The Questor Tapes by D. C. Fontana Read Free Book Online Page B

inquisitive, puzzled gesture, and very human. Where had the android gotten that?
    “I have no choice but to try, Mr. Robinson. My creator’s programming tape included that I go to him. As quickly as possible.”
    “Do you know that he’s in London?”
    “No.”
    “Do you know if he’s even alive?”
    “No. Yet I cannot disregard that command. I must find him. London is a beginning.”
    “That tape was damaged, partially erased! So whatever instructions Vaslovik left you could be garbled, twisted . . .”
    “Incorrect,” Questor said patiently. “The imperative to find Vaslovik was perfectly clear. It is his location which was erased and fragmented. Do human minds contain such specific imperatives—or are they all as random and disorganized as yours seem to be?”
    Jerry snapped his head around toward Questor. “Listen, it was a human mind which conceived of you . . . humans who put you together . . .”
    “Please attend to the operation of the vehicle, Mr. Robinson.”
    Jerry looked back at the freeway in time to avoid running up the rear of a big double rig. Questor’s voice went on levelly. “I have no desire to appear hypocritical, but I find it astonishing that precise and voluminous knowledge of the various sciences helps so little in the understanding of human behavior.”
    “We get along.”
    “I am not entirely convinced of that,” Questor said.
    “This is ridiculous. I will not argue with a machine.” Jerry leaned back in the seat, fuming, clenching the wheel with white-knuckled hands. Then he noticed the image of the police car in his rear-view mirror. It was a California Highway Patrol black-and-white, routinely patrolling. Jerry casually slid his left hand off the wheel and turned off the headlights.
    “Resume nocturnal illumination, please.”
    Jerry winced and reluctantly turned on the lights. Questor turned to study the other cars moving around them. “It seems only logical that we emulate the practices of the other vehicles.”
    “Right,” Jerry said wearily. He saw the police car going off the last exit ramp they passed. No help there. “Do you trust me?”
    “Yes,” Questor said promptly.
    “Good. This is not the way to the airport.”
    “Incorrect. We are now precisely 11.24 miles from the air-vehicle terminal. This roadway will deliver us to a lesser artery leading directly to the terminal complex.”
    “There’s no possible way you can know that,” Jerry snapped incredulously.
    “I glanced at a metropolitan diagram in the Vaslovik Archives.”
    “You took one look at the city map?”
    Questor nodded calmly. “You installed my vision components quite well, Mr. Robinson. It is because of my flaws in other areas that I vitally need your assistance. More than my creator’s location was erased from his tape. I seem to have no . . . explanation of myself. Can you inform me why I must find my creator?”
    Jerry frowned and held the wheel tighter. “I’m beginning to worry about that, too. A lot.”
    The guard had come to precisely an hour after Questor had dropped him. It took him ten minutes to get to Darro’s room, wake the project chief, and explain. Five minutes after that, Darro was dressed and standing in Jerry’s quarters, surveying the damage. The guard sheepishly rubbed his neck, still embarrassed. Darro’s assistant, Walter Phillips, picked up the machine gun and handed it to his boss. As he did, he tapped the impossibly flattened and bent barrel.
    “. . . then I heard voices,” the guard was saying. “One was Mr. Robinson saying something about it having to obey his orders.”
    Darro examined the smashed machine gun. “Describe the android’s appearance, please,” he said impassively.
    The guard shrugged. “Well . . . just a guy. Average. But when I went in, I never saw anything move so fast.”
    Phillips had moved over to the window and touched the bent grillwork bars. “Mr. Darro, if it should get out there’s something like that loose which can do