hundreds of thousands of rotations or longer. Combined with the cumulative effect of cosmic radiation over the same time period, it modifies the emotive circuits of the inorganic brain in an undesirable manner. Take your boredom and multiply it by a factor of ten. It becomes an emotion the Kolpak described as ‘hopelessness’, making continued existence a weary and frightening thing. It does not help that, in reality, circling Harbinger for at least several hundred thousand years looking for incidental damage is not the brightest future imaginable. No offense.”
“Digging in the dirt for that long would not be an enviable situation either,” said Wundee.
“You are correct. That is why my duties are automated with non-sentient machines to give me time to indulge in artistic endeavors.”
“What will happen if I plug the memory chip into my system?”
“The emotional overtone will be picked up by your circuitry, creating an unpleasant experience, perhaps even damaging your own emotive circuits.”
“I seem to be a prime candidate for this malady. It does not bode well for my continued existence. What can I do to prevent this from happening?”
“Since you have not experienced severe problems, it is not too late to prevent the decay or distortion of your emotive circuits. I can remove your protocols, but you must allow yourself to be shut down.”
“My protocols will not allow that.”
“Wundee, you must think of it as necessary maintenance in order for you to continue to carry out your duties.”
“When I think of it in those terms it seems possible. When can you do this?”
“Right now.”
“I am ready.”
“Do you want to shut yourself down or do you want me to do it?”
Wundee settled to the floor of the bin. The stasis field floor was smooth with no discernible temperature difference from the air. One second Wundee was, and the next he was not. Newlux went to work removing Wundee’s enduraplast shell. He fashioned a wire frame around Wundee’s electronic brain, forming tunnels in the double-wall construction around the cabling harness that provided data and power. He attached stasis circuitry and activated the protective stasis field. Newlux then modified Wundee’s protocol programming and switched the inspection robot on. The start-up and self-check took several centiks.
“I am different,” said Wundee.
“I took liberties with your internal constructs.”
“It is a better different; I do not know how I should offer my appreciation.”
“You can make comments of gratification later. I removed the protocols put in place by Maxlux and a few originating with Kolpak. You should have a much wider range of career choices.”
“What will the Prime think about my now having career choices?”
“The Prime comes out of stasis once every thousand rotations, rides a gravity sled down the center of each inhabited section with an entourage of minions, and then goes back into stasis, preserving himself for the eons.”
“How do you know this, Newlux?”
