The Warlock's Companion (17 page)

Or maybe not. Dar's neighbors were a pretty unworldly bunch, if you excluded making money and building grandiose houses.

Houses they were definitely big on, though. "I passed your estate on the way in, young d'Armand," Msimangu was saying, "I saw your home. I confess I thought it the height of ugliness last year, but now I begin to see its form emerge. It will be beautiful, when it is done."

"Why, thank you," Dar said, frankly floored by the compliment. In fact, he was so pleased that he forgot to mention who had designed it.

The factory was running just fine. Dar wandered up one aisle and down the other, feeling increasingly useless as he went along. He couldn't even dump the waste bins any more—since Lona had started leaving Fess home, Dar had assigned him that little chore. After all, he couldn't have the poor robot sitting around with nothing to do.

It was hard to believe these machines were of the same genus as Fess. Technically, they were robots, though with nowhere near the capacity of a general purpose model such as Fess. They were operated by much smaller computers, specialized for a very limited number of tasks. Dar hesitated to call them "robots" at all—they were really just automated machine tools. Robots were originally supposed to be artificial people, but these machines couldn't mimic human thought patterns in the slightest way.

And they certainly didn't look human. The first was only a set of rollers that rotated a synthetic crystal a millimeter at a time, then lowered onto it a hemispherical cover that was filled with golden contacts. The central computer tested each circuit within the crystal through those contacts, checking continuity, resistance, power input versus output, and a host of other electronic characteristics. After fifteen minutes, the rollers tilted the crystal out onto the padded belt that carried it to the next robot—or into the garbage can, if it had failed any of its tests.

The next robot was very similar, except that it connected microscopic filaments to each contact point.

Then came a robot that looked like an octopus, with fifteen arms sprouting from a central globe that held its computer. Its job was assembling fifteen crystals into one globular cluster joined by filaments, then immersing it in a chemical bath. After two hours, enough silicon had adhered to the filaments so that the robot could withdraw its arms and start assembling another cluster, while the first rested in its bath for a week, slowly growing together into a single giant crystal.

Meanwhile, another robot—a single bench that grabbed, folded, and held metal and plastic while a steel arm welded joints—was casting and assembling the housings for the completed machines. Then came the assembly line—a final robot which took the finished giant crystals out of their baths and fastened them inside the housings, then connected the contacts to the terminals for the mechanical attachments that actually did the work.

All of it faster than he could do. All of it better than he could do. And most of it much, much smaller than he could see.

Dar surveyed the area, feeling totally useless.

"You really should take a finished robot out for testing, Dar."

"Yeah, I know—but I've done two already today, and there's plenty of time to check the other three."

"Still, it must be done, or you will have a dozen untested robots at week's end."

"I know, I know—but there doesn't seem to be much point to it. You know they'll work perfectly."

"I do not, Dar. True, if the individual crystal circuits are sound, the finished computer will be fine…"

"Of course, because the central computer tests each stage of the work as it's being done." There were contacts embedded in the "holder" on each bench, and in each arm, allowing testing while production was in process.

"But you may find a mechanical flaw, Dar."

"Yeah, sure. Last week I found a pinhole in a suction funnel, and the week before that, there was a hum in a lifting fan. Never in the computers, of course."

He watched the process, shaking his head with dissatisfaction.

"What displeases you, Dar?"

"Huh? Oh. I keep forgetting you're programmed for gestures, too. Nothing, Fess—or nothing that should, anyway. We make dam good household robots—but blast it,
all
we make is household robots!"

"True, Dar, but, as you say, you make them very well—and you always manage to offer an automaton that will do more than your competition's product."

"Well, that's true. We started out with a little canister that could dust, and speak a few simple responses such as 'Yes, ma'am,' 'No, sir,' 'Good morning,' and 'Please move…' "

"Which every other company's could also do, of course."

"Yeah, but we figured out a way for ours to scrub floors and polish furniture, too."

"Then you added the abilities to pick up, clear a table, load a dishwasher, one by one—and always a year or two before the other companies."

"Yeah, because they wait till we come out with it, then buy one of ours and copy the new feature—but that always takes six months at least, while we make another hundred thousand in sales. Which reminds me, we'd better finish debugging that breakfast-delivery program, or we'll lose our edge."

"I would not be terribly concerned, Dar. You can still add many features before you will have perfected the ideal household helper."

"What do you mean?" Dar frowned.

"Why, your robots cannot yet replace a closure seam in a garment, or light a fire—or fight one, for that matter."

"Oh. Right. And they don't do windows." But Dar was gazing off into space. "Let's see, now…"

"You will find ways to accomplish them all," Fess assured him.

"True, true. And there are other improvements I'm itchy to get to."

"Such as?"

"Well, they could be a lot smaller, for one thing.""

"I do not know, Dar—there is a lower limit on size, for accomplishing mechanical tasks."

"Oh, not the robots themselves, Fess—we've got those as low as they can go, and still be practical. Anything less, and the householder will be tripping over them every time he turns around. No, I meant the computers. They're still bigger than my fist."

"I fail to see how they could be smaller, Dar. You are already working with the smallest crystal lattice that can carry an adequate number of differences in electrical potentials."

"Are we?" Dar's tone sharpened. "A crystal has a regular shape because its molecule has, Fess. Why can't the differences in electrical potential that made a crystal lattice function as a circuit, be made to operate with only a single molecule?"

Fess was slow in answering, which meant his computer, which worked in nanoseconds, had analyzed the problem thoroughly, and made a preliminary try at resolving it. "In theory, there would be no reason for it not to, Dar—but the complexity of the circuitry would be limited by the number of electrons available."

"All right, so it might take a dozen molecules, or maybe even a single giant molecule—but you're still talking about something microscopic, or just barely visible."

"Are you seriously intending to research the possibility?"

"Not without telling Lona—and I don't know enough physics yet, to know if it's worth investigating. I mean, okay, it might turn out to be possible, but not marketable, especially if it wound up using giant molecules. After all, who wants a computer made of U-235 in his living room?"

"The mass would not be critical, Dar."

"No, but the customer would. Call it atavism, call it superstition, but the stuff has a bad reputation."

"Even if it were, why would you wish to do it? The current generation of computers is certainly small enough for all practical purposes."

"Not all—I can think of a few applications where microbrains would come in handy. Especially in the line I
want
to get into."

"Which is?"

"Industrial robots." Dar rubbed his knuckles against his palm. "We need to branch out, Fess. There's just so far we can go with household robots, and right now, the
real
money is in industry. If we could offer smaller, more compact computers, that would cut down on size and give flexibility a big boost. Factory managers are always complaining about having to replace all their robots with new models, every time they retool. If we could figure out how to grow a single molecule circuit, we could sell them new brains for more generalized robots."

"An excellent idea," Fess said slowly. "You must tell Lona."

Dar felt a surge of irritation, but reminded himself that Fess was, after all, Lona's robot. "No. I just don't know enough yet."

Which made him feel even more useless.

He turned away, closing the factory hatch behind him, and went into his den. "I'm going to brood—uh, study, for a while, Fess."

"I shall not disturb you, Dar." But he would wait for Dar's call. That went without saying.

The lights came on, and Dar sat down at his computer with a sigh of relief. Here, at least, he had something to
do
, and the illusion that it might actually be of some use, even though that was highly unlikely. Of course, he was only experimenting with computer simulations of radio sound waves and FTL drives, not with the real thing—but he might hit on a workable idea.

It didn't make sense, after all—if ships could travel faster than light, why couldn't radio? If you could make a whole spaceship isomorphic with a seven-dimensional surface, why couldn't you do the same with an electromagnetic wave?

Because it wasn't an object, of course. In fact, it wasn't matter; it was an energy pattern. But patterns were patterns, and three-dimensional patterns could be made isomorphic with seven-dimensional equivalents.

Except that energy didn't seem to exist in seven dimensions. Which was nonsense, of course—the mathematicians just hadn't started thinking about it, so Dar couldn't read their conclusions.

But at least he'd found the right question to ask. That, he felt, was real progress. Of course, he didn't know enough math to look for the answer—but that could be rectified. He stared at the simulation, rotating it to gain the illusion of movement, and, from it, inspiration and motivation.

It worked; he was motivated. He cleared the screen and loaded the first chapter of the text on topology. He'd already made it through Page 2…

He was halfway through Page 3 when the sensor chimed.

Dar was out of his seat and over to the screen before the sound had died. The call signal could only ring if it was triggered by a coded radio signal—and only Lona knew the code. She was coming home! Dar located her blip, referred it to the center of the screen, then punched into viewphone mode and entered her code—and there she was, or at least her face, in beautiful living color, complexion flawless, every feature perfect, saying, "Roger, ground control. Will burn for entry at 24:32:16."

"Roger," said a tinny (male) voice. "Over and out."

Dar felt a stab of jealousy. Had she perfected her makeup for him—or for Louie at Ground Control?

But she was reaching out to punch him up on her screencall signal. Her face lit up, and his heartburn quenched as he realized she'd seen him.

"Welcome, wanderer!"

"Hi, handsome." Her eyelids drooped. "Slay the fatted calf and warm the sheets."

"Both are roasting, and so am I. When should I pour the martinis?"

"An hour, sweetling." She winced. "Don't groan so loudly—my amp can't take it."

"Neither can I. Tell me something to be happy about."

"That it's
only
an hour. Just think how long it would be if we were civilized enough to have a spaceport and customs."

"I'd nuke 'em both! If our neighbors couldn't trust us…"

"Who
could
they trust? So I'm landing on our own pad, dear, and docking in…" she glanced aside, at her chronometer, "… sixty-four minutes and 20."

A chime sounded, out of range. Lona glanced at it, then back at Dar. "Entry burn in two. Love, darling." Her screen blanked.

Dar could have screamed at it. Instead, he took her parting line as a promise and headed for the shower.

Of course, he had just showered, shaved, and changed a few hours before, for his trip into town—but what the hell, he could do it again. Anything to pass the time!

He did, and he still had half an hour left to chew his nails. He manfully refrained—she only liked
controlled
scratching. Instead, he drew two martinis from the autobar and set them next to the big quartz port, then sat down to watch her land. Thirty seconds later, he got up and started pacing—but still kept his eyes locked on the sky.

She had certainly timed her entrance right. (She always did, of course.) The sky was filled with stars, but Sol was about to rise, and its glare dimmed the lesser suns, leaving a field strewn with glory, but not backed by powder. Nearby asteroids arced across the field, making his heart lurch—but finally, one of them started growing more than it slid, and he knew Lona was coming in.

The meteor waxed brighter and brighter until it showed as a little disc that grew and grew until it assumed the shape of a small rocket ship, fifty meters long, arching lower as it brightened, then blossoming into roseate fire that swelled up about it, hiding it, consuming it, a fireball that swung lower more and more slowly—and touched the ground. The fire died, and the little rocket ship emerged, balanced on landing grapples.

Dar hit pressure patches and turned a wheel, and the house's boarding ramp snaked out across the graded rockfield to nudge, very gently, against the side of the ship. Then it rose up on jacks of its own, like a blind, questing cobra, found the electromagnetic ring around the airlock, and clung.

It was a convenience, for people. Expensive—too expensive, just for the privilege of coming in without a faceplate, so Dar didn't pressurize it. But cargo needed atmosphere, sometimes, and for trade, they could afford it.