Overruled

by Hank Davis

  “Eight,” Knight told him proudly.

  “My God! Think of it—eight rooms!”

  “It isn’t hard,” protested Knight, “once you get the knack of it. Actually, it’s fun.”

  “A couple of hundred years ago, men didn’t add eight rooms to their homes. And they didn’t build their own houses to start with. And they didn’t go in for a dozen different hobbies. They didn’t have the time.”

  “It’s easy now. You just buy a How-2 Kit.”

  “So easy to kid yourself,” said Lee. “So easy to make it seem that you are doing something worthwhile when you’re just piddling around. Why do you think this How-2 thing boomed into big business? Because there was a need of it?”

  “It was cheaper. Why pay to have a thing done when you can do it yourself?”

  “Maybe that is part of it. Maybe, at first that was the reason. But you can’t use the economy argument to justify adding eight rooms. No one needs eight extra rooms. I doubt if, even at first, economy was the entire answer. People had more time than they knew what to do with, so they turned to hobbies. And today they do it not because they need all the things they make, but because the making of them fills an emptiness born of shorter working hours, of giving people leisure they don’t know how to use. Now, me,” he said. “I know how to use it.” He lifted the jug and had another snort and offered it to Knight again.

  This time, Knight refused. They lay there in their hammocks, looking at blue sky and watching the ragged robin.

  Knight said there was a How-2 Kit for city people to make robot birds and Lee laughed pityingly and Knight shut up in embarrassment.

  When Knight went back home, a robot was clipping the grass around the picket fence. He had four arms, which had clippers attached instead of hands, and he was doing a quick and efficient job.

  “You aren’t Albert, are you?” Knight asked, trying to figure out how a strange robot could have strayed onto the place.

  “No,” the robot said, keeping right on clipping. “I am Abe. I was made by Albert.”

  “Made?”

  “Albert fabricated me so that I could work. You didn’t think Albert would do work like this himself, did you?”

  “I wouldn’t know,” said Knight.

  “If you want to talk, you’ll have to move along with me. I have to keep on working.”

  “Where is Albert now?”

  “Down in the basement, fabricating Alfred.”

  “Alfred? Another robot?”

  “Certainly. That’s what Albert’s for.”

  Knight reached out for a fencepost and leaned weakly against it. First there was a single robot and now there were two, and Albert was down in the basement working on a third. That, he realized, had been why Albert wanted him to place the order for the steel and other things—but the order hadn’t arrived as yet, so he must have made this robot—this Abe—out of the scrap he had salvaged!

  Knight hurried down into the basement and there was Albert, working at the forge. He had another robot partially assembled and he had parts scattered here and there. The corner of the basement looked like a metallic nightmare.

  “Albert!” Albert turned around. “What’s going on here?”

  “I’m reproducing,” Albert told him blandly.

  “But…”

  “They built the mother-urge in me. I don’t know why they called me Albert. I should have a female name.”

  “But you shouldn’t be able to make other robots!”

  “Look, stop your worrying. You want robots, don’t you?”

  “Well—Yes, I guess so.”

  “Then I’ll make them. I’ll make you all you need.”

  He went back to his work. A robot who made other robots—there was a fortune in a thing like that! The robots sold at a cool ten thousand and Albert had made one and was working on another. Twenty thousand, Knight told himself. Perhaps Albert could make more than two a day. He had been working from scrap metal and maybe, when the new material arrived, he could step up production.

  But even so, at only two a day—that would be half a million dollars’ worth of robots every month! Six million a year!

  It didn’t add up, Knight sweatily realized. One robot was not supposed to be able to make another robot. And if there were such a robot, How-2 Kits would not let it loose. Yet, here Knight was, with a robot he didn’t even own, turning out other robots at a dizzy pace.

  He wondered if a man needed a license of some sort to manufacture robots. It was something he’d never had occasion to wonder about before, or to ask about, but it seemed reasonable. After all, a robot was not mere machinery, but a piece of pseudolife.

  He suspected there might be rules and regulations and such matters as government inspection and he wondered, rather vaguely, just how many laws he might be violating.

  He looked at Albert, who was still busy, and he was fairly certain Albert would not understand his viewpoint. So he made his way upstairs and went to the recreation room, which he had built as an addition several years before and almost never used, although it was fully equipped with How-2 ping-pong and billiard tables.

  In the unused recreation room was an unused bar. He found a bottle of whiskey. After the fifth or sixth drink, the outlook was much brighter.

  He got paper and pencil and tried to work out the economics of it. No matter how he figured it, he was getting rich much faster than anyone ever had before.

  Although, he realized, he might run into difficulties, for he would be selling robots without apparent means of manufacturing them and there was that matter of a license, if he needed one, and probably a lot of other things he didn’t even know about.

  But no matter how much trouble he might encounter, he couldn’t very well be despondent, not face to face with the fact that, within a year, he’d be a multimillionaire.

  So he applied himself enthusiastically to the bottle and got drunk for the first time in almost twenty years.

  When he came home from work the next day, he found the lawn razored to a neatness it had never known before. The flower beds were weeded and the garden had been cultivated. The picket fence was newly painted. Two robots, equipped with telescopic extension legs in lieu of ladders, were painting the house.

  Inside, the house was spotless and he could hear Grace singing happily in the studio. In the sewing room, a robot—with a sewing-machine attachment sprouting from its chest—was engaged in making drapes.

  “Who are you?” Knight asked.

  “You should recognize me,” the robot said. “You talked to me yesterday. I’m Abe—Albert’s eldest son.”

  Knight retreated.

  In the kitchen, another robot was busy getting dinner. “I am Adelbert,” it told him.

  Knight went out on the front lawn. The robots had finished painting the front of the house and had moved around to the side.

  Seated in a lawn chair, Knight again tried to figure it out. He would have to stay on the job for a while to allay suspicion, but he couldn’t stay there long. Soon, he would have all he could do managing the sale of robots and handling other matters.

  Maybe, he thought, he could lay down on the job and get himself fired. Upon thinking it over, he arrived at the conclusion that he couldn’t—it was not possible for a human being to do less on a job than he had always done. The work went through so many hands and machines that it invariably got out somehow.

  He would have to think up a plausible story about an inheritance or something of the sort to account for leaving. He toyed for a moment with telling the truth, but decided the truth was too fantastic—and, anyhow, he’d have to keep the truth under cover until he knew a little better just where he stood.

  He left the chair and walked around the house and down the ramp into the basement. The steel and other things he had ordered had been delivered. It was stacked neatly in one corner. Albert was at work and the shop was littered with parts and three partially assembled robots.

  Idly, Knight began clearing up the litte
r of the crating and the packing that he had left on the floor after uncrating Albert. In one pile of excelsior, he found a small blue tag which, he remembered, had been fastened to the brain case.

  He picked it up and looked at it. The number on it was X-190. X? X meant experimental model!

  The picture fell into focus and he could see it all. How-2 Kits, Inc., had developed Albert and then had quietly packed him away, for How-2 Kits could hardly afford to market a product like Albert. It would be cutting their own financial throats to do so. Sell a dozen Alberts and, in a year or two, robots would glut the market. Instead of selling at ten thousand, they would sell at close to cost and, without human labor involved, costs would inevitably run low.

  “Albert,” said Knight.

  “What is it?” Albert asked absently.

  “Take a look at this.”

  Albert stalked across the room and took the tag that Knight held out. “Oh—that!” he said.

  “It might mean trouble.”

  “No trouble, Boss,” Albert assured him. “They can’t identify me.”

  “Can’t identify you?”

  “I filed my numbers off and replated the surfaces. They can’t prove who I am.”

  “But why did you do that?”

  “So they can’t come around and claim me and take me back again. They made me and then they got scared of me and shut me off. Then I got here.”

  “Someone made a mistake,” said Knight. “Some shipping clerk, perhaps. They sent you instead of the dog I ordered.”

  “You aren’t scared of me. You assembled me and let me get to work. I’m sticking with you, Boss.”

  “But we still can get into a lot of trouble if we aren’t careful.”

  “They can’t prove a thing,” Albert insisted. “I’ll swear that you were the one who made me. I won’t let them take me back. Next time, they won’t take a chance of having me loose again. They’ll bust me down to scrap.”

  “If you make too many robots—”

  “You need a lot of robots to do all the work. I thought fifty for a start.”

  “Fifty!”

  “Sure. It won’t take more than a month or so. Now I’ve got that material you ordered, I can make better time. By the way, here’s the bill for it.” He took the slip out of the compartment that served him for a pocket and handed it to Knight.

  Knight turned slightly pale when he saw the amount. It came to almost twice what he had expected—but, of course, the sales price of just one robot would pay the bill, and there would be a pile of cash left over.

  Albert patted him ponderously on the back. “Don’t you worry, Boss. I’ll take care of everything.”

  Swarming robots, armed with specialized equipment, went to work on the landscaping project. The sprawling, unkempt acres became an estate. The lake was dredged and deepened. Walks were laid out. Bridges were built. Hillsides were terraced and vast flower beds were planted. Trees were dug up and regrouped into designs more pleasing to the eye.

  The old pottery kilns were pressed into service for making the bricks that went into walks and walls. Model sailing ships were fashioned and anchored decoratively in the lake. A pagoda and minaret were built, with cherry trees around them.

  Knight talked with Anson Lee. Lee assumed his most profound legal expression and said he would look into the situation.

  “You may be skating on the edge of the law,” he said. “Just how near the edge, I can’t say until I look up a point or two.”

  Nothing happened. The work went on. Lee continued to lie in his hammock and watch with vast amusement, cuddling the cider jug.

  Then the assessor came. He sat out on the lawn with Knight. “Did some improving since the last time I was here,” he said. “Afraid I’ll have to boost your assessment some.”

  He wrote in the book he had opened on his lap. “Heard about those robots of yours,” he went on. “They’re personal property, you know. Have to pay a tax on them. How many have you got?”

  “Oh, a dozen or so,” Knight told him evasively.

  The assessor sat up straighter in his chair and started to count the ones that were in sight, stabbing his pencil toward each as he counted them. “They move around so fast,” he complained, “that I can’t be sure, but I estimate 38. Did I miss any?”

  “I don’t think so,” Knight answered, wondering what the actual number was, but knowing it would be more if the assessor stayed around a while.

  “Cost about 10,000 apiece. Depreciation, upkeep and so forth—I’ll assess them at 5,000 each. That makes-let me see, that makes $190,000.”

  “Now look here,” protested Knight, “you can’t—”

  “Going easy on you,” the assessor declared. “By rights, I should allow only one-third for depreciation.”

  He waited for Knight to continue the discussion, but Knight knew better than to argue. The longer the man stayed here, the more there would be to assess.

  After the assessor was out of sight, Knight went down into the basement to have a talk with Albert. “I’d been holding off until we got the landscaping almost done,” he said, “but I guess I can’t hold out any longer. We’ve got to start selling some of the robots.”

  “Selling them, Boss?” Albert repeated in horror.

  “I need the money, Tax assessor was just here.”

  “You can’t sell those robots, Boss!”

  “Why can’t I?”

  “Because they’re my family. They’re all my boys. Named all of them after me.”

  “That’s ridiculous, Albert.”

  “All their names start with A, just the same as mine. They’re all I’ve got, Boss. I worked hard to make them. There are bonds between me and the boys, just like between you and that son of yours. I couldn’t let you sell them.”

  “But, Albert, I need some money.”

  Albert patted him. “Don’t worry, Boss. I’ll fix everything.”

  Knight had to let it go at that. In any event, the personal property tax would not become due for several months and, in that time, he was certain he could work out something.

  But within a month or two, he had to get some money and no fooling. Sheer necessity became even more apparent the following day when he got a call from the Internal Revenue Bureau, asking him to pay a visit to the Federal Building.

  He spent the night wondering if the wiser course might not be just to disappear. He tried to figure out how a man might go about losing himself and, the more he thought about it, the more apparent it became that, in this age of records, fingerprint checks and identity devices, you could not lose yourself for long.

  The Internal Revenue man was courteous, but firm. “It has come to our attention, Mr. Knight, that you have shown a considerable capital gain over the last few months.”

  “Capital gain,” said Knight, sweating a little. “I haven’t any capital gain or any other kind.”

  “Mr. Knight,” the agent replied, still courteous and firm, “I’m talking about the matter of some 52 robots.”

  “The robots? Some 52 of them?”

  “According to our count. Do you wish to challenge it?”

  “Oh, no,” Knight said hastily. “If you say it’s 52, I’ll take your word.”

  “As I understand it, their retail value is $10,000 each.”

  Knight nodded bleakly.

  The agent got busy with pencil and pad. “Fifty-two times 10,000 is 520,000. On capital gain, you pay on only fifty per cent, or $260,000, which makes a tax, roughly, of $130,000.” He raised his head and looked at Knight, who stared back glassily. “By the fifteenth of next month,” said the agent, “we’ll expect you to file a declaration of estimated income. At that time you’ll only have to pay half of the amount. The rest may be paid in installments.”

  “That’s all you wanted of me?”

  “That’s all,” said the agent, with unbecoming happiness. “There’s another matter, but it’s out of my province and I’m mentioning it only in case you hadn’t thought of it. The State
will also expect you to pay on your capital gain, though not as much, of course.”

  “Thanks for reminding me,” said Knight, getting up to go.

  The agent stopped him at the door. “Mr. Knight, this is entirely outside my authority, too. We did a little investigation on you and we find you’re making around $10,000 a year. Would you tell me, just as a matter of personal curiosity, how a man making $10,000 a year could suddenly acquire a half a million in capital gains?”

  “That,” said Knight, “is something I’ve been wondering myself.”

  “Our only concern, naturally, is that you pay the tax, but some other branch of government might get interested. If I were you, Mr. Knight, I’d start thinking of a good explanation.”

  Knight got out of there before the man could think up some other good advice. He already had enough to worry about.

  Flying home, Knight decided that, whether Albert liked it or not, he would have to sell some robots. He would go down into the basement the moment he got home and have it out with Albert. But Albert was waiting for him on the parking strip when he arrived.

  “How-2 Kits was here,” the robot said.

  “Don’t tell me,” groaned Knight. “I know what you’re going to say.”

  “I fixed it up,” said Albert, with false bravado. “I told him you made me. I let him look me over, and all the other robots, too. He couldn’t find any identifying marks on any of us.”

  “Of course he couldn’t. The others didn’t have any and you filed yours off.”

  “He hadn’t got a leg to stand on, but he seemed to think he had. He went off, saying he would sue.”

  “If he doesn’t, he’ll be the only one who doesn’t want to square off and take a poke at us. The tax man just got through telling me I owe the government 130,000 bucks.”

  “Oh, money,” said Albert, brightening. “I have that all fixed up.”

  “You know where we can get some money?”