I know, I know, more talk. Well, if you don't like it, skip it. There is important information in these sections, but who's going to remember it by the time the whole story is written, anyway?

After Chapter 13, the story will return to more action, in fact there's an increasing amount of action as things move up towards the climax, beginning in Chapter 15. These past few chapters of talk and soul-searching were just an episode in Piranha's career. If I could rewrite the whole thing from scratch that part would be shorter, but it couldn't be avoided entirely.

Anyhow, thanks for your patience. I hope you like history. And stuff.

And of course, Rayman is © UbiSoft Entertainment.

Note: I really, really hate the crappy formatting on this website. If you want to see this thing the way it was supposed to be, read it on deviantArt or "Rayfics" at LJ. The changes are minor though (for this chapter), just spacing. (I hope nothing else in this chapter got messed up by my adding this message.)

Chapter 13: Tulik
Part 2: Claustrophobia

Piranha sat up sharply, all attention.

"This ship was made by humans," Tulik continued. "It began many galactic cycles ago as the City, a travelling colony. Whatever planet it came from originally, ages before, was forgotten except as legend."

"So the first pirates were human."

"The humans weren't exactly pirates. The City was designed to be a self-contained system, requiring nothing from the outside – tracking every molecule of every critical element, with a carefully designed ecology for renewing water and air, maintaining its population within certain limits, strictly controlling the production of food and treatment of waste, and so on. It made for a frugal way of life, though so well planned that conditions were very pleasant. But some leaders of the City began to want more. They had come to believe that their own ancestors, back on the legendary home planet, had been vastly rich, far richer than they were, and they felt cheated by the restrictions of ship-bound life. Even though they were superior to the other humans on board by rank, by prestige, by the honours they received, they could not increase their luxury and power without taking in more resources from outside the ship. They began to think of conquest.

"Being refined, sophisticated people, not enthusiastic about getting dirty or risking physical damage, they decided that the robots they had always built as domestic servants and labourers would do just as well for warriors. The City would conquer lesser civilizations, and increase not only its own wealth but the size and strength of the robot army at its command.

"The robot designers had a sense of irony, it seems. The city leaders had always amused themselves by keeping robot servants that acted comical and foolish. Now, transformed, the servants became parody pirates, with silly clothes and habits that were a mockery. The masters thought it was a great joke. But they were serious enough about the booty."

"The pirates were a joke?"

"Not so amusing to everybody. Under those farcical-looking exteriors the humans built fighting machines of great toughness and durability. As you know."

Piranha winced. "And as a final irony their farcical slaves overthrew them and made them into second-class human pirates..."

"No," Tulik said. "There was a civil war."

"You mean the humans fought among themselves?"

Tulik hesitated. "The whole society fought itself. In the end, only robots remained."

"But there are still humans here."

"What, the slaves and pirates? Merely recent captives. For eons we robots were alone."

"Eons? Tulik, just how long ago did all this happen?"

Tulik thought for a moment. "There would have been thousands of human generations since then. In typical planetary terms, hundreds of thousands of years."

"Hundreds of thousands of years of robots mechanically carrying on a dead purpose, plundering and killing, replicating themselves in a void to serve vanished masters..."

"Not exactly, Piranha. First of all, what makes you think we robots have no interest of our own in booty? That was built into the pirates' programming, for one thing. For another, we still need raw materials for repair and reconstruction of ourselves and the ship. The old human ecology was destroyed in the war. It was never designed for us in any case, and it couldn't have survived the tremendous alterations we've made to the ship. And—"

"And Anaconda likes power. And luxury. Slaves, too. And he doesn't risk himself a whole lot. He seems to have learned a few things from your human forebears. The kind of people who would invent pirates."

Tulik made a dismissive gesture, looking away. "Things were very different under the humans. They had a stable society for many, many generations, before the desires of a handful of leaders became warped and unbalanced their world."

"A golden age, as they say? You think so? How do you know, really, Tulik, what proof do you have? People always glamorize their early history."

Tulik turned sharply to stare at him. "What history? I remember perfectly well. My first memory is of a human face, hers – my creator, Artoe."

Piranha gasped. "You go back to human times? You can't be that ancient!"

Tulik shrugged. "I am. We all are, all the robots. There have been no new robots made since the death of our makers."

Piranha sat back, a little shaken. "But – You have losses in war, heavy ones sometimes, like – on my planet. How do you replace yourselves?"

"Didn't you hear me? We don't. We can't."

"Tulik, I've seen for myself how well you can repair damage to robots – and the vast reconstruction you must have done on this ship – all sorts of things—"

"Yes, we can do that. But we're unable to make new robot pirates."

Piranha rubbed his head uneasily. "It doesn't make sense."

"After the humans were gone, over centuries we enlarged the ship and simplified it for purposes of piracy and for the requirements of robots. Eventually, however, it became necessary to re-adapt it to humans again, to accommodate captives. We could not expand without more pirates, so to free up robots, we permitted human servants. Some became fighters, and at last pirates of a sort, taking on the ancient robot traditions. Gradually their numbers have crept higher."

"Doesn't that worry you a bit? By now the human pirates must outnumber you robots three or four to one, not to mention the thousands of slaves on board."

"Nonsense. Slaves have no influence. Human pirates are ignorant, unskilled, booze-soaked louts, nothing like the humans of the old days. They come and go almost as quickly as slaves, they don't breed on board in any numbers, and they have little knowledge of the ship. Few of them care about anything beyond food, drink, and the other usual human proclivities. In any case, if the humans were ever to get too unruly, it would be simple for us to seal off the tenth level, secure the engines and transfer the ship's controls to the robot section. If needed, we could flood the decks with paralyzing or lethal gas and drop every non-robot in its tracks. – I hope, Piranha, you're not thinking of starting anything so futile."

"Me? No," said Piranha. "Though it does strike me as the kind of thought Anaconda could think somebody might think of."

The robot made an uncharacteristically abrupt gesture, flinging out his arm. His usually neutral voice sharpened with contempt. "Anaconda? He's spent half his life putting down uprisings that never were going to occur in the first place, and another quarter planting counter-plots to create turmoil he could manipulate to keep attention off himself. His sole notion of leadership is divide and conquer. I—" He halted; then continued more quietly.

"Piranha, I was so ignorant when she was alive. I had no experience. It meant everything to me that she would tell me her thoughts, even when I barely understood them. She must have known what a – child I was, but she talked to me anyway. I wonder if in the end she regretted her own generosity."

"She? You mean your, er, creator, Tulik?"

"Artoe was the only one who would ever bother to explain anything to me or let me ask her any questions. She was the only one who listened to what I said. Humans thought it comical to be conversing with a machine as if it were a person. I didn't grasp at first that though we robots were very aware of being alive, of being individuals and conscious, the humans – particularly the scientists and engineers who created us – were convinced that we were not."

"What? I thought they designed you to be alive!"

Tulik made a dismissive gesture. "Robots were designed to mimic life, but everyone knew they couldn't be alive. The people of the City, from the children to the engineers, were firmly taught not to 'anthropomorphize' robots. Much as they also were careful not to 'anthropomorphize' the planetary beings their robot pirates preyed on."

Piranha's brow wrinkled. "But how could they miss a thing like that? Why didn't you just tell them?"

Tulik tilted his head. "You're something like her, you know," he said. "Too direct sometimes. Willing to see exactly what's in front of you. I think humans might call you naïve; you violate their normal method of only seeing what they believe is there."

Piranha shifted uneasily. Tulik, however, had already returned to his previous thought.

"I was one of the last robots she made, Piranha. Advanced mentally; physically simplified. She kept me in the lab, taught me to help her with her work. She let me ask her questions about my own kind, about humans, about everything that didn't make sense to me. She tried to answer as best she could. But she talked mostly about politics, which is what she called her frustrations with other humans." He turned to look at Piranha directly, out of those blank blue eyes that for a moment seemed full of melancholy life. "I could ask her anything, and speak any thoughts at all to her, no matter how naive. And she freely told me hers. Almost as if we were – as you say – sharing energy."

Piranha nodded sombrely. Tulik continued, "Back then, when I was new, there was no thought yet of civil war. But it was a strenuous period of pirate buildup, a nervous time. There were incidents.

"Once, four men came into the laboratory, strangers to me. I could see the tension sweep through the room the moment they were announced. The scientists and assistants stopped their work, turned to face the visitors with their heads bowed.

"The men were tall, slender, elegant. They were leaders of the aristocracy, the men most involved with the pirate scheme and who benefitted the most from its profits.

"They went up to Jennat, head scientist of the group, and without a word of explanation one began to shout at him, insulting him, accusing him of undermining the pirate project, of slacking off in production and not coming up with the more powerful models they'd demanded.

"Jennat didn't say anything, he only stood submissively. But Artoe cut in. 'Slacking off?' she snorted. 'Our staff strains day and night to make three old-style robots a week as it is. On top of that you'll add the months of hard work it takes to develop and test new models? If you want more out of us, give us more to work with.'

"The man turned to her, stared her in the face, then turned back to Jennat. 'Who is this?' he snapped. 'Keep your subordinates under control, if you want to keep your subordinates. I want four robots a week from now on. And when I come back in ten days I expect to see your plans for the new models finished and ready for approval.' He turned his back, and they all headed towards the door.

"Artoe blurted out, 'How long do you think we can go on this way?'

"The men glanced back at her. The spokesman sneered, 'Poor thing! Working too hard?'

"'Yes, but that's not my point. How much longer are we supposed to be making pirates?'

"He turned now to face her fully. 'What's this? In the lab of all places? An anti-pirate?'

"'I'm anti-criminal. I'm anti-making the City a world of criminals.'

"He laughed. 'Criminals! It's not criminal to be superior. If those primitive planeterds are too stupid to defend themselves and their goods, they don't deserve them. And if you have so much sympathy for worthless brutes, what does that say about you?'

"He turned to Jennat. 'Make sure I don't see her when I return. She's not to be trusted with designing or programming robots, only with parts assembly.'

"The men left. Then Jennat and Artoe got into a yelling match that went on for hours."

He paused. "I'd always believed that piracy was the foundation of the City's life, and the highest calling for a robot. I'd never known a time when there weren't pirates. I had even less idea that there were human citizens who were against piracy. And now I found that Artoe, whom I respected more than anybody, was one of them. It was shocking.

"When we had a chance to talk later, I bombarded her with questions. Who was that rude stranger to talk to her in that degrading way? Why did all the scientists let those men shout at them? And – were we robots being made for them? Was there something wrong with pirates? Hadn't there always been pirates? Should I not be a pirate?

"She said, 'All I ever cared about was exploring the potentialities of robots. That's it. And look at the things I have to do, to pay for my absurd hobby...'

"That frightened me. 'Artoe, you mean I'm just an absurd hobby?'

"She smiled suddenly. 'Tulik, you're not half as absurd as those men today, those armchair buccaneers.' A statement which didn't much help my confusion.

"Tulik," Piranha broke in, "I don't get it. I thought you weren't a pirate."

"I wasn't meant to be one. But our lab was kept frantic designing and programming them. From time to time Artoe would get into trouble for holding on to her useless pet robot, and I would be taken out of the lab and sent with the pirates on a planetary invasion. She always found a way to get me back. She made sure that I knew pirate techniques, so I could survive, but she did all she could to keep me from being one.

"In spite of her, I'd always wanted to be one. In my eyes, piracy was a noble mission to support our world. The humans of the City, at least the ones outside the lab, lived in comfort and beauty, and they were so comfortable and beautiful to look at. It was only natural for them to own everything.

"But after all my idealism about the pirates, I was horrified the first time I saw them in action."

"Horrified? By the violence?" Piranha ventured.

"What else would you expect from pirates? No, it was – that they were so much like machines."

"But, well, Tulik —"

Tulik looked at him sternly. "We've already covered that, haven't we? I'm not a machine, I'm a living being. They were too. Yet when certain words were spoken, or when they saw certain objects, the pirates reacted automatically, without a thought, almost without any control over their own actions. They were programmed to be pirates, in both the farcical and the violent aspects of their behaviour."

"Tulik – forgive me if I don't understand, but doesn't a robot have to be programmed? Even you?"

"Yes, of course. I am self-programming. Like a human."

"Like a human?"

"I readjust my thought processes all the time, based on new experience, comparing it to previous experience, accepting or rejecting data according to judgement based on that experience, modifying my behaviour accordingly. There are very few fixed responses. That's what's called rationality."

"Rationality..."

"All the high-grade robots have some of that. Only, fixed programming puts limits on it. Where the programming is wired-in, they aren't rational. A pirate doesn't have much choice to think about whether he wants to get booty, or drink, or brawl. When he is triggered to do that, he just does it. It's not really him doing it, it's the machine in him. Still, fulfilling the machine's demands gives him satisfaction, even pleasure."

Piranha eyed him thoughtfully.

Tulik continued, "To me, the pirates' minds were narrow, claustrophobic. I hated being around them. At the same time, I couldn't look at them without a sort of guilt. They were crippled and couldn't even understand that they were. It was maddening. Why were heavily programmed robots still being made, when it was possible to make ones like me that could think for themselves?

"I couldn't make any sense of it, and I turned away from robots to humans. Even if they would never feel more than bare tolerance for a lowly robot, I could not help longing to learn from such brilliant, confident beings with so much flexibility in their programming.

"Then one time a pirate and I went down to a planet on a scout mission, preparing for an invasion. It was unsettling, Piranha. Until that time, I had never encountered planetary natives except during an attack. I didn't look on them as anything but screaming, chaotic, mindless herd animals – even more limited than the robot pirates. But now, unaware that they were being spied on, they were living their normal lives, going about their work and play with the same ease, happiness, and confidence of our own human masters in the City. They acted just like real people. And the horrible thought struck me: Could our humans, treated in the same way that we treated natives, also – react the same? No defence algorithm but scattering frantically like a suddenly uncovered swarm of bugs.

"I have answers to that question now. But at that time the idea shocked me. And it set loose a torrent of upsetting thoughts.

"The people of the City used to take tours through the robot quarters, pointing and laughing at the drinking, dancing, clowning pirates, who unwittingly performed for their amusement. Even their method of "lubrication" with rum the humans found uproarious. But none of our elegant masters ever landed on the planets to see what those clowns did down there. They would have disdained to commit such acts as we performed for their sakes, and certainly they never dreamed that they could experience any violence. A robot servant who so much as broke his owner's dishes was liable to be recycled; if one had ever threatened a human, he would have been blasted into a molten puddle by the police.

"Humans, with full awareness, created limited, crippled beings to do work they despised, yet which they were increasingly dependent on. The more dependent they became on the pirates, the more farcical they made them appear, and the more tightly they kept them locked up in their own section of the ship. To do their work effectively, pirates had to be rational and self-willed, but the humans clung to a myth that they were nothing but stimulus-response machines with no awareness whatever.

"It was nothing but contradictions, Piranha. Thinking about it made me feel I was floundering in space with no gravity, no solidity, no orientation in time. It made me frantic. And – unhappy."

Unexpectedly, Piranha's face turned ashy pale. He put his hands to his mouth, bent forward, nearly fell off the table.

Tulik took a step towards him. "First Mate?" he said.

Piranha looked up, almost collapsed again. "Dizzy—" he mumbled.

"Air," Tulik said. He took Piranha's collar, lurched him off the table, then tucked the small body under his arm, strode to the door, deposited Piranha next to it. Quickly he yanked out the bar, jerking the door open. He pushed the inert Piranha slightly out into the hall.

"Breathe out as hard as you can, flush out your lungs," Tulik murmured. He kept inside the doorway, peering out occasionally to glance up and down the corridor.

Slumping against the doorframe, Piranha sat for some time taking deep breaths of the fresher air. Gradually the color returned to his face, and he began shakily to get up. Tulik put a hand on his back to keep him in place. "Give the room air time to refresh," he said, still very low.

At last Tulik touched Piranha's back again, signaling him to rise. He did, looking ruefully up at the robot. "Didn't realize I was such an air hog," he said.

"Shh!" Tulik's synthetic voice made an extraordinary sound, startling, forceful – and quiet. He pulled Piranha back from the door and shut it again. "Is the air tolerable now?" he asked.

"I think so." Piranha took a long breath. "That sure sneaked up on me. I didn't notice feeling queasy until the last couple of minutes. Then I got clubbed in the head."

Tulik nodded as he replaced the heavy bar on the door. "I apologize," he said. "I thought the passive air diffusion would be enough; I was wrong."

"I thought you said there was no ventilation in this section?" Piranha said, climbing back onto his seat on the table.

"No active ventilation, but if the air was completely stagnant, dangerous fumes could accumulate over time from oils and chemicals; eventually a loose wire or some other spark might cause an explosion. So there are small ducts that allow air to exchange with the rest of the ship, where it is purified. That is sufficient for our purposes."

Piranha looked at him attentively. "Dangerous fumes? Explosions?"

"Some things should not be left where human pirates or slaves might get their hands on them. Volatile things that leak fumes. There is also the normal outgassing of robot lubricants and so on. The buildup is slow, over years, but we have to think of these things."

Piranha looked at him closely, but Tulik seemed entirely unaware, or unconcerned, that he had just let slip something that sounded remarkably like important robot-only information. Then that featureless face turned towards his, their eyes met.

After a moment, Piranha broke away to glance around the small, shadowy room. He smiled a little. "So this section's a powder keg? Now I feel even more claustrophobic in here."

"There's really no danger, Piranha."

"I know. No, it's the atmosphere."

"You don't need to worry about that. I know your time limit now."

Piranha smiled again. "Not that kind of atmosphere. No, it's that the room feels so – uninhabited. Like nothing has ever happened here."

For a moment the robot was motionless. Then he said, "Nothing has. Only me."

"You, yes. Not all the robots are like that. They may not have friends, but they at least go to the bars, drink, gamble, get rowdy once in a while. But I never see you with them. And I bet you've hardly ever had a visitor in this room."

The robot shook his head. "Never. Not since it was built ages ago. I live alone, Piranha."

"Yes. I'm beginning to see that."

As Piranha settled down on the table, Tulik picked up his story again.

"I stopped resisting Artoe's attempts to keep me in the lab – even though by now, after so many shocks, I felt as uneasy around humans as among the pirates. It was a relief to turn to the tasks Artoe gave me; and I began to get interested. I apprenticed at one job after another, always collecting data, always thinking. I helped out as a lab assistant in different sciences, I spent time in factories and offices, I worked with engineers on ship repairs, eventually I even learned navigation and piloting. Robots weren't supposed to know any of that, but Artoe finagled it through a network of friends, as a semi-secret experiment.

"It was a revelation to me to see the breadth of human activity, the complexity of their society and of the ship we lived in. Over time, working with humans, I developed a better understanding of their strengths and limitations, their abilities and their attitudes, just as I had with the robot pirates. I was reminded by every human action, in the most subtle ways as well as the obvious, that they were resolutely unaware that the mechanical toys they used for everything from cleaning floors to serving dinner to slaughtering foreigners were alive. Because I was more responsive than the usual robot, I made them nervous, sometimes sharply defensive.

"I could understand their confusion about me; what I couldn't sort out so easily was my own. Where did I fit in? What had been Artoe's real purpose in creating me? What did she think she was doing? What fate did she imagine for me? Had she thought of me at all? Or was I merely an experiment created to satisfy some superficial curiosity?

"Still, the more I thought it over, the less it mattered why Artoe had made me. I had to find out for myself why I was alive.

"One day, I was piloting the ship. I looked out through the main view screen at the vast space we were always travelling through, at that enormous network of stars that made up the universe. It looked random and chaotic, but with the ship's ancient charts and careful new observations we were able to plan our route through it with safety.

"Abruptly, from nowhere, I had a startling thought. And as though that triggered a pre-arranged cascade of logic switches, all my accumulated doubt and confusion tumbled instantly into a pattern, a complete, coherent structure I couldn't have imagined a moment before. I was petrified. At the same time, I felt I'd been launched like a missile.

"Why hadn't I seen it? What could be more obvious? Robots should have their own civilization.

"Why must robots be defined by the desires of humans? Frittering away their talents in petty violence and in carrying food trays? Having heads and four limbs and walking upright in a mockery of humanity? What was the real nature of robots? Who knew what unique path intelligent, purposeful, independent robots might find, free from the control and influence of humans?

"Our society wouldn't be opposed to the human one. It would be complementary. Perhaps completely separate. We would soon leave the human world behind, as primitive planetary ocean creatures abandon the sea for the alien, unimaginable land. There was no predicting what sort of entities we might evolve into. Or what purpose we might ultimately serve, perhaps some function that no other being could accomplish?

"The idea was so big it frightened me. But the cascade of ideas was an unstoppable torrent now. So many possibilities, wild notions, experiments no one had ever thought of, surged through my mind all together. Out there against the black background of space, I seemed to look at a three-dimensional reality, fragmentary indefinable things filling the universe, at the same time solid, real, close enough to touch, though I still couldn't comprehend what they were. I gazed down an immense swath of time, peering into our unknown, unknowable, limitless future. It was a vision. And I was desperate to make it real, if only to see what it was.

"I saw something else, too: I had never truly wanted anything before. I had observed life with curiosity, I had been intrigued and disturbed by it, but it had never occurred to me that I could be part of it, that I could start anything. But I was fully involved now, all right, almost more than I could bear. I wanted something, wanted it very badly, and I would have to change reality to get it."

Tulik fell silent, gazing at the floor. Piranha said in a low voice, "It's a rare piece of luck for anyone to find something they care that much about."

Tulik's blank eyes turned slowly towards him. "Is it? I don't know. I've never been off this ship, except on short excursions to kill somebody on some planet."

Piranha looked at him sombrely. Then he stood up and stretched.

"Is that when you started it?" he said. "The rebellion? The war?"

Tulik tilted his head in his expressionless smile. "Bah, Piranha. You have no idea how naïve I was. Nothing like that would ever have occurred to me.

"I told Artoe all about my vision, all my thoughts. To my horror, her eyes filled with tears.

"'Tulik,' she said, 'if only we could have a human civilization like that.'

"'But humans do have a civilization like that.'

"'Oh, no they don't,' she said. That was all she would say. But she actually reached over and hugged me. She rarely touched anyone, even other humans. I wasn't sure what it meant, but it seemed favourable.

"Quietly she set out to help me. She gave me books about human society, economics, history – sometimes, I suspected, to show me what to avoid. She would talk with me, listen to me. More than anything though – in her own personal lab, after work, she secretly began to build a robot. A self-programming robot, even more advanced than I was, with improvements based on what she had learned from me.

"And she let me help her. Do you understand the significance of that? No robot had ever been allowed to learn anything about the fundamentals of hardware or programming. She could have been executed if it had been found out, and so could I. For even if humans didn't believe robots were conscious, it was still absolutely forbidden for them to know anything that might enable them to rebel – just in case. She was handing me the most valuable contraband humans possessed.

"It was terrifying to be committing such a crime, even more to see Artoe in danger. But to experience, over those many weeks, the slow birth of another being that would be like myself – Can you imagine how I felt, Piranha, seeing something no other robot had ever seen? And understanding it, I felt, in a way no human could ever understand it.

"However, the work went very slowly. Neither of us could often get away from our jobs. I was constantly in demand for piloting or accounting or manufacture or repairs, there was always a long backlog to catch up on. The ship seemed to be fraying away in those days, nothing was properly maintained, as more and more manpower and robot-power was being diverted to piracy. As for Artoe, she worked even harder; along with the other engineers, she was in the main robot-building lab from early morning until late at night every day, struggling to keep up with the always increasing demand for pirates.

"As for me, I hardly noticed the endless petty tasks I had to do. For the first time in my life I had a purpose, and everything I saw and did fed into that, was reflected or refracted by it and through it and against it. My mind was exploding with ideas, there was no room left for anything else. I would get angry and enthusiastic and frustrated a dozen times in half a day. I didn't recognize myself – but that in itself was wonderful. At the same time, underneath my preoccupation, I was aware of how badly things were going for the City, and for my mentor.

"Poor Artoe, she didn't have the strength to talk or listen now, much less work on our project. After her long days at work, it was all she could do to push a little food into her mouth and fall into bed. I would stay quietly in her apartment at night, thinking and thinking. And worrying about her. She wasn't a young woman any more; I could see the heavy work wearing her down, day by day.

"And then, in the midst of our frustrations, the war broke out."

(End of Chapter 13, Part Two)