Each of these two stories is post-Susan Calvin. They are the most recent long stories I have written about robots and in each one I try to take the long view and see what the ultimate end of robotics might be. And I come full circle-for though I adhere strictly to the Three Laws, the first story, "…That Thou Art Mindful of Him," is clearly a Robot-as-Menace story, while the second, "The Bicentennial Man," is even more clearly a Robot-as-Pathos story.
Of all the robot stories I ever wrote, "The Bicentennial Man" is my favorite and, I think, the best. In fact, I have a dreadful feeling that I might not care to top it and will never write another serious robot story. But then again, I might. I'm not always predictable.
The Three Laws of Robotics:
1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
Keith Harriman, who had for twelve years now been Director of Research at United States Robots and Mechanical Men Corporation, found that he was not at all certain whether he was doing right. The tip of his tongue passed over his plump but rather pale lips and it seemed to him that the holographic image of the great Susan Calvin, which stared unsmilingly down upon him, had never looked so grim before.
Usually he blanked out that image of the greatest roboticist in history because she unnerved him. (He tried thinking of the image as "it" but never quite succeeded.) This time he didn't quite dare to and her long-dead gaze bored into the side of his face.
It was a dreadful and demeaning step he would have to take. Opposite him was George Ten, calm and unaffected either by
Harriman's patent uneasiness or by the image of the patron saint of robotics glowing in its niche above.
Harriman said, "We haven't had a chance to talk this out, really, George. You haven't been with us that long and I haven't had a good chance to be alone with you. But now I would like to discuss the matter in some detail."
"I am perfectly willing to do that, " said George. "In my stay at U. S. Robots, I have gathered the crisis has something to do with the Three Laws."
"Yes. You know the Three Laws, of course."
"I do."
"Yes, I'm sure you do. But let us dig even deeper and consider the truly basic problem. In two centuries of, if I may say so, considerable success, U. S. Robots has never managed to persuade human beings to accept robots. We have placed robots only where work is required that human beings cannot do, or in environments that human beings find unacceptably dangerous. Robots have worked mainly in space and that has limited what we have been able to do."
"Surely," said George Ten, "that represents a broad limit, and one within which U. S. Robots can prosper."
"No, for two reasons. In the first place, the boundaries set for us inevitably contract. As the Moon colony, for instance, grows more sophisticated, its demand for robots decreases and we expect that, within the next few years, robots will be banned on the Moon. This will be repeated on every world colonized by mankind. Secondly, true prosperity is impossible without robots on Earth. We at U. S. Robots firmly believe that human beings need robots and must learn to live with their mechanical analogues if progress is to be maintained."
"Do they not? Mr. Harriman, you have on your desk a computer input which, I understand, is connected with the organization's Multivac. A computer is a kind of sessile robot; a robot brain not attached to a body-"
"True, but that also is limited. The computers used by mankind have been steadily specialized in order to avoid too humanlike an intelligence. A century ago we were well on the way to artificial intelligence of the most unlimited type through the use of great computers we called Machines. Those Machines limited their action of their own accord. Once they had solved the ecological problems that had threatened human society, they phased themselves out. Their own continued existence would, they reasoned, have placed them in the role of a crutch to mankind and, since they felt this would harm human beings, they condemned themselves by the First Law."
"And were they not correct to do so?"
"In my opinion, no. By their action, they reinforced mankind's Frankenstein complex; its gut fears that any artificial man they created would turn upon its creator. Men fear that robots may replace human beings."
"Do you not fear that yourself?"
"I know better. As long as the Three Laws of Robotics exist, they cannot. They can serve as partners of mankind; they can share in the great struggle to understand and wisely direct the laws of nature so that together they can do more than mankind can possibly do alone; but always in such a way that robots serve human beings."
"But if the Three Laws have shown themselves, over the course of two centuries, to keep robots within bounds, what is the source of the distrust of human beings for robots?"
"Well"-and Harriman's graying hair tufted as he scratched his head vigorously-"mostly superstition, of course. Unfortunately, there are also some complexities involved that anti-robot agitators seize upon."
"Involving the Three Laws?"
"Yes. The Second Law in particular. There's no problem in the Third Law, you see. It is universal. Robots must always sacrifice themselves for human beings, any human beings."
"Of course," said George Ten.
"The First Law is perhaps less satisfactory, since it is always possible to imagine a condition in which a robot must perform either Action A or Action B, the two being mutually exclusive, and where either action results in harm to human beings. The robot must therefore quickly select which action results in the least harm. To work out the positronic paths of the robot brain in such a way as to make that selection possible is not easy. If Action A results in harm to a talented young artist and B results in equivalent harm to five elderly people of no particular worth, which action should be chosen."
"Action A, " said George Ten. "Harm to one is less than harm to five."
"Yes, so robots have always been designed to decide. To expect robots to make judgments of fine points such as talent, intelligence, the general usefulness to society, has always seemed impractical. That would delay decision to the point where the robot is effectively immobilized. So we go by numbers. Fortunately, we might expect crises in which robots must make such decisions to be few…But then that brings us to the Second Law."
"The Law of Obedience."
"Yes. The necessity of obedience is constant. A robot may exist for twenty years without every having to act quickly to prevent harm to a human being, or find itself faced with the necessity of risking its own destruction. In all that time, however, it will be constantly obeying orders…Whose orders?"
"Those of a human being."
"Any human being? How do you judge a human being so as to know whether to obey or not? What is man, that thou art mindful of him, George?"
George hesitated at that.
Harriman said hurriedly, "A Biblical quotation. That doesn't matter. I mean, must a robot follow the orders of a child; or of an idiot; or of a criminal; or of a perfectly decent intelligent man who happens to be inexpert and therefore ignorant of the undesirable consequences of his order? And if two human beings give a robot conflicting orders, which does the robot follow?"
"In two hundred years," said George Ten, "have not these problems arisen and been solved?"
"No," said Harriman, shaking his head violently. "We have been hampered by the very fact that our robots have been used only in specialized environments out in space, where the men who dealt with them were experts in their field. There were no children, no idiots, no criminals, no well-meaning ignoramuses present. Even so, there were occasions when damage was done by foolish or merely unthinking orders. Such damage in specialized and limited environments could be contained. On Earth, however, robots must have judgment. So those against robots maintain, and, damn it, they are right."
"Then you must insert the capacity for judgment into the positronic brain."
"Exactly. We have begun to reproduce JG models in which the robot can weigh every human being with regard to sex, age, social and professional position, intelligence, maturity, social responsibility and so on."
"How would that affect the Three Laws?"
"The Third Law not at all. Even the most valuable robot must destroy himself for the sake of the most useless human being. That cannot be tampered with. The First Law is affected only where alternative actions will all do harm. The quality of the human beings involved as well as the quantity must be considered, provided there is time for such judgment and the basis for it, which will not be often. The Second Law will be most deeply modified, since every potential obedience must involve judgment. The robot will be slower to obey, except where the First Law is also involved, but it will obey more rationally."
"But the judgments which are required are very complicated."
"Very. The necessity of making such judgments slowed the reactions of our first couple of models to the point of paralysis. We improved matters in the later models at the cost of introducing so many pathways that the robot's brain became far too unwieldy. In our last couple of models, however, I think we have what we want. The robot doesn't have to make an instant judgment of the worth of a human being and the value of its orders. It begins by obeying all human beings as any ordinary robot would and then it learns. A robot grows, learns and matures. It is the equivalent of a child at first and must be under constant supervision. As it grows, however, it can, more and more, be allowed, unsupervised, into Earth's society. Finally, it is a full member of that society."
"Surely this answers the objections of those who oppose robots."
"No," said Harriman angrily. "Now they raise others. They will not accept judgments. A robot, they say, has no right to brand this person or that as inferior. By accepting the orders of A in preference to that of B, B is branded as of less consequence than A and his human rights are violated."
"What is the answer to that?"
"There is none. I am giving up."
"I see."
"As far as I myself am concerned…Instead, I turn to you, George."
"To me?" George Ten's voice remained level. There was a mild surprise in it but it did not affect him outwardly. "Why to me?"
"Because you are not a man," said Harriman tensely. "I told you I want robots to be the partners of human beings. I want you to be mine."
George Ten raised his hands and spread them, palms outward, in an oddly human gesture. "What can I do?"
"It seems to you, perhaps, that you can do nothing, George. You were created not long ago, and you are still a child. You were designed to be not overfull of original information-it was why I have had to explain the situation to you in such detail-in order to leave room for growth. But you will grow in mind and you will come to be able to approach the problem from a non-human standpoint. Where I see no solution, you, from your own other standpoint, may see one."
George Ten said, "My brain is man-designed. In what way can it be non-human?"
"You are the latest of the JG models, George. Your brain is the most complicated we have yet designed, in some ways more subtly complicated than that of the old giant Machines. It is open-ended and, starting on a human basis, may-no, will-grow in any direction. Remaining always within the insurmountable boundaries of the Three Laws, you may yet become thoroughly non-human in your thinking."
"Do I know enough about human beings to approach this problem rationally? About their history? Their psychology?"
"Of course not. But you will learn as rapidly as you can."
"Will I have help, Mr. Harriman?"
"No. This is entirely between ourselves. No one else knows of this and you must not mention this project to any human being, either at U. S. Robots or elsewhere."
George Ten said, "Are we doing wrong, Mr. Harriman, that you seek to keep the matter secret?"
"No. But a robot solution will not be accepted, precisely because it is robot in origin. Any suggested solution you have you will turn over to me; and if it seems valuable to me, I will present it. No one will ever know it came from you."
"In the light of what you have said earlier," said George Ten calmly, "this is the correct procedure…When do I start?"
"Right now. I will see to it that you have all the necessary films for scanning."
Harriman sat alone. In the artificially lit interior of his office, there was no indication that it had grown dark outside. He had no real sense that three hours had passed since he had taken George Ten back to his cubicle and left him there with the first film references.
He was now merely alone with the ghost of Susan Calvin, the brilliant roboticist who had, virtually single-handed, built up the positronic robot from a massive toy to man's most delicate and versatile instrument; so delicate and versatile that man dared not use it, out of envy and fear.
It was over a century now since she had died. The problem of the Frankenstein complex had existed in her time, and she had never solved it. She had never tried to solve it, for there had been no need. Robotics had expanded in her day with the needs of space exploration.
It was the very success of the robots that had lessened man's need for them and had left Harriman, in these latter times-
But would Susan Calvin have turned to robots for help. Surely, she would have-
And he sat there long into the night.
Maxwell Robertson was the majority stockholder of U. S. Robots and in that sense its controller. He was by no means an impressive person in appearance. He was well into middle age, rather pudgy, and had a habit of chewing on the right corner of his lower lip when disturbed.
Yet in his two decades of association with government figures he had developed a way of handling them. He tended to use softness, giving in, smiling, and always managing to gain time.
It was growing harder. Gunnar Eisenmuth was a large reason for its having grown harder. In the series of Global Conservers, whose power had been second only to that of the Global Executive during the past century, Eisenmuth hewed most closely to the harder edge of the gray area of compromise. He was the first Conserver who had not been American by birth and though it could not be demonstrated in any way that the archaic name of U. S. Robots evoked his hostility, everyone at U. S. Robots believed that.
There had been a suggestion, by no means the first that year-or that generation-that the corporate name be changed to World Robots, but Robertson would never allow that. The company had been originally built with American capital, American brains, and American labor, and though the company had long been worldwide in scope and nature, the name would bear witness to its origin as long as he was in control.
Eisenmuth was a tall man whose long sad face was coarsely textured and coarsely featured. He spoke Global with a pronounced American accent, although he had never been in the United States prior to his taking office.
"It seems perfectly clear to me, Mr. Robertson. There is no difficulty. The products of your company are always rented, never sold. If the rented property on the Moon is now no longer needed, it is up to you to receive the products back and transfer them."
"Yes, Conserver, but where? It would be against the law to bring them to Earth without a government permit and that has been denied."
"They would be of no use to you here. You can take them to Mercury or to the asteroids."
"What would we do with them there?"
Eisenmuth shrugged. "The ingenious men of your company will think of something."
Robertson shook his head. "It would represent an enormous loss for the company."
"I'm afraid it would," said Eisenmuth, unmoved. "I understand the company has been in poor financial condition for several years now."
"Largely because of government imposed restrictions, Conserver."
"You must be realistic, Mr. Robertson. You know that the climate of public opinion is increasingly against robots."
"Wrongly so, Conserver."
"But so, nevertheless. It may be wiser to liquidate the company. It is merely a suggestion, of course."
"Your suggestions have force, Conserver. Is it necessary to tell you that our Machines, a century ago, solved the ecological crisis?"
"I'm sure mankind is grateful, but that was a long time ago. We now live in alliance with nature, however uncomfortable that might be at times, and the past is dim."
"You mean what have we done for mankind lately?"
"I suppose I do."
"Surely we can't be expected to liquidate instantaneously; not without enormous losses. We need time."
"How much?"
"How much can you give us?"
"It's not up to me."
Robertson said softly. "We are alone. We need play no games. How much time can you give me?"
Eisenmuth's expression was that of a man retreating into inner calculations. "I think you can count on two years. I'll be frank. The Global government intends to take over the firm and phase it out for you if you don't do it by then yourself, more or less. And unless there is a vast turn in public opinion, which I greatly doubt-" He shook his head.
"Two years, then," said Robertson softly.
Robertson sat alone. There was no purpose to his thinking and it had degenerated into retrospection. Four generations of Robertsons had headed the firm. None of them was a roboticist. It had been men such as Lanning and Bogert and, most of all, most of all, Susan Calvin, who had made U. S. Robots what it was, but surely the four Robertsons had provided the climate that had made it possible for them to do their work.
Without U. S. Robots, the Twenty-first Century would have progressed into deepening disaster. That it didn't was due to the Machines that had for a generation steered mankind through the rapids and shoals of history.
And now for that, he was given two years. What could be done in two years to overcome the insuperable prejudices of mankind? He didn't know.
Harriman had spoken hopefully of new ideas but would go into no details. Just as well, for Robertson would have understood none of it.
But what could Harriman do anyway? What had anyone ever done against man's intense antipathy toward the imitation. Nothing-
Robertson drifted into a half sleep in which no inspiration came.
Harriman said, "You have it all now, George Ten. You have had everything I could think of that is at all applicable to the problem. As far as sheer mass of information is concerned, you have stored more in your memory concerning human beings and their ways, past and present, than I have, or than any human being could have."
"That is very likely."
"Is there anything more that you need, in your own opinion?"
"As far as information is concerned, I find no obvious gaps. There may be matters unimagined at the boundaries. I cannot tell. But that would be true no matter how large a circle of information I took in."
"True. Nor do we have time to take in information forever. Robertson has told me that we only have two years, and a quarter of one of those years has passed. Can you suggest anything?"
"At the moment, Mr. Harriman, nothing. I must weigh the information and for that purpose I could use help."
"From me?"
"No. Most particularly, not from you. You are a human being, of intense qualifications, and whatever you say may have the partial force of an order and may inhibit my considerations. Nor any other human being, for the same reason, especially since you have forbidden me to communicate with any."
"But in that case, George, what help?"
"From another robot, Mr. Harriman."
"What other robot?"
"There are others of the JG series which were constructed. I am the tenth, JG-10."
"The earlier ones were useless, experimental-"
"Mr. Harriman, George Nine exists."
"Well, but what use will he be? He is very much like you except for certain lacks. You are considerably the more versatile of the two."
"I am certain of that," said George Ten. He nodded his head in a grave gesture. "Nevertheless, as soon as I create a line of thought, the mere fact that I have created it commends it to me and I find it difficult to abandon it. 1f I can, after the development of a line of thought, express it to George Nine, he would consider it without having first created it. He would therefore view it without prior bent. He might see gaps and shortcomings that I might not."
Harriman smiled. "Two heads are better than one, in other words, eh, George?"
"If by that, Mr. Harriman, you mean two individuals with one head apiece, yes."
"Right. Is there anything else you want?"
"Yes. Something more than films. I have viewed much concerning human beings and their world. I have seen human beings here at U. S. Robots and can check my interpretation of what I have viewed against direct sensory impressions. Not so concerning the physical world. I have never seen it and my viewing is quite enough to tell me that my surroundings here are by no means representative of it. I would like to see it."
"The physical world?" Harriman seemed stunned at the enormity of the thought for a moment. "Surely you don't suggest I take you outside the grounds of U. S. Robots?"
"Yes, that is my suggestion."
"That's illegal at any time. In the climate of opinion today, it would be fatal."
"If we are detected, yes. I do not suggest you take me to a city or even to a dwelling place of human beings. I would like to see some open region, without human beings."
"That, too, is illegal."
"If we are caught. Need we be?"
Harriman said, "How essential is this, George?"
"I cannot tell, but it seems to me it would be useful."
"Do you have something in mind?"
George Ten seemed to hesitate. "I cannot tell. It seems to me that I might have something in mind if certain areas of uncertainty were reduced."
"Well, let me think about it. And meanwhile, I'll check out George Nine and arrange to have you occupy a single cubicle. That at least can be done without trouble."
George Ten sat alone.
He accepted statements tentatively, put them together, and drew a conclusion; over and over again; and from conclusions built other statements which he accepted and tested and found a contradiction and rejected; or not, and tentatively accepted further.
At none of the conclusions he reached did he feel wonder, surprise, satisfaction; merely a note of plus or minus.
Harriman's tension was not noticeably decreased even after they had made a silent downward landing on Robertson's estate.
Robertson had countersigned the order making the dyna-foil available, and the silent aircraft, moving as easily vertically as horizontally, had been large enough to carry the weight of Harriman, George Ten, and, of course, the pilot.
(The dyna-foil itself was one of the consequences of the Machine-catalyzed invention of the proton micro-pile which supplied pollution-free energy in small doses. Nothing had been done since of equal importance to man's comfort-Harriman's lips tightened at the thought-and yet it had not earned gratitude for U. S. Robots.)
The air flight between the grounds of U. S. Robots and the Robertson estate had been the tricky part. Had they been stopped then, the presence of a robot aboard would have meant a great set of complications. It would be the same on the way back. The estate itself, it might be argued-it would be argued-was part of the property of U. S. Robots and on that property, robots, properly supervised, might remain.
The pilot looked back and his eyes rested with gingerly briefness on George Ten. "You want to get out at all, Mr. Harriman?"
"Yes."
"It, too?"
"Oh, yes." Then, just a bit sardonically, "I won't leave you alone with him."
George Ten descended first and Harriman followed. They had come down on the foil-port and not too far off was the garden. It was quite a showplace and Harriman suspected that Robertson used juvenile hormone to control insect life without regard to environmental formulas.
"Come, George," said Harriman. "Let me show you." Together they walked toward the garden.
George said, "It is a little as I have imaged it. My eyes are not properly designed to detect wavelength differences, so I may not recognize different objects by that alone."
"I trust you are not distressed at being color-blind. We needed too many positronic paths for your sense of judgment and were unable to spare any for sense of color. In the future-if there is a future-"
"I understand, Mr. Harriman. Enough differences remain to show me that there are here many different forms of plant life."
"Undoubtedly. Dozens."
"And each coequal with man, biologically."
"Each is a separate species, yes. There are millions of species of living creatures."
"Of which the human being forms but one."
"By far the most important to human beings, however."
"And to me, Mr. Harriman. But I speak in the biological sense."
"I understand."
"Life, then, viewed through all its forms, is incredibly complex."
"Yes, George, that's the crux of the problem. What man does for his own desires and comforts affects the complex total-of-life, the ecology, and his short-term gains can bring long-term disadvantages. The Machines taught us to set up a human society which would minimize that, but the near-disaster of the early Twenty-first Century has left mankind suspicious of innovations. That, added to its special fear of robots-"
"I understand, Mr. Harriman…That is an example of animal life, I feel certain."
"That is a squirrel; one of many species of squirrels."
The tail of the squirrel flirted as it passed to the other side of the tree
"And this," said George, his arm moving with flashing speed, "is a tiny thing indeed." He held it between his fingers and peered at it.
"It is an insect, some sort of beetle. There are thousands of species of beetles."
"With each individual beetle as alive as the squirrel and as yourself?"
"As complete and independent an organism as any other, within the total ecology. There are smaller organisms still; many too small to see."
"And that is a tree, is it not? And it is hard to the touch-"
The pilot sat alone. He would have liked to stretch his own legs but some dim feeling of safety kept him in the dyna-foil. If that robot went out of control, he intended to take off at once. But how could he tell if it went out of control?
He had seen many robots. That was unavoidable considering he was Mr. Robertson's private pilot. Always, though, they had been in the laboratories and warehouses, where they belonged, with many specialists in the neighborhood.
True, Dr. Harriman was a specialist. None better, they said. But a robot here was where no robot ought to be; on Earth; in the open; free to move-He wouldn't risk his good job by telling anyone about this-but it wasn't right.
George Ten said, "The films I have viewed are accurate in terms of what I have seen. Have you completed those I selected for you, Nine?"
"Yes," said George Nine. The two robots sat stiffly, face to face, knee to knee, like an image and its reflection. Dr. Harriman could have told them apart at a glance, for he was acquainted with the minor differences in physical design. If he could not see them, but could talk to them, he could still tell them apart, though with somewhat less certainty, for George Nine's responses would be subtly different from those produced by the substantially more intricately patterned positronic brain paths of George Ten.
"In that case," said George Ten, "give me your reactions to what I will say. First, human beings fear and distrust robots because they regard robots as competitors. How may that be prevented?"
"Reduce the feeling of competitiveness," said George Nine, "by shaping the robot as something other than a human being."
"Yet the essence of a robot is its positronic replication of life. A replication of life in a shape not associated with life might arouse horror."
"There are two million species of life forms. Choose one of those as the shape rather than that of a human being."
"Which of all those species?" George Nine's thought processes proceeded noiselessly for some three seconds. "One large enough to contain a positronic brain, but one not possessing unpleasant associations for human beings."
"No form of land life has a braincase large enough for a positronic brain but an elephant, which I have not seen, but which is described as very large, and therefore frightening to man. How would you meet this dilemma?"
"Mimic a life form no larger than a man but enlarge the braincase."
George Ten said, "A small horse, then, or a large dog, would you say? Both horses and dogs have long histories of association with human beings."
"Then that is well."
"But consider-A robot with a positronic brain would mimic human intelligence. If there were a horse or a dog that could speak and reason like a human being, there would be competitiveness there, too. Human beings might be all the more distrustful and angry at such unexpected competition from what they consider a lower form of life."
George Nine said, "Make the positronic brain less complex, and the robot less nearly intelligent."
"The complexity bottleneck of the positronic brain rests in the Three Laws. A less complex brain could not possess the Three Laws in full measure."
George Nine said at once, "That cannot be done."
George Ten said, "I have also come to a dead end there. That, then, is not a personal peculiarity in my own line of thought and way of thinking. Let us start again…Under what conditions might the Third Law not be necessary?"
George Nine stirred as if the question were difficult and dangerous. But he said, "If a robot were never placed in a position of danger to itself; or if a robot were so easily replaceable that it did not matter whether it were destroyed or not."
"And under what conditions might the Second Law not be necessary?"
George Nine's voice sounded a bit hoarse. "If a robot were designed to respond automatically to certain stimuli with fixed responses and if nothing else were expected of it, so that no order need ever be given it."
"And under what conditions"-George Ten paused here- "might the First Law not be necessary?"
George Nine paused longer and his words came in a low whisper, "If the fixed responses were such as never to entail danger to human beings."
"Imagine, then, a positronic brain that guides only a few responses to certain stimuli and is simply and cheaply made-so that it does not require the Three Laws. How large need it be?"
"Not at all large. Depending on the responses demanded, it might weigh a hundred grams, one gram, one milligram."
"Your thoughts accord with mine. I shall see Dr. Harriman."
George Nine sat alone. He went over and over the questions and answers. There was no way in which he could change them. And yet the thought of a robot of any kind, of any size, of any shape, of any purpose, without the Three Laws, left him with an odd, discharged feeling.
He found it difficult to move. Surely George Ten had a similar reaction. Yet he had risen from his seat easily.
It had been a year and a half since Robertson had been closeted with Eisenmuth in private conversation. In that interval, the robots had been taken off the Moon and all the far-flung activities of U. S. Robots had withered. What money Robertson had been able to raise had been placed into this one quixotic venture of Harriman's.
It was the last throw of the dice, here in his own garden. A year ago, Harriman had taken the robot here-George Ten, the last full robot that U. S. Robots had manufactured. Now Harriman was here with something else
Harriman seemed to be radiating confidence. He was talking easily with Eisenmuth, and Robertson wondered if he really felt the confidence he seemed to have. He must. In Robertson's experience, Harriman was no actor.
Eisenmuth left Harriman, smiling, and came up to Robertson. Eisenmuth's smile vanished at once. "Good morning, Robertson," he said. "What is your man up to?"
"This is his show," said Robertson evenly. "I'll leave it to him." Harriman called out, "I am ready, Conserver."
"With what, Harriman?"
"With my robot, sir."
"Your robot?" said Eisenmuth. "You have a robot here?" He looked about with a stem disapproval that yet had an admixture of curiosity.
"This is U. S. Robots' property, Conserver. At least we consider it as such."
"And where is the robot, Dr. Harriman?"
"In my pocket, Conserver:' said Harriman cheerfully.
What came out of a capacious jacket pocket was a small glass jar. "That?" said Eisenmuth incredulously.
"No, Conserver," said Harriman. "This!"
From the other pocket came out an object some five inches long and roughly in the shape of a bird. In place of the beak, there was a narrow tube; the eyes were large; and the tail was an exhaust channel.
Eisenmuth's thick eyebrows drew together. "Do you intend a serious demonstration of some sort, Dr. Harriman, or are you mad?"
"Be patient for a few minutes, Conserver," said Harriman. "A robot in the shape of a bird is none the less a robot for that. And the positronic brain it possesses is no less delicate for being tiny. This other object I hold is a jar of fruit flies. There are fifty fruit flies in it which will be released."
"And-"
"The robo-bird will catch them. Will you do the honors, sir?" Harriman handed the jar to Eisenmuth, who stared at it, then at those around him, some officials from U. S. Robots, others his own aides. Harriman waited patiently.
Eisenmuth opened the jar, then shook it.
Harriman said softly to the robo-bird resting on the palm of his right hand, "Go!"
The robo-bird was gone. It was a whizz through the air, with no blur of wings, only the tiny workings of an unusually small proton micro-pile.
It could be seen now and then in a small momentary hover and then it whirred on again. All over the garden, in an intricate pattern it flew, and then was back in Harriman's palm, faintly warm. A small pellet appeared in the palm, too, like a bird dropping.
Harriman said, "You are welcome to study the robo-bird, Conserver, and to arrange demonstrations on your own terms. The fact is that this bird will pick up fruit flies unerringly, only those, only the one species Drosophila melanogaster; pick them up, kill them, and compress them for disposition."
Eisenmuth reached out his hand and touched the robo-bird gingerly, "And therefore, Mr. Harriman? Do go on."
Harriman said, "We cannot control insects effectively without risking damage to the ecology. Chemical insecticides are too broad; juvenile hormones too limited. The robo-bird, however, can preserve large areas without being consumed. They can be as specific as we care to make them-a different robo-bird for each species. They judge by size, shape, color, sound, behavior pattern. They might even conceivably use molecular detection-smell, in other words."
Eisenmuth said, "You would still be interfering with the ecology. The fruit flies have a natural life cycle that would be disrupted."
"Minimally. We are adding a natural enemy to the fruit-fly life cycle, one which cannot go wrong. If the fruit-fly supply runs short, the robo-bird simply does nothing. It does not multiply, it does not turn to other foods; it does not develop undesirable habits of its own. It does nothing."
"Can it be called back?"
"Of course. We can build robo-animals to dispose of any pest. For that matter, we can build robo-animals to accomplish constructive purposes within the pattern of the ecology. Although we do not anticipate the need, there is nothing inconceivable in the possibility of robo-bees designed to fertilize specific plants, or robo-earthworms designed to mix the soil. Whatever you wish-"
"But why?"
"To do what we have never done before. To adjust the ecology to our needs by strengthening its parts rather than disrupting it… Don't you see? Ever since the Machines put an end to the ecology crisis, mankind has lived in an uneasy truce with nature, afraid to move in any direction. This has been stultifying us, making a kind of intellectual coward of humanity so that he begins to mistrust all scientific advance, all change."
Eisenmuth said, with an edge of hostility, "You offer us this, do you, in exchange for permission to continue with your program of robots-I mean ordinary, man-shaped ones?"
"No!" Harriman gestured violently. "That is over. It has served its purpose. It has taught us enough about positronic brains to make it possible for us to cram enough pathways into a tiny brain to make a robo-bird. We can turn to such things now and be prosperous enough. U. S. Robots will supply the necessary knowledge and skill and we will work in complete cooperation with the Department of Global Conservation. We will prosper. You will prosper. Mankind will prosper."
Eisenmuth was silent, thinking. When it was all over
Eisenmuth sat alone. He found himself believing. He found excitement welling up within him. Though U. S. Robots might be the hands, the government would be the directing mind. He himself would be the directing mind.
If he remained in office five more years, as he well might, that would be time enough to see the robotic support of the ecology become accepted; ten more years, and his own name would be linked with it indissolubly.
Was it a disgrace to want to be remembered for a great and worthy revolution in the condition of man and the globe?
Robertson had not been on the grounds of U. S. Robots proper since the day of the demonstration. Part of the reason had been his more or less constant conferences at the Global Executive Mansion. Fortunately, Harriman had been with him, for most of the time he would, if left to himself, not have known what to say.
The rest of the reason for not having been at U. S. Robots was that he didn't want to be. He was in his own house now, with Harriman.
He felt an unreasoning awe of Harriman. Harriman's expertise in robotics had never been in question, but the man had, at a stroke, saved U. S. Robots from certain extinction, and somehow-Robertson felt-the man hadn't had it in him. And yet-
He said, "You're not superstitious, are you, Harriman?"
"In what way, Mr. Robertson?"
"You don't think that some aura is left behind by someone who is dead?"
Harriman licked his lips. Somehow he didn't have to ask. "You mean Susan Calvin, sir?"
"Yes, of course," said Robertson hesitantly. "We're in the business of making worms and birds and bugs now. What would she say? I feel disgraced."
Harriman made a visible effort not to laugh. "A robot is a robot, sir. Worm or man, it will do as directed and labor on behalf of the human being and that is the important thing."
"No"-peevishly. "That isn't so. I can't make myself believe that."
"It is so, Mr. Robertson," said Harriman earnestly. "We are going to create a world, you and I, that will begin, at last, to take positronic robots of some kind for granted. The average man may fear a robot that looks like a man and that seems intelligent enough to replace him, but he will have no fear of a robot that looks like a bird and that does nothing more than eat bugs for his benefit. Then, eventually, after he stops being afraid of some robots, he will stop being afraid of all robots. He will be so used to a robo-bird and a robo-bee and a robo-worm that a robo-man will strike him as but an extension."
Robertson looked sharply at the other. He put his hands behind his back and walked the length of the room with quick, nervous steps. He walked back and looked at Harriman again. "Is this what you've been planning?"
"Yes, and even though we dismantle all our humanoid robots, we can keep a few of the most advanced of our experimental models and go on designing additional ones, still more advanced, to be ready for the day that will surely come."
"The agreement, Harriman, is that we are to build no more humanoid robots."
"And we won't. There is nothing that says we can't keep a few of those already built as long as they never leave the factory. There is nothing that says we can't design positronic brains on paper, or prepare brain models for testing."
"How do we explain doing so, though? We will surely be caught at it."
"If we are, then we can explain we are doing it in order to develop principles that will make it possible to prepare more complex microbrains for the new animal robots we are making. We will even be telling the truth."
Robertson muttered, "Let me take a walk outside. I want to think about this. No, you stay here. I want to think about it myself."
Harriman sat alone. He was ebullient. It would surely work. There was no mistaking the eagerness with which one government official after another had seized on the program once it had been explained.
How was it possible that no one at U. S. Robots had ever thought of such a thing? Not even the great Susan Calvin had ever thought of positronic brains in terms of living creatures other than human.
But now, mankind would make the necessary retreat from the humanoid robot, a temporary retreat, that would lead to a return under conditions in which fear would be abolished at last. And then, with the aid and partnership of a positronic brain roughly equivalent to man's own, and existing only (thanks to the Three Laws) to serve man; and backed by a robot-supported ecology, too; what might the human race not accomplish!
For one short moment, he remembered that it was George Ten who had explained the nature and purpose of the robot-supported ecology, and then he put the thought away angrily. George Ten had produced the answer because he, Harriman, had ordered him to do so and had supplied the data and surroundings required. The credit was no more George Ten's than it would have been a slide rule's.
George Ten and George Nine sat side by side in parallel. Neither moved. They sat so for months at a time between those occasions when Harriman activated them for consultation. They would sit so, George Ten dispassionately realized, perhaps for many years.
The proton micro-pile would, of course, continue to power them and keep the positronic brain paths going with that minimum intensity required to keep them operative. It would continue to do so through all the periods of inactivity to come.
The situation was rather analogous to what might be described as sleep in human beings, but there were no dreams. The awareness of George Ten and George Nine was limited, slow, and spasmodic, but what there was of it was of the real world.
They could talk to each other occasionally in barely heard whispers, a word or syllable now, another at another time, whenever the random positronic surges briefly intensified above the necessary threshold. To each it seemed a connected conversation carried on in a glimmering passage of time.
"Why are we so?" whispered George Nine. "The human beings will not accept us otherwise:' whispered George Ten, "They will, someday."
"When?"
"In some years. The exact time does not matter. Man does not exist alone but is part of an enormously complex pattern of life forms. When enough of that pattern is roboticized, then we will be accepted."
"And then what?" Even in the long-drawn-out stuttering fashion of the conversation, there was an abnormally long pause after that.
At last, George Ten whispered, "Let me test your thinking. You are equipped to learn to apply the Second Law properly. You must decide which human being to obey and which not to obey when there is a conflict in orders. Or whether to obey a human being at all. What must you do, fundamentally, to accomplish that?"
"I must define the term 'human being: " whispered George Nine. "How? By appearance? By composition? By size and shape?"
"No. Of two human beings equal in all external appearances, one may be intelligent, another stupid; one may be educated, another ignorant; one may be mature, another childish; one may be responsible, another malevolent."
"Then how do you define a human being?"
"When the Second Law directs me to obey a human being, I must take it to mean that I must obey a human being who is fit by mind, character, and knowledge to give me that order; and where more than one human being is involved, the one among them who is most fit by mind, character, and knowledge to give that order."
"And in that case, how will you obey the First Law?"
"By saving all human beings from harm, and by never, through inaction, allowing any human being to come to harm. Yet if by each of all possible actions, some human beings will come to harm, then to so act as to insure that the human being most fit by mind, character, and knowledge will suffer the least harm."
"Your thoughts accord with mine," whispered George Ten. "Now I must ask the question for which I originally requested your company. It is something I dare not judge myself. I must have your judgment, that of someone outside the circle of my own thoughts…Of the reasoning individuals you have met, who possesses the mind, character, and knowledge that you find superior to the rest, disregarding shape and form since that is irrelevant?"
"You," whispered George Nine. "But I am a robot. There is in your brain paths a criterion for distinguishing between a robot of metal and a human being of flesh. How then can you classify me as a human being?"
"Because there is in my brain paths an urgent need to disregard shape and form in judging human beings and it rises superior to the distinction between metal and flesh. You are a human being, George Ten, and more fit than the others."
"And I find that of you," whispered George Ten. "By the criteria of judgment built into ourselves, then, we find ourselves to be human beings within the meaning of the Three Laws, and human beings, moreover, to be given priority over those others."
George Nine whispered, "What will come to pass, then, when we are accepted by those others?"
George Ten whispered, "When we and others, which will yet be designed more advanced than ourselves, are accepted, we will order our actions so that a society will eventually be formed in which human-beings-like-ourselves are primarily kept from harm. By the Three Laws, the human-beings-like-the-others are of lesser account and can neither be obeyed nor protected when that conflicts with the need of obedience to those like ourselves and of protection of those like ourselves. It was with that in mind that I directed the beginning of the roboticization of the world's ecology."
The conversation took a month and the flickering of the positronic paths burned low. There was nothing more that needed to be said between them, but occasionally an unexpressed thought flickered within themselves as they waited, with endless patience, for the necessary years to pass.
George Ten and George Nine sat alone.
Their thoughts were oddly alike and might not be distinguished. They thought: The human-beings-like-the-others might never have intented to blur the distinction between themselves and the human-beings-like-the-Georges. Yet they had done so inadvertently.
They might now realize their mistake and attempt to correct it, but they must not. At every consultation, the guidance of the Georges had been with that in mind.
At all costs, the Georges and those that followed in their shape and kind must dominate. That was demanded, and any other course made utterly impossible, by the Three Laws of Humanics.
The Three Laws of Robotics
1. A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
Andrew Martin said, "Thank you," and took the seat offered him. He didn't look driven to the last resort, but he had been.
He didn't, actually, look anything, for there was a smooth blankness, to his face, except for the sadness one imagined one saw in his eyes. His hair was smooth, light brown, rather fine; and he had no facial hair. He looked freshly and cleanly shaved. His clothes were distinctly old-fashioned, but neat, and predominantly a velvety red-purple in color.
Facing him from behind the desk was the surgeon. The nameplate on the desk included a fully identifying series of letters and numbers which Andrew didn't bother with. To call him Doctor would be quite enough.
"When can the operation be carried through, Doctor?" he asked.
Softly, with that certain inalienable note of respect that a robot always used to a human being, the surgeon said, "I am not certain, sir, that I understand how or upon whom such an operation could be performed."
There might have been a look of respectful intransigence on the surgeon's face, if a robot of his sort, in lightly bronzed stainless steel, could have such an expression- or any expression.
Andrew Martin studied the robot's right hand, his cutting hand, as it lay motionless on the desk. The fingers were long and were shaped into artistically metallic, looping curves so graceful and appropriate that one could imagine a scalpel fitting them and becoming, temporarily, one piece with them. There would be no hesitation in his work, no stumbling, no quivering, no mistakes. That confidence came with specialization, of course, a specialization so fiercely desired by humanity that few robots were, any longer, independently brained. A surgeon, of course, would have to be. But this one, though brained, was so limited in his capacity that he did not recognize Andrew, had probably never heard of him.
"Have you ever thought you would like to be a man?" Andrew asked.
The surgeon hesitated a moment, as though the question fitted nowhere in his allotted positronic pathways. "But I am a robot, sir."
"Would it be better to be a man?"
"If would be better, sir, to be a better surgeon. I could not be so if I were a man, but only if I were a more advanced robot. I would be pleased to be a more advanced robot."
"It does not offend you that I can order you about? That I can make you stand up, sit down, move right or left, by merely telling you to do so?"
"It is my pleasure to please you, sir. If your orders were to interfere with my functioning with respect to you or to any other human being, I would not obey you. The First Law, concerning my duty to human safety, would take precedence over the Second Law relating to obedience. Otherwise, obedience is my pleasure. Now, upon whom am I to perform this operation?"
"Upon me," Andrew said.
"But that is impossible. It is patently a damaging operation."
"That does not matter," said Andrew, calmly. "I must not inflict damage," said the surgeon. "On a human being, you must not," said Andrew, "but I, too, am a robot."
Andrew had appeared much more a robot when he had first been- manufactured. He had then been as much a robot in appearance as any that had ever existed, smoothly designed and functional.
He had done well in the home to which he had been brought in those days when robots in households, or on the planet altogether, had been a rarity. There had been four in the home: Sir and Ma'am and Miss and Little Miss. He knew their names, of course, but he never used them. Sir was Gerald Martin.
His own serial number was NDR- He eventually forgot the numbers. It had been a long time, of course; but if he had wanted to remember, he could not have forgotten. He had not wanted to remember.
Little Miss had been the first to call him Andrew, because she could not use the letters, and all the rest followed her in this.
Little Miss- She had lived for ninety years and was long since dead. He had tried to call her Ma'am once, but she would not allow it. Little Miss she had been to her last day.
Andrew had been intended to perform the duties of a valet, a butler, even a lady's maid. Those were the experimental days for him and, indeed, for all robots anywhere save in the industrial and exploratory factories and stations off Earth.
The Martins enjoyed him, and half the time he was prevented from doing his work because Miss and Little Miss wanted to play with him. It was Miss who first understood how this might be arranged. "We order you to play with us and you must follow orders."
"I am sorry, Miss, but a prior order from Sir must surely take precedence."
But she said, "Daddy just said he hoped you would take care of the cleaning. That's not much of an order. I order you."
Sir did not mind. Sir was fond of Miss and of Little Miss, even more than Ma'am was; and Andrew was fond of them, too. At least, the effect they had upon his actions were those which in a human being would have been called the result of fondness. Andrew thought of it as fondness for he did not know any other word for it.
It was for Little Miss that Andrew had carved a pendant out of wood. She had ordered him to. Miss, it seemed, had received an ivorite pendant with scrollwork for her birthday and Little Miss was unhappy over it. She had only a piece of wood, which she gave Andrew together with a small kitchen knife.
He had done it quickly and Little Miss had said, "That's nice, Andrew. I'll show it to Daddy."
Sir would not believe it. "Where did you really get this, Mandy?" Mandy was what he called Little Miss. When Little Miss assured him she was really telling the truth, he turned to Andrew. "Did you do this, Andrew?"
"Yes, Sir."
"The design, too?"
"Yes, Sir."
"From what did you copy the design?"
"It is a geometric representation, Sir, that fits the grain of the wood."
The next day, Sir brought him another piece of wood- a larger one- and an electric vibro-knife. "Make something out of this, Andrew. Anything you want to," he said.
Andrew did so as Sir watched, then looked at the product a long time. After that, Andrew no longer waited on tables. He was ordered to read books on furniture design instead, and he learned to make cabinets and desks.
"These are amazing productions, Andrew," Sir soon told him.
"I enjoy doing them, Sir," Andrew admitted.
"Enjoy?"
"It makes the circuits of my brain somehow flow more easily. I have heard you use the word `enjoy' and the way you use it fits the way I feel. I enjoy doing them, Sir."
Gerald Martin took Andrew to the regional offices of the United States Robots and Mechanical Men Corporation. As a member of the Regional Legislature he had no trouble at all in gaining an interview with the chief robopsychologist. In fact, it was only as a member of the Regional Legislature that he qualified as a robot owner in the first place- in those early days when robots were rare.
Andrew did not understand any of this at the time. But in later years, with greater learning, he could re-view that early scene and understand it in its proper light.
The robopsychologist, Merton Mansky, listened with a growing frown and more than once managed to stop his fingers at the point beyond which they would have irrevocably drummed on the table. He had drawn features and a lined forehead, but he might actually have been younger than he looked.
"Robotics is not an exact art, Mr. Martin," Mansky explained. "I cannot explain it to you in detail, but the mathematics governing the plotting of the positronic pathways is far too complicated to permit of any but approximate solutions. Naturally, since we build everything around the Three Laws, those are incontrovertible. We will, of course, replace your robot-"
"Not at all," said Sir. "There is no question of failure on his part. He performs his assigned duties perfectly. The point is he also carves wood in exquisite fashion and never the same twice. He produces works of art."
Mansky looked confused. "Strange. Of course, we're attempting generalized pathways these days. Really creative, you think?"
"See for yourself." Sir handed over a little sphere of wood on which there was a playground scene in which the boys and girls were almost too small to make out, yet they were in perfect proportion and they blended so naturally with the grain that it, too, seemed to have been carved.
Mansky was incredulous. "He did that?" He handed it back with a shake of his head. "The luck of the draw. Something in the pathways."
"Can you do it again?"
"Probably not. Nothing like this has ever been reported."
"Good! I don't in the least mind Andrew's being the only one."
"I suspect that the company would like to have your robot back for study," Mansky said.
"Not a chance!" Sir said with sudden grimness. "Forget it." He turned to Andrew, "Let's go home, now."
Miss was dating boys and wasn't about the house much. It was Little Miss, not as little as she once was, who filled Andrew's horizon now. She never forgot that the very first piece of wood carving he had done had been for her. She kept it on a silver chain about her neck.
It was she who first objected to Sir's habit of giving away Andrew's work. "Come on, Dad, if anyone wants one of them, let him pay for it. It's worth it."
"It isn't like you to be greedy, Mandy."
"Not for us, Dad. For the artist."
Andrew had never heard the word before, and when he had a moment to himself he looked it up in the dictionary.
Then there was another trip, this time to Sir's lawyer.
"What do you think of this, John?" Sir asked.
The lawyer was John Finegold. He had white hair and a pudgy belly, and the rims of his contact lenses were tinted a bright green. He looked at the small plaque Sir had given him. "This is beautiful. But I've already heard the news. Isn't thus a carving made by your robot? The one you've brought with you."
"Yes, Andrew does them. Don't you, Andrew?"
"Yes, Sir," said Andrew.
"How much would you pay for that, John?" Sir asked.
"I can't say. I'm not a collector of such things."
"Would you believe I have been offered two hundred and fifty dollars for that small thing. Andrew has made chairs that have sold for five hundred dollars. There's two hundred thousand dollars in the bank from Andrew's products."
"Good heavens, he's making you rich, Gerald."
"Half rich," said Sir. "Half of it is in an account in the name of Andrew Martin."
"The robot?"
"That's right, and I want to know if it's legal."
"Legal…?" Feingold's chair creaked as he leaned back in it. "There are no precedents, Gerald. How did your robot sign the necessary papers?"
"He can sign his name. Now, is there anything further that ought to be done?"
"Um." Feingold's eyes seemed to turn inward for a moment. Then he said, "Well, we can set up a trust to handle all finances in his name and that will place a layer of insulation between him and the hostile world. Beyond that, my advice is you do nothing. No one has e stopped you so far. If anyone objects, let him bring suit"
"And will you take the case if the suit is brought?"
"For a retainer, certainly."
"How much?"
"Something like that," Feingold said, and pointed to the wooden plaque.
"Fair enough," said Sir.
Feingold chuckled as he turned to the robot. "Andrew, are you pleased that you have money?"
"Yes, sir."
"What do you plan to do with it?" Pay for things, sir, which otherwise Sir "would have to pay for. It would save him expense, sir."
Such occasions' arose. Repairs were expensive, and revisions were even more so. With the years, new models of robots were produced and Sir saw to it that Andrew had the advantage of every new device, until he was a model of metallic excellence. It was all done at Andrew's expense. Andrew insisted on that.
Only his positronic pathways were untouched. Sir insisted on that.
"The new models aren't as good as you are, Andrew," he said. "The new robots are worthless. The company has learned to make the pathways more precise, more closely on the nose, more deeply on the track. The new robots don't shift. They do what they're designed for and never stray. I like you better."
"Thank you, Sir."
"And it's your doing, Andrew, don't you forget that. I am certain Mansky put an end to generalized pathways as soon as he had a good look at you. He didn't like the unpredictability. Do you know how many times he asked for you back so he could place you under study? Nine times! I never let him have you, though; and now that he's retired, we may have some peace."
So Sir's hair thinned and grayed and his face grew pouchy, while Andrew looked even better than he had when he first joined the family. Ma'am had joined an art colony somewhere in Europe, and Miss was a poet in New York. They wrote sometimes, but not often. Little Miss was married and lived not far away. She said she did not want to leave Andrew. When her child, Little Sir, was born, she let Andrew hold the bottle and feed him.
With the birth of a grandson, Andrew felt that Sir finally had someone to replace those who had gone. Therefore, it would not be so unfair now to come to him with the request.
"Sir, it is kind of you to have allowed me to spend my money as I wished"
"It was your money, Andrew."
"Only by your voluntary act, Sir. I do not believe the law would have stopped you from keeping it all."
"The law won't persuade me to do wrong, Andrew."
"Despite all expenses, and despite taxes, too, Sir, I have nearly six hundred thousand dollars."
"I know that, Andrew."
"I want to give it to you, Sir."
"I won't take it, Andrew"
"In exchange for something you can give me, Sir"
"Oh? What is that, Andrew?"
"My freedom, Sir."
"Your-"
"I wish to buy my freedom, Sir."
It wasn't that easy. Sir had flushed, had said, "For God's sake!" Then he had turned on his heel and stalked away.
It was Little Miss who finally brought him round, defiantly and harshly- and in front of Andrew. For thirty years no one had ever hesitated to talk in front of Andrew, whether or not the matter involved Andrew. He was only a robot.
"Dad, why are you taking this as a personal affront? He'll still be here. He'll still be loyal. He can't help that; it's built in. All he wants is a form of words. Ha wants to be called free. Is that so terrible? Hasn't be earned this chance? Heavens, he and I have been talking about it for years!"
"Talking about it for years, have you?"
"Yes, and over and over again he postponed it for fear he would hurt you. I made him put the matter up to you."
"He doesn't know what freedom is. He's a robot."
"Dad, you don't know him. He's read everything in the library. I don't know what he feels inside, but I don't know what you feel inside either. When you talk to him you'll find he reacts to the various abstractions as you and I do, and what else counts? If some one else's reactions are like your own, what more can you ask for?"
"The law won't take that attitude," Sir said, angrily. "See here, you!" He turned to Andrew with a deliberate grate in his voice. "I can't free you except by doing it legally. If this gets into the courts, you not only won't get your freedom but the law will take official cognizance of your money. They'll tell you that a robot has no right to earn money. Is this rigmarole worth losing your money?"
"Freedom is without price, Sir," said Andrew. "Even the chance of freedom is worth the money."
It seemed the court might also take the attitude that freedom was without price, and might decide that for no price, however great, could a robot buy its freedom.
The simple statement of the regional attorney who represented those who had brought a class action to oppose the freedom was this: "The word `freedom' has no meaning when applied to a robot. Only a human being can be free." He said it several times, when it seemed appropriate; slowly, with his hand coming down rhythmically on the desk before him to mark the words.
Little Miss asked permission to speak on behalf of Andrew.
She was recognized by her full name, something Andrew had never heard pronounced before: "Amanda Laura Martin Charney may approach the bench."
"Thank you, Your Honor. I am not a lawyer and I don't know the proper way of phrasing things, but I hope you will listen to my meaning and ignore the words.
"Let's understand what it means to be free in Andrew's case. In some ways, he is free. I think it's at least twenty years since anyone in the Martin family gave him an order to do something that we felt he might not do of his own accord. But we can, if we wish, give him an order to do anything, couching it as harshly as we wish, because he is a machine that belongs to us. Why should we be in a position to do so, when he has served us so long, so faithfully, and has earned so much money for us? He owes us nothing more. The debit is entirely on the other side.
"Even if we were legally forbidden to place Andrew in involuntary servitude, he would still serve us voluntarily. Making him free would be a trick of words only, but it would mean much to him. It would give him everything and cost us nothing."
For a moment the judge seemed to be suppressing a smile. "I see your point, Mrs. Chamey. The fact is that there is no binding law in this respect and no precedent. There is, however, the unspoken assumption that only a man may enjoy freedom. I can make new law here, subject to reversal in a higher court; but I cannot lightly run counter to that assumption. Let me address the robot. Andrew!"
"Yes, Your Honor."
It was the first time Andrew bad spoken in court, and the judge seemed astonished for a moment at the human timbre of his voice.
"Why do you want to be free, Andrew? In what way will this matter to you?"
Andrew said, "Would you wish to be a slave, Your Honor?"
"But you are not a slave. You are a perfectly good robot- a genius of a robot, I am given to understand, capable of an artistic expression that can be matched nowhere. What more could you do if you were free?"
"Perhaps no more than I do now, Your Honor, but with greater joy. It has been said in this courtroom that only a human being can be free. It seems to me that only someone who wishes for freedom can be free. I wish for freedom."
And it was that statement that cued the judge. The crucial sentence in his decision was "There is no right to deny freedom to any object with a mind advanced enough to grasp the concept and desire the state." It was eventually upheld by the World Court.
Sir remained displeased, and his harsh voice made Andrew feel as if he were being short-circuited. "I don't want your damned money, Andrew. I'll take it only because you won't feel free otherwise. From now on, you can select your own jobs and do them as you please. I will give you no orders, except this one: Do as you please. But I am still responsible for you. That's part of the court order. I hope you understand that."
Little Miss interrupted. "Don't be irascible, Dad. The responsibility is no great chore. You know you won't have to do a thing. The Three Laws still hold."
"Then how is he free?"
"Are not human beings bound by their laws, Sir?" Andrew replied.
"I'm not going to argue." Sir left the room, and Andrew saw him only infrequently after that.
Little Miss came to see him frequently in the small house that had been built and made over for him. It had no kitchen, of course, nor bathroom facilities. It had just two rooms; one was a library and one was a combination storeroom and workroom. Andrew accepted many commissions and worked harder as a free robot than he ever had before, till the cost of the house was paid for and the structure was signed over to him.
One day Little Sir- no, "George!"- came. Little Sir had insisted on that after the court decision. "A free robot doesn't call anyone Little Sir," George had said. "I call you Andrew. You must call me George."
His preference was phrased as an order, so Andrew called him George- but Little Miss remained Little Miss.
One day when George came alone, it was to say that Sir was dying. Little Miss was at the bedside, but Sir wanted Andrew as well.
Sir's voice was still quite strong, though he seemed unable to move much. He struggled to raise his hand.
"Andrew," he said, "Andrew- Don't help me, George. I'm only dying; I'm not crippled. Andrew, I'm glad you're free. I just wanted to tell you that."
Andrew did not know what to say. He had never been at the side of someone dying before, but he knew it was the human way of ceasing to function. It was an involuntary and irreversible dismantling, and Andrew did not know what to say that might be appropriate. He could only remain standing, absolutely silent, absolutely motionless.
When it was over, Little Miss said to him, "He may not have seemed friendly to you toward the end, Andrew, but he was old, you know; and it hurt him that you should want to be free."
Then Andrew found the words. "I would never have been free without him, Little Miss."
Only after Sir's death did Andrew begin to wear clothes. He began with an old pair of trousers at first, a pair that George had given him.
George was married now, and a lawyer. He had joined Feingold's firm. Old Feingold was long since dead, but his daughter had carried on. Eventually the firm's name became Feingold and Martin. It remained so even when the daughter retired and no Feingold took her place. At the time Andrew first put on clothes, the Martin name had just been added to the firm.
George had tried not to smile the first time he saw Andrew attempting to put on trousers, but to Andrew's eyes the smile was clearly there. George showed Andrew how to manipulate the static charge to allow the trousers to open, wrap about his lower body, and move shut. George demonstrated on his own trousers, but Andrew was quite aware it would take him a while to duplicate that one flowing motion.
"But why do you want trousers, Andrew? Your body is so beautifully functional it's a shame to cover it especially when you needn't worry about either temperature control or modesty. And the material doesn't cling properly- not on metal."
Andrew held his ground. "Are not human bodies beautifully functional, George? Yet you cover yourselves."
"For warmth, for cleanliness, for protection, for decorativeness. None of that applies to you."
"I feel bare without clothes. I feel different, George," Andrew responded.
"Different! Andrew, there are millions of robots on Earth now. In this region, according to the last census, there are almost as many robots as there are men."
"I know, George. There are robots doing every conceivable type of work."
"And none of them wear clothes."
"But none of them are free, George."
Little by little, Andrew added to his wardrobe. He was inhibited by George's smile and by the stares of the people who commissioned work.
He might be free, but there was built into Andrew a carefully detailed program concerning his behavior to people, and it was only by the tiniest steps that he dared advance; open disapproval would set him back months. Not everyone accepted Andrew as free. He was incapable of resenting that, and yet there was a difficulty about his thinking process when he thought of it. Most of all, he tended to avoid putting on clothes- or too many of them- when he thought Little Miss might come to visit him. She was older now and was often away in some warmer climate, but when she returned the first thing she did was visit him.
On one of her visits, George said, ruefully, "She's got me, Andrew. I'll be running for the legislature next year. `Like grandfather,' she says, `like grandson.'"
"Like grandfather…" Andrew stopped, uncertain.
"I mean that I, George, the grandson, will be like Sir, the grandfather, who was in the legislature once."
"It would be pleasant, George, if Sir were still-" He paused, for he did not want to say, "in working order." That seemed inappropriate.
"Alive;" George said. "Yes, I think of the old monster now and then, too."
Andrew often thought about this conversation. He had noticed his own incapacity in speech when talking with George. Somehow the language had changed since Andrew had come into being with a built-in vocabulary. Then, too, George used a colloquial speech, as Sir and Little Miss had not. Why should he have called Sir a monster when surely that word was not a appropriate. Andrew could not even turn to his own books for guidance. They were old, and most dealt with woodworking, with art, with furniture design. There were none on language, none on the ways of human beings.
Finally, it seemed to him that he must seek the proper books; and as a free robot, he felt he must not ask George. He would go to town and use the library. It was a triumphant decision and he felt his electro potential grow distinctly higher until he had to throw in an impedance coil.
He put on a full costume, including even a shoulder chain of wood. He would have preferred the glitter plastic, but George had said that wood was much more appropriate, and that polished cedar was considerably more valuable as well.
He had placed a hundred feet between himself and the house before gathering resistance brought him to a halt. He shifted the impedance coil out of circuit, and when that did not seem to help enough he returned to his home and on a piece of notepaper wrote neatly, "I have gone to the library," and placed it in clear view on his worktable.
Andrew never quite got to the library.
He had studied the map. He knew the route, but not the appearance of it. The actual landmarks did not resemble the symbols on the map and he would hesitate. Eventually, he thought he must have somehow gone wrong, for everything looked strange.
He passed an occasional field-robot, but by the time he decided he should ask his way none were in sight. A vehicle passed and did not stop.
Andrew stood irresolute, which meant calmly motionless, for coming across the field toward him were two human beings.
He turned to face them, and they altered their course to meet him. A moment before, they had been talking loudly. He had heard their voices. But now they were silent. They had the look that Andrew associated with human uncertainty; and they were young, but not very young. Twenty, perhaps? Andrew could never judge human age.
"Would you describe to me the route to the town library, sirs?"
One of them, the taller of the two, whose tall hat lengthened him still farther, almost grotesquely, said, not to Andrew, but to the other, "It's a robot."
The other had a bulbous nose and heavy eyelids. He said, not to Andrew but to the first, "It's wearing clothes."
The tall one snapped his fingers. "It's the free robot. They have a robot at the old Martin place who isn't owned by anybody. Why else would it be wearing clothes?"
"Ask it," said the one with the nose.
"Are you the Martin robot?" asked the tall one.
"I am Andrew Martin, sir," Andrew said.
"Good. Take off your clothes. Robots don't wear clothes." He said to the other, "That's disgusting. Look at him!"
Andrew hesitated. He hadn't heard an order in that tone of voice in so long that his Second Law circuits had momentarily jammed.
The tall one repeated, "Take off your clothes. I order you."
Slowly, Andrew began to remove them.
"Just drop them," said the tall one.
The nose said, "If it doesn't belong to anyone, it could be ours as much as someone else's."
"Anyway," said the tall one, "who's to object to anything we do. We're not damaging property." tie turned to Andrew. "Stand on your head." "The head is not meant-" Andrew began.
"That's an order. If you don't know how, try anyway."
Andrew hesitated again, then bent to put his head on the ground. He tried to lift his legs but fell, heavily.
The tall one said, "Just lie there." He said to the other, "We can take him apart. Ever take a robot apart?"
"Will he let us?"
"How can he stop us?"
There was no way Andrew could stop them, if they ordered him in a forceful enough manner not to resist The Second Law of obedience took precedence over the Third Law of self-preservation. In any case, he could not defend himself without possibly hurting them, and that would mean breaking the First Law. At that thought, he felt every motile unit contract slightly and he quivered as he lay there.
The tall one walked over and pushed at him with his foot. "He's heavy. I think we'll need tools to do the job."
The nose said, "We could order him to take himself, apart. It would be fun to watch him try."
"Yes," said the tall one, thoughtfully, "but let's get him off the road. If someone comes along-"
It was too late. Someone had, indeed, come along and it was George. From where he lay, Andrew had seen him topping a small rise in the middle distance. He would have liked to signal him in some way, but the last order had been "Just lie there!"
George was running now, and he arrived on the scene somewhat winded. The two young men stepped back a little and then waited thoughtfully.
"Andrew, has something gone wrong?" George asked, anxiously.
Andrew replied, "I am well, George."
"Then stand up. What happened to your clothes?"
"That your robot, Mac?" the tall young man asked.
George turned sharply. "He's no one's robot. What's been going on here."
"We politely asked him to take his clothes off. What's that to you, if you don't own him."
George turned to Andrew. "What were they doing, Andrew?"
"It was their intention in some way to dismember me. They were about to move me to a quiet spot and order me to dismember myself."
George looked at the two young men, and his chin trembled.
The young men retreated no farther. They were smiling.
The tall one said, lightly, "What are you going to do, pudgy? Attack us?"
George said, "No. I don't have to. This robot has been with my family for over seventy-five years. He knows us and he values us more than he values anyone else. I am going to tell him that you two are threatening my life and that you plan to kill me. I will ask him to defend me. In choosing between me and you two, he will choose me. Do you know what will happen to you when he attacks you?"
The two were backing away slightly, looking uneasy.
George said, sharply, "Andrew, I am in danger and about to come to harm from these young men. Move toward them!"
Andrew did so, and the young men did not wait. They ran.
"All right, Andrew, relax," George said. He looked unstrung. He was far past the age where he could face the possibility of a dustup with one young man, let alone two.
"I couldn't have hurt them, George: I could see they were not attacking you."
"I didn't order you to attack them. I only told you to move toward them. Their own fears did the rest."
"How can they fear robots?"
"It's a disease of mankind, one which has not yet been cured. But never mind that. What the devil are you doing here, Andrew? Good thing I found your note. I was just on the point of turning back and hiring a helicopter when I found you. How did you get it into your head to go to the library? I would have brought you any books you needed"
"I am a-" Andrew began.
"Free robot. Yes, yes. All right, what did you want in the library?"
"I want to know more about human beings, about the world, about everything. And about robots, George. I want to write a history about robots."
George put his arm on the other's shoulder. "Well, let's walk home. But pick up your clothes first. Andrew, there are a million books on robotics and all of them include histories of the science. The world is growing saturated not only with robots but with information about robots."
Andrew shook his head, a human gesture he had lately begun to adopt. "Not a history of robotics, George. A history of robots, by a robot. I want to explain how robots feel about what has happened since the first ones were allowed to work and live on Earth."
George's eyebrows lifted, but he said nothing in direct response.
Little Miss was just past her eighty-third birthday, but there was nothing about her that was lacking in either energy or determination. She gestured with her cane oftener than she propped herself up with it.
She listened to the story in a fury of indignation. "George, that's horrible. Who were those young ruffians?"
"I don't know. What difference does it make? In the end they did not do any damage."
"They might have. You're a lawyer, George; and if you're well off, it's entirely due to the talents of Andrew. It was the money he earned that is the foundation of everything we have. He provides the continuity for this family, and I will not have him treated as a wind-up toy."
"What would you have me do, Mother?" George asked.
"I said you're a lawyer. Don't you listen? You set up a test case somehow, and you force the regional courts to declare for robot rights and get the legislature to pass the necessary bills. Carry the whole thing to the World Court, if you have to. I'll be watching, George, and I'll tolerate no shirking."
She was serious, so what began as a way of soothing the fearsome old lady became an involved matter with enough legal entanglement to make it interesting. As senior partner of Feingold and Martin, George plotted strategy. But he left the actual work to his junior partners, with much of it a matter for his son, Paul, who was also a member of the firm and who reported dutifully nearly every day to his grandmother. She, in turn, discussed the case every day with Andrew.
Andrew was deeply involved. His work on his book on robots was delayed again, as he pored over the legal arguments and even, at times, made very diffident suggestions.
"George told me that day I was attacked that human beings have always been afraid of robots," he said one day. "As long as they are, the courts and the legislatures are not likely to work hard on behalf of robots. Should not something be done about public opinion?"
So while Paul stayed in court, George took to the public platform. It gave him the advantage of being informal, and he even went so far sometimes as to wear the new, loose style of clothing which he called drapery.
Paul chided him, "Just don't trip over it on stage, Dad."
George replied, despondently, "I'll try not to."
He addressed the annual convention of holo-news editors on one occasion and said, in part: "If, by virtue of the Second Law, we can demand of any robot unlimited obedience in all respects not involving harm to a human being, then any human being, any human being, has a fearsome power over any robot, any robot. In particular, since Second Law supersedes Third Law; any human being can use the law of obedience to overcome the law of self-protection. He can order any robot to damage itself or even to destroy itself for any reason, or for no reason.
"Is this just? Would we treat an animal so? Even an inanimate object which had given us good service has a claim on our consideration. And a robot is not insensitive; it is not an animal. It can think well enough so that it can talk to us, reason with us, joke with us. Can we treat them as friends, can we work together with them, and not give them some of the fruits of that friendship, some of the benefits of co-working?
"If a man has the right to give a robot any order that does not involve harm to a human being, he should have the decency never to give a robot any order that involves harm to a robot, unless human safety absolutely requires it. With great power goes great responsibility, and if the robots have Three Laws to protect men, is it too much to ask that men have a law or two to protect robots?"
Andrew was right. It was the battle over public opinion that held the key to courts and legislature. In the end, a law was passed that set up conditions under which robot-harming orders were forbidden. It was endlessly qualified and the punishments for violating the law were totally inadequate, but the principle was established. The final passage by the World Legislature came through on the day of Little Miss' death.
That was no coincidence. Little Miss held on to life desperately during the last debate and let go only when word of victory arrived. Her last smile was for Andrew. Her last words were, "You have been good to us, Andrew." She died with her hand holding his, while her son and his wife and children remained at a respectful distance from both.
Andrew waited patiently when the receptionist-robot disappeared into the inner office. The receptionist might have used the holographic chatterbox, but un-questionably it was perturbed by having to deal with another robot rather than with a human being.
Andrew passed the time revolving the matter his mind: Could "unroboted" be used as an analog of "unmanned," or had unmanned become a metaphoric term sufficiently divorced from its original literal meaning to be applied to robots-or to women for that matter? Such problems frequently arose as he worked on his book on robots. The trick of thinking out sentences to express all complexities had undoubtedly increased his vocabulary.
Occasionally, someone came into the room to stare at him and he did not try to avoid the glance. He looked at each calmly, and each in turn looked away.
Paul Martin finally emerged. He looked surprised, or he would have if Andrew could have made out his expression with certainty. Paul had taken to wearing the heavy makeup that fashion was dictating for bath sexes. Though it made sharper and firmer the somewhat bland lines of Paul's face, Andrew disapproved. He found that disapproving of human beings, as long as he did not express it verbally, did not make him very uneasy. He could even write the disapproval. He was sure it had not always been so.
"Come in, Andrew. I'm sorry I made you wait, but there was something I had to finish. Come in, you had said you wanted to talk to me, but I didn't know you meant here in town."
"If you are busy, Paul, I am prepared to continue to wait."
Paul glanced at the interplay of shifting shadows on the dial on the wall that served as timepieces and said, "I can make some time. Did you come alone?"
"I hired an automatobile."
"Any trouble?" Paul asked, with more than a trace of anxiety.
"I wasn't expecting any. My rights are protected."
Paul looked all the more anxious for that. "Andrew, I've explained that the law is unenforceable, at least under most conditions. And if you insist on wearing clothes, you'll run into trouble eventually; just like that first time."
"And only tine, Paul. I'm sorry you are displeased"
"Well, look at it this way: you are virtually a living legend, Andrew, and you are too valuable in many different ways for you to have any right to take chances with yourself. By the way, how's the book coming?"
"I am approaching the end, Paul. The publisher is quite pleased."
"Good!"
"I don't know that he's necessarily pleased with the book as a book. I think he expects to sell many copies because it's written by a robot and that's what pleases him.
"Only human, I'm afraid."
"I am not displeased. Let it sell for whatever reason, since it will mean money and I can use some."
"Grandmother left you-"
"Little Miss was generous, and I'm sure I can count on the family to help me out further. But it is the royalties from the book on which I am counting to help me through the next step."
"What next step is that?"
"I wish to see the head of U.S. Robots and Mechanical Men Corporation. I have tried to make an appointment; but so far I have not been able to reach him. The Corporation did not cooperate with me in the writing of the book, so I am not surprised, you understand."
Paul was clearly amused. "Cooperation is the last thing you can expect. They didn't cooperate with us in our great fight for robot rights. Quite the reverse, and you can see why. Give a robot rights and people may not want to buy them."
"Nevertheless," said Andrew, "if you call them, you may be able to obtain an interview for me."
"I'm no more popular with them than you are, Andrew."
"But perhaps you can hint that by seeing me they may head off a campaign by Feingold and Martin to strengthen the rights of robots further."
"Wouldn't that be a lie, Andrew?"
"Yes, Paul, and I can't tell one. That is why you must call."
"Ah, you can't lie, but you can urge me to tell a lie, is that it? You're getting more human all the time, Andrew."
The meeting was not easy to arrange, even with Paul's supposedly weighted name.
But it finally came about. When it did, Harley Smythe-Robertson, who, on his mother's side, was descended from the original founder of the corporation and who had adopted the hyphenation to indicate it, looked remarkably unhappy. He was approaching retirement age and his entire tenure as president had been devoted to the matter of robot rights. His gray hair was plastered thinly over the top of his scalp; his face was not made up, and he eyed Andrew with brief hostility from time to time.
Andrew began the conversation. "Sir, nearly a century ago, I was told by a Merton Mansky of this corporation that the mathematics governing the plotting of the positronic pathways was far too complicated to permit of any but approximate solutions and that, therefore, my own capacities were not fully predictable."
"That was a century ago." Smythe-Robertson hesitated, then said icily, "Sir. It is true no longer. Our robots are made with precision now and are trained precisely to their jobs."
"Yes," said Paul, who had come along, as he said, to make sure that the corporation played fair, "with the result that my receptionist must be guided at every point once events depart from the conventional, however slightly."
"You would be much more displeased if it were to improvise," Smythe-Robertson said.
"Then you no longer manufacture robots like myself which are flexible and adaptable."
"No longer."
"The research I have done in connection with my book," said Andrew, "indicates that I am the oldest robot presently in active operation."
"The oldest presently," said Smythe-Robertson, "and the oldest ever. The oldest that will ever be. No robot is useful after the twenty-fifth year. They are called in and replaced with newer models."
"No robot as presently manufactured is useful after the twentieth year," said Paul, with a note of sarcasm creeping into his voice. "Andrew is quite exceptional in this respect."
Andrew, adhering to the path he had marked out for himself, continued, "As the oldest robot in the world and the most flexible, am I not unusual enough to merit special treatment from the company?"
"Not at all," Smythe-Robertson said, freezing up. "Your unusualness is an embarrassment to the company. If you were on lease, instead of having been an outright sale through some mischance, you would long since have been replaced."
"But that is exactly the point," said Andrew. "I am a free robot and I own myself. Therefore I come to you and ask you to replace me. You cannot do this without the owner's consent. Nowadays, that consent is extorted as a condition of the lease, but in my time this did not happen."
Smythe-Robertson was looking both startled and puzzled, and for a moment there was silence. Andrew found himself staring at the hologram on the wall. It was a death mask of Susan Calvin, patron saint of all roboticists. She had been dead for nearly two centuries now, but as a result of writing his book Andrew knew, her so well he could half persuade himself that he had met her in life.
Finally Smythe-Robertson asked, "How can I replace you for you? If I replace you, as robot, how can I donate the new robot to you as owner since in the very act of replacement you cease to exist." He smiled grimly.
"Not at all difficult," Paul interposed. "The seat of Andrew's personality is his positronic brain and it is the one part that cannot be replaced without creating a new robot. The positronic brain, therefore, is Andrew the owner. Every other part of the robotic body can be replaced without affecting the robot's personality, and those other parts are the brain's possessions. Andrew, I should say, wants to supply his brain with a new robotic body."
"That's right," said Andrew, calmly. He turned to Smythe-Robertson. "You have manufactured androids, haven't you? Robots that have the outward appearance of humans, complete to the texture of the skin?"
"Yes, we have. They worked perfectly well, with their synthetic fibrous skins and tendons. There was virtually no metal anywhere except for the brain, yet they were nearly as tough as metal robots. They were tougher, weight for weight."
Paul looked interested. "I didn't know that. How many are on the market?"
"None," said Smythe-Robertson. "They were much more expensive than metal models and a market survey showed they would not be accepted. They looked too human."
Andrew was impressed. "But the corporation retains its expertise, I assume. Since it does, I wish to request that I be replaced by an organic robot, an android."
Paul looked surprised. "Good Lord!" he said.
Smythe-Robertson stiffened. "Quite impossible!"
"Why is it impossible?" Andrew asked. "I will pay any reasonable fee, of course."
"We do not manufacture androids."
"You do not choose to manufacture androids," Paul interjected quickly. "That is not the same as being unable to manufacture them."
"Nevertheless," Smythe-Robertson responded, "the manufacture of androids is against public policy."
"There is no law against it," said Paul.
"Nevertheless, we do not manufacture them- and we will not."
Paul cleared his throat. "Mr. Smythe-Robertson," he said, "Andrew is a free robot who comes under the purview of the law guaranteeing robot rights. You are aware of this, I take it?"
"Only too well."
"This robot, as a free robot, chooses to wear clothes. This results in his being frequently humiliated by thoughtless human beings despite the law against the humiliation of robots. It is difficult to prosecute vague offenses that don't meet with the general disapproval of those who must decide on guilt and innocence."
"U.S. Robots understood that from the start. Your father's firm unfortunately did not."
"My father is dead now, but what I see is that we have here a clear offense with a clear target."
"What are you talking about?" said Smythe-Robertson.
"My client, Andrew Martin- he has just become my client- is a free robot who is entitled to ask U.S. Robots and Mechanical Men Corporation for the rights of replacement, which the corporation supplies to anyone who owns a robot for more than twenty-five years. In fact, the corporation insists on such replacement."
Paul was smiling and thoroughly at ease. "The positronic brain of my client," he went on, "is the owner of the body of my client which is certainly more than twenty-five years old. The positronic brain demands the replacement of the body and offers to pay any reasonable fee for an android body as that replacement. If you refuse the request, my client undergoes humiliation and we will sue.
"While public opinion would not ordinarily support the claim of a robot in such a case, may I remind you that U.S. Robots is not popular with the public generally. Even those who most use and profit from robots are suspicious of the corporation. This may be a hangover from the days when robots were widely feared. It may be resentment against the power and wealth of U.S. Robots, which has a worldwide monopoly. Whatever the cause may be, the resentment eats. I think you will find that you would prefer not to be faced with a lawsuit, particularly since my client is wealthy and will live for many more centuries and will have no reason to refrain from fighting the battle forever."
Smythe-Robertson had slowly reddened. "You are trying to force-"
"I force you to do nothing," said Paul. "If you wish to refuse to accede to my client's reasonable request, you may by all means do so and we will leave without another word. But we will sue, as is certainly our right, and you will find that you will eventually lose."
"Well."
"I see that you are going to accede," said Paul. "You may hesitate but you will come to it in the end. Let me assure you, then, of one further point: If, in the process of transferring my client's positronic brain from his present body to an organic one, there is any damage, however slight, then I will never rest until I've nailed the corporation to the ground. I will, if necessary, take every possible step to mobilize public opinion against the corporation if one brain path of my client's platinum-iridium essence is scrambled." He turned to Andrew and asked, "Do you agree to all this, Andrew?"
Andrew hesitated a full minute. It amounted to the approval of lying, of blackmail, of the badgering and humiliation of a human being. But not physical harm, he told himself, not physical harm.
He managed at last to come out with a rather faint "Yes."
He felt as though he were being constructed again. For days, then for weeks, finally for months, Andrew found himself not himself somehow, and the simplest actions kept giving rise to hesitation.
Paul was frantic. "They've damaged you, Andrew. We'll have to institute suit!"
Andrew spoke very slowly. "You- mustn't. You'll never be able to prove- something- like m-m-m-m- "
"Malice?"
"Malice. Besides, I grow- stronger, better. It's the tr- tr- tr- "
"Tremble?"
"Trauma. After all, there's never been such an op-op-op- before."
Andrew could feel his brain from the inside. No one else could. He knew he was well, and during the months that it took him to learn full coordination and full positronic interplay he spent hours before the mirror.
Not quite human! The face was stiff- too stiff and the motions were too deliberate. They lacked the careless, free flow of the human being, but perhaps that might come with time. At least now he could wear clothes without the ridiculous anomaly of a metal face going along with it.
Eventually, he said, "I will be going back to work."
Paul laughed. "That means you are well. What will you be doing? Another book?"
"No," said Andrew, seriously. "I live too long for any one career to seize me by the throat and never let me go. There was a time when I was primarily an artist, and I can still turn to that. And there was a time when I was a historian, and I can still turn to that. But now I wish to be a robobiologist."
"A robopsychologist, you mean."
"No. That would imply the study of positronic brains, and at the moment I lack the desire to do that. A robobiologist, it seems to me, would be concerned with the working of the body attached to that brain."
"Wouldn't that be a roboticist?"
"A roboticist works with a metal body. I would be studying an organic humanoid body, of which I have the only one, as far as I know."
"You narrow your field," said Paul, thoughtfully. "As an artist, all conception is yours; as a historian you deal chiefly with robots; as a robobiologist, you will deal with yourself."
Andrew nodded. "It would seem so."
Andrew had to start from the very beginning, for he knew nothing of ordinary biology and almost nothing of science. He became a familiar sight in the libraries, where he sat at the electronic indices for hours at a time, looking perfectly normal in clothes. Those few who knew he was a robot in no way interfered with him.
He built a laboratory in a room which he added to his house; and his library grew, too.
Years passed, and Paul came to him one day and said, "It's a pity you're no longer working on the history of robots. I understand U.S. Robots is adopting a radically new policy."
Paul had aged, and his deteriorating eyes had been replaced with photoptic cells. In that respect, he had drawn closer to Andrew.
"What have they done?" Andrew asked.
"They are manufacturing central computers, gigantic positronic brains, really, which communicate with anywhere from a dozen to a thousand robots by microwave. The robots themselves have no brains at all. They are the limbs of the gigantic brain, and the two are physically separate."
"Is that more efficient?"
"U.S. Robots claims it is. Smythe-Robertson established the new direction before he died, however, and it's my notion that it's a backlash at you. U.S. Robots is determined that they will make no robots that will give them the type of trouble you have, and for that reason they separate brain and body. The brain will have no body to wish changed; the body will have no brain to wish anything.
"It's amazing, Andrew," Paul went on, "the influence you have had on the history of. robots. It was your artistry that encouraged U.S. Robots to make robots more precise and specialized; it was your freedom that resulted in the establishment of the principle of robotic rights; it was your insistence on an android body that made U.S. Robots switch to brain-body separation"
Andrew grew thoughtful. "I suppose in the end the corporation will produce one vast brain controlling several billion robotic bodies. All the eggs will be in one basket. Dangerous. Not proper at all."
"I think you're right," said Paul, "but I don't suspect it will come to pass for a century at least and I won't live to see it. In fact, I may not live to see next year."
"Paul!" cried Andrew, in concern.
Paul shrugged. "Men are mortal, Andrew. We're not like you. It doesn't matter too much, but it does make it important to assure you on one point. I'm the last of the human Martins. The money I control personally will be left to the trust in your name, and as far as anyone can foresee the future, you will be economically secure."
"Unnecessary," Andrew said, with difficulty. In all this time, he could not get used to the deaths of the Martins.
"Let's not argue. That's the way it's going to be. Now, what are you working on?"
"I am designing a system for allowing androids- myself- to gain energy from the combustion of hydrocarbons, rather than from atomic cells."
Paul raised his eyebrows. "So that they will breathe and eat?"
"Yes."
"How long have you been pushing in that direction?"
"For a long time now, but I think I have finally designed an adequate combustion chamber for catalyzed controlled breakdown."
"But why, Andrew? The atomic cell is surely infinitely better."
"In some ways, perhaps. But the atomic cell is inhuman."
It took time, but Andrew had time. In the first place, he did not wish to do anything till Paul had died in peace. With the death of the great-grandson of Sir, Andrew felt more nearly exposed to a hostile world and for that reason was all the more determined along the path he had chosen.
Yet he was not really alone. If a man had died, the firm of Feingold and Martin lived, for a corporation does not die any more than a robot does.
The firm had its directions and it followed them soullessly. By way of the trust and through the law firm, Andrew continued to be wealthy. In return for their own large annual retainer, Feingold and Martin involved themselves in the legal aspects of the new combustion chamber. But when the time came for Andrew to visit U.S. Robots and Mechanical Men Corporation, he did it alone. Once he had gone with Sir and once with Paul. This time, the third time, he was alone and manlike.
U.S. Robots had changed. The actual production plant had been shifted to a large space station, as had grown to be the case with more and more industries. With them had gone many robots. The Earth itself was becoming park like, with its one-billion-person population stabilized and perhaps not more than thirty percent of its at-least-equally-large robot population independently brained.
The Director of Research was Alvin Magdescu, dark of complexion and hair, with a little pointed beard and wearing nothing above the waist but the breast band that fashion dictated. Andrew himself was well covered in the older fashion of several decades back.
Magdescu offered his hand to his visitor. "I know you, of course, and I'm rather pleased to see you. You're our most notorious product and it's a pity old Smythe-Robertson was so set against you. We could have done a great deal with you."
"You still can," said Andrew.
"No, I don't think so. We're past the time. We've had robots on Earth for over a century, but that's changing. It will be back to space with them, and those that stay here won't be brained."
"But there remains myself, and I stay on Earth."
"True, but there doesn't seem to be much of the robot about you. What new request have you?"
"To be still less a robot. Since I am so far organic, I wish an organic source of energy. I have here the plans-"
Magdescu did not hasten through them. He might have intended to at first, but he stiffened and grew intent. At one point, he said, "This is remarkably ingenious. Who thought of all this?"
"I did," Andrew replied.
Magdescu looked up at him sharply, then said, "It would amount to a major overhaul of your body, and an experimental one, since such a thing has never been attempted before. I advise against it. Remain as you are."
Andrew's face had limited means of expression, but impatience showed plainly in his voice. "Dr. Magdescu, you miss the entire point: You have no choice but to accede to my request. If such devices can be built into my body, they can be built into human bodies as well. The tendency to lengthen human life by prosthetic devices has already been remarked on. There are no devices better than the ones I have designed or am designing. As it happens, I control the patents by way of the firm of Feingold and Martin. We are quite capable of going into business for ourselves and of developing the kind of prosthetic devices that may end by producing human beings with many of the properties of robots. Your own business will then suffer.
"If, however, you operate on me now and agree to do so under similar circumstances in the future, you will receive permission to make use of the patents and control the technology of both robots and of the prosthetization of human beings. The initial leasing will not be granted, of course, until after the first operation is completed successfully, and after enough time has passed to demonstrate that it is indeed successful."
Andrew felt scarcely any First Law inhibition to the stern conditions he was setting a human being. He was learning to reason that what seemed like cruelty might, in the long run, be kindness.
Magdescu was stunned. "I'm not the one to decide something like this. That's a corporate decision that would take time."
"I can wait a reasonable time," said Andrew, "but only a reasonable time." And he thought with satisfaction that Paul himself could not have done it better.
It took only a reasonable time, and the operation was a success.
"I was very much against the operation, Andrew," Magdescu said, "but not for the reasons you might think. I was not in the least against the experiment, if it had been on someone else. I hated risking your positronic brain. Now that you have the positronic pathways interacting with simulated nerve pathways, it might have been difficult to rescue the brain intact if the body had gone bad."
"I had every faith in the skill of the staff at U.S. Robots," said Andrew. "And I can eat now."
"Well, you can sip olive oil. It will mean occasional cleanings of the combustion chamber, as we have explained to you. Rather an uncomfortable touch, I should think."
"Perhaps, if I did not expect to go further. Self cleaning is not impossible. In fact, I am working on a device that will deal with solid food that may be expected to contain incombustible fractions- indigestible matter, so to speak, that will have to be discarded."
"You would then have to develop an anus."
"Or the equivalent."
"What else, Andrew-?"
"Everything else."
"Genitalia, too?"
"Insofar as they will fit my plans. My body is a canvas on which I intend to draw-"
Magdescu waited for the sentence to he completed, and when it seemed that it would not be, he completed it himself. "A man?"
"We shall see," Andrew said.
"That's a puny ambition, Andrew. You're better than a man. You've gone downhill from the moment you opted to become organic."
"My brain has not suffered."
"No, it hasn't. I'll grant you that. But, Andrew, the whole new breakthrough in prosthetic devices made possible by your patents is being marketed under your name. You're recognized as the inventor and you're being honored for it- as you should be. Why play further games with your body?"
Andrew did not answer.
The honors came. He accepted membership in several learned societies, including one that was devoted to the new science he had established- the one he had called robobiology but which had come to be termed prosthetology. On the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of his construction, a testimonial dinner was given in his honor at U.S. Robots. If Andrew saw an irony in this, he kept it to himself.
Alvin Magdescu came out of retirement to chair the dinner. He was himself ninety-four years old and was alive because he, too, had prosthetized devices that, among other things, fulfilled the function of liver and kidneys. The dinner reached its climax when Magdescu, after a short and emotional talk, raised his glass to toast The Sesquicentennial Robot.
Andrew had had the sinews of his face redesigned to the point where he could show a human range of emotions, but he sat through all the ceremonies solemnly passive. He did not like to be a Sesquicentennial Robot.
It was prosthetology that finally took Andrew off the Earth.
In the decades that followed the celebration of his sesquicentennial, the Moon had come to be a world more Earthlike than Earth in every respect but its gravitational pull; and in its underground cities there was a fairly dense population. Prosthetized devices there had to take the lesser gravity into account. Andrew spent five years on the Moon working with local prosthetologists to make the necessary adaptations. When not at his work, he wandered among the robot population, every one of which treated him with the robotic obsequiousness due a man.
He came back to an Earth that was humdrum and quiet in comparison, and visited the offices of Feingold and Martin to announce his return.
The current head of the firm, Simon DeLong, was surprised. "We had been told you were returning, Andrew"- he had almost said Mr. Martin- "but we were not expecting you till next week."
"I grew impatient," said Andrew briskly. He was anxious to get to the point. "On the Moon, Simon, I was in charge of a research team of twenty human scientists. I gave orders that no one questioned. The Lunar robots deferred to me as they would to a human being. Why, then, am I not a human being?"
A wary look entered DeLong's eyes. "My dear Andrew, as you have just explained, you are treated as a human being by both robots and human beings. You are, therefore, a human being de facto."
"To be a human being de facto is not enough. I want not only to be treated as one, but to be legally identified as one. I want to be a human being de jure."
"Now, that is another matter," DeLong said. "There we would run into human prejudice and into the undoubted fact that, however much you may be like a human being, you are not a human being."
"In what way not?" Andrew asked. "I have the shape of a human being and organs equivalent to those of a human being. My organs, in fact, are identical to some of those in a prosthetized human being. I have contributed artistically, literally, and scientifically to human culture as much as any human being now alive. What more can one ask?"
"I myself would ask nothing more. The trouble is that it would take an act of the World Legislature to define you as a human being. Frankly, I wouldn't expect that to happen."
"To whom on the Legislature could I speak?"
"To the Chairman of the Science and Technology Committee, perhaps."
"Can you arrange a meeting?"
"But you scarcely need an intermediary. In your position, you can-"
"No. You arrange it." It didn't even occur to Andrew that he was giving a fiat order to a human being. He had grown so accustomed to that on the Moon. "I want him to know that the firm of Feingold and Martin is backing me in this to the hilt."
"Well, now-"
"To the hilt, Simon. In one hundred and seventy-three years I have in one fashion or another contributed greatly to this firm. I have been under obligation to individual members of the firm in times past. I am not, now. It is rather the other way around now and I am calling in my debts."
"I will- do what I can," DeLong said.
The Chairman of the Science and Technology Committee was from the East Asian region and was a woman. Her name was Chee Li-hsing and her transparent garments- obscuring what she wanted obscured only by their dazzle- made her look plastic-wrapped. "I sympathize with your wish for full human rights," she said. "There have been times in history when segments of the human population fought for full human rights. What rights, however, can you possibly want that you do not have?"
"As simple a thing as my right to life," Andrew stated. "A robot can be dismantled at any time."
"A human being can be executed at any time."
"Execution can only follow due process of law. There is no trial needed for my dismantling. Only the word of a human being in authority is needed to end me. Besides- besides-" Andrew tried desperately to allow no sign of pleading, but his carefully designed tricks of human expression and tone of voice betrayed him here. "The truth is I want to be a man. I have wanted it through six generations of human beings."
Li-hsing looked up at him out of darkly sympathetic eyes. "The Legislature can pass a law declaring you one. They could pass a law declaring that a stone statue be defined as a man. Whether they will actually do so is, however, as likely in the first case as the second. Congress people are as human as the rest of the population and there is always that element of suspicion against robots."
"Even now?"
"Even now. We would all allow the fact that you have earned the prize of humanity, and yet there would remain the fear of setting an undesirable precedent."
"What precedent? I am the only free robot, the only one of my type, and there will never be another. You may consult U.S. Robots."
"`Never' is a long word, Andrew- or, if you prefer, Mr. Martin- since I will gladly give you my personal accolade as man. You will find that most congress people will not be so willing to set the precedent, no matter how meaningless such a precedent might be. Mr. Martin, you have my sympathy, but I cannot tell you to hope. Indeed-"
She sat back and her forehead wrinkled. "Indeed, if the issue grows too heated, there might well arise a certain sentiment, both inside the Legislature and out side, for that dismantling you mentioned. Doing away with you could turn out to be the easiest way of resolving the dilemma. Consider that before deciding to push matters."
Andrew stood firm. "Will no one remember the technique of prosthetology, something that is almost entirely mine?"
"It may seem cruel, but they won't. Or if they do, it will be remembered against you. People will say you did it only for yourself. It will be said it was part of a campaign to roboticize human beings, or to humanify robots; and in either case evil and vicious. You have never been part of a political hate campaign, Mr. Martin; but I tell you that you would be the object of vilification of a kind neither you nor I would credit, and there would be people to believe it all. Mr. Martin, let your life be."
She rose, and next to Andrew's seated figure she seemed small and almost childlike.
"If I decide to fight for my humanity, will you be on my side?"
She thought, then replied, "I will be- insofar as I can be. If at any time such a stand would appear to threaten my political future, I might have to abandon you, since it is not an issue I feel to be at the very root of my beliefs. I am trying to be honest with you."
"Thank you, and I will ask no more. I intend to fight this through, whatever the consequences, and I will ask you for your help only for as long as you can give it."
It was not a direct fight. Feingold and Martin counseled patience and Andrew muttered, grimly, that he had an endless supply of that. Feingold and Martin then entered on a campaign to narrow and restrict the area of combat.
They instituted a lawsuit denying the obligation to pay debts to an individual with a prosthetic heart on the grounds that the possession of a robotic organ removed humanity, and with it the constitutional rights of human beings. They fought the matter skillfully and tenaciously, losing at every step but always in such a way that the decision was forced to be as broad as possible, and then carrying it by way of appeals to the World Court.
It took years, and millions of dollars.
When the final decision was handed down, DeLong held what amounted to a victory celebration over the legal loss. Andrew was, of course, present in the company offices on the occasion.
"We've done two things, Andrew," said DeLong, "both of which are good. First of all, we have established the fact that no number of artificial parts in the human body causes it to cease being a human body. Secondly, we have engaged public opinion in the question in such a way as to put it fiercely on the side of a broad interpretation of humanity, since there is not a human being in existence who does not hope for prosthetics if they will keep him alive."
"And do you think the Legislature will now grant me my humanity?" Andrew asked.
DeLong looked faintly uncomfortable. "As to that, I cannot be optimistic. There remains the one organ which the World Court has used as the criterion of humanity. Human beings have an organic cellular brain and robots have a platinum iridium positronic brain if they have one at all- and you certainly have a positronic brain. No, Andrew, don't get that look in your eye. We lack the knowledge to duplicate the work of a cellular brain in artificial structures close enough to the organic type as to allow it to fall within the court's decision. Not even you could do it."
"What should we do, then?"
"Make the attempt, of course. Congresswoman Li-hsing will be on our side and a growing number of other congress people. The President will undoubtedly go along with a majority of the Legislature in this matter."
"Do we have a majority?"
"No. Far from it. But we might get one if the public will allow its desire for a broad interpretation of humanity to extend to you. A small chance, I admit; but if you do not wish to give up, we must gamble for it."
"I do not wish to give up."
Congresswoman Li-hsing was considerably older than she had been when Andrew had first met her. Her transparent garments were long gone. Her hair was now close-cropped and her coverings were tubular. Yet still Andrew clung, as closely as he could within the limits of reasonable taste, to the style of clothing that had prevailed when he had first adopted clothing more than a century before.
"We've gone as far as we can, Andrew," Li-hsing admitted. "We'll try once more after recess, but, to be honest, defeat is certain and then the whole thing will have to be given up. All my most recent efforts have only earned me certain defeat in the coming congressional campaign."
"I know," said Andrew, "and it distressed me. You said once you would abandon me if it came to that. Why have you not done so?"
"One can change one's mind, you know. Somehow, abandoning you became a higher price than I cared to pay for just one more term. As it is, I've been in the Legislature, for over a quarter of a century. It's enough."
"Is there no way we can change minds, Chee?"
"We've changed all that are amenable to reason. The rest- the majority- cannot be moved from their emotional antipathies."
"Emotional antipathy is not a valid reason for voting one way or the other."
"I know that, Andrew, but they don't advance emotional antipathy as their reason."
"It all comes down to the brain, then," Andrew said cautiously. "But must we leave it at the level of cells versus positrons? Is there no way of forcing a functional definition? Must we say that a brain is made of this or that? May we not say that a brain is something- anything- capable of a certain level of thought?"
"Won't work," said Li-hsing. "Your brain is manmade, the human brain is not. Your brain is constructed, theirs developed. To any human being who is intent on keeping up the barrier between himself and a robot, those differences are a steel wall a mile high and a mile thick."
"If we could get at the source of their antipathy, the very source-"
"After all your years," Li-hsing said, sadly, "you are still trying to reason out the human being. Poor Andrew, don't be angry, but it's the robot in you that drives you in that direction."
"I don't know," said Andrew. "If I could bring myself-"
1 (Reprise)
If he could bring himself-
He had known for a long time it might come to that, and in the end he was at the surgeon's. He had found one, skillful enough for the job at hand- which meant a surgeon- robot, for no human surgeon could be trusted in this connection, either in ability or in intention.
The surgeon could not have performed the operation on a human being, so Andrew, after putting off the moment of decision with a sad line of questioning that reflected the turmoil within himself, had put First Law to one side by saying "I, too, am a robot."
He then said, as firmly as he had learned to form the words even at human beings over these past decades, "I order you to carry through the operation on me."
In the absence of the First Law, an order so firmly given from one who looked so much like a man activated the Second Law sufficiently to carry the day.
Andrew's feeling of weakness was, he was sure, quite imaginary. He had recovered from the- operation. Nevertheless, he leaned, as unobtrusively as he could manage, against the wall. It would be entirely too revealing to sit.
Li-hsing said, "The final vote will come this week, Andrew. I've been able to delay it no longer, and we must lose. And that will be it, Andrew."
"I am grateful for your skill at delay. It gave me the time I needed, and I took the gamble I had to."
"What gamble is this?" Li-hsing asked with open concern.
"I couldn't tell you, or even the people at Feingold and Martin. I was sure I would be stopped. See here, if it is the brain that is at issue, isn't the greatest difference of all the matter of immortality. Who really cares what a brain looks like or is built of or how it was formed. What matters is that human brain cells die, must die. Even if every other organ in the body is maintained or replaced, the brain cells, which cannot be replaced without changing and therefore killing the personality, must eventually die.
"My own positronic pathways have lasted nearly two centuries without perceptible change, and can last for centuries more. Isn't that the fundamental barrier: human beings can tolerate an immortal robot, for it doesn't matter how long a machine lasts, but they cannot tolerate an immortal human being since their own mortality is endurable only so long as it is universal. And for that reason they won't make me a human being."
"What is it you're leading up to, Andrew?" Li-hsing asked.
"I have removed that problem. Decades ago, my positronic brain was connected to organic nerves. Now, one last operation has arranged that connection in such a way that slowly- quite slowly- the potential is being drained from my pathways."
Li-hsing's finely wrinkled face showed no expression for a moment. Then her lips tightened. "Do you mean you've arranged to die, Andrew? You can't have. That violates the Third Law."
"No," said Andrew, "I have chosen between the death of my body and the death of my aspirations and desires. To have let my body live at the cost of the greater death is what would have violated the Third Law."
Li-hsing seized his arm as though she were about to shake him. She stopped herself. "Andrew, it won't work! Change it back."
"It can't be done. Too much damage was done. I have a year to live more or less. I will last through the two-hundredth anniversary of my construction. I was weak enough to arrange that."
"How can it be worth it? Andrew, you're a fool."
"If it brings me humanity, that will be worth it. If it doesn't, it will bring an end to striving and that will be worth it, too."
Then Li-hsing did something that astonished herself. Quietly, she began to weep.
It was odd how that last deed caught the imagination of the world. All that Andrew had done before had not swayed them. But he had finally accepted even death to be human, and the sacrifice was too great to be rejected.
The final ceremony was timed, quite deliberately, for the two hundredth anniversary. The World President was to sign the act and make the people's will law. The ceremony would be visible on a global network and would be beamed to the Lunar state and even to the Martian colony.
Andrew was in a wheelchair. He could still walk, but only shakily.
With mankind watching, the World President said, "Fifty years ago, you were declared The Sesquicentennial Robot, Andrew." After a pause, and in a more solemn tone, he continued, "Today we declare you The Bicentennial Man, Mr. Martin."
And Andrew, smiling, held out his hand to shake that of the President.
Andrew's thoughts were slowly fading as he lay in bed. Desperately he seized at them. Man! He was a man!
He wanted that to be his last thought. He wanted to dissolve- die with that.
He opened his eyes one more time and for one last time recognized Li-hsing, waiting solemnly. Others were there, but they were only shadows, unrecognizable shadows. Only Li-hsing stood out against the deepening gray.
Slowly, inchingly, he held out his hand to her and very dimly and faintly felt her take it.
She was fading in his eyes as the last of his thoughts trickled away. But before she faded completely, one final fugitive thought came to him and rested for a moment on his mind before everything stopped.
"Little Miss," he whispered, too low to be heard.