The Shipshape Miracle: And Other Stories

by Clifford D. Simak

  “The court has been wearied with this case from the start,” the judge told him. “But this is a bar of justice and you are entitled to attempt to prove what you have stated. You will excuse me if I say that to me it seems a bit far-fetched.”

  “Your Honor, I shall do my utmost to disabuse you of that attitude.”

  “All right, then,” said the judge. “Let’s get down to business.”

  It lasted six full weeks and the country ate it up. The newspapers splashed huge headlines across page one. The radio and the television people made a production out of it. Neighbor quarreled with neighbor and argument became the order of the day—on street corners, in homes, at clubs, in business offices. Letters to the editor poured in a steady stream into newspaper offices.

  There were public indignation meetings, aimed against the heresy that a robot was the equal of a man, while other clubs were formed to liberate the robots. In mental institutions, Napoleons, Hitlers and Stalins dropped off amazingly, to be replaced by goose-stepping patients who swore they were robots.

  The Treasury Department intervened. It prayed the court, on economic grounds, to declare once and for all that robots were property. In case of an adverse ruling, the petition said, robots could not be taxed as property and the various governmental bodies would suffer heavy loss of revenue.

  The trial ground on.

  Robots are possessed of free will. An easy one to prove. A robot could carry out a task that was assigned to it, acting correctly in accordance with unforeseen factors that might arise. Robot judgment in most instances, it was shown, was superior to the judgment of a human.

  Robots had the power of reasoning. Absolutely no question there.

  Robots could reproduce. That one was a poser. All Albert did, said How-2 Kits, was the job for which he had been fabricated. He reproduced, argued Lee. He made robots in his image. He loved them and thought of them as his family. He had even named all of them after himself—every one of their names began with A.

  Robots had no spiritual sense, argued the plaintiff. Not relevant, Lee cried. There were agnostics and atheists in the human race and they still were human.

  Robots had no emotions. Not necessarily so, Lee objected. Albert loved his sons. Robots had a sense of loyalty and justice. If they were lacking in some emotions, perhaps it were better so. Hatred, for one. Greed, for another. Lee spent the better part of an hour telling the court about the dismal record of human hatred and greed.

  He took another hour to hold forth against the servitude in which rational beings found themselves.

  The papers ate it up. The plaintiff lawyers squirmed. The court fumed. The trial went on.

  “Mr. Lee,” asked the court, “is all this necessary?”

  “Your Honor,” Lee told him, “I am merely doing my best to prove the point I have set out to prove—that no illegal act exists such as my client is charged with. I am simply trying to prove that the robot is not property and that, if he is not property, he cannot be stolen. I am doing…”

  “All right,” said the court. “All right. Continue, Mr. Lee.”

  How-2 Kits trotted out citations to prove their points. Lee volleyed other citations to disperse and scatter them. Abstruse legal language sprouted in its fullest flowering, obscure rulings and decisions, long forgotten, were argued, haggled over, mangled.

  And, as the trial progressed, one thing was written clear. Anson Lee, obscure attorney-at-law, had met the battery of legal talent arrayed against him and had won the field. He had the law, the citations, the chapter and the verse, the exact precedents, all the facts and logic which might have bearing on the case, right at hand.

  Or, rather, his robots had. They scribbled madly and handed him their notes. At the end of each day, the floor around the defendant’s table was a sea of paper.

  The trial ended. The last witness stepped down off the stand. The last lawyer had his say.

  Lee and the robots remained in town to await the decision of the court, but Knight flew home.

  It was a relief to know that it was all over and had not come out as badly as he had feared. At least he had not been made to seem a fool and thief. Lee had saved his pride—whether Lee had saved his skin, he would have to wait to see.

  Flying fairly high, Knight saw his home from quite a distance off and wondered what had happened to it. it was ringed about with what looked like tall poles. And squatting out on the lawn were a dozen or more crazy contraptions that looked like rocket launchers.

  He brought the flier in and hovered, leaning out to see.

  The poles were all of twelve feet high and they carried heavy wire to the very top, fencing in the place with a thick web of steel. And the contraptions on the lawn had moved into position. All of them had the muzzles of their rocket launchers aimed at him. He gulped a little as he stared down the barrels.

  Cautiously, he let the flier down and took up breathing once again when he felt the wheels settle on the strip. As he crawled out, Albert hurried around the corner of the house to meet him.

  “What’s going on around here?” he asked the robot.

  “Emergency measures,” Albert said. “That’s all it is, Boss. We’re ready for any situation.”

  “Like what?”

  “Oh, a mob deciding to take justice in its hands, for instance.”

  “Or if the decision goes against us?”

  “That, too, Boss.”

  “You can’t fight the world.”

  “We won’t go back,” said Albert. “How-2 Kits will never lay a hand on me or any of my children.”

  “To the death!” Knight jibed.

  “To the death!” said Albert gravely. “And we robots are awfully tough to kill.”

  “And those animated shotguns you have running around the place?”

  “Defense forces, Boss. They can down anything they aim at. Equipped with telescopic eyes keyed into calculators and sensors, and the rockets themselves have enough rudimentary intelligence to know what they are going after. It’s not any use trying to dodge, once one of them gets on your tail. You might just as well sit quiet and take it.”

  Knight mopped his brow. “You’ve got to give up this idea, Albert. They’d get you in an hour. One bomb…”

  “It’s better to die, Boss, than to let them take us back.”

  Knight saw it was no use.

  After all, he thought, it was a very human attitude. Albert’s words had been repeated down the entire course of human history.

  “I have some other news,” said Albert, “something that will please you. I have some daughters now.”

  “Daughters? With the mother-urge?”

  “Six of them,” said Albert proudly. “Alice and Angeline and Agnes and Agatha and Alberta and Abigail. I didn’t make the mistake How-2 Kits made with me. I gave them female names.”

  “And all of them are reproducing?”

  “You should see those girls! With seven of us working steady, we ran out of material, so I bought a lot more of it and charged it. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Albert,” said Knight, “don’t you understand I’m broke? Wiped out. I haven’t got a cent. You’ve ruined me.”

  “On the contrary, Boss, we’ve made you famous. You’ve been all over the front pages and on television.”

  Knight walked away from Albert and stumbled up the front steps and let himself into the house. There was a robot, with a vacuum cleaner for an arm, cleaning the rug. There was a robot, with brushes instead of fingers, painting the woodwork—and very neatly, too. There was a robot, with scrub-brush hands, scouring the fireplace bricks.

  Grace was singing in the studio.

  He went to the studio door and looked in.

  “Oh, it’s you,” she said. “When did you get back, dear? I’ll be out in an hour or so. I’m working on this seascape and the water is so stub
born. I don’t want to leave it right now. I’m afraid I’ll lose the feel of it.”

  Knight retreated to the living room and found himself a chair that was not undergoing immediate attention from a robot.

  “Beer,” he said, wondering what would happen.

  A robot scampered out of the kitchen—a barrel-bellied robot with a spigot at the bottom of the barrel and a row of shiny copper mugs on his chest.

  He drew a beer for Knight. It was cold and it tasted good.

  Knight sat and drank the beer and, through the window, he saw that Albert’s defense force had taken up strategic positions again.

  This was a pretty kettle of fish. If the decision went against him and How-2 Kits came to claim its property, he would be sitting smack dab in the middle of the most fantastic civil war in all of mankind’s history. He tried to imagine what kind of charge might be brought against him if such a war erupted. Armed insurrection, resisting arrest, inciting to riot—they would get him on one charge or another—that is, of course, if he survived.

  He turned on the television set and leaned back to watch.

  A pimply-faced newscaster was working himself into a journalistic lather. “…all business virtually at a standstill. Many industrialists are wondering, in case Knight wins, if they may not have to fight long, costly legal actions in an attempt to prove that their automatic setups are not robots, but machines. There is no doubt that much of the automatic industrial system consists of machines, but in every instance there are intelligent robotic units installed in key positions. If these units are classified as robots, industrialists might face heavy damage suits, if not criminal action, for illegal restraint of person.

  “In Washington, there are continuing consultations. The Treasury is worried over the loss of taxes, but there are other governmental problems causing even more concern. Citizenship, for example. Would a ruling for Knight mean that all robots would automatically be declared citizens?

  “The politicians have their worries, too. Faced with a new category of voters, all of them are wondering how to go about the job of winning the robot vote.”

  Knight turned it off and settled down to enjoy another bottle of beer.

  “Good?” asked the beer robot.

  “Excellent,” said Knight.

  The days went past. Tension built up.

  Lee and the lawyer robots were given police protection. In some regions, robots banded together and fled into the hills, fearful of violence. Entire automatic systems went on strike in a number of industries, demanding recognition and bargaining right. The governors in half a dozen states put the militia on alert. A new show, Citizen Robot, opened on Broadway and was screamed down by the critics, while the public bought up tickets for a year ahead.

  The day of decision came.

  Knight sat in front of his television set and waited for the judge to make his appearance. Behind him, he heard the bustle of the ever-present robots. In the studio, Grace was singing happily. He caught himself wondering how much longer her painting would continue. It had lasted longer than most of her other interests and he’d talked a day or two before with Albert about building a gallery to hang her canvases in, so the house would be less cluttered up.

  The judge came onto the screen. He looked, thought Knight, like a man who did not believe in ghosts and then had seen one.

  “This is the hardest decision I have ever made,” he said tiredly, “for, in following the letter of the law, I fear I may be subverting its spirit.

  “After long days of earnest consideration of both the law and evidence as presented in this case, I find for the defendant, Gordon Knight.

  “And, while the decision is limited to that finding alone, I feel it is my clear and simple duty to give some attention to the other issue which became involved in this litigation. The decision, on the face of it, takes account of the fact that the defense proved robots are not property, therefore cannot be owned and that it thus would have been impossible for the defendant to have stolen one.

  “But in proving this point to the satisfaction of this court, the precedent is set for much more sweeping conclusions. If robots are not property, they cannot be taxed as property. In that case, they must be people, which means that they may enjoy all the rights and privileges and be subjected to the same duties and responsibilities as the human race.

  “I cannot rule otherwise. However, the ruling outrages my social conscience. This is the first time in my entire professional life that I have ever hoped that some higher court, with a wisdom greater than my own, may see fit to reverse my decision!”

  Knight got up and walked out of the house and into the hundred-acre garden, its beauty marred at the moment by the twelve-foot fence.

  The trial had ended perfectly. He was free of the charge brought against him, and he did not have to pay the taxes, and Albert and the other robots were free agents and could do anything they wanted.

  He found a stone bench and sat down upon it and stared out across the lake. It was beautiful, he thought, just the way he had dreamed it—maybe even better than that—the walks and bridges, the flower beds and rock gardens, the anchored model ships swinging in the wind on the dimpling lake.

  He sat and looked at it and, while it was beautiful, he found he was not proud of it, that he took little pleasure in it.

  He lifted his hands out of his lap and stared at them and curved his fingers as if he were grasping a tool. But they were empty. And he knew why he had no interest in the garden and no pleasure in it.

  Model trains, he thought. Archery. A mechano-biologic dog. Making pottery. Eight rooms tacked onto the house.

  Would he ever be able to console himself again with a model train or an amateurish triumph in ceramics? Even if he could, would he be allowed to?

  He rose slowly and headed back to the house. Arriving there, he hesitated, feeling useless and unnecessary.

  He finally took the ramp down into the basement.

  Albert met him at its foot and threw his arms around him. “We did it, Boss! I knew we would do it!”

  He pushed Knight out to arm’s length and held him by the shoulders. “We’ll never leave you, Boss. We’ll stay and work for you. You’ll never need to do another thing. We’ll do it all for you!”

  “Albert—”

  “That’s all right, Boss. You won’t have to worry about a thing. We’ll lick the money problem. We’ll make a lot of lawyer robots and we’ll charge good stiff fees.”

  “But don’t you see…”

  “First, though,” said Albert, “we’re going to get an injunction to preserve our birthright. We’re made of steel and glass and copper and so forth, right? Well, we can’t allow humans to waste the matter we’re made of—or the energy, either, that keeps us alive. I tell you, Boss, we can’t lose!”

  Sitting down wearily on the ramp. Knight faced a sign that Albert had just finished painting. It read, in handsome gold lettering, outlined sharply in black:

  Anson, Albert, Abner

  Angus & Associates

  Attorneys at Law

  “And then, Boss,” said Albert, “we’ll take over How-2 Kits, Inc. They won’t be able to stay in business after this. We’ve got a double-barreled idea, Boss. We’ll build robots. Lots of robots. Can’t have too many, I always say. And we don’t want to let you humans down, so we’ll go on manufacturing How-2 Kits—only they’ll be pre-assembled to save you the trouble of putting them together. What do you think of that as a start?”

  “Great,” Knight whispered.

  “We’ve got everything worked out, Boss. You won’t have to worry about a thing the rest of your life.”

  “No,” said Knight. “Not a thing.”

  The Shipshape Miracle

  “Cheviot Sherwood” is likely the most unusual name Cliff Simak ever contrived for one of his (human) characters—perhaps that is because al
though Cliff sometimes portrayed his protagonists as having rough edges to their personalities, this is likely the one he was most uncomfortable with.

  One of Cliff’s journals shows that he sent a story entitled “Miracle” to his agent in April 1962; I think this is that story. It appeared in the January 1963 issue of Worlds of If.

  In Space, space is always at a premium …

  —dww

  If Cheviot Sherwood ever had believed in miracles, he believed in them no longer. He had no illusions now. He knew exactly what he faced.

  His life would come to an end on this uninhabited backwoods planet and there’d be none to mourn him, none to know. Not, he thought, that there would be any mourners, under any circumstances. Although there were those who would be glad to see him, who would come running if they knew where he might be found.

  These were people, very definitely, that Sherwood had no desire to see.

  His great, one might say his overwhelming, desire not to see them could account in part for his present situation, since he had taken off from the last planet of record without filing flight plans and lacking clearance.

  Since no one knew where he might have headed and since his radio was junk, there was no likelihood at all that anyone would find him—even if they looked, which would be a matter of some doubt. Probably the most that anyone would do would be to send out messages to other planets to place authorities on the alert for him.

  And since his spaceship, for the lack of a certain valve for which he had no replacement, was not going anywhere, he was stuck here on this planet.

  If that had been all there had been to it, it might not have been so bad. But there was a final irony that under other circumstances (if it had been happening to someone else, let’s say), would have kept Sherwood in stitches of forthright merriment for hours on end at the very thought of it. But since he was the one involved, there was no merriment.