Greenberg, Martin H - The Diplomacy Guild vol. 1, page 8
"Yes, Betty, what is it?" I asked.
" Messages- received," she said tersely. "High priority, from Erthuma Diplomatic Guild, Long-Last Station."
Oblong, suspended in a cradle of invisible force, the machine looked nothing like her namesake, my most re7 cent derni-wife on Long-Last. But, as it was imprinted with her voice and twenty of her personality engrarns, this was a device one had to think of as possessing gender, and even a minimal right to courtesy. "Thank you," I told the auto-sec. "I'll be right up to take them."
Assuming dismissal, Betty turned and departed. From the comer of the suite, the Crotonite lifted his head and watched the machine briefly. Something in those catlike eyes seemed to track it as a hunter might follow prey. But this Crotonite wasn't going to be chasing flitting airborne victims above the forests of any thick-aired world ever again. Where once he had carried great, tentlike wings, powerfully muscled and heavier than his torso, now the short, slender, deep-chested being wore mere rulbs-scarred from recent amputation.
The Crotonite noticed my look, and snarled fiercely through its breathing mask. "Plant-eating grub! Turn away your half-blind squinty vision-orbs.
You have no status entitling you to cast them on my shame!"
That was in Crotonoi, of course. Few Erthurnoi would have been able to understand so rapid and slurred an alien diatribe. But my talents and training had won me this post.
Cursed talents. Double cursed training!
By my own species's standards of politeness I should have accepted the rebuke and turned away, respecting his privacy. Instead, I snapped right back at him in my own language.
"You? You dare throw insults at me? You who are broken and wingless and shall never again fly? You who shame your race by neglecting the purpose for which you were cast down? Here, try doing this!"
I flexed my strong legs and bounded high in the half gravity of the guest suite. The cripple, of course, could not manage anywhere near that height with his puny legs. I landed facing him. "You are a diplomat, Jirata. You won
your fallen state by being better than your peers, one of the first so chosen for a bold new experiment. Your job is now to try something new to your folk ... to empathize with ground-walking life-forms like me, and even swimming forms like Phss'aah. To make that effort, you were assigned to me, a burden I did not ask for, nor welcome. Nor do I predict success.
"Still, you can try. It is the purpose of your existence. The reason your people did not leave you at the base of some tree to starve, but instead continue speaking your name to the winds, as if you still lived. -"Try, Jirata. Just try, and the very least you will win is that Lpersonally will stop being cruel to you."
The Crotonite looked away, but I could tell he was struggling with a deep perplexity. "Why should you want to stop being cruel?" he asked. "You have every advantage."
I sighed. This was going to take a long time. "Because I'd rather like you than hate you, Jirata. And if you don't understand that, consider this.
Your job is to investigate a new mode of diplomacy for your people. Empathy is the core of what you must discover in order to succeed. So while I'm away, why don't you try conversing with Phss'aah. I'm sure he'll be patient with you. He doesn't know how to be anything else."
That was untrue of course. Phss'aah gave me a look of exasperation at this unwelcome assignment. For his part, Jirata looked at the Cephallonian, floating in all that water, and let out a keening of sheer disgust.
I left the room.
"Actually, there are two messages of red priority," Captain Smeet told me. She handed over a pair of decoded flimsies. I thanked her, went over to the privacy comer of the ship's bridge, and laid the first of the shimmering, gauzy message films over my head. Immediately, the gossamer fabric wrapped over my face, covering eyes and ears and leaving only my nostrils free. At once it began vibrating, and after a momentary blurriness, sight and sound enveloped me.
My boss looked across his desk at me . . . the slave driver whose faith in my abilities was anything but reassuring. He seemed to feel there was no end to the number of tasks I could take on at the same time.
. "Patty," he said. "Sorry about dumping the Crotonite envoy on you. As I told you earlier, he's part of a new experimental program being initiated by the Seven Sovereigns' League. You'll recall that particular Crotonite confederacy suffered rather badly because they so magnificently bungled the negotiations at Maioplar fifty years ago. In desperation they're trying something radical, to completely revise their way of dealing with other races. I guess they're trying it out on us Erthumoi first because we're the weakest of the Six, and if it flops, our opinion doesn't matter much anyway. "In answer to your last message-- I still have no idea if the Seven Sovereigns' League has cleared this experiment with other Crotonite nation-states or if they're doing it completely on their own. Crotonite intrarace politics is such a tangle, who can tell? That's why the Erthuma Diplomacy Guild decided to farm out Jirata, and the two others we've received, to roving emissaries like you-so you can try to figure out what's going on away from the spotlight of . . . well, media and the like. I'm sure you understand. "
"Rifight, Maxwell. I gave a very unladylike snort. Back on Long-Last, Betty used to chastise me for that. But I never heard any of our husbands complain.
"That's my Patty," he went on, as if he was sure my reaction would be complete enthusiasm. "For starters, you can fly the contents of the other message past this broken bat of a Crotonite ... and your guest Cephallonian
as well. It seems one of our survey vessels, the Achilles, has stumbled
onto something hot. I mean really hot, involving Crotonites, Locrians, and snakes. Who knows, maybe the league's idea of using crippled bats as envoys may make just that bit of difference, so let's put this on high priority, okay?' I
"As high as preventing a breakage of the Essential Protocols?" I muttered
subvocally. But I knew the answer to that.
"Of course, nothing is to stand in the way of getting King Zardee to toe the line on replicants. If he gives you any trouble about that, you just tell that freon-blooded son of a b-"
I'd heard enough. "Good-bye, Maxwell," I said, and ripped the flimsy off.
It instantly began dissolving into inert gas.
"Orders, madam?" Always the professional, Captain Smeet looked at me coolly, expectantly.
"Proceed to planet nine of this system, and please beam to King Zardee I'll wait no longer for him to prepare for my arrival. If he plans to shoot us out of the sky, let him do so and live with the consequences."
Smeet only nodded and turned to tell her bridge crew what to do. I could have asked her to take me wet-diving in the nearby sun of the Prongee system, and she'd have found a way to do it, keeping her opinion of crazy diplomats to herself. That was more than I sometimes was able to do, after listening to Maxwell for a while.
Why it was that success followed that awful old man around so, I could never understand. I talked it over with the other emissaries under his command and all were equally mystified. Once, in a rage, I asked him. His answer? "Delegate authority," he had replied smoothly. "Then ride their asses."
"Schmuck," I commented as the last of the flimsy evaporated. It would be a little while yet before I was needed back here on the Bridge, for the confrontation with Zardee. I had better take the opportunity to go tell Jirata and Phss'aah this amazing news Maxwell was so breathless about.
Naturally, the Cephallonian took it philosophically.
I was still blinking in shock at the sights and sounds broadcast by the Achilles's crew, evidence for a powerful starfaring civilization preceding even the Locrians. But Phss'aah, reliable Phss'aah, had already found a way to weave it into the convoluted web of his own argument.
"Consider the action of the Achilles's captain," he said through the glass-wall translator. "He might be said to
have been reckless, risking his life so, plunging through the final barrier into that strange alien city."
"Crazed slug behavior," contributed Jirata in a grating growl. For my part, I was so startled and pleased by even this insulting effort at conversation that I beamed at him. Naturally, he snarled and tried to take shelter under a wing that was no longer there.
"Yes, perhaps it was illogical," Phss'aah conceded. "Particularly since one might have sent through surrogates first. Locrians, for instance, would have taken a few days to hatch one or more immature males, intelligent enough to be sent through and report back, but essentially worthless and expendable. Naxians, in turn, would have sent one of their many animal helper species, if available, some of which are brighter than any young Locrian male! The same applies to Saniians, and their magneto-surrogates. "But it was Crotonites who discovered this place. Irascible, contemptuous, companionless Crotonites. They have only themselves, and hive often
expressed a wish they were alone in the universe. No doubt as the Erthumoi
and Locrians arrived, the Crotonites were in the process of selecting a 'volunteer' to press on through the second barrier, just as Jirata here 'volunteered' to be a new-style diplomat for his people and his league." "Whatever the Crotonites' plans," I commented, "the Achilles's captain made all such preparations moot by simply striding ahead. "
The Cephallonian whistled a sigh of perplexity. "The problem with my theory
is this: The captain had his own surrogates to use-robots! Why did he not use some? Why do you humans create such marvelous, intricate entities, then fail to use them when they are most needed?"
Phss'aah illustrated the usefulness of robots by stretching under the massaging fingertips of the water-model I had given him. Contented bubbles rose from his sighing blow-slits.
I shrugged. At the back of my mind I was feeling the clock wind down toward my encounter with a wily, dangerous monarch. "Sometimes we use them too much, and then they can be more dangerous than anything."
Phss'aah binked. He regarded me closely. "Well, that may be. Perhaps that may very well be."
An angry visage greeted me on my return to the bridge, glaring out of the communications tank. I had been sent on this mission because, among all the different styles of government used by various Erthuma nation-worlds, kingdoms were among the quirkiest, and I had the most experience in our sector dealing with the arrogant creatures known as kings.
No doubt that was why I had been saddled with Jirata, as well.
Some kings were smooth. But this one actually reminded me of Jirata as he
growled at me.
"We are not accustomed to being made to wait," he said as I stepped into the communications lounge. Ignoring the remark, I curtsied in the manner customary for the women of this commonwealth.
"Your Majesty would not have liked to see me dressed as I was when you called. It took a few moments to make myself presentable to Your Majesty.
Zardee grunted. I felt his eyes survey me like a piece of real estate, and recognized covetousness in them. Amazing, how many Erthuma societies left
their males with these unaltered ancient, visually stimulated lust
patterns! And Zardee was nearly eight hundred Standard Years old!
Never mind. I would use whatever chinks in his armor I could find.
"I accept your apology," he said in a softer tone. "And I must apologize in return for keeping such a comely and accomplished lady waiting out at the boundary as I have. I now invite you to join me on my yacht for some refreshment and entertainment I'm sure you'll find unique and distracting.
"You are most gracious, Your Majesty. However first I must complete my task here and inspect your mining establishment on the ninth planet of this system."
His visage transformed once more to anger, and again I felt astonishment that the people of this system put up with a monarch such as this. The attractions of kingships are well documented, but sentimentality can become a disease if it isn't looked to.
"There is nothing on my mining world of interest to the Diplomacy Guild!" he snapped. "And I remind you that you have no authority to force yourself upon me!"
This from a fellow so atavistic, I had no doubt he would chain me to a bed in his seraglio were it in his power. I kept my amusement to myself. '
"I am sure, Your Majesty, that you would not want it to get out among your Erthuma and Naxian neighbors that you have something to hide-"
"All kingdoms and sovereign worlds have secrets, foolish woman. I have a right to keep secrets from the prying eyes of outsiders."
I nodded. "But not when those secrets violate the Essential Protocols of the Erthumoi. Or is it your intention to join the Outlaw Worlds, and forego the services of my guild?"
For a moment it looked as if he was about to declare his intention to do just that. But he stopped. No doubt he realized that step might push his people just too far. The commercial repercussions alone would be catastrophic ;
"The Essential Protocols don't cover very much,' he said, slowly. "My subjects have access to Erthuma ombudsmen. I vet my treaties past guild lawyers, and my ship captains report to the guild on activities observed among the other five races. That is all that's required of me."
"You are forgetting to mention article six of the protocols," I said. Blinking several times, Zardee then spoke slowly. "Exacdy what is it you are accusing me of, ambassador?"
I shrugged. "Such a strong word . . . I am certainly not accusing you of
anything. But there are rumors, Your Majesty. Rumors that someone under your authority is violating the portion of the pact forbidding the creation of fully autonomous replicants. "
His face reddened three shades. I did not need a Naxian to tell me that I had struck home. At the same time, this was not guilt that I read in the monarch's eyes, but rather something akin to shame. I found his reaction most interesting.
"I shall rendezvous with your ship above the ninth planet," he said tersely, and cut the channel. No doubt Captain Smeet and the king's captain were already exchanging coordinates by the time I departed the comm lounge and headed back to the guest suite to see how things were progressing there.
I shouldn't have expected miracles from Phss'aah. After all, the Crotonite was my responsibility, not his. But I might have hoped at least for tact from a Cephallonian diplomat. Instead, I returned to find Phss'aah carrying on a long monologue directed at the cripple Jirata, who huddled in his comer glaring back at the creature in the tank. And if looks could maim there wouldn't have been much of anything there but bloody water.
". . . so unlike the other elder races, we Cephallonians find this Erthuma innovation of articulate, intelligent machines useful and fascinating, even if it is also puzzling and bizarre. Take your own case, Jirata. Would not a loyal mechanical surrogate be of use to one such as you, especially in your present condition? Helping you fend for-"
Phss'aah noticed my return and interrupted his monologue. "Ah, Patty. You have returned. I was just explaining to our comrade here how useful it is to have machines ~ble to anticipate your requirements- and capable of repairing and maintaining themselves. Even the Crotonites' marvelous, intricate devices, handmade and unique, lack that capability. "
"We do not need it!" Jirata spat. "A machine should be elegant, light, compact, efficient. It should be a thing of beauty and crafsmanship! Pah! What pride can a human have in such a monster as a robot? Why, I hear they allow the things to design and build still more robots, which build still others! What can come about when an engineer leaves his creations to pass beyond his personal control?"
I felt an eerie chill. Glad as I was that Jirata seemed, in his own style, to be emerging from his funk, I did not like the direction this conversation was headed.
"What about that, Patty?" Phss'aah asked, turning to face me. "I have consulted much Erthuma literature hav-
ing to do with man-created machine intelligence, and there runs through much of it a thread of warning. Philosophers speak of the very fear Jirata expressed, calling it the Frankenstein Syndrome. I do not know the origins of that term, but it has an apt sound for dread of destruction at the hands of one's own creations. "
I nodded. "Fortunately, we Erthumoi have a tradition of liking to frighten ourselves with scary stories, then finding ways to avoid the very scenario described. It's called Warning Fiction, and historians now credit that art form especially with our species' survival . . . with the fact that we made
it across the bomb-to-starship crisis time. "
"Most interesting. So tell me, please, how did you come to decide on a way to keep control over your creations? The Locrians certainly have enough trouble, whenever a clutch of male eggs is neglectfully laid outside the careful management of professional brooders, and the Sainians have their own problems. How do you manage your robots then?"
How indeed? I wondered at the way this discussion had., apparently naturally, just happened upon a topic so deadly and so coincidentally apropos to my other concerns.
"Well, one approach is to have the machines programmed with deeply coded fundamental operational rules or laws which they cannot disobey at cost of paralysis. This method serves well as a first line of defense. Unfortunately, it proved tragically inadequate several times. The machines' increasing intelligence enabled them to interpret those laws in new and innovative and rather distressing ways. Lawyer programs can be terribly tricky, we discovered. Today, unleashing a new one without proper checks is punishable by death. "
"I understand. We Cephallonians reserve that punishment for the lawyers themselves. But I will remember to advise my council about this if we decide to purchase more of your high-end robots. Do continue. "
"Well, one experimental approach, with the very brightest machines, has been to actually raise them as if they were Erthurna children. In one of our confederations there are several thousand robots which have been granted provisional status as junior citizens-"
"Obscenity!" Jirata interrupted with a shout.
I merely shrugged. "It is only an experiment. The idea is that we will have
