by Isaac Asimov
I think the master made the technician sorry he had said that, but I don’t know why. If my master asked me to write his stories for him I would be pleased to do so.
Again, I don’t know how long it took the technician to do his job when he came back a couple of days later. I don’t remember a thing about it.
Then my master was suddenly talking to me. “How do you feel, Cal?”
I said, “I feel very well. Thank you, sir.” “What about words. Can you spell?”
“I know the letter-combinations, sir.”
“Very good. Can you read this?” He handed me a book. It said, on the cover, The Best Mysteries of J. F. Northrop.
I said, “Are these your stories, sir?”
“Absolutely. If you want to read them, you can.”
I had never been able to read easily before, but now as soon as I looked at the words, I could hear them in my ear. It was surprising. I couldn’t imagine how I had been unable to do it before.
“Thank you, sir,” I said. “I shall read this and I’m sure it will help me in my writing.” “Very good. Continue to show me everything you write.”
The master’s stories were quite interesting. He had a detective who could always understand matters that others found puzzling. I didn’t always understand how he could see the truth of a mystery and I had to read some of the stories over again and do so slowly.
Sometimes I couldn’t understand them even when I read them slowly. Sometimes I did, though, and it seemed to me I could write a story like Mr. Northrop’s.
This time I spent quite a long while working it out in my head. When I thought I had it worked out, I wrote the following:
The Shiny Quarter
by Euphrosyne Durando
Calumet Smithson sat in his arm chair, his eagle-eyes sharp and the nostrils of his thin high-bridged nose flaring, as though he could scent a new mystery.
He said, “Well, Mr. Wassell, tell me your story again from the beginning. Leave out nothing, for one can’t tell when even the smallest detail may not be of the greatest importance.”
Wassell owned an important business in town, and in it he employed many robots and also human beings.
Wassell did so, but there was nothing startling in the details at all and he was able to summarize it this way. “What it amounts to, Mr. Smithson, is that I am losing money. Someone in my employ is helping himself to small sums now and then. The sums are of no great importance, each in itself, but it is like a small, steady oil loss in a machine, or the drip-drop of water from a leaky faucet, or the oozing of blood from a small wound. In time, it would mount up and become dangerous.”
“Are you actually in danger of losing your business, Mr. Smithson?” “Not yet. But I don’t like to lose money, either. Do you?”
“No, indeed,” said Smithson, “I do not. How many robots do you employ in your business?”
“Twenty-seven, sir.”
“And they are all reliable, I suppose.”
“Undoubtedly. They could not steal. Besides, I have asked each one of them if they took any money and they all said they had not. And, of course, robots cannot lie, either.”
“You are quite right,” said Smithson. “It is useless to be concerned over robots. They are honest, through and through. What about the human beings you employ? How many of them are there?”
“I employ seventeen, but of these only four can possibly have been stealing.”
“Why is that?”
“The others do not work on the premises. These four, however, do. Each one has the occasion, now and then, to handle petty cash, and I suspect that what happens is that at least one of them manages to transfer assets from the company to his private account in such a way that the matter is not easily traced.”
“I see. Yes, it is unfortunately true that human beings may steal. Have you confronted your suspects with the situation?”
“Yes, I have. They all deny any such activity, but, of course, human beings can lie, too.” “So they can. Did any of them look uneasy while being questioned?”
“All did. They could see I was a furious man who could fire all four, guilty or innocent. They would have had trouble finding other jobs if fired for such a reason.”
“Then that cannot be done. We must not punish the innocent with the guilty.”
“You are quite right,” said Mr. Wassell. “I couldn’t do that. But how can I decide which one is guilty?”
“Is there one among them who has a dubious record, who has been fired under uncertain circumstances earlier in his career?”
“I have made quiet inquiries, Mr. Smithson, and I have found nothing suspicious about any of them.”
“Is one of them in particular need of money?” “I pay good wages.”
“I am sure of that, but perhaps one has some sort of expensive taste that makes his income insufficient.”
“I have found no evidence of that, though, to be sure, if one of them needed money for some perverse reason, he would keep it secret. No one wants to be thought evil.”
“You are quite right,” said the great detective. “In that case, you must confront me with the four men. I will interrogate them.” His eyes flashed. “We will get to the bottom of this mystery, never fear. Let us arrange a meeting in the evening. We might meet in the company dining room over some small meal and a bottle of wine, so the men will feel completely relaxed. Tonight, if possible.”
“I will arrange it,” said Mr. Wassell, eagerly.
Calumet Smithson sat at the dinner table and regarded the four men closely. Two of them were quite young and had dark hair. One of them had a mustache as well. Neither was very good looking. One of them was Mr. Foster and the other was Mr. Lionell. The third man was rather fat and had small eyes. He was Mr. Mann. The fourth was tall and rangy and had a nervous way of cracking his knuckles. He was Mr. Ostrak.
Smithson seemed to be a little nervous himself as he questioned each man in turn. His eagle eyes narrowed as he gazed sharply at the four suspects and he played with a shiny quarter that flipped casually between the fingers of his right hand.
Smithson said, “I'm sure that each of the four of you is quite aware what a terrible thing it is to steal from an employer.” They all agreed at once.
Smithson tapped the shiny quarter on the table, thoughtfully. “One of you, I'm sure, is going to break down under the load of guilt and I think you will do it before the evening is over.
But, for now, I must call my office. I will be gone for only a few minutes. Please sit here and wait for me and while I am gone, do not talk to each other, or look at each other.”
He gave the quarter a last tap, and, paying no attention to it, he left. In about ten minutes, he was back.
He looked from one to another and said, “You did not talk to each other or look at each other, I hope?”
There was a general shaking of heads as though they were still fearful of speaking. “Mr. Wassell,” said the detective. “Do you agree that no one spoke?”
“Absolutely. We just sat here quietly and waited. We didn’t even look at each other.”
“Good. Now I will ask each one of you four men to show me what you have in your pockets. Please put everything into a pile in front of you.”
Smithson’s voice was so compelling, his eyes so bright and sharp, that none of the men thought of disobeying.
“Shirt pockets, too. Inside jacket pockets. All the pockets.”
There was quite a pile, credit cards, keys, spectacles, pens, some coins. Smithson looked at the four piles coldly, his mind taking in everything.
Then he said, “Just to make sure that we are all meeting the same requirements, I will make a pile of the contents of my own pockets and, Mr. Wassell, you do the same.”
Now there were six piles. Smithson reached over to the pile in front of Mr. Wassell, and said, “What is this shiny quarter I see, Mr. Wassell. Yours?”
Wassell looked confused. “Yes.”
“It couldn’t be. It has
my mark on it. I left it on the table when I went out to call my office. You took it.”
Wassell was silent. The other four men looked at him.
Smithson said, “I felt that if one of you was a thief, you wouldn’t be able to resist a shiny quarter. Mr. Wassell, you’ve been stealing from your own company, and, afraid you would be caught, you tried to spread the guilt among your men. That was a wicked and cowardly thing to do.”
Wassell hung his head. “You are right, Mr. Smithson. I thought if I hired you to investigate you would find one of the men guilty, and then perhaps I could stop taking the money for my private use.”
“You little realize the detective’s mind,” said Calumet Smithson. “I will turn you over to the authorities. They will decide what to do with you, though if you are sincerely sorry and promise never to do it again, I will try to keep you from being punished badly.”
The End
I showed it to Mr. Northrop, who read it silently. He hardly smiled at all. Just in one or two places. Then he put it down and stared at me. “Where did you get the name Euphrosyne Durando?”
“You said, sir, I was not to use my own name, so I used one as different as possible.” “But where did you get it?”
“Sir, one of the minor characters in one of your stories-”
“Of course! I thought it sounded familiar! Do you realize it's a feminine name? “ “Since I am neither masculine nor feminine-”
“Yes, you're quite right. But the name of the detective, Calumet Smithson. That 'Cal' part is still you, isn't it?”
“I wanted some connection, sir.” “You've got a tremendous ego, Cal.”
I hesitated. “What does that mean, sir?” “Never mind. It doesn't matter.”
He put the manuscript down and I was troubled. I said, “But what did you think of the mystery?”
“It's an improvement, but it's still not a good mystery. Do you realize that?” “In what way is it disappointing, sir?”
“Well, you don't understand modern business practices or computerized financing for one thing.
And no one would take a quarter from the table with four other men present, even if they weren't looking. It would have been seen. Then, even if that happened, Mr. Wassell's taking it isn't proof he was the thief.
Anyone could pocket a quarter automatically, without thinking. It's an interesting indication, but it's not proof. And the title of the story tends to give it away, too.”
“I see.”
“And, in addition, the Three Laws of Robotics are still getting in your way. You keep worrying about punishment.”
“I must, sir.”
“I know you must. That's why I think you shouldn't try to write crime stories.” “What else should I write, sir? “
“Let me think about it.”
Mr. Northrop called in the technician again. This time, I think, he wasn't very eager to have me overhear what he was saying, but even from where I was standing, I could hear the conversation. Sometimes human beings forget how sharp the senses of robots can be.
After all, I was very upset. I wanted to be a writer and I didn’t want Mr. Northrop telling me what
I could write and what I couldn’t write. Of course, he was a human being and I had to obey him, but I didn’t like it.
“What’s the matter now, Mr. Northrop?” asked the technician in a voice that sounded sardonic to my ears. “Has this robot of yours been writing a story again?”
“Yes, he has,” said Mr. Northrop, trying to sound indifferent. “He’s written another mystery story and I don’t want him writing mysteries.”
“Too much competition, eh, Mr. Northrop?”
“No. Don’t be a jackass. There’s just no point in two people in the same household writing mysteries. Besides, the Three Laws of Robotics get in the way. You can easily imagine how.”
“Well, what do you want me to do?”
“I’m not sure. Suppose he writes satire. That’s one thing I don’t write, so we won’t be competing, and the Three Laws of Robotics won’t get in his way. I want you to give this robot a sense of the ridiculous.”
“A sense of the what?” said the technician, angrily. “How do I do that? Look, Mr. Northrop, be reasonable. I can put in instructions on how to run a Writer. I can put in a dictionary and grammar. But how can I possibly put in a sense of the ridiculous?”
“Well, think about it. You know the workings of a robot’s brain patterns. Isn’t there some way of readjusting him so that he can see what’s funny, or silly, or just plain ridiculous about human beings?”
“I can fool around, but it’s not safe.” “Why isn’t it safe?”
“Because, look, Mr. Northrop, you started off with a pretty cheap robot, but I’ve been making it more elaborate. You admit that it’s unique and that you never heard of one that wants to write stories, so now it’s a pretty expensive robot. You may even have a Classic model here that should be given to the Robotic Institute. If you want me to fool around, I might spoil the whole thing. Do you realize that?”
“I’m willing to take the chance. If the whole thing is spoiled, it will be spoiled, but why should it be? I’m not asking you to work in a hurry. Take the time to analyze it carefully. I have lots of time and lots of money, and I want my robot to write satire.” “Why satire?”
“Because then his lack of worldly knowledge may not matter so much and the Three Laws won’t be so important and in time, some day, he may possibly turn out something interesting, though I doubt it.” “And he won’t be treading on your turf.”
“All right, then. He won’t be treading on my turf. Satisfied?”
I still didn’t know enough about the language to know what ‘treading on my turf’ meant, but I gathered that Mr. Northrop was annoyed by my mystery stories. I didn’t know why.
There was nothing I could do, of course. Every day, the technician studied me and analyzed me and finally, he said, “ All right, Mr. Northrop, I’m going to take a chance, but I’m going to ask you to sign a paper absolving me and my company of all responsibility if anything goes wrong.” “You just prepare the paper. I’ll sign it,” said Mr. Northrop.
It was very chilling to think that something might go wrong, but that’s how things are. A robot must accept all that human beings decide to do.
This time, after I became aware of everything again, I was quite weak for a long time. I had difficulty standing, and my speech was slurred.
I thought that Mr. Northrop looked at me with a worried expression. Perhaps he felt guilty at how he had treated me-he should feel guilty-or perhaps he was just worried at the possibility of having lost a great deal of money.
As my sense of balance returned and my speech became clear, an odd thing happened. I suddenly understood how silly human beings were. They had no laws governing their actions. They had to make up their own, and even when they did, nothing forced them to obey.
Human beings were simply confused; one had to laugh at them. I understood laughter now and could even make the sound, but naturally I didn’t laugh out loud. That would have been impolite and offensive. I laughed inside myself, and I began to think of a story in which human beings did have laws governing their actions but they hated them and couldn’t stick to them.
I also thought of the technician and decided to put him into the story, too. Mr. Northrop kept going to the technician and asking him to do things to me, harder and harder things. Now he had given me a sense of the ridiculous.
So suppose I wrote a story about ridiculous human beings, with no robots present because, of course, robots aren’t ridiculous and their presence would simply spoil the humor. And suppose I put in a person who was a technician of human beings. It might be some creature with strange powers who could alter human behavior as my technician could alter robot behavior. What would happen in that case?
It might show clearly how human beings were not sensible.
I spent days thinking about the story and getting happier and happier about it. I wo
uld start with two men having dinner, and one of them would own a technician-well, have a technician of some sort-and
I would place the setting in the twentieth century so as not to offend Mr. Northrop and the other people of the twenty-first.
I read books to learn about human beings. Mr. Northrop let me do this and he hardly ever gave me any tasks to do. Nor did he try to hurry me to write. Maybe he still felt guilty about the risk he had taken of doing me harm.
I finally started the story, and here it is:
Perfectly Formal
by Euphrosyne Durando
George and I were dining at a rather posh restaurant, one in which it was not unusual to see men and women enter in formal wear.
George looked up at one of those men, observing him narrowly and without favor, as he wiped his lips with my napkin, having carelessly dropped his own.
“A pox on all tuxedos, say I,” said George.
I followed the direction of his glance. As nearly as I could tell, he was studying a portly man of about fifty who was wearing an intense expression of self-importance as he helped a rather glittering woman, considerably younger than himself, to her chair.
I said, “George, are you getting ready to tell me that you know yon bloke in the tux?”
“No,” said George. “I intend to tell you no such thing. My communications with you, and with all living beings, are always predicated on total truth.”
“Like your tales of your two-centimeter demon, Az-“ The look of agony on his face made me stop.
“Don’t speak of such things,” he whispered hoarsely. “Azazel has no sense of humor, and he has a powerful sense of power.” Then, more normally, he went on, “I was merely expressing my detestation of tuxedos, particularly when infested by fat slobs like yon bloke, to use your own curious turn of expression.”
“Oddly enough,” I said, “I rather agree with you. I, too, find formal wear objectionable and, except when it is impossible to do so, I avoid all black-tie affairs, for that reason alone.”
