We study the class of cellular automata that generalizes the Lorentz lattice gases in statistical mechanics, the models of industrious ants in the theory of an artificial life and the so-called Tur-mites (many-dimensional Turing machines). We prove that on the square lattice ℤd, d = 2, the existence of a bounded orbit of a particle (ant, machine) determines all nondegenerate local scattering rules (states of a machine). For higher dimensional (d ≥ 3) cubic lattices we show that under some natural conditions all possible bounded orbits (vortices) can live only in some “vortex sheets” that have a dimension strictly less than d.