Chapter 24 Homecoming
“This is amazing.” the commander said, taking his time to look around and study what he saw in the Krell lab. “It's almost identical to the lab we saw on Altair 4. The passageway with the shuttle car to the great machine is missing but everything else looks about the same.” For the benefit of Martin and Flapjack, Adams pointed and said “That is the educator.” Their reaction was a little underwhelming until Alta had engaged the headset, flipped the switch and produced an image of the ship outside the outpost.
“Very impressive,” exclaimed Flapjack, “but I think we need to engage the expert on Krell robot behavior now.” He gave Robby two solid wraps with his knuckles and asked “Are you ready?”
The conversation directed at Robby came from bits and pieces everyone had to contribute. It was believed and then confirmed by Robby that the outpost had not received any messages from the home planet for 200,000 years. Before that and after the Krell had closed down the mining installation, it was customary to contact the home planet once every 300 days. As Alta confirmed with Robby's help, the only matter of interest in those exchanges with home planet were the Garon and any changes in that relationship. On every other item of interest, the robots were to maintain the status quo.
As Alta also confirmed, there had been no changes in the relationship with the Garon. Apparently, the robots had received partially conflicting program instructions. There were the agreements with the Garon but those were not to go into effect until the Garon had achieved faster than light travel and found Krell beyond the Garon home planets. The conflict was programming that directed the robots to maintain seclusion and isolation from the Garon. Theoretically, every Garon ship would have a Krell translator and beacon, but the UP ships had neither. Nothing covered that situation.
The robots had a dilemma. How could they fulfill the provisions of the agreements with the Garon if they remained hidden from the Garon? Robby confirmed this would require intervention by of living Krell with appropriate authority to resolve the conflict.
On the question concerning what to do if a living Krell with proper authority could not be found, Robby could not answer. In general principle Robby stated, the least harmful course of action to the Krell should always be followed if an urgent condition should arise requiring immediate action to mediate the hazard. A similar rule applied in the event of potential harm to the Garon, provided it did not adversely affect the Krell.
On how the Krell robots would react to learning the Krell home world had been destroyed with no survivors, Robby could not answer and started to go into the robot analog of a seizure until Alta canceled the order.
“Commander, I think you and Alta need to talk to the surrogate and tell him that returning the captives and restoring the neutral zone is the required solution to mediate a dangerous situation.” said Sheila and then added “It puts things back the way they were, harmful to neither Krell nor Garon. What they are doing now is harmful to Garon.”
Martin was somewhat surprised by his wife but looked at her and said “That was brilliant honey. We may need you when we talk to the surrogate as well.” He said it half jokingly but Adams and Flapjack both expressed approval. In fact, Adams insisted Sheila participate.
It appeared everything was settled and Adams had a few closing remarks to make. “If we just reason with the surrogate as we did with Robby, I think we can be out of here before evening.” Everyone was happy with that idea. “I know I want to come back and see the entire outpost, a few special items in particular but I want to get our primary mission done first, rescue the captives and hopefully, prevent others from being abducted.” That brought on a unanimous round of consent. “Let's do it!”
…
There was no need to introduce Alta or Sheila to the surrogate. He knew them both from the records kept by the robots. It was Sheila who made the case that action could not be delayed waiting for a decision from the Krell who had not responded to signals for 200,000 years. She stated the captives were being deprived of their liberty, which was unacceptable to the Garon. She then made the case that the neutral zone was a hazard to the Garon as long as it remained unmarked. She said that if the neutral zone reverted to it's previous undefined status, the Garon would police the zone and there would be no reason for the Krell robots to interfere.
At this point, Adams was holding Alta back as a trump card, a living Krell that could make decisions regarding conflicting or deadlocked programming. The only question was had Alta reached a level of intellectual maturity where she could command