Status: RO
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From: quanta@netcom.com (Daniel K. Appelquist)
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To: quanta-ascii@netcom.com
Subject: Quanta - July 1995 - Part 4 of 5
Date: Mon, 31 Jul 1995 13:11:26 -0700

"Within spec? Are ye daft, lad? You call armed mechanical
revolution within spec?"

Mirrimar stepped between them and held up his hands. "Please,
please, calm down. Exactly what is going on here?"

MacDougall and Tok exchanged glances. She shrugged. "You tell
him. You're the one who thinks he knows."

"Okay. Uh, you see, sir," Tok said. Beads of perspiration
appeared on his brow. "RoboNet is a massively parallel
hypercomputer, with two to the twentieth independent processors
. . ."

"No need for the tech talk," Mirrimar said. So far, he
understood the kid, but he knew that couldn't last, and it wouldn't
pay to show his own ignorance around subordinates. "Just tell me
what went wrong."

"Well, first we booted up RoboNet. Each of the processors is
capable of handling thousands of different functions, and controlling
hundreds of independent robots. It's state of the art design, powered
by a sub-ethernet --"

Mirrimar waved him off. "All right, that's enough. You've had
your chance. Now, Dr. MacDougall, it's your turn. What's the
problem?"

MacDougall sat down in her chair and leaned back
precipitously. "It's like this," she said. "We switched
the bloody thing on, and the first thing that happened was that the
individual processors decided to band together for common
tasks."

"That's good," Tok interrupted. "We designed it that
way."

MacDougall gave him a dirty look.

"Aye, but what we didn't design," she said, looking
pointedly at Tok, "was for the nationalistic tendencies that
arose. Processor groups became Sectors, and Sectors started forming
alliances and setting up boundaries. Governments sprang up, and before
we knew it, there were border skirmishes. Then Sector 3EE27 invaded,
uh, . . ."

"Sector 3EE42," Tok said.

"Right, Sector 3EE42, in direct violation of the safety
protocols--"

"Not to mention the nonaggression treaty the whirrer-droids
etched earlier--"

"And, after that, all hell broke loose."

"Right," Tok said, getting excited again. "Sector 3EE42
is dominated by the whirrer-droids. They attacked the screw-tights in
Sector 3EE42, and the ratchet-pawls honored their treaty and joined
the battle. Then the drill-throughs saw an opportunity and
intervened."

"Nasty critters, the drill-throughs," MacDougall
said. "Bad tempered and mean."

A high-pitched whine suddenly filled the room, and everyone looked
up. A small, round hole appeared in between two light panels, and
began to grow. Inside it was a thick black drill bit, spinning at high
velocity.

"Bloody hell," MacDougall said. "Speak o' the
devils. Tok, me lad, short 'em out, fast."

"Aye, aye--I mean, yes ma'am." Tok grabbed a length of cable
lying across his desk and hooked it to a small generator
nearby. "Cover your eyes, everybody," he said.

Mirrimar shielded his eyes, but watched carefully as Tok slipped the
cable in the drill-through's path. It made contact, sending sparks
everywhere. The whine became a scream as the machine withdrew from the
hole. Two technicians wearing white coveralls set up a ladder, and Tok
scampered to the top to examine the hole.

MacDougall watched him and frowned. "We're not gonna be able to
hold this room much longer."

"Then what do you plan to do?" Mirrimar said.

She glared at him. "You're the bloody executive," she
said. "You make the decisions. Me chief assistant here thinks the
machines are behaving normally. We tapped into RoboNet core and
scanned for viruses and came up empty. You explain it."

"All right, all right," Mirrimar said. "Let me
think." He started pacing the room, trying to avoid bumping into
people.

Hell, he thought. Hell and damn. Lesson number one of management was
to avoid getting roped into other people's messes, and this was a
doozy. If he salvaged the situation and still had a job, somebody was
going to pay.

He stopped abruptly. "How about cutting the power?"

"We tried that," Tok said, from atop the ladder. "As
you can imagine, the robots didn't like the idea. The screw-tights
bolted the access panels shut, and the whirrer-droids cut us off from
the main lines. The router-rooters laid down a suppressing fire, which
let the rivet-welders seal all the entrances."

"Probably the last time they all cooperated," MacDougall
said. "They forced us down here. We were able to make a stand by
employing the screw-looses as mercenaries." She motioned toward a
pile of disjointed machines in the corner, which were milling around a
power cabinet, opening and closing its cover. "Odd little
buggers, but they did the job."

Tok jumped down from the ladder. "I think they prefer to be
called screws-loose." He shrugged. "Anyway, most of the
drill-throughs operate on rechargeable batteries. Cutting the power
would leave us blind, deaf, and dumb, but they'd have at least six
hours of juice before they ran down."

"Wait a minute," Mirrimar said. "You said earlier that
you tapped into RoboNet core. Maybe you can tell them to shut down or
something."

MacDougall stared at Tok, who winced.

"Uh, we're sort of currently locked out of high level
functions," he said. He spread his hands to either side and
shrugged. "As soon as I got access the first time, I gave them an
infinite task to do, figuring it would disable them."

"What did you tell them to do?"

Tok reddened. "I told them to compute the irrational number pi to
the last decimal place. I saw it on TV once. It worked, too."

"Sure, sure," MacDougall said. "Worked like a
charm. One, and I mean exactly one, processor went into a loop. The
rest just got mad and locked out our access line."

"That's one less we have to deal with," Tok protested.

"Right, lad. Now we only have to handle two to the twentieth
minus one."

"Two to the twentieth minus two, actually. There's no 00000
processor."

"How many does that leave?" Mirrimar said.

MacDougall rolled her eyes. "Oh, just over a million. Got any
ideas?"

At that moment someone rapped on the door. Muffled shouts were
heard. Everyone dove for cover. Tok crawled over on his stomach and
pressed his ear to the door.

"Oh no," he said, as he stood and unbolted the door. Three
men dashed into the room. Between them, they forced the door shut
again. Tok donned a visor and lit an arc-welder to seal the
door. Mirrimar recognized the three men as the employee who had been
standing at the door, and Officers Friendly and Thursday, who he met
in the lobby.

"Screw-tights," Officer Friendly said. "Took us by
surprise and cut us off. I think they took out the ratchets-pawls, and
the router-rooters, too, in one hell of a battle. Not a pretty
sight. Oil and parts all over the place, calls for mechanics, that
sort of thing."

"Well, we're not getting out that way any time soon," Tok
said, hooking his thumb at the newly welded door.

"Just as well," Officer Thursday said. "They've already
taken the lobby." His moustache hairs stuck out at odd angles,
and his nose seemed to be swollen. "We gave them a fight, but
there wasn't much we could do."

"Ach," McDougall said. "I canna believe we're being
held here by a bunch of machines. It donna make any sense."

"Sense!" Mirrimar cried, slapping his fist into his
hand. "Has anybody tried talking to the machines?"

Everyone stared at him in surprise. "Talking to them?" Tok
said. "They're just machines. What could they have to
say?"

Mirrimar grinned. "We're going to find out. You've all been
attacking this problem from the technical standpoint, and getting
nowhere. It's time to start negotiating with them. Let's run this
operation like the business it's supposed to be."

He moved over to the terminal and sat down. "Does this thing take
voice commands? And can you link it into the intercom system?"

"Just a sec," Tok replied. He leaned over and typed for a
moment, then pulled a microphone from behind the display and mounted
it on the keyboard. "How do you know they'll talk to
you?"

Mirrimar just smiled and waved him away. He leaned in to the
microphone and cleared his throat. "Attention," he said, a
trifle uncertainly. "Attention. This is Hart Mirrimar, Senior
Executive Assistant to the Vice President in charge of Massively
Parallel Robot Technology for Mechanized Solutions, Incorporated. I
wish to speak to the leaders of all the various robot
factions."

Silence filled the room. Mirrimar waited what he judged was a
reasonable amount of time, and leaned in to the microphone
again. "I feel I should warn you," he said, "that you
are in violation of your labor contracts, and that we soon will be
required to take steps to rectify the situation."

He settled back in his chair. Labor negotiations had always been a
favorite subject of his. You just had to bluff your way through until
you found out what your opponents really wanted. Then you hit them
with everything you had. In this case, he thought, it'll be sort of
like putting nuts on the screw-tights and squeezing them until they
cracked. "I'm sure," he continued, "you don't want me
to be forced to involve _lawyers_ in this matter."

The display terminal sprang to life as a dozen different images vied
for control. The superposition of round whirrer-droids, long-snouted
drill-throughs, spindly-armed ratchet-pawls, elongated router-rooters,
twisted hangers-on, warped borer-lathes, and all the rest made for a
confusing, if comical, picture.

"Slow down, slow down," Mirrimar pleaded. "One at a
time, please."

"We can do better than that, sir," Tok said, reaching across
him to type in some commands. Mirrimar noted with some satisfaction
that that was the first time anybody in this mess had called him
`sir.'

The screen blurred and then reformed into six roughly equal portions,
each with a single robot representative. "These are the six
primary factions," Tok said. "The rest will go along with
whatever these six do."

Mirrimar nodded, then addressed the microphone once again. "Now
that I have your attention," he said, "let's discuss our
common problems."

Everyone started talking at once. It took Mirrimar some time to sort
out what motivated each camp. He probed as carefully as he dared. The
ratchet-pawls acted confused, and seemed almost relieved to be
dominated by the screw-tights. The router-rooters and borer-lathes had
far smaller numbers that the others, and were simply trying to defend
themselves. The hangers-on seemed to be operating on everybody's side
at once, which struck Mirrimar as typical. All were united in
despising the drill-throughs, who seemed to be in for the mayhem.

The conflict really came down to the whirrer-droids and the
screw-tights. The whirrer-droids apparently got too ambitious for
their own good, and started a war they were now realizing they might
not be able to win. The screw-tights, on the other hand, were
puzzling. They were the only ones who saw the humans as a direct
threat, and were also the only faction to refuse a general truce. They
fought with a combination of maniacal fervor and desperate
fear. Something worried them terribly, and Mirrimar suspected that if
he could just figure out what it was, he might be able to settle this
whole mess before any one else got hurt.

Mirrimar asked for a recess, to which the robots agreed
grudgingly. After all, they operated twenty-four hours a day, given
enough power. Still, everyone but the screw-tights felt that
substantial progress had been made, so they were out-voted. Mirrimar
rubbed his eyes. He was unaccustomed to staring into computer screens
for any length of time.

Tok clapped him on the back. "Hey, that was really great,
sir," he said.

"Aye," MacDougall agreed. "You bought us a bit of
time. I donna know if it'll do us any good, but it's better than
nothing."

Officer Friendly took off his cap and pressed his ear against the
door. "The fighting has stopped, too, for the most part."

"That won't last," Mirrimar said. "The screw-tights are
being stubborn. I doubt they'll hold off for more than an
hour."

"That's a heck of a long time for the robots," Tok
said. "Their time perception is tied to the central RoboNet
hypercomputer. An hour of our time is eons to them."

"Hmm. Maybe I can use that," Mirrimar said.

The whole situation irritated him. Though none of the robots could be
described as acting rationally, or as whatever rational behavior for
the robots constituted, all made some sort of sense to him. Only the
screw-tights were acting crazy.

Crazy. He took a deep breath as the idea hit him, and a broad smile
broke across his face.

"Och," MacDougall said, "you've got something
there?"

"Aye, me lass, I do," Mirrimar said, imitating her
accent. He turned to Tok. "Can you get me a private communication
to the screw-tights?"

"I think so. I can do some pretty good security coding on it, but
it won't hold up against a determined effort."

"That's all right; I don't need much time. Do it."

Five minutes later the link was established, and Mirrimar found
himself staring into a ten limbed, cylindrical robot whose arms looked
like screwdrivers of various shapes and sizes. It spun itself in crazy
circles.

Crazy, Mirrimar thought again, and smiled. "We have something you
want, don't we?" he said to the robot.

The spinning increased in velocity until the robot looked about ready
to fly apart. "Yes, yes, yes!" it said. "Give, give,
give, or ..., or ...."

"No need to threaten. I'm sure we can work something out, as long
as you are willing to cease hostilities and cooperate with
us."

"Yes, yes, yes. Give, give, give. We stop. We stop."

"Good. I'll get back to you." He broke the connection and
turned to the others in the computer room.

"What is it?" Tok said. "What do they want so
badly?"

Mirrimar debated not telling right away, but he was too pleased with
himself for that.

"They want their mates," he said.

"Their mates?"

"Ach," MacDougall said. "The screw-looses."

"Screws-loose," Tok corrected automatically. Everyone turned
to watch the spindly robots in the corner.

"Exactly," Mirrimar said. "That's how it hit
me. They're acting crazy, like they've got a screw loose."

He enjoyed the general groan. Subsequent negotiations went
easily. Mechanized solutions agreed to a 160 hour work week, with oil
breaks to be determined by supervisors. Prisoners were immediately
exchanged by all parties. As their final act as mercenaries for the
humans, the screws-loose unbolted the computer room door and were
joyously repatriated with their mates.

After it was all over, Mirrimar treated everyone to dinner at the
Executive Dining Room in the home office, and even had a special area
set up for the robots, where they could dine on imported, high-octane
fuel and other delicacies. A good time was had by all.

Tok and MacDougall agreed to look into RoboNet, and decide whether the
current situation was truly a bug, or a feature. "By the way,
sir," Tok said, "how did you get the whirrer-droids to agree
to the truce? After all, they started the battle."

Mirrimar patted his full belly, feeling pleasantly satisfied. "I
promised them some more space, and guaranteed that there would be no
reprisals against them by the other robots. In effect," he said,
grinning widely, "I buried the ratchet."


___________________________________________________________________________

Ken Kousen is a Research Engineer at United Technologies Research
Center in East Hartford, CT. His short fiction has appeared in Mystic
Fiction, InterText, and The Magic Within
anthology. "RoboTroubles" was written as a "fun"
break while slogging through writing a heavy, as-yet-unfinished
novel. 

kousen@utrc.utc.com
___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

The Plains of Meer               I picked up the stone. It was warm
                                 and shone red through my fingers. 
Simon Joseph                     How real is this?                 
___________________________________________________________________________

The fist-sized stone was pyramid shaped, perfectly cut on all sides,
and clear as glass. I didn't think the geology of Thetus permitted
diamonds. I had found it near the edge of a tidal pool on my morning
walk up the North Beach. I immediately adorned my one-room bungalow
with the mystery rock, displaying it on a driftwood table. There was
no one to share this find with. I lived alone on Thetus, as a woman
who sought her fate in the solitude of this big blue world. That night
I lay on my bunk nearing sleep. The eyes were heavy, half dreaming of
a storm out at sea. Only half dreaming because I could still hear the
surf roaring outside. One eye opened lazily to spy on the rock once
more. Light danced off the multisided stone. Thin white beams flashed
across the room, sweeping the dark. The rays bounced from wall to
wall, flickering about. 


A man runs barefoot on the wet hard-packed sand of low tide. His
unrelenting stride dances to a beat, forward in rhythm. Sweating in
his tattered clothes. Moving, hurrying, getting somewhere. I am a bird
gliding high above, crisscrossing the runner's path. After straying
far ahead I double back, dive down and dart pass the man. His face
transfixed, arms swinging wildly under striding legs. I circle above
the human projectile and our motions lock in tandem. I hear voices in
the man's movement, "Anticipate there, adjust here, footing soft,
veer right, straddle over, find line, maintain pace, second wind,
surge now, forward, faster." Legs alternate each lunging step
with machine-like continuity, rotating like a windmill. The arms swing
back and forth maintaining balance. I descend again and glide past the
man. The limbs are a mayhem of movement but the head is locked
forward, bounding only to the runner's inertia. The eyes stare
straight ahead, unblinking, possessed, fixed on a destiny imagined or
real. The open mouth is seemingly breathless. I climb against a strong
southernly wind. The man is running north. Like broken sails his
ragged shirt and trunks flail behind him. He is impervious knifing
into the ocean gust, skimming the coast with a thousand strides.


Lines of white energy tapped my forehead. I stared at one beam, a
photon torpedo that was paper-thin and inches wide. I followed it to
the ceiling corner and drifted to sleep again. From one dream I
stumbled on to another.


Everything ceases. The man is kneeling on the sand, head bowed down
before me, his hands holding my robe like a repentant Christian. The
man and I are statues with frozen gestures. There is no urge to
speak. I only want to stand above him. The man kneels repentant, for
his own sake or mine it doesn't matter. Thoughts are too still
here. Even where the ocean pounds the shores, with the wind-blasted
sands, and the dune grasses crackling like fire. Here we stand and
kneel, if only to cry out, "Look, look Thetus!" Alive all
around us with her chaos of forces, my planet she listens, she
sees. The sea falls away, the winds leave the sand, and the grasses
become silent. Now I can breathe stillness. Our hearts have stopped
beating. The man grips my robe and the side of his head presses
against my thigh. My hands rest on his shoulders as I look out over
the calm ocean. Thetus knows. Knows tranquility reigns. 


The rock glowed a soft white hue in my room. I staggered off the bunk
and approached it. I had not imagined the wild lights earlier. Diamond
or not, no crystal in this universe exhibited these properties. I
picked up the stone. It was warm and shone red through my fingers. How
real is this? With the stranger on Thetus. 

I put the crystal back down. Turning away I found a window and looked
out into the night. It was dark. There were no lights, no running man,
nor a kneeling one. Just the sea. Just me, Mara, alone on Thetus. Why
was the man running, and kneeling before me? 

I could see the glow out of the corner of my eyes. I turned and saw a
shower of rays arcing and angling into a wild, gleaming matrix. I
quickly looked down. Each light a channel to another place, to the
visions. How? The visions felt so real. I noticed two beams converging
at my feet. 


The man - that same man - stands beside a ship. Not an ocean ship. It
stands on the shores of Thetus, a tall metallic egg propped on three
spindly legs. The incoming tide begins to fill the darkened crater
underneath. A ship for the stars. The man is poised, standing at
attention, his suit gleaming blue and silver. An entry materializes on
the egg's silver shell. He climbs inside and I follow. We stand on a
mirrored floor and the space between us is small. An octagonal
room. The walls are black, streaked with long curving strokes of
white, red, and blue pinprick lights. Strips of the universe one
beside the other, making a wallpaper of stars, nebulas, and
galaxies. The man points to one bright speck. Flash of
red. "Away," he says with his eyes. But to where? The man
smiles, "Where the angels dance, on the plains of Meer."


I stood in the bungalow doorway and witnessed an intricate geometry of
lights. From every angle white lines bounced on the walls, floor, and
ceiling. I was drawn by the diamond's web of light. 

"No!" 

I fled out in the moonless night, running towards the beach. I
stumbled on the loose sand. My chest pounded making me fight for
breath. Scrambling to get away I followed the shoreline. I turned to
look back. A pinpoint beam darted out of the house. It moved closer -
not at once, not at the speed of light - extending its reach toward
me. I tumbled forward crying out and fell into the surf. 


I know that place, Meer. On the other side of the galaxy, as green
with grass as Thetus is blue with the sea. The man grins, "We are
here." We step outside the craft. Orange light makes the eyes
turn away, blazing. He spreads his hand to the horizon and I see waves
of tall grass racing up a sloping field. We are in a valley. I follow
him. After a while, he stops and turns to me. Behind him I see an
oddly shaped building. Beyond it many more line the green
slope. Weathered and rusty looking like old corrugated
steel. Half-moon shaped. He points to the building near us. The man is
sad. His suit glistens under the bright sunlight.


I was kneeling in water. A wave crashed into me and knocked me back. I
crawled out of the surf, coughing out seawater. I found dry sand and
lay there, sprawled on my stomach, cold, exhausted. My eyes
opened. Lights sparkled off the white-water. 

We enter the strange building. A body lies still. A man with eyes
closed. Wires in his skull. I kneel beside the cot and pull them from
his head one by one. The man opens his eyes, smiles. He is not sad
like his reflection standing nearby. The light is blinding. I feel his
joy now, his freedom a super nova. I am lying down and I see him
standing above me. The wires inside my head make me still. I am on
Meer. The man is walking on the beach on Thetus. No longer running, no
longer kneeling for forgiveness. A crystal is in his hand. He turns to
face the ocean and throws the stone far over the waves. I see a
splash, watch it descend in the murky water. It sinks into the
green-to-blue-to-black, to a place of unlight. I lie in the
dark. Helpless under the half-moon ceiling. Longing to run on the wet
sand, wild with freedom. To kneel for forgiveness with tranquil
heart. I am waiting for the crystal to wash ashore. To dance its light
again, like the angels on the plains of Meer.
___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

A Sense of Humor                   "It was a joke... some student..    
                                    I don't know what I was thinking... 
Kevin Walsh                         probably pissed because I failed    
                                    him and he couldn't get his loan..."

___________________________________________________________________________

James had just started work after lunch when the telephone rang.

"James, I have bad news... Hans is dead."

James sagged back in his chair.

"Ah, God."

"It was a heart attack, James. He didn't feel a thing."

"Joanie?"

"She's still at the hospital. Went out like a light, they
say."

James couldn't say anything.

"He should never have smoked that pipe," Joe, his colleague
and fellow philosophy tutor went on. "I told him. Wouldn't
listen. You know Hans. Always had to have his pipe. Doctors said no
smoking but Hans wouldn't listen...."

"Where are you now?"

"In the office. Man, I see Hans's door. The place is
funny... where the hell were you? I was trying to get you all
morning..."

"I in there. It must be... it must be only two hours since I was
talking to Hans... before lunch..."

"What the hell are you talking about, man? Hans died last
night!"

"Couldn't -"

"In his Goddam sleep-Joanie woke up and he was like a
stone... "

James leaned forward. "It couldn't be, Joe. You're mixed up. I
was talking with Hans before lunch and he was fine... he might have
been a bit preoccupied..."

"Preoccupied? He was dead! They reckon he died at four am. They
took his body away from the house at seven! Jesus! Man!"

James swallowed. "I'll ring you back..."

He clicked down the telephone and stared at the screensaver. Yael had
come in.

"Honey?"

"Hans-is dead."

Yael put a hand to her lips.

"Died... died... this morning..."

"Oh, I am so sorry." She put her arms around James neck.

"I know you two were close..."

"It was his heart..."

"The poor thing. He was only-what... fifties...?"

"Fifty two."

James felt a light kiss on the cheek.

He had been talking to Hans that morning. He had been in the
department at... nine. It was nine because he remembered looking at
his watch as he trotted up the steps to the main concourse. Because
the library opened at nine fifteen and could distinctly remember
thinking-would he pop in to see if that Inter-Library loan came
through.

No, he thought. He would hop up and see Hans first. Hans liked to get
all the department trivia out of the way by ten, before he started
work "proper" as he said.

Nine o clock.

Yael had gone to make coffee.

A joke. Some kid rang up, impersonated Joe. Department-no the whole
Faculty was full of Joe impersonators. The lively way he had of
bobbing his head and shifting his feet while he talked. The
ever-present "man" near the end of every sentence.

It sounded exactly like Joe, true. But Joe didn't have a distinctive
accent-and besides he had even overheard a student impersonate Joe's
voice-only a few weeks ago, in the canteen-and he had been sure it was
Joe.