The Rod of Light (Soul of the Robot) Read online

  Jasperodus marvelled to see this metal ghost of a once living man, in which every psychic tendency, every habit and pleasure fixed by the years, was faithfully preserved. The real count, of course, was genuinely dead. This was merely a simulacrum. He was not sure if the robot in front of him understood this.

  ‘What is your position legally?’ he asked. ‘Do you still claim to be Count Viss in law?’

  ‘Good point. A construct can’t own property. When the imperial writ still ran in these parts I got round that by having the estate put in trust. These days a tribal council runs things around here. They don’t bother me. Still, the way these Borgors are rampaging around has me worried.’

  ‘Their aim is to exterminate free robots altogether,’ Jasperodus agreed.

  ‘Always were a bunch of damned barbarians.’

  ‘Yes. But to come back to the point, while it is evident that you are a mental continuation of the count, there is one sense in which you are not him,’ Jasperodus said slowly. ‘And I don’t speak of the loss of his human body.’

  He was thinking of Viss’ reported advocacy of the Gargan Work. The robot count looked up, pausing between taking a morsel of braised parsnip and a sip of wine.

  He nodded. ‘I know what you are referring to. Robots don’t have consciousness, and that is what makes a man a man. I quite realize that without it I do not really live as before. To tell the truth I can’t say I’ve ever noticed the lack of it. But that’s as it would be, I suppose.’

  ‘Then how do you know of it at all?’

  ‘Gargan spent a few days here some years ago, on his way to where he now has his research centre,’ Viss revealed. ‘He found something here to interest him, I believe. Enough, at any rate, to cause him to explain his doctrine to me. Men have souls, and constructs don’t. He told me that “soul” is only a loose term for this “consciousness”. To be truly meself I must have consciousness.’

  Viss nodded again. ‘When the Gargan Work is completed we shall all have it. We shall have souls, and be like men. Then no one can say I am not Count Viss. Furthermore, I shall be virtually immortal.’

  ‘How do you envisage this “consciousness”?’ Jasperodus pressed.

  The count stared reflectively at the ceiling. He took his time answering.

  ‘It is a mystery to such as we,’ he said. ‘Perhaps I have a glimmering of it. Perhaps a glimmering. Gargan said the soul is to our experience what the sun is to an otherwise unillumined landscape.’

  ‘Since you are an individual who once was conscious, perhaps you should have a better idea of it than the rest of us,’ Jasperodus suggested. ‘Try to think of when you were Count Viss in the flesh. Can you recall any difference between your experience then—I am speaking of sensory experience—and your experience now?’

  The count toyed with his wine glass, staring thoughtfully down at it. Then he looked abruptly back to Jasperodus.

  ‘No,’ he said blandly.

  Having disposed of his meal with relish, he pushed away his plate and beckoned to the foot robot to pour him more wine.

  Throughout the exchange Cricus had remained silent. Jasperodus gazed around him at the dining hall. Everywhere there were signs of decay. The window drapes were dirty and torn, hanging loose in places. The plaster mouldings of the cornice and the ceiling had partly fallen down, and the fragments swept carelessly into the corners and the empty firegrate, along with several sorts of other rubbish.

  He suspected that the decrepitude had begun some time before the real count had died, as soon as the last human servant had departed, in fact. Robots were apt to be casual about such matters.

  Given sufficient span of time the whole mansion would gradually tumble to the ground and the count would continue his charade in the ruins.

  In view of Viss’ evident attachment to sensuality, Jasperodus wondered whether to tell him of the time he had had a sexual function incorporated into himself, but then thought better of it. He suspected that sex had ceased to be of interest to Viss long before his robotisation. From his earlier remarks, he guessed he’d had a history of failure and bitterness in personal relationships, and it was no accident that even when alive he had ended up with only constructs for company. Indeed, he boasted of preferring them to people. ‘More dependable,’ he had said. ‘Know where you are with ‘em. Same with animals.’

  There was one more question Jasperodus could not resist asking. ‘It may interest you to know that my own manufacturer was once in your employ,’ he said. ‘But that would have been a long time ago. Still, perhaps you remember him.’

  ‘Do you happen to know his name?’

  ‘His name,’ said Jasperodus after a pause, ‘was Jasper Hobartus.’

  The count laughed slyly. ‘It was he who devised the procedure for personality transfer to a robot brain. Personality printing, he called it. It’s really only a kind of copying.’

  ‘Yes, that would accord with his capabilities,’ said Jasperodus without surprise. ‘Are there any others on your estate with similarly printed minds?’

  ‘There’s Prancer, me favourite horse. You saw me riding him today. Good old Prancer. I couldn’t resist it. He broke a leg, you see. Had to be shot. I’ll see he gets a horse-soul, too, when Gargan’s done his stuff.’

  ‘But no other printed human minds?’ Jasperodus asked, idly curious.

  ‘Just one. Hobartus, your maker. Tried it out on himself first, as a test run. When he left me service the construct copy stayed behind as a replacement. He’s still me chief robotician. Excellent chap, keeps the stock in tip-top condition—I dare say you might like to meet him.’ He spoke to the foot robot. ‘Go and bring Hobartus here.’

  ‘No!’ Jasperodus jumped to his feet, agitated. ‘Not at present.’

  The count swivelled his head stiffly to look directly up at him. ‘As you please.’

  A roar, the same cheering roar as before, drifted into the dining room. Since their arrival it had swelled up every few minutes from the large building partly visible through a broken window.

  Viss too came to his feet. ‘Well, do you fancy a stroll through the estate? Funny to think some of me “little toys” are relatives of yours, what? Well, so am I if you put it that way!’

  Jasperodus pointed through the window. ‘What’s that place? Why the cheering?’

  ‘Sports stadium. Sportsman yourself?’

  ‘No. I never yet heard of sporting robots.’

  ‘Well that’s where you’re wrong.’

  ‘It is always a mistake to place limitations on construct behaviour,’ Cricus intoned pedantically.

  ‘Quite,’ Count Viss hurrumphed. ‘This way, gentlemen.’

  In the evening light the huge parkland was even more charming. The mellow sunlight seemed almost to lilt and sigh as it swept up and down the grassy curves and filtered through the trees. Jasperodus felt a cool breeze stir the receptors in his steel skin.

  The first figure they encountered was the clockwork robot, now standing immobile. Viss stumped past it without a word, but Jasperodus paused to look more closely at the ravaged face, which appeared to be made of crudely smelted cast iron (the body frame was of the same metal, filled out with timber panels). Its expression was bleak and pathetic: a robotic mask of suffering.

  Whose conception was this tormented being, he wondered? He hurried on after Viss and Cricus, not lingering to wind the key in case Viss disapproved. The count was leading them towards the stadium, but first they descended into a broad shallow depression, a flat-floored valley about two miles long that was cleverly hidden from view until one came suddenly upon it.

  The valley, peopled with a phantasmagoria of robot animals, was like a lost world. Jasperodus saw a brass elephant, waving its big leaf-like ears which clashed gently against its body. He saw a pack of steel hounds race through the valley, leaping back and forth across the narrow stream which ran its length and snapping their stainless teeth. But not all the animals were recognisably copies of biological forms. Others, had
they been able to evolve naturally, would not have done so on the planet Earth. There were several specimens of what he took to be an invented species: slowly striding structures composed of half a dozen vertical pipes twelve to twenty feet in height, joined at the top by moulded cross-pieces. Lights twinkled among them. They sheened iridescent blue, green, orange. They moved hesitatingly, seeming to feel their way with great deliberation.

  Other creatures were earthly, but extinct for tens of millions of years. Past the elephant a steel tyrannosaurus rex lumbered unheedingly, vast jaw shining with massed teeth, little jointed forelimbs dangling. In scale, it made the elephant seem as a dog to a man.

  ‘If aroused by the special signal that only I know,’ the count murmured, seeing the direction of Jasperodus’ gaze, ‘that beast would become unimaginably ferocious. The teeth are tungsten-edged … but look yonder.’

  They were crossing the little arc of a bridge that spanned the central stream, elsewhere only a rivulet but widening here to about six feet. On the other bank placidly strolled the most enormous beast they had yet seen. Vaguely it resembled a triceratops but was much bigger. Its huge curved hide was studded with metals of several hues, making it like a monstrous piece of jewelry. The serrated ridge of its back rose like the battlements of a fortress.

  Most extraordinary, however, was that the three forward-pointing horns which gave triceratops its name were replaced here by three gaping cannon muzzles.

  Following the example of Viss and Cricus, Jasperodus allowed himself no nervousness as they walked fairly close to the gun-bearing metal saurian. ‘That would make a formidable fighting machine,’ he remarked.

  ‘Such is its function,’ the count said, his voice dry and grim. ‘If the Borgors come here, they will have a fight on their hands.’

  They ascended the far side of the valley and approached the stadium, whose noisy atmosphere swelled to a steady tumult as they drew nearer. At the entrance tunnel the count halted.

  ‘I’ll wait here,’ he said. ‘Go in and take a look, Jasperodus. The gate keeper will take care of you.’

  With that he made use of a curious rod-like contrivance he carried which had a spike for sticking into the ground at one end and a handle which opened out to provide support for his rump at the other (and which, like his chemical digestion, was totally redundant: most robots could stand indefinitely without expenditure of energy, and only used chairs out of habit acquired from humans). Thus seated, he gazed out over his estate, his back to the stadium.

  ‘I have seen the game already,’ Cricus said. ‘Nevertheless I will accompany you.’

  There was a short tunnel which went through the curved wall of the building. The end of it was closed off by a folding gate made of metal struts. A slim androform with arms that reached almost to the ground pulled it aside. Behind it an elevator platform gave access to the levels above.

  ‘You desire admittance to the game?’ the androform asked in a polite but firm voice.

  ‘We are guests of the count,’ Cricus told him, and nodded.

  ‘Then you are entitled to use the guest box, and to have me in attendance.’

  He ushered them onto the elevator, which rose past two timber galleries one above the other, while the noise of a crowd became deafening all around them.

  ‘Is this the only way in?’ Jasperodus queried. ‘If so it would take a long time to fill a stadium of this size—or to empty it again.’

  ‘It is never necessary,’ the gatekeeper said mildly. The elevator stopped. He touched Jasperodus’ arm and took him and Cricus along a short corridor, while the platform sank behind them. He opened a sliding door, revealing a viewing box which overlooked the whole interior of the stadium.

  The sight was almost incredible, even though the stadium was not large in comparison to many Jasperodus had seen in the cities of the New Empire. It was, perhaps, as large as a small country town might afford. But its tiers were occupied by—robots, up to a thousand of them, cheering, yelling, screaming exhortations at the playing field below. Even so, Jasperodus noticed that the stadium was not even half full. No doubt providing a full complement of spectators was a long-term project from the count’s point of view.

  About half the robots were jet black, while the other half were silvery-white. In places solid groups of one colour stood together. Turning his attention to the field, Jasperodus saw a comparable situation. Some sort of game was in progress, half the players being black, half silver-white.

  The gatekeeper invited the visitors to seat themselves on a padded bench but remained standing himself. He began to explain the game.

  ‘The count considers himself an expert on games of all kinds,’ he began. ‘This one was played in the ancient world. As you will observe, there are two teams, distinguishable by colour, which are engaged in kicking a ball about the field. Control over this ball is the essence of the game. It may come in contact with the feet, or with the head, but never with the hands without penalty. At either end of the field you will notice a net-covered structure open at the side facing the field and guarded by one player. The goal of the game is to manoeuvre the ball into the net belonging to the opposing team, upon which one’s own team receives a score of one. It is a kind of ritualised war.

  ‘Considerable skill and team-work are involved, and in ancient times were the subject of a vast body of tactical lore.’

  He stopped to allow them to watch the game uninterrupted. A black construct had raced up the field, cleverly shepherding the mud-coloured ball, and now was intercepted by a white player who tried to take it from him with some tricky footwork. In response black sent the ball soaring away from both of them, and white, tripping over black’s legs, went sprawling on the turf.

  Jasperodus wondered why black had discarded the ball in this way, then saw that he had in fact lobbed it to a colleague, who neatly took it, ran a few yards then kicked it into the net despite a frantic lunge by the defending goalkeeper.

  Excitement mounted in the crowd, practically exploding when the ball hit the back of the net, the cacophony of roars and shrieks reaching maximum volume while robots leaped up and down. Even Cricus, carried away by the atmosphere of the occasion, clinked his arms together in applause.

  Meanwhile observer robots with coloured flags had been patrolling the edges of the play area. A shrill whistle blew, summoning the two teams to form up afresh in opposing halves of the field. The ball was placed between them by a flag-bearing robot, and again the whistle blew; play continued.

  Recalling that the noise from the stadium had continued ever since his arrival, Jasperodus asked the gatekeeper how long the game had been in progess. The attendant answered with pride in his voice. ‘It has run continuously for nearly five years now.’

  ‘Then when is it scheduled to end?’ Jasperodus asked, suppressing any amazement he might have felt.

  ‘Not until the end of eternity! This is the count’s great work. In a trillion years it will not even have reached half time. Already projects are in hand to see that it survives the eventual dissolution of the planet, probably by locating it on a newly-formed asteroid.’

  ‘There is some point to such a demonstration?’

  ‘The count says the stadium is the universe in miniature.’

  Cricus interceded in a low voice. ‘This is derived from the count’s talks with Gargan,’ he said. ‘According to Gargan, the world consists of an eternal war or contest between opposing forces. The game illustrates that principle.’

  Jasperodus realized he was again hearing ideas first explained to him by the Zoroastrian mage in the hills. A perpetual sports match was, for a fact, a fair simile of the endless interplay of the forces of light and darkness. The doctrine had presumably appealed to Gargan—as, indeed, it had appealed to Jasperodus himself.

  ‘So our count has a philosophical side after all,’ he said.

  ‘He is a curious mixture of character traits,’ Cricus agreed.

  ‘What of the spectators? Do they form part of the symb
olism?’

  ‘They have known nothing but the game, and never will know anything but the game,’ the gatekeeper told him.

  ‘Always there are spectators. Indeed every entity in the real world is both a spectator and a player. The count’s symbology is fully worked out.’

  ‘Even if not immediately obvious,’ Jasperodus responded. ‘By the way, is a score kept for this perpetual battle?’

  ‘Oh indeed. Do you not see yonder scoreboard?’ The gatekeeper peered at something on the far side of the stadium. ‘White: forty-nine thousand five hundred and forty-three; Black: fifty-one thousand and thirty-eight.’

  ‘Just as I would have expected,’ Jasperodus said ironically. ‘Evil is in the lead.’

  ‘You are moralising,’ the attendant rebuked him. ‘Neither are you correct in assuming that Black maintains a constant lead. The two teams are evenly matched in skill, though it is true I have noticed a distinct tendency for White to suffer more injury. That does not affect the score, of course.’

  ‘It is rather a rough game,’ Cricus remarked, as though by way of explanation.

  ‘Not because of misbehaviour on the part of the players,’ the gatekeeper insisted. ‘They know the rules perfectly well. The trouble lies with the ball. You will appreciate that it must be of sturdy construction to withstand being kicked so vigorously for long periods of time, by quite powerfully built robots. It also carries considerable weight. In the heat of the game it is often propelled with considerable speed and force, to the detriment of the players as well as of the stadium and the spectators. Since the starting whistle blew the stadium has suffered the equivalent of total demolition three times over, while nearly a thousand spectators have been junked, all through being struck by a high-velocity ball.’

  ‘Could that be why our host chose not to accompany us?’ Jasperodus asked archly.

  ‘Yes. He did not wish to risk being demolished by an unlucky strike.’