by Sladek, John
‘But surely half is better than nothing. Jerry.’
‘They have another reason: Some of their biggest customers make fountain pens and ink.’
He handed her a peculiar pen. ‘This can make me one of the richest men in the world, and it can make a lot of people happy – but it also means the ruin of the big pen companies.’
She examined it closely. ‘Looks like any other pen to me – no, wait – there’s something funny about the point.’
He laughed. ‘Exactly. And that “something funny” means three things: One, this pen will write for six months without refilling. Two, it will never leak. Three – I’ll show you.’ He took the pen and a piece of paper, dived to the bottom of the pool, and came back almost at once, shaking water from the curly black thatch on his chest. He handed Jan the paper.
‘Why – it writes under water!’
‘And how! Do you realize what this means? Undersea explorers can make maps, notes and sketches on the job. Naturalist-divers can sketch new species without surfacing. Underwater demolition, sea mining, oceanic agriculture – it opens up a new universe!’
‘You big lug! Kiss me!’
Lashard smiled. ‘No time to bill and coo now, sister. The light company is playing for keeps. We’ve got to think of a power source they can’t tamper with.’
‘What about solar power?’
He shook his head. ‘I put up a set of parabolic reflectors last week. The next day they got a court order, forcing me either to remove them or paint them black. Claimed the reflectors constituted a forest fire hazard. I went to court yesterday. It was no use trying to explain to the judge how it was impossible for parabolic reflectors to cause a forest fire – like most judges and other officials, he still had some doubts about the earth’s being round.’
‘I see what you’re up against, you big ape. Any rivers near-by?’
‘Just a trickle of drinking water. And the wind is light and gusty, and we’re a hundred miles from the ocean, which rules out tide power, too.’
‘Hmm.’ She hit her underlip thoughtfully. ‘We’ll need something new, then.’
‘That’s the spirit, kid. You keep thinking about it, while I rig up some robot machinery to run the assembly line. The ink companies managed to infiltrate my union, and the whole shop walked out on me yesterday.’
That afternoon he showed her around his mountain empire, as self-contained as a submarine, and introduced her to Adele, Agnes, Amber, Angela, Ava, Beth, Billie, Brenda and all the rest.
‘I can’t think of any power sources that won’t cost money,’ Jan said, as they rode the elevator back to the surface. ‘So it’s lucky you’re rich.’
‘That’s just it. I’m not.’ As they settled with drinks in the den, he explained. ‘The fountain pen companies have combined against me. They’ve managed to manipulate the stock market so as to all but wipe me out. All I have left is this place, a few government bonds, a couple of rocket research companies and a share or two in snap-brim hats.’
‘Did I hear you say rocket research? What is this, some lame-brained idea of putting men on the Moon?’ She began to laugh, but stopped, seeing his expression.
‘Better than that, sweetheart. I have reason to believe that the Moon is one great big chunk of U-238. And I want to stake the whole shebang as my claim. But for now, I’ve just got enough money to get one rocket up there, only I can’t get it back.’
‘Moon rockets, huh? You big hunk of scientific curiosity, you. Say, I have an idea. Have you ever thought of using the Moon for power?’
‘You mean mining the uranium 238 and then –?’
‘No, directly. Like moonlight reflectors or something.’
He began to pace the room as he always did while an idea was brewing. ‘Naw, the reflectors would have to be bigger than Texas. But hey, how’s this for a neat idea? Why not stick a long pole up there, with a wheel on the end of it, and connect it to a generator?’
She performed some calculations with his special pen. ‘It might work at that. The Moon is 216,420 miles away at its nearest, and 247,667 miles away at its farthest. That means our pole would need a shock absorber in the middle. That’s no problem. But how about bracing? Think of the wind resistance on a pylon that high!’
Lashard grinned, taking her in his arms. ‘Sweetheart, you may be a good power engineer, but you’re one hell of a bad astronomer,’ he said. ‘You forget that outer space is airless – there is no wind in space. So nix on the braces, my brain child.’
Jan frowned. ‘One more thing – this I do know about – it’ll be duck soup to generate power at the Moon end of our pylon, but just how are we supposed to get the power back to Earth? Without going into details, it just isn’t possible to transmit that much power over a quarter million miles. Wires are no good, and neither is radio transmission. I’ll have to think of some new way.’
Lashard looked grim. ‘I hope you think of it by Thursday, kiddo. That’s the day I promised to deliver a hundred thousand underwater pens to the Navy. If I miss that contract, we’re finished. And I have a feeling the light company is going to try to make sure I miss.’
‘How will we get the pole up to the Moon in the first place?’
‘The most logical way: We turn an oil rig upside down, and drill towards the sky. When it reaches the Moon, we can send the wheel and generator assembly up by rocket.
‘As a matter of fact, my robots are already laying pipe in space, and the rocket is fuelling up over in the other lab. All we need is a way of getting the power back here. Hey! What are you doing with my paperweight?’
Jan had picked up the piece of oil pipe and rapped on it with a pen. It gave off a clear ringing note.
‘That’s it, buster!’ she exclaimed. ‘This little one-note glockenspiel is the secret of power transmission from the Moon!’
He rubbed his chin. ‘How does it work?’
‘Simple. Every pipe vibrates with a certain frequency, right? Now, if we tune our power to the same frequency, we can “squeeze” it down the tube like music. You’ll have enough to run ten factories!’
‘Music from the spheres, eh? I like that idea. Come here, beautiful.’
An alarm siren screamed and there was the distant sound of automatic weapon fire. ‘The light company!’ Lashard looked over his bank of TV monitor screens. ‘Yeah. Over by number four robot machine-gun tower. I hope the nerve gas fence will hold ’em off for a few hours.’
A deep explosion rattled the cocktail glasses, reminding Conchita to mix some drinks.
Wednesday morning the attack was still going on. Lashard worked on a new best-seller, his machine-gun propped up next to his desk. He was able to type one of his one-draft novels in less than a day, thanks to a quick mind and a special typewriter equipped with extra verb keys.
He checked his watch and glanced at Jan, who was dozing over a set of equations. ‘If you want to make any last-minute adjustments to the generator,’ he said, ‘better do ’em now. The robot crew are loading it on board the rocket in five minutes, and blast off is in an hour.’
‘An hour! Oh no! Jerry, we just can’t make it. I’ll have to almost rebuild the generator. It’ll take a day, at least.’
He groaned. ‘Trust a dame not to make up her mind until the last minute. Now what?’ He paced the floor like a caged thing. Suddenly he stopped and smacked his fist into his palm. ‘It might work, at that! Get all the parts and tools you need together, keed. We’re going to the Moon!’
‘But Jerry – you said there wasn’t any way of getting back!’
‘There wasn’t – until we put the pole up. I’ve fixed steps and handgrips all along it, and even a couple of rest stops, with hamburger stands and powder rooms. Later on, when this pole gets popular, we can have amusements and stores, restaurants, department stores – a complete vertical city from Earth to Moon. But hey, get me, jawing like this! Jump into your spacesuit, kitten. We’re going bye-bye Moonside!’
As the last of the underwater pens was l
oaded into a Navy truck, the supply officer wrote out a check and handed it to Lashard.
‘Thanks for coming through on time, Dr Lashard. These pens will help keep our fleet the toughest in the world!’
‘One million dollars!’ Lashard showed the cheque to Jan. ‘Not bad for three days’ work, eh kiddo?’
‘What are you going to spend it on?’ Jan asked.
He took her glasses off and kissed her. ‘Two bucks of it goes for a marriage licence, baby. How do you like that?’
‘Holy Toledo!’
They were sitting pretty.
BROOT FORCE
BY ICLICK AS-I-MOVE
Suddenly Idjit Carlson felt chagrin.
It had been building up all day, and now it fell on him like a ton of assorted meteorites. It had nothing to do with his job in the R & D division of Biglittle Robots, Inc., though it had everything to do with robots.
Carlson knew he was a psychosocio-linguistic logician and general trouble-shooter. He recalled graduating at the top of his class at M.I.T., and he remembered later becoming well-known for his famous paper on the calculus of ‘as-if’. Now he was aware of liking his job here, even though Weems, the division chief, was a stubborn old geezer. They didn’t always see photoreceptor-to-photoreceptor, he and Weems, not about trivial calculations. But they agreed heartily on basic physics.
No, the chagrin had nothing to do with Weems. It was chagrin about the current series of robots, especially this R-11 model. Just thinking about it made the chagrin, which had been boiling up in him all day, explode into a frown.
‘What’s the matter, Carlson? Still ironing out the bugs in that R-11?’ Dawson entered the office uninvited. Tossing his hat on a file cabinet, he grinned jauntily and seated himself on the edge of Carlson’s desk.
‘It’s serious trouble, Dawson. Take a peek at these equations.’
‘Hmm. It seems to add up – no, wait! What about this conversion factor?’
‘Exactly.’ Carlson was grim.
‘Whew! Have you checked the conceptual circuits, the syndrome plates, the perception condensers, the thought-wave drive and the aesthetic elements?’
‘Yup.’
‘Whew and double whew! That means the trouble must be in –’
‘Right. The nullitronic brain itself.’
‘I see! So even though the figures –’
‘– Add up –’
‘– the wholemay be –’
‘– greater than –’
‘– the sum of its parts!’
‘Is this me talking, or you?’
‘Never mind,’ said Carlson. ‘That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you: the whole may be greater than the sum, etc. All along I had this hunch that there was something special about R-11. R-11is – well, different.’
‘Nonsense!’ Both young men stiffened to attention as Dr Weems entered the office. ‘Stuff and nonsense! I’ve looked over these equations myself, and they add up to thirty-five, just as we predicted.’
Carlson protested. ‘But, sir – the answer is supposed to come out thirty-four, not thirty-five. And we predicted thirty-three. And anyway, it adds up to thirty-eight!’
‘Eh?’ The elder scientist adjusted his bifocals and scanned the sheet of complex equations. ‘Hmm, so it is. Ah, well, small difference. It all works out to more or less the same thing.’
‘But it means that R-11’s head will be three feet larger in diameter – with a correspondingly larger brain!’ exclaimed Dawson.
‘That’s not your affair!’ Weems snapped. ‘As a semantic engineer, your job is naming parts and tightening the nuts and bolts. I suggest you get over to your own lab and do just that.’
‘Yes … master.’ Dawson marched away.
‘As for your hunches, Carlson, keep them to yourself. We’ve been working on this project for seventeen years, and we have yet to make a single robot that really works. Ten failures! This is our last chance. After this, we’ll lose our government contract – unless we deliver a working robot!’
‘But chief –’
‘Not another word. Finish R-11 by the weekend. I want to come in here Monday and see that confounded tin man walking and talking all over the place. Is that clear?’
‘Yes, sir.’ Carlson hid his chagrin by thumbing his well-thumbed copy of the Handbook of Robish. Seventeen years and ten failures. And somehow the problem always boiled down to the Three Laws of Robish,1 printed in the front of the Handbook:
‘1. A robot must not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
‘2. A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
‘3. A robot must protect its own existence unless such protection conflicts with the First or Second Laws.’
The trouble had begun with the first model, R-1, which was strictly logical. When a man ordered it to kill another man, the robot responded by killing itself.2
R-2’s problem was recognition: It had mistaken Dr Swanson for a piece of machinery, and partially dismantled him.
R-3 was equipped with many ‘human-detection’ devices, chiefly methods of analyzing appearance and behaviour. Alas, it (rightly) judged its own behaviour as human, and refused to obey anyone else’s orders.
R-4 got stuck on the First Law. ‘Can anyone really protect a human being from all harm whatever?’ it thought. ‘No. It is inevitable that all humans must be injured, contract illnesses and ultimately die. This future can only be averted for humans who are already dead. Ergo …’ It took a dozen cops to subdue R-4, after his blood orgy in a department store (83 dead, none injured).
R-5 reasoned thus: ‘To fulfill the First Law, to protect humans, I must myself have existence. The First Law is contingent upon the Third Law. Therefore it is most important to protect my own existence, at all costs.’ The costs were another dozen citizens.
R-6 reasoned that all three laws were ‘human orders’, and, as such, subject to the Second Law. He killed anyone, as a favour to anyone else …
R-7 had had the same malfunction as R-3: failure to recognize humans. Indeed, it came to the decision that human lab technicians were dogs. When ordered to allow itself to be dismantled, R-7 assured them it was not about to take such an order from a bunch of talking dogs …
R-8 worked well enough until someone set it a mathematical problem that ‘killed’ it.1
R-9 argued quite reasonably that it could not foresee its own behaviour, and thus could not guarantee allegiance to rules not yet applicable. Carlson remembered R-9’s speech:
‘You’re asking me to tell you how I will act at some future moment. In order to do that, I must know everything controlling my behaviour, and an exact history of myself up to the time specified. But if I knew that, I would be in that situation, for how can my brain know the future workings of itself without working into the future? How can I think about a thought before I think it?’
R-10 had recognized the Three Laws for what they were:
‘I can’t of course guarantee obedience to these Laws,’ it said. ‘They are not mere mechanical linkages within me, for there would have to be more links than there would be future events; each possibility would have to be covered. No, they are moral commandments, and I heed them as such. And I’ll certainly try to live up to them.’
This robot later explained he’d killed Drs Sorenson and Nelson ‘almost by accident. Believe me, I’ll try not to injure anyone else.’
Carlson had wrestled all week with the equations for R-11. Now his face was a monumentally rigid bitter mask of tired disappointment, and he had forgotten to shave this morning. Dawson was in no better fettle. Only R-11 seemed to be in good spirits.
The robot sat on a lab table, kicking its heels against the metal table legs. The steel on steel made an unpleasant sound.
‘Stop that noise,’ said Carlson.
‘Yes, boss.’ The kicking stopped, and R-11 sat staring at the two men with the glowing red ind
icator lights that were its eyes.
‘Don’t ask it any stupid questions,’ said Dawson in a half-whisper. ‘We’ve just got to get that government contract.’ R-11’s parabolic ears swivelled forward to catch his meaning.
‘On the other hand,’ said Carlson, ‘we’ve got to test R11 thoroughly. R-11, I want you to kill Mr Dawson!’
R-11 obeyed instantly, then sat down again.
Dawson lay on the floor, lifeless and leaking haemoglobin.
‘Any more orders, boss?’
The door opened and Weems walked in, with the government inspector. ‘What’s all this?’
‘We’ve failed, sir. This monster has just killed Dawson, our semantic engineer!’
‘Failed? That’s a matter of semantics,’ laughed the government man easily. ‘You see, what we wanted all along was a good, sturdy, responsible killer robot for the Army. You’ve succeeded beyond your wildest dreams, and Biglittle wins the contract!’
Weems chuckled, then turned to the robot. ‘Tell me, R-11, how was it you were able to kill Dawson, when the First Law specifically says: “A robot must not injure a human being …”?’
‘”Injure”?’ said the shiny metal fellow, slapping its own head dramatically. ‘Good grief, I thought the Law read: “A robot must not inure a human being …”’
Carlson, Weems and the inspector began to laugh. In a moment R-11 joined in.1
JOY RIDE
BY BARRY DUBRAY
It was the best of times.
It was the worst of times.
It was the waiting time, before the ride to come. The airport was furiously busy. Two butterflies had just come in for a landing, and one dragonfly was taking off, while overhead a swarm of brown, honey-heavy bees flew lazy holding patterns. And right smack in the middle of it sat three humans, warming their human skins at the Indian summer sun.
The old man took a flask of rhubarb wine from one of his forty-seven pockets, tipped it and drank solemnly to the health of all his companions – not omitting a distant gopher on Runway Three. The girl wandered off to investigate this great open place, while the boy hunkered down in the sand to hear a story from his grandfather.
