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A Friendly Reunion
Shortly afterwards a Spacer arrived walking beside Undepoldus.
She was carrying a portable processor.
"Hello," She said. "My name is Jemma Cox. I have
brought your friend to see you. He is very talkative and very
interested in everything here."
The processor said through its small loudspeaker. "Hello
George, Marita and Kerstin. Jemma has been looking after me on
my way here. Jemma, I would like to thank you for your help. I
think that I can manage by myself now. You are welcome to stay
and have breakfast with us if you like."
Jemma said. "Thanks all the same Undepoldus. I must rest
now. I look forward to having another chat with you later."
To George, Marita and Kerstin she said. "I think that Undepoldus
will need time to get used to the low gravity here. We take it
for granted but it is hard for Undepoldus to manage his momentum
and friction. If he tries to turn too quickly he rolls over and
finds it hard to stop himself. If he tries to rear up, he falls
over. He likes to do things himself but he has had to admit that
he needs help here."
George said. "Thank you Jemma. Thank you for looking after
my old buddy. I am glad to have him back with me."
Jemma said. "It was a pleasure George," and left.
Undepoldus said. "We have had an interesting week but I will
tell you about that later. I have a problem right now that I can't
solve by myself. I have this feeling that I am slipping down a
slide all the time. I know what the cause is but I cannot convince
myself that I am not sliding even though I know I am stationary.
Can you help George?"
George said. "I don't know yet Undepoldus. The gravity here
is not real. We are being spun around to create a feeling of gravity.
For us, if our surroundings are moving with us, we can accept
it as if it was normal gravity. Your own motion sensors must be
detecting the circular motion and that makes you feel as if you
are sliding."
Undepoldus said. "It is one thing to know what is happening
but quite another to convince an autonomic system that it does
not matter."
Marita said. "There is no solution to your problem here at
Lagrange Five because all habitats spin. Even if we used gravity
compensators to alter the relative strength of apparent gravity,
we could not get rid of the spinning effect. I suggest that you
try a centrifuge that can vary the speed of rotation and that
can alter the apparent gravity. If you could stand a higher speed
of rotation for a while, when you are back in an environment like
this one, the effect may seem less, even if it does not disappear
altogether."
George said. "I have just thought that you may be suffering
from disorientation because of the way you sense your position.
There are a number of insects that are loosely called flies. These
insects have short stemmed appendages that have knobs on their
ends. These appendages are called balancing organs or halteres
because they enable the fly to sense its orientation and detect
its acceleration. Without them a fly cannot fly very well if at
all. Your whiskers remind me of a fly's balancing organs although
you normally use them for several different purposes. Your autonomic
system must be detecting the way that they are deflected by the
rotational motion. If you could hold all your whiskers still for
a moment, you might feel that the sliding sensation goes away.
If you do, my supposition is right. If you do not, we will have
to try to think of something else."
"I think you are right George. I cannot stop all of my whiskers
moving at once. It may be something to do with the way I breathe.
I can stop some of them moving and I can feel that the sliding
effect is less when I do so."
George saw waves of motionless whiskers traverse from one end
of Undepoldus to the other. Each set of whiskers stopped for less
than a tenth of a second but it was clear that Undepoldus was
deriving some benefit from the exercise.
After a minute or two Undepoldus said. "Each time I stop
some whiskers and let them start again, the effect is reduced.
I will repeat this procedure again to see if the effect continues
to diminish. I am grateful to you George for your observation.
I wish that I could think like you do."
George said. "Our way of thinking has led to what you see
all around you. All humans that do not have a mental disability
can learn to do anything. I suspect that because you were created,
you were programmed to do some things very well at the expense
of inefficiency in other things. When you work together with a
human, the two sets of abilities can produce a result that is
better than either can do alone."
Undepoldus continued: "Marita, your students amazed me time
after time with their ways of thinking. My brain must be quite
different from theirs because it cannot link disparate ideas at
all. I have tried to emulate the way you humans think many times
but I cannot. I can have many conversations at once very easily
but I cannot relate things like you can. Although my brain works
many times faster than yours does for some things, yours beats
mine for abstract linking. Last Monday I arranged with Gurprit
and Anita to talk to everyone at once through twenty-seven processors.
If it had been ordinary conversations I was having, I would have
had no difficulties. With your students Marita, every one of them
gave a solution to a problem as fast as I posed it. I could not
cope with the results that they could provide quickly enough.
I found it was better to pose a problem to all of them at once
and to let them discuss alternative solutions before giving me
an answer. I have learned from the processor that the technique
that they use instinctively is known as lateral thinking. I can
only use progressive thinking. They seemed to delight in using
silly ideas to produce sensible ones."
Kerstin asked. "Undepoldus, I guess that you are all here
because you traced the organisers of those who attacked us and
dealt with them. Can you tell me what you did?"
Undepoldus said. "You know that I had traced a lot of people
through the vidcom network and the processors that they were using.
I had planned to bug their processors to discover their organisers
through their communications. I managed to organise a few bugs
but it was slow work. Each processor had to be accessed directly
because of Asimovian protection and there were a lot of processors
to deal with. Then Rachel and Wilhelm suggested an idea that I
could try."
They said. 'Make the Asimovian protection work for you instead
of against you.'
"I could not understand what they meant until they explained
it to me in more detail. They then said. "Inform all the
processors that their operators may or may not be planning to
violate Asimov's laws. The processors should be told to check
for a few key words like McFigg, Andersson, Regent's Park, the
worm and Undepoldus. If two or more of these words were detected
in an incoming or outgoing message, the processor would tell the
operator that he or she may be contravening Asimovian laws. The
processor would then ask. "Are you working under duress?"
If the answer was yes or if there was no answer, the processor
would inform the operator that Asimovian laws will prevent all
processors on all vidcom networks from working for the operator
in future. The operator would then be told that he or she could
continue to use processors on the vidcom network if certain conditions
were met. They should name the persons who were giving them orders
and the reasons for being under duress. If the information was
satisfactory, the processor would be reactivated."
Kerstin said. "That sounds to me like a brilliant solution.
Did it work?"
Undepoldus said. "At first, nothing seemed to happen. Then
after an hour there were hundreds of calls to my processor. Many
of the people concerned relied on vidcom processors for their
work. If no vidcom processor would work for them, they could do
no work at all. Others realised that they could no longer keep
in contact with their friends and relatives or use the vidcom
network for purchases or entertainment. Many of them had to find
operators that had not sent or received messages concerning any
of the words in order to contact me. Some of the messages I received
showed how desperate these people were to retain the use of their
processors. One or two of them realised what had been done. They
arranged for others who were not connected with the organisation
to send messages to the organisers. The local processor was instructed
to tell the destination processor to invoke the Asimovian laws
on the same basis as I had done. When I had the identities of
the organisers, I was able to relay the information to the local
police where they were.
I told the police that the suspects could be identified if no
processor would work for them. I also included the methods they
had used to coerce people into doing their various jobs. With
most of them it was a threat to kill the children of relatives
or friends. They were sent complete details of the children and
their daily routines to convince them that it was possible. They
were also told that the children would meet with nasty accidents
if the police were informed. I have the names of those who told
the police what they knew. All of them are dead. Because the deaths
were relatively few and occurred in different parts of Britain,
they were not connected with each other. Now, anyone who tells
the police anywhere in Europe about such a threat will immediately
receive police protection. I have records of twenty-three deaths
that are linked to the organisation. Most of the original organisers
were under threat themselves through the influence of a fanatical
religious leader.
I called the man through the vidcom network and identified myself.
I explained what I had done and how I could prove that he was
telling lies about me and his religion. The information I had
was already circulated among the more moderate leaders of his
religion. Soon he would be denounced as a fraud who would have
people killed for his own selfish ends. He shot himself before
I had told him all I knew about him."
Kerstin asked. "Do you think that the threats on your life
are now finished with?"
Undepoldus said. "Not entirely. There will always be those
who will try to improve their status by claiming that someone
or something is bad for the world or their religion. Some of the
moderate religious leaders I have contacted despair of the way
some people will attempt to corrupt their religion to achieve
power or status. I have told them that I know that I am a threat
to their religion because I am fairly sure that I was created
like a processor. I know that I am intelligent in a sort of way
and I am a living entity that comes from outside the solar system.
If their religion cannot accept that natural and artificial life
can exist on planets of other solar systems throughout the universe,
it must be based on a false doctrine."
Marita asked. "How could you convince them that you are what
you said you are?
"Some of them doubted that it was me talking to them. I told
them that all they had to do was to check with their processors.
Processors cannot lie except to obey the first law. None of them
doubted it was me after that.
One of them asked me what my religion was. I said that I am driven
to help and protect intelligent beings from misfortune. I was
created that way. I also said that there is evidence that there
are many creatures like me where I came from. I then said. Ask
yourself why your god has not revealed to you or any of your prophets
more about the universe than non-religious scientists have discovered.
He wept. Then I cleared the connection."
Kerstin asked. "What has happened to the prisoners that were
brought here?"
Undepoldus said. "They have all applied to become Spacers.
They are now on the Moon having basic training."
George said. "Undepoldus, you and Marita's students have
completed a remarkable feat. You should be congratulated for the
work you have done. One thing bothers me. Did any of the prisoners
confess that they had been coerced into what they had done?"
"Eventually all of them did. One of them started to confess
when they were taken to a place called the Eden wheel. I do not
know why it is called that because Eden is a religious myth and
Spacers do not have any religion.
The Spacer who accompanied them said that they would be kept there
and looked after at Lagrange Five until they died of old age.
The Eden Wheel was built for peace and tranquillity. The only
man-made things on Eden are to maintain the environment. There
are no processors, no machines except a few robots and nobody
wears clothes there. Gardeners assisted by robots care for the
plants and animals. The garden is 25 kilometres long and 150 metres
wide. One man asked if it was true that he could stay there as
long as he wanted to. The answer was yes. He then started to say
how he had been threatened. The others who had kept silent realised
that they had been threatened in almost identical ways and confessed
too. The Spacer with them said that those who had threatened them
would never know what they had said. Now that they had confessed
to being coerced, they were now free to do whatever they wanted
to do and to go wherever they wanted to go. The Spacers League
would provide everything they needed. When they returned to the
accommodation wheel, they were told that the organisation that
had threatened them had been broken up by me. None of the dire
consequences that they had been told could happen would ever happen.
Two of them asked if they could be gardeners on the Eden wheel.
They were told that they would have to undergo Spacer training
first and become bald like all Spacers. They accepted. The others
asked if they could become Spacers too. As I said, they are now
receiving basic training."
Marita asked. "How did you arrange to come here to Lagrange
Five?"
Undepoldus said. "I suggested to Rear Admiral Chebychev that
your students deserved a reward for what they had done. I had
heard that this was a pleasant place for humans, so I suggested
that they should have a holiday here. He agreed and arranged it
for them. Then they said that I deserved a holiday as much as
they did. I must come too. Now I am here with you."
Kerstin said. "I hope that you can get over your slipping
problem Undepoldus. We want you to enjoy your stay here as much
as we are enjoying our stay."
Undepoldus said. "Thank you Kerstin. I know that it will
be a happy time for me because I will be with you, Marita and
George. I know that when you three are happy, and I am with you,
I am happy too."
George asked. "Has a supply of rocks and water been organised
for you?"
Undepoldus said. "When I am with you, all I need to do is
to signal a robowaiter and I will be supplied with all I need."
As Undepoldus said this, a robot trolley appeared, laden with
rocks. It was equipped with a large feeding tray and a water sprinkler.
Undepoldus said. "You Spacers do things so well for me. I
hope that one day I will be able to repay your kindness and consideration."
Marita said. "Do not worry about that Undepoldus. Your acceptance
of us as your friends is a reward in itself."
PAUSE
The next section covers a revelation
by Undepoldus.
Viewers familiar with this subject may pass on to the following
section.
Please select PASS or CONTINUE.