Foundation’s Friends

“We don’t need to worry about the cliff strength here. Would they have put this big gadget where it is without checking? Never mind the cube, Chile, but I’m going to find out-”

Bronwen was somewhat dubious, but said nothing. If Rob did cause the other robot to break off the language lesson, it would at least give some idea of the unit’s concerns and priorities. Only when the man took an unusually long step toward the cube did she utter a caution.

“It’s a long way down, Rob. I said that Sheila would be first if anyone had to go near the edge. You get set to anchor.”

Ling checked himself, a humorous sight under the local gravity and traction. “I’ll head for the right side, Sheila for the left. If one goes over, the cube will catch the chain and be a real anchorage.”

“All right. But don’t get casual.”

“I won’t. Keep an eye on Chile’s friend. I expect it’ll do something, considering how it reacted back at Barco when he tried to get the cube there. “

The whole group eased closer to the edge, Orange to the left, Green to the right, men leading by a few meters, safety chains slack.

Rob was quite right in principle, but hadn’t foreseen the detail. As he approached the right side of the block, gathering in the free chain as Sheila neared the other, the language lesson was indeed interrupted. Casually using Chile as a kick-off mass, the ghost dived straight for the man, and just as casually used his inertia to keep itself from going past the edge. The push sent Ling over, naturally, since his mass was much less than the robot’s.

The chain did not catch on the presumed data unit, for the block lifted itself smoothly a meter and a half to let the line pass underneath as Rob’s new momentum pulled it straight.

Quick pla

The other two teams had the same problem. Chispa and Bronwen also started down so that all four limbs could search for traction; their partners, about the same distance from the edge but closer to it than the women, leaped toward each other.

By the time they met, Chile was still helplessly drifting from the push he had received, Ling was starting to disappear below the edge, and Sheila was ready to jump away from it and him. He had released the slack in the chain co

“Hit us, Sheil’!” called Mike. She needed no instruction. A little toe work in the surface cracks headed her toward the two-man system slowly spi

By the time she reached her target and complicated the system, it was on the ground. Ling was nearly out of sight, and Chile, who had had no control over his original spin, had only partly stopped his flight with his hands and was on the first bounce.

“We’ve got you, and the girls have us. There’s plenty of traction. Start hauling in!” Mike snapped. “Not too hard!”

She pulled quickly anyway. The sooner the slack was taken up and she could start doing something useful, the better. By the time she felt resistance, the falling man was out of sight, one could only estimate how far. She abandoned responsibility for her own safety to the others, and drew steadily, hand over hand, gripping the fine chain as effectively as she could with her insulated gloves. She barely noticed that the big cube had settled back where it had been. From her position, the other robot was hidden beyond it; for the moment, its possible activities didn’t concern her.

“Rob, are you all right?” she called.

“Sure. Swinging in toward the cliff now. I take it you’re anchored all right-if you come over too, it could be awkward. “

“I’m solid. Don’t look down.”

“Oh, it’s not that bad. There’s no haze to suggest distance; my head knows it’s twenty kilos, but my stomach isn’t sure it’s down. I’m about to hit the cliff; stop pulling up for a moment so I can catch it. It’s pretty rough, and I may be able to hang on myself.” There was a pause, and Sheila braced herself for a possible jolt along the chain, but felt nothing. “Missed the hold. I bounced, but only a little. I ought to get it next time. It’s not quite vertical, I think; maybe I can walk up it, with the rope helping. Here I come.” There was a pause. “Yep, it’s not straight up and down; I’m hanging against the rock. You can pull again. So much for the strength of this cliff.”

“What? Is it cracking?” Chispa was first with the question, by a split second.

“Oh, no, but if that data unit can fly, our logic was a bit shaky. Just don’t stamp, please, until I get back up. More to the point, what’s that other robot doing now?”

Chispa, who could see farthest around the right side of the cube, replied, “Nothing. It’s just standing there. Why?”

“Well, if you didn’t happen to see, I think it pushed me over; and I was wondering if it had shown the same feeling about anyone else. “

“Chile! Keep close to that thing and make sure it doesn’t do a repeat!” snapped Bronwen.

“Shouldn’t I be helping bring Robert up? His danger seems more immediate.”

“We can get him. If he’s right-I couldn’t see him on that side of the block-the other danger is greater. “

“I understand.”

“Talk to it, if you’ve reached that level, and ask why it did it,” suggested Ling.

“We have not reached that level of abstraction.”

“At least we’ve learned one thing; this stuff is alien,” Rob resumed, very calmly all things considered. “No robot made on Earth could have done that to what it recognized as a human being. We don’t have First Law protection from it. Maybe we don’t have any kind; maybe whoever made it doesn’t use the Three Laws in their design. “

Chile had stopped at last, and was “walking” back toward the scene of action. “Such a positronic brain is not possible,” he said flatly. “I will try to find human identifying signals, if any exist, in its communication with the data processor, but I expect they will be too abstract for my present intuition base. Is Robert nearly up?”

“Nearly.” Ling and Sheila spoke almost together. No one suggested aloud that the ghost’s brain might not be positronic. “There can’t be much of this chain still out,” the woman added.

“The robot is getting between me and the cube again,” Chile reported quietly. “I will go to the left side, so I can help with Robert’s chain. I am still monitoring signals. I can’t get very close, of course, without using force on the robot. I assume that is not yet the policy.”

“Right. Just communicate,” replied Bronwen.

Ling’s gloves, slightly preceding his helmet, appeared about eight meters to the left of the cube, as seen by his companions. Chile was standing within a meter of the same spot, slowly bending over to reach for him. The main anchoring trio lay a dozen meters straight in from the point, at the junction of a “Y” outlined in chain with the other women at its arm tips and Chile at its foot.

This lasted only a split second. Then the alien robot moved again, this time pushing off from the big cube. As before, it plunged for the edge. Chile, almost upright, was in no position to oppose it. He took most of its momentum and flew over Ling’s head; the rest of the push was expended against the man’s helmet, and he followed Chile more slowly.

“Rob!” Sheila screamed, and jerked up her legs in readiness to jump. She recovered control in time to forestall the motion, but not soon enough to let Luis and Mike keep hold of her ankles. All might still have been well if she had released the loops of chain she had been coiling up, but letting go of Ling was the farthest thing from her instincts. The chain transferred part of the robot’s final thrust to her, and after two agonizingly slow bounces accompanied by futile scrabbling at surface irregularities and a shrieked “NO!” she too went over the edge. The startled watchers saw the alien robot, now falling to the safe side of the rim, lean and extend an arm as though to intercept her, but she drifted past out of its reach.

“I think we may bounce out before we hit bottom, but I’m not sure how far down that’ll happen,” Ling remarked. “ At least, there should be time to make our wills, if any of us hasn’t done it already.”

“Nine minutes thirty-three seconds,” affirmed Chile. He had hooked a foot under the chain as the other had pushed him, and was now engaged in pulling the three together. “If we approach the bottom, you two hold tightly to each other, and at the last possible moment I will kick upward against you as hard as I can, to take as much as possible of our downward momentum to myself. There seems little chance that this would suffice to preserve your lives, but it is the best I can think of. We have not enough collective spin to help the operation by-”

“Thanks, Chile, but we’ll take your word for it. Rob, was it that robot again’? Things happened too fast for me to be sure.”

“‘Fraid so. It seems to have a prejudice against me, or maybe against anyone who tried to touch the cube. I wonder why it didn’t come around and get you too before; you were about to do the same thing.”

“That is why I want all three of us together as quickly as possible,” Chile cut in. “It will not harm Sheila, and will have the cube here to catch her very shortly. She is human. If we are actually in contact, as she and I are now, it will probably not try to force us apart, but if you, Rob, are still at the end of the chain, I am not sure it won’t try to break you free. “

“Why? I’m-”

“Please don’t talk, Robert. Just pull in chain from your end, too. It will put an uncomfortable amount of spin on us, I fear, but should make you much safer. Here comes the cube.”

Actually, there was no hurry. The alien block, with the ghost on top, overhauled them rather slowly, seemed to look things over for more than a minute, and finally slid under the trio over two hundred meters down. Bronwen had plenty of time to unlimber the rest of the chain, but not enough to figure out how to use it.

“Then you solved the alien symbols.” Ling was talking before his feet were back on the ground. “But why does that thing regard Sheila as human, and not me?”