‘What about it?’
‘I think it’s probably useful for the present time. It’s not the way for regular robots though. Your moment will pass.’
Karel’s gyros had begun to spin, seeking a balance he did not feel.
‘So many minds,’ said Melt. ‘I once heard a saying. A robot is just a mind’s way of making another mind.’
‘Is that supposed to calm me down?’ wondered Karel.
‘I don’t think that applies to the Spontaneous, though,’ continued Melt, following his train of thought. ‘Where do their minds come from?’ He looked suspiciously at Simrock.
‘We’re all probably descended from the Spontaneous,’ said Karel, also staring at Simrock. How many other robots knew who he was? It was an unsettling thought. Here he was in the mountains, and across the world below him there were maybe robots who even now were looking towards him, and pondering his moves.
‘I know a story about where robots come from,’ said Simrock, brightly. ‘The story of Alpha and Gamma.’
‘I never believed that story,’ interrupted Karel, before the story even began. ‘Anyway, what happened to Beta?’
‘That comes later,’ said Simrock. He began his tale.
The Story of Alpha and Gamma
‘Alpha and Gamma lived in the mountains at the Top of the World. They were the first two robots. No one knows where they came from, and no one knows why they decided to make a child. Some people say that the urge was woven into their minds, as it is in all robots’ minds to differing extents, but that would imply there were robots before Alpha and Gamma to do the weaving. Others say that as Alpha and Gamma grew older they desired a robot to look after them in their old age, but that implies they knew of death, and how could the first two robots know of something they had never seen before? And some people say that Alpha and Gamma wove a child because they simply had the idea to do so.
‘So how was the first mind made? For even though there is disagreement about why Alpha and Gamma made a mind, all agree that they did not have the knowledge at first about how to make such a thing. This is something that they learned for themselves.
‘Where to begin? First they opened up each other’s heads and they examined the metal inside. They saw iron and copper, gold, silver, platinum and palladium, and so they went away and they mined ore and they smelted it and they made wire, just like that in their own heads. But the wire they made was straight and smooth and unthinking.
‘“How do we twist it?” asked Gamma, holding the wire in her hands. “Where do we begin? This is just a piece of wire. I see nothing here. No sense of love or fear, no happiness or sadness or yearning or satiety…”
‘But Alpha looked at the wire in another way.
‘“I see none of those things,” he said. “But I can do this…” and he bent the wire around, twisting it over itself.
‘“Now a current flows,” he said, and he twisted again, “now it doesn’t.” And he repeated the movement over again. “Off and on,” he said.
‘“Life and death,” said Gamma. “But there is no emotion there.. .”
‘“Maybe not,” said Alpha. “But emotion is not all there is to a mind. I can do this…”
‘He twisted the wire some more, making two living twists, one larger than the other.
‘“Now it recognizes, more or less,” he said.
‘“More or less?”
‘“Five twists are more than four. Seventy is less than one hundred. More or less.”
‘“More or less? What sort of a mind is that? That’s just numbers. Does it understand that love is more than justice, or that sorrow is more than pain?”
‘“No, but…”
‘“Then stop wasting my time!” And she walked from the mountain ledge where Alpha worked, out into the golden sunset. (For I should say that in those days all sunsets were golden, and the world was beautiful and that metal ore littered the ground.)
‘Alpha sat for some time, but the idea had taken hold of him, as such ideas do with men, and he worked through the night, twisting the wire back and forth. He found he could twist the wire to one hundred positions by rotation around the axis of the wire, and a further one hundred positions by pitch. He could make it add, subtract, multiply and divide; it could look at different parts of its own extent; it could loop around itself and remember. He found that he could string these functions together, but he could do no more than that.
‘And in the end he saw that Gamma was right, that the task was pointless, and as morning dawned, he threw the wire to the floor and walked off in search of his wife so that he might apologize.
‘He looked for her to the north and south, to the east and west, but could not find her. In the end he returned to the ledge to see Gamma sitting there, the length of wire in her hands, and she looked up at Alpha, her eyes shining with awe and wonder.
‘“How did you do it?” she asked.
‘“I did nothing,” he bitterly replied.
‘“Did nothing? You brought life to this wire! It doesn’t feel, it doesn’t know, but the rudiments are there!’’
‘“The rudiments? It does nothing but add and take away!”
‘She stared at him.
‘“Alpha, please, don’t be like that to me. I am sorry for the way I spoke.”
‘“Be like what? I did my best, but I failed.”
‘“Failed?” She looked deeper into his eyes, and saw no deceit there. “Alpha, you did the hardest part! It is almost finished! Look, twist it here, twist it back on itself, see, and it will know itself. Twist it again, and it will know others…”
‘Alpha stared at her.
‘“I don’t see what you mean.”
‘So she showed him again, but he still didn’t understand.
‘And it has ever been thus, that men and women work together to make a child, but neither understands what the other has wrought, nor shall they ever.’ ‘And that is the story of Alpha and Gamma and how they made the first child.’
Simrock beamed at them, delighted.
‘Hold on,’ said Karel, ‘what about Beta?’
‘Oh yes, Beta. In some stories, it is said there was a third robot, Beta, who sat between Alpha and Gamma and placed the extra twists in the metal that moved it from the male understanding to the female understanding. Some say that Beta crept to the ledge in the night and added the extra twists. And some say that Alpha and Gamma never existed, there was only Beta.’
‘How do you know all this?’ asked Melt. ‘You’re Spontaneous, you have only just arrived here. How do you know all this?’
‘I don’t know.’
Karel was wondering aloud. ‘Where do these stories come from?’ he asked. ‘Stories of Four Blind Horses, of Valerie of Klimt, stories of Alpha and Gamma, of Nicolas the Coward. This world is built on stories, some of them we know, some of them we don’t even understand! Where do they come from?’
‘I don’t know!’