from the plug into a box at the rear bumper of the Model Six. They all watched as the claw rocked the plug back and forth and back again.
The plug flew from the wall and smashed into the robot with a resounding bang. Again Laura's heart skipped a beat.
'It's a little groggy,' the foreman said. The robot tried three times before successfully returning the plug to its compartment. The claw then casually backhanded the compartment's lid, tapping it for insurance before returning to its more comfortable station in front.
'Their mini-nets are inside the superstructure,' Griffith said, pointing at the box-shaped housing that rose dead-center from the chassis. 'They lose some of their virtual connections — the links that are programmed [missing] rather than during recharging. It only takes a minute or two for the Sixes to relearn their fine motor skills, but the Sevens are another story. They make more extensive use of virtual connections and have larger nets. The Sevens stumble around like drunken sailors for five or ten minutes before they get it together.'
The Model Six rolled slowly out of its berth. High atop its superstructure sat its two 'eyes' — the 'security cameras' — shifting soundlessly in tandem from one object to the next. As Laura watched, the cameras grew more and more asynchronous, their movements finally totally uncoordinated as the two cameras flitted this way and that. The robot turned down the row of its resting compatriots and headed past Laura's vantage for the door.
'See its eyes turning from side to side?' Griffith asked, and Laura nodded. 'Those are its principal sensory nodes. Its eyes and ears, plus infrared and thermal. It also has ultrasonic collision-avoidance range finders down around the chassis, and pressure-sensitive pads at the tips of its single end effect or — its 'arm.' That, plus what the main computer tells it about its surroundings, constitute its world — what it sees and knows.'
As the robot passed, its twin sensors snapped in sudden unison to lock onto the three humans. Laura gripped the railing tightly, ready to recoil as the slack claw passed by her feet. She didn't know why, but she felt like backing away — giving the strange new creature room to pass.
'It's telling on us,' the foreman said.
'It's reporting in,' Griffith translated. 'You can tell when it fixes on you like that.' The two eyes returned to their seemingly agitated, uncoordinated search of the path ahead. 'It saw us in here and called up the main computer to report.'
'They sure are into spying,' Laura said.
Griffith shrugged. 'The robots are the computer's mobile eyes and ears. They can update the computer's world model with what we call a 'refresh scan.' But when they're in a place where the computer maintains a fairly complete representation like the restricted area, they typically only report things of special interest to the computer like when somebody steps over the work envelope line — just in case the computer missed it.'
Laura looked down at the edges of the catwalk. The yellow lines ran the length of the metal span to a door on the opposite end of the room. They were well within the all-important border that separated man from machine.
'Well… why did it report on us then?' Laura asked.
Griffith looked back down at the receding machine. All he could do was shrug.
'We ceased production of the Sixes last year!' Griffith shouted as they walked down the constantly moving assembly line. Their goggles and ear protectors were back on. There were so many active machines — so much brute force at work on the floor — that the yellow line they honored so scrupulously seemed trifling and unworthy of deference.
The only thing that prevented one of those thick metal arms from swinging wildly their way was a concept — a law.
Gray's law, she found herself thinking, wondering just how much force the creator's word would carry.
'We entered full production of the Sevens ten months ago,' Griffith shouted, turning to the foreman. 'Let's go find that Seven in the side yard.' The three of them climbed several flights of stairs and headed across a catwalk suspended high above the main floor. Down below, parts of every imaginable shape and design were transported by the broad conveyer belt like flotsam down a relentless man-made river.
Flat sheets of inert metal and plastic went into the great building at one end, and at the other there emerged animate beings who looked left and right before crossing the road. Laura observed the process from dead- center.
The belt itself was at least twenty feet wide and looked to be a complete mess. Its basic black was discolored in countless places by spots and stains and burn marks. And the components it carried were scattered about in nearly random fashion like scrap on the way to a pit.
Laura paused directly above the belt to take in the sights and sounds of the assembly building. In the far distance, Laura saw the blunt noses of not one but two of Gray's strange, flat-sided rockets.
They rose like steep pyramids nearly all the way to the ceiling. Up and down the long line in between, the forest of robotic arms was an incessant blur of activity. They turned parts over, picked them up, held them to the light, moved them from the main belt to adjoining ones. They riveted and welded, sanded and ground, painted and measured, and assembled and discarded. All the while, Model Sixes plied the lanes parallel to the belt, stopping to receive a part from or deliver a part to their immobile brethren.
This was not a plant conceived in the mind of man, Laura realized. It wasn't a factory built by humans that had been turned over to more worthy mechanical replacements. This was a factory designed by a computer exclusively for robots. This was the world as it should be according to the mind of a machine. As Laura stood there, that conclusion was reinforced by one quite telling fact.
Nowhere in that sea of motion were any humans to be seen. Laura headed across the catwalk for the exit, her companions following in her wake down to the main floor. They passed through another 'airlock,' then stepped out into the warm night air.
An expansive concrete pad the width and breadth of a stadium parking lot dominated the far side of the assembly building. In the distance, the three rocket gantries marked the fringes of the island's north shore like brightly beaming lighthouses.
Laura's skin tingled. She was missing something about what she had just witnessed — some important conclusion. It was right there on the periphery of her understanding, but the feeling slowly faded. The silent visitor stepped back into the shadows. Back into the 'gray' area, she thought with amusement. And then it was gone.
Laura shook her head.
The side yard was covered with small sheds underneath which sat mounds of materials — some exposed, others covered in tarpaulins. 'Side yard' was a misnomer, Laura thought. 'Junkyard' described it better.
'This isn't the pretty side of the building, obviously,' Griffith said. 'We've actually run out of room in the assembly building, if you can believe that. There's another facility under construction right over there.' Griffith pointed toward a thick wall of gnarled tropical trees. Light glowed from the jungle over the treetops, but no structure as yet could be seen. Laura imagined the mechanical night crew working uninterrupted as their human coworkers rested.
The foreman led the group out among the slowly moving Model Sixes.
Laura frowned as she surveyed the disorder. A twentieth-century dump, Laura thought, hidden behind the facade of Gray's twenty-first-century wonder.
'It should be this way,' the foreman said, his pen board glowing brightly in the dimmer outdoor lighting. As they turned a corner, Laura noticed that the map on the foreman's pen board turned also — maintaining a correct orientation no matter which way the small computer was pointed. The portable pen board must be plugged into the main computer's 'world model,' she realized. That main computer led them out through the ever-darker maze of sheds and piles of scraps.
They passed robots that sifted through twisted strips of metal, their twin searchlights shining brightly on the tangled mess. Others opened cardboard boxes or dumped containers of garbage into trailers already piled high with similar refuse. All were Model Sixes, differing only, it appeared, in what they had attached to the ends of their long arms.
'What is this stuff?' Laura asked as they wound their way deeper into the labyrinth.
'Oh, low-priority things like reusable scrap, plastic sheeting for the morphing units, other raw materials that weather well.'
'Morphing units?' Laura asked.
