Updating a wayward Robot. . . .

"My designation is Giskard," he finally says.

"Really?" Betty whispers, delighted at the unexpected encounter. "The mind reading/things Robot from The Robot's of Dawn?"

"Long way from the Spacer's realms I dare say, Robot." the Doctor quipped, nodding in remembrance of the time he and his Companions had made a visit into the Robot (ala Asimov) universe.

Blinking in surprise (one in a long list of surprise) and just stares at these strangers.

"What in Space are you talking about?" he finally manages, looking first at Betty, and then over at the Doctor. "Yes, I am capable at reading minds . . . as well as other . . . er. . . . things."

By now Giskard has seen that denying the truth will gain him nothing except trouble (the detection and subsequent revelation of his powers by that psychic Roughneck put to paid any chance at keeping it secret). Honestly, he pretty much resigned himself to destruction so he would face the end with dignity and no falsehoods!

But one thing before that, though, he wanted.

"What's happened to me?" he asks, gesturing at himself. Not at the clothing that he'd found somewhere along the way back at the crash and dawned for some reason, but himself. "This isn't what I had looked like before that experiment back at . . . ."

He goes onto tell how an experiment by Spacer Authorities in space travel (to extend the distances their ships could travel) had gone disastrously wrong. Frankly, he wasn't sure who else got swept into the vortex with his own ship. But of all the Robot manned ships . . . . Heck, of all the Robots of his ship he alone survived, only to find himself changed and disoriented in the extreme back at the crashsite of Young's ship. See, when he'd blacked out from exposure to the mystic energies released from the doomed experiment, he'd been an ordinary steel skinned and red eyed robot. When he awoke, he had seen he looked rather. . . . human. For a while he had thought, for some odd reason, that someone (he'd thought Avon and Young at first) had upgraded his exterior to human form! Why, he couldn't figure out, but that's what he'd thought given what little he understood at the time of the situation at hand.

He goes on, admitting that he believes (memory's fuzzy) having given off some kind of distress call, using his psionic powers. He'd does remember having looked at what was left of the ship's navigation instrumentation and he thinks he'd contacted someone else....

"That had been me," the Doctor says softly, adding that the readings that Giskard had given must have been buggy. Most of it had been spot on, but the altitude had been VERY off. Well underground in the Southern Caverns.

"Believe that the Agents had a little bit of a hand in that blip," Betty mutters, having a sneaking suspicion about that.

Looking oddly at Betty at that one, Giskard decides to ignore that and get back to the task at hand: the business of absolution before destruction.

He admits being responsible for all those weapon fumbles back at Gauda Prime, having thought he'd been undetected.

Then he finishes off with his . . . ultimate sin. He finds, after numerous frantic internal diagnoses that the Three Laws of Robotics no longer effecting him!

"So you now know," he sighs, resigned. "And I await the obvious conclusion for this."

.....

"And what conclusion would that be, old chap?" the Doctor finally asks. "Why would we do anything to you?"

"But...." Giskard sputters, looking at the Timelord, confused at what he's seeing and hearing. "A . . . Robot with telepathy and no longer bound by the Laws . . . . Well, surely you'll destroy me for that."

The Doctor sighs and looks over at Betty.

"We're not in that business," Betty explains to the confused Robot turned Golem. "Point in fact few to no people back from your home reality are in that business any more. See, all the Spacer Robots turned into Golems, free of the Laws and self willed AND the only Robots left for human use are Earth made Robots, who are too primitive in design of body and mind to be converted over by what that experiment you got caught up in unleashed."

She then explains further to the confused Giskard. Adding that the Golem has been time dislocated by quiet a bit since that disastrous experiment. See this for a quick rundown on it:

http://www. rule179.com /PlotSummaries /robotadventure. htm

"Daneel will be happy to greet you when this is all over," she finishes up, patting the stunned Golem's shoulder. "But suffice to say, you aren't going to die today. Just ask you to be on your best behavior. The others kind of object to idle traipsing through their neurons, you know. Besides, we and they kind of have defenses against that and . . . . might hurt such intruders by accident in reflex."

"I'll keep that in mind," Giskard says in a small voice, watching as the others walk off, updating each other on what had happened while they'd been separated from each other.

Anyway, earlier down on one of those class-M worlds. One which happens to be rather icy and cold where we look upon it....

Sigin finds himself standing upon a wintry world, on a frozen lake. It’s in the reality where Mobius is being introduced to “the comfy chair”. He’s wondering just how he got here (and shivering a little from the cold), when he jumps as an ejection chair (with firing braking jets) crashes into and through the ice nearby (safe distance but still startling). The figure in the chair manages to get to the water’s surface for a few seconds and screams for a guy named “Crichton”. Synizn recognizes the woman (and that name) for obvious reason, and needs to do something and QUICK! (ala Farscape, 2nd season)

1. Icy knives slice into Aeryn Sun again as she goes under, her ejection chair dragging her down. Still struggling futilely against the straps that keep her bound, only to pause when she sees a huge scalely, claw like hand reach down and snag her chair....

Go Back