The voice that replied was baritone. It could be in any register, always as vibrant and expressive as any human’s. “No more than formerly. The robot does not respond to calls. Evidently its own signals would be too feeble and distorted, and it doesn’t waste energy trying. Internal power is barely sufficient to maintain computational functions.”
In other words, Gimmick remains conscious, Christian said to himself. No, I’m being anthropomorphic. Which isn’t scientific, is it? “Does he know we’re here?”
“Possibly, through seismic or electronic traces.” The intelligence put a note of urgency into its calm. “Don’t delay if you want to save anything that matters.”
Christian thought of Gimmick lying prisoned, waiting either for rescue or death. Sensing? Hoping? So had many humans done, when an earthquake buried them alive or a disabled spacecraft went helpless off on trajectory. Was it altogether fantastic to suppose that Gimmick wanted to live?
“Right,” he said. “Take over the robot.” He hesitated. “Please.”
The big, half manlike thing stirred. It turned about and rumbled from the cabin. Christian heard its mass reach the crew-access airlock, then after a minute the hiss of pumps evacuating the chamber. He saw it go forth onto the surface, into the coronal luminance, stand for another minute while the intelligence at Clement studied the scene through its sensors, and start climbing the talus. Shards slipped from beneath its feet and slid downward. On Earth they would have rattled.
He couldn’t endure to sit and watch. His assigned part came toward the end, when he applied tools for which the robot was not designed. But the corona was creeping higher, the flame-tongue standing taller. Maybe his slight strength would make the slight difference that counted.
The intelligence perceived. “Don’t,” it warned. “You will hazard yourself more than enough according to plan.”
“I’m the captain here,” Christian flung back.
On the way out he stopped by a locker. From the geological gear stored there he took a pick and spade. At the lock he donned his spacesuit and went through his checklist with the almost mindless ease of long practice. Almost mindless; one tiny malfunction or mistake could kill you. Machines were hardier. No wonder that it would be they who went to the stars. By now there weren’t too many uses for humans even on the planets.
Gear and all, he weighed less than he did unclad on Earth. Inertia was the same, of course, a combination that could get tricky. He bounded across the ground to the detritus slope, but therefore picked his way with care. From the top he caught a chiaroscuro view of the rover, its metal partly shadowed, partly agleam under the waxing radiance. If you ignored details, it looked rather like a giant version of Gimmick’s body, minus the specialized limbs, detectors, and collection bins—an ovoid with a turret, legs currently folded while it rested on caterpillar treads, radiator fins deployed against the sun’s assault.
To hell with bodies. Gimmick had worn a lot of different bodies. What needed saving was the unitized hardware, software, and database. The brain. The mind? The soul? Anyway, Gimmick himself.
The robot toiled stolidly. Attachments on its four arms loosened rocks and flung them off, to bounce across the lower terrain. Often it paused while the intelligence considered, then moved to another spot. Christian knew this was to excavate efficiently and avoid causing a slide. His judgment was poor by comparison, his muscles weak. Nevertheless, if he was cautious he could help rather than hinder—help just a bit.
The body began to appear, cruelly battered and rent. The corona climbed.
Christian dug. After a while he gasped. The space-suit’s equilibrators couldn’t quite keep up; his faceplate fogged, his air thickened and stank. Hands trembled on handles. “Conserve yourself,” advised the serene voice. “You’ll be wanted for a precision task.”
He yielded. To stop his labor was about as hard a thing as he could recall ever doing.
A sliver of sun blazed over the ridge. Suddenly shadows were long and sharp. Small craters stood out of them like atolls. Stars fled from eyesight.
Fifteen hours … But well before then, the solar wind would sweep across the land, bearing its radiation rain. Furnace heat would follow. Only in the rover was there refuge.
“If you are prudent, you will retreat,” said the voice.
“I know,” Christian answered. “I ain’t.”
The robot worked on.
The midsection emerged. If Christian’s faceplate had not been self-darkening, the light off it would have blinded him. But he could at last get to his real job.
Nearly level, the sunbeams were little diffused. Night still hung around whatever they did not strike directly. The tool kit secured to his suit included provisions such as flashbeams and miniradars, but often he had to go by touch, through sensory-amplifying power gloves. The objective was to open several layered shells and detach the independent unit, as delicately as a brain surgeon.
“The background count is rising fast,” said the intelligence.
“Shut up,” said Christian. “I’m busy.”
And somehow he freed Gimmick before either of them took too large a dose. He cradled the spheroid and its trailing cables in his arms, he crept down the rubble slope and leaped across the regolith. Dust puffed from his boots. The airlock opened for him. He stumbled through and up to the cabin, where he collapsed into a seat. His heart thuttered. As yet, the turmoil in him drowned any feeling of triumph. Mostly he lusted for a cold beer. Or two or three or four.
The robot spent a while examining the discarded machine and selecting rock specimens before it joined him. It had no reason to hurry.
5
Like Christian, Gimmick need not be in rapport in order to process data and execute a program—to remember, think, be aware. Unlike him, it did not need a body for this. A power supply and a few input-output connections sufficed. Upon returning, it had been linked to the central intelligence for purposes of downloading and analyzing the knowledge it brought. Those circuits were now inoperative.
The voice from the intercom
