Intent to Deceive

Larry Niven

Produced by calibre 0.6.40

Intent to Deceive

A WAITER CAME to meet them as they landed. It crossed the restaurant like a chess pawn come to life, slid to a graceful stop on the carport balcony, hesitated long enough to be sure it had their attention, then moved inside at a slow walking pace.

The sound of its motion was a gentle whisper of breeze from under the lip of its ground-effect skirt. It guided them across the floor of the Red Planet, between and around occupied tables, empty tables, tables which displayed decorative meats and bowls of flowers, and other whispering robot waiters. At a table for two on the far side of the room, it deftly removed one chair to accommodate Lucas Garnet's travel chair. Somehow it had recognized Luke as a paraplegic. It held the other chair for Lloyd Masney to sit down.

The murals on the restaurant wars were dull red and bright silver: a Ray Bradbury Mars, with the silver spires of an ancient Martian city nestling among red sands. A straight canal dwindled into the distance at both sides of the big room. Its silver waters actually crossed the floor and were in turn crossed by bridges. Attenuated, fragile Martians moved through the streets of the mural. Sometimes they looked curiously out at the customers, the human intruders in their make-believe world.

"Strange place," said Masney. He was a big, compact man with white hair and a bushy white moustache.

Luke didn't answer. When Masney glanced up he was startled by his friends malevolent expression.

"What's wrong?" he asked, and turned to follow Luke's eyes Luke was glaring his extreme distaste at a target which could only have been the robot waiter.

The waiter was a standard make. Below a blank spherical head was a body cylindrical for most of its length. The arms it had used to adjust Masney's chair for him had already vanished into panels in its torso, to join other specialized arms and hands and interior shelves for carrying food. Like all the other waiters, it had been painted in an abstract pattern of dull red and bright silver to match the murals. The last foot of the robot's cylindrical torso was a short, flaring skirt. Like Luke's travel chair, the waiter moved on a ground-effect air cushion.

"What's wrong?" Masney repeated.

"Nothing," said Luke. He picked up, the menu.

The robot waited for their orders. Motionless, with all its arms retracted, it had become a pop-art barber pole.

"Come on, Luke. Why were you looking at the waiter like that?"

"I don't like robot waiters."

"Mph? Why not?"

"You grew up with 'em. I didn't. I've never got used to them."

"What's to get used to? They're waiters. They bring food."

"All right," said Luke, studying the menu.

He was old. It was not spinal injury that had cost him the use of his legs these past ten years. Too many spinal nerves had worn out with age. A goatee had once adorned his chin, but now his chin was as bald as his brows and scalp. His face, satanic in its wrinkled age, attracted instant attention, so that his every vagrant thought seemed exaggerated in his expression. The loose skin of his arms and shoulders half hid the muscles of a wrestler: the only part of him that seemed young.

"Every time I think I know you," said Masney, "you surprise me. You're a hundred and seventy-four now, aren't you?"

"You sent me a birthday card."

"Oh, I can count. But I can't grasp it. You're almost twice my age. How long ago did they invent robot waiters?"

"Waiters weren't invented. They evolved, like computers."

"When?"

"You were just learning to spell when the first allautomated restaurant opened in New York."

Masney smiled and shook his head gently.

"All that time, and you never got used to them. Conservative, that's you."

Luke put the menu down.

"If you must know, something happened to me once in connection with robot waiters. I had your job about then."

"Oh?" Lloyd Masney was Superintendent of Police for Greater Los Angeles. He'd taken his desk from Luke after Luke had resigned to become an Arm of the UN, forty years back.

"I was just getting used to the job; I'd only held it a couple of years. When was it? I can't remember; around 2025, I think. They were just introducing automated restaurants. They were just introducing a lot of things."

"Weren't they always?"

"Naturally, naturally. Quit interrupting. Around ten that morning I took a cigarette break. I had the habit of doing that every ten minutes. I was thinking about getting back to work when Dreamer Glass walked in. Old friend, Dreamer. I'd sent him up for a ten-year stretch for false advertising. He'd just got out and he was visiting some old friends."

"With a firegun?"

Luke's smile was a startling flash of new white teeth. "Oh, no. Dreamer was a nice guy. Little too much imagination, that's all. We put him away for telling television audiences that his brand of dishwashing liquid was good for the hands. We tested it, and it wasn't. I always thought he got too stiff a sentence, but--well, the Intent-to-Deceive laws were new then, and we had to bear down hard on the test cases so John Q would know we meant it."

"Nowadays he'd get the organ banks."

"We didn't put criminals in the organ banks in those days. I wish we'd never started.

"So Dreamer went to jail on my evidence. Five years later I was Superintendent. Another two years and he was out on parole. I was no busier than usual the day he showed up, so I dug out the guests' bottle, and we poured it in our coffee. And talked. Dreamer wanted me to fill him in on the last ten years. He'd been talking to other friends, so he knew something. But there were odd gaps that could have gotten him in trouble. He knew about the Jupiter probe, for instance, but he'd never heard of hard and soft plith.

"I wish I'd never mentioned robot restaurants.

"At first he thought I was talking about a bigger and better automat. Then when he got the idea, he was wild to see it.

"So I took him to lunch at the Herr Ober, which was a few blocks from the old Police Headquarters Building. Herr Ober was the first all-automated restaurant in Ellay. The only human beings involved were the maintenance crew, and they only showed up once a week. Everything else, from the kitchen to the hat-check girl, was machinery. I'd never eaten there--"

"Then how did you know so much about it?"

"We'd had to chase a man in there a month earlier. He'd picked up a kid for ransom, and he still had her for a hostage. At least, we thought he did. Another story. Before I could figure how to get at him, I'd had to study the Herr Ober top to bottom." Luke snorted. "Look at that metal idiot. He's still waiting for our order. You! Get us two Vurguuz martinis." The pop-art barber pole rose an inch from the floor and slid off. "Where was I?

"Oh, yeah. The place wasn't crowded, which was a break. We picked a table, and I showed Dreamer how to punch the summons button to call a waiter. We already called them waiters, but they didn't look anything like the ones here. They were nothing but double-decker serving trays on wheels, with senses and motors and a typewriter all packed into one end."

"Ran on wheels, too, I'll bet."

"Yah. Noisy. But in those days it was impressive. Dreamer was bug-eyed. When that animated tray came for our orders he just stared. I ordered for both of us.

"We downed our drinks and had another round. Dreamer told me about the Advertisers' Club that somehow got formed in his cell block. The cigarette men could have controlled it to the eyes, there were so many of them, but they couldn't agree on anything. What they really wanted to do was form a convicts lobby in Washington."

The waiter appeared with the martinis.

"Anyway, we had our drinks and ordered. Identical meals, because Dreamer still wasn't capable of making a decision. He kept staring around, grinning.

"The waiter brought us shrimp cocktails. While we were eating, Dreamer tried to pump me on who might have the advertising concession on the robots. Not on the restaurant, but on all the automatic machinery. There he was, knowing nothing about computers, but all ready to go out and sell them. I tried to tell him he'd picked a good way to get back in Quentin, but he wouldn't listen.

"We finished the shrimp, and the waiter brought us two more shrimp cocktails. Dreamer said, 'What's this?'

" 'I must have typed wrong,' I told him.

'I wanted two lunches, but the damn thing is bringing us two lunches each."

"Dreamer laughed.

'I'll eat them both,' he said, and did.

'Ten years is a long time between shrimp cocktails,' he said.

"The waiter took our empty cups away and brought us two more shrimp cocktails.

"'This is too much of a good thing,' said Dreamer. 'Where do I go to talk to the manager?'

"'I told you, it's all automatic. The manager's a computer in the basement.'

"'Does it have an audio circuit for complaints?'

" 'I think so.'

" 'Where do I find it?'

"I looked around, trying to remember.

'Over there. Past the payment counter. But I don't--"

"Dreamer got up. 'I'll be right back.' he said.

"He was, too. He came back within seconds, and he was shaking.

'I couldn't get out of the dining room,' he told me.

'The payment counter wouldn't let me by. There was a barrier. I tried to give it some money, but nothing happened. When I tried to go over the barrier, I got an electric shock!'

"'That's for deadbeats. It won't let you by until you pay for your lunch. You can't pay until you get a bill from the waiter.'

"'Well, let's pay and get out. This place scares me.'

"So I pushed the summons button, and the waiter came. Before I could reach the typer it had given us two more shrimp cocktails and moved away.

"'This is ridiculous,' said Dreamer.

'Look, suppose I get up and stand around at the other side of the table. That way you can reach the typer when it delivers the next round, because I'll be blocking it from leaving.'

"We tried it. The thing wouldn't come to our table until Dreamer sat down. Didn't recognize him standing up, maybe. Then it served two more shrimp cocktails, and Dreamer got up quick and moved behind it. I had my hands on the typer when it backed off and knocked Dreamer flat.

"He got so mad, he stood up and kicked the first, waiter that came by. The waiter shocked him good, and while he was getting up the thing tossed him a printed message to the effect that robot waiters were expensive and delicate and he shouldn't do that."

"That's true," Masney said, deadpan.

"He shouldn't."

"I'd have been helping him do it, but I wasn't sure what those machines would do next. So I stayed in my seat and planned what I'd do to the guy who invented robot waiters, if I ever got out of there to track him down.

"Dreamer got up shaking his head. Then he started trying to get help from the other diners. I could have told him that wouldn't work. Nobody wanted to get involved. In the big cities they never do. Finally one of the waiters shot a slip at him that told him to stop bothering the other diners, only it was more polite than that.

"He came back to our table, but this time he didn't sit down. He looked scared.

'Listen, Garner,' he said, 'I'm going to try the kitchen. You stay here. I'll bring help.' And he turned and started away.

"I yelled, 'Come back here! We'll be all right if--" But by that time he was out of earshot, heading for the kitchen door. I know he heard me shout. He just didn't want to be stopped.

"The door was only four feet tall, because it was built for robots. Dreamer ducked under it and was gone. I didn't dare go after him. If he made it, fine, I'd have help. I didn't think he would.

"There was one more thing I wanted to try. I pushed the summons button, and when the waiter came with two more shrimp cocktails I typed 'Phone' before it could get away."

"To phone Headquarters? You should have tried that earlier."

"Sure. But it didn't work. The waiter scooted off and brought me another shrimp cocktail.

"So I waited. By and by everyone disappeared, and I was alone in the Herr Ober. Whenever I got hungry enough I'd eat some crackers or a shrimp cocktail. The waiter kept bringing me more water and more shrimp cocktails, so that was all right.

"I left notes on some tables, so that when the dinner- time crowd showed up they'd be warned. But the waiters removed the notes as fast as I wrote them. Keeping things neat. I quit that and waited for rescue.

"Nobody came to rescue me. Dreamer never came back.

"Six o'clock, and the place filled up again. Along about nine, three couples at a nearby table started getting an endless supply of canapes Lorenzo. I watched them. Eventually they got so mad that the six of them circled the waiter and picked it up. The waiter spun its wheels madly, and then it shocked them and they dropped it. It fell on one man's foot. Everyone in the place panicked. When the dust cleared there were only the seven of us left.

"The others were trying to decide what to do about the guy with his foot under the waiter. They were afraid to touch the waiter, of course. It wouldn't have taken my order, because I wasn't at one of its tables, but I got one of the others to type an order for aspirin, and off it went.

"So I got the six of them back to their table and told them not to move. One of the girls had sleeping pills. I fed three to the guy with the smashed foot.

"And so we waited."

"I hate to ask," said Masney, "but what were you waiting for?"

"Closing time!"

"Oh, of course. Then what?"

"At two o'clock our waiters stopped bringing us shrimp cocktails and canapes Lorenzo and brought us our bills. You wouldn't believe what they charged me for all those shrimp cocktails... We paid our bills and left, carrying the guy with the smashed foot.

"We took him to a hospital, and then we got to a phone and called everybody in sight. Next day the Herr Ober was closed for repairs. It never reopened."

"What about Dreamer?"

"He's one reason the place never reopened. Never found him."

"He couldn't just disappear."

"Couldn't he?"

"Could he?"

"Sometimes I think he must have taken advantage of the publicity. Started life over somewhere else, with no prison record. And then I remember that he went into a fully automated kitchen, through a door that wasn't built for humans. That kitchen machinery could handle full- sized sides of beef. Dreamer obviously wasn't a robot. What would the kitchen machinery take him for'?"

Masney thought about it.

It came to Masney as they were finishing desert.

"Mmb!" he said.

"Mmmb!" And he swallowed frantically.

"You fink! You were sent straight from Homicide branch to Superintendent. You never had anything to do with the Intent to Deceive Branch!"

"I thought you'd catch that."

"But why would you lie?"

"You kept bugging me about why I hated robot waiters. I had to say something."

"All right. You conned me. Now, why do you hate robot waiters?"

"I don't. You just happened to look up at the wrong time. I was thinking how silly our waiter looked in his ground-effect miniskirt."