Quinby was fixing up a real cooked breakfast. He insisted that this was an occasion too noble for swallowing a few concentrates, and he’d rummaged in my freezing storeroom to find what he called “honest food.” It was good eating, but this gnawing thought kept pestering me. At last I excused myself and went into the library. I found the book I wanted: Planetary Civil Code, Volume 34, Robots. I put it in the projector and ran it rapidly over the screen till I located the paragraph I half remembered.
That gnawing was all too well founded. I remembered now. The theory’d always been that this paragraph went into the Code because only Robinc controlled the use of the factor that guaranteed the robots against endangering any intelligent beings, but I’ve always suspected that there were other elements at work. Even Council Members get their paws greased sometimes.
The paragraph read:
259: All robots except those in the military employ of the Empire shall be constructed according to the patents held by Robots Inc., sometimes known as Robinc. Any robot constructed in violation of this section shall be destroyed at once, and all those concerned in constructing him shall be sterilized and segregated.
I read this aloud to the breakfast party. It didn’t add to the cheer of the occasion.
“I knew it was too good to be true,” Mike grunted. “I can just see Robinc leasing its patents to the boys that’ll put it out of business.”
“But our being great business successes isn’t what’s important,” Quinby protested. “Do we really want … could any being of good will really want to become like the heads of Robinc?”
“I do,” said Mike honestly.
“What’s important is what this can do: Cure this present robot epidemic, conserve raw materials in robot building, make possible a new and simpler and more sensible life for everybody. Why can’t we let Robinc take over the idea?”
“Look,” I said patiently. “Quite aside from the unworthy ambitions that Mike and I may hold, what’ll happen if we do? What has always happened when a big company buys out a new method when they’ve got a billion credits sunk in the old? It gets buried and is never heard of again.”
“That’s right,” Quinby sighed. “Robinc would simply strangle it.”
“All right. Now look at it straight and say what is going to become of Quinby’s Usuform Robots.”
“Well,” he said simply, “there’s only one solution. Change the code.”
I groaned. “That’s all, huh? Just that. Change the code. And how do you propose to go about that?”
“See the head of the Council. Explain to him what our idea means to the world—to the system. He’s a good man. He’ll see us through.”
“Dugg,” I said, “when you look at things straight I never know whether you’re going to see an amazing truth or the most amazing nonsense that ever was. Sure the Head’s a good man. If he could do it without breaking too many political commitments, I think he might help out on an idea as big as this. But how to get to see him when—”
“My brother-in-law tried once,” Mike contributed. “He got kind of too persistent. That’s how come he’s in the hospital now. Hey,” he broke off. “Where you going?”
“Come on, Dugg,” I said. “Mike, you spend the day looking around the city for a likely factory site. We’ll meet you around seventeen at the Sunspot. Quinby and I are going to see the Head of the Council.”
We met the first guard about a mile from the office. “Robinc Repair,” I said, and waved my card. After all, I assuaged Quinby’s conscience, I hadn’t actually resigned yet. “Want to check the Head’s robot.”
The guard nodded. “He’s expecting you.”
It hadn’t been even a long shot. With robots in the state they were in, it was practically a certainty that one of those in direct attendance on the Head would need repair. The gag got us through a mile of guards, some robot, some—more than usual since all the trouble—human, and at last into the presence of the Head himself.
The white teeth gleamed in the black face in that friendly grin so familiar in telecasts. “I’ve received you in person,” he said, “because the repair of this robot is such a confidential matter.”
“What are his duties?” I asked.
“He is my private decoder. It is most important that I should have his services again as soon as possible.”
“And what’s the matter with him?”
“Partly what I gather is, by now, almost the usual thing. Paralysis of the legs. But partly more than that: He keeps talking to himself. Babbling nonsense.”
Quinby spoke up. “Just what is he supposed to do?”
The Head frowned. “Assistants bring him every coded or ciphered dispatch. His brain was especially constructed for cryptanalysis. He breaks them down, writes out the clear, and drops it into a pneumatic chute which goes to a locked compartment in my desk.”
“He uses books?”
“For some of the codes. The ciphers are entirely brain-mechanics.”
Quinby nodded. “Can do. Bring us to him.”
The robot was saying to himself, “This is the ponderous time of the decadence of the synaptic reflexes when all curmudgeons wonkle in the withering wallabies.”
Quinby looked after the departing Head. “Some time,” he said, “we’re going to see a Venusian as Interplanetary Head.”
I snorted.
“Don’t laugh. Why, not ten centuries ago people would have snorted just like that at the idea of a black as Head on this planet.
Such narrow stupidity seems fantastic to us now. Our own prejudices will seem just as comical to our great-great-grandchildren.”
The robot said, “Over the larking lunar syllogisms lopes the chariot of funereal ellipses.”
Quinby went to work. After a minute—I was beginning to catch on to this seeing-straight business myself—I saw what he was doing and helped.
This robot needed nothing but the ability to read, to transcribe deciphered messages, and to handle papers and books. His legs had atrophied—that was in line with the other cases. But he was unusual in that he was the rare thing: a robot who had no need at all for communication by speech. He had the power of speech and was never called upon to exercise it; result, he had broken down into this fantastic babbling of nonsense, just to get some exercise of his futile power.
When Quinby had finished, the robot consisted only of his essential cryptanalytic brain, eyes, one arm, and the writer. This last was now a part of the robot’s hookup; so that instead of using his hands to transcribe the message, he thought it directly into the writer. He had everything he needed, and nothing more. His last words before we severed the speech connection were, “The runcible rhythm of ravenous raisins rollers through the rookery rambling and raving.” His first words when the direct connection with the writer was established were, “This feels good. Thanks, boss.”
I went to fetch the Head. “I want to warn you,” I explained to him, “you may be a little surprised by what you see. But please look at it without preconceptions.”
He was startled and silent. He took it well; he didn’t blow up hysterically like Thuringer. But he stared at the new thing for a long time without saying a word. Then he took a paper from his pocket and laid it on the decoding table. The eyes looked at it. The arm reached out for a book and opened it. Then a message began to appear on the writer. The Head snatched it up before it went into the tube, read it, and nodded.
“It works,” he said slowly. “But it’s not a robot any more. It’s … it’s just a decoding machine.”
“A robot,” I quoted, “is any machine equipped with a Zwergenhaus brain and capable of independent action upon the orders or subject to the guidance of an intelligent being. Planetary Code, paragraph num—”
“But it looks so—”
“It works,” I cut in. “And it won’t get paralysis of the legs and it won’t ever go mad and babble about wonkling curmudgeons. Because, you see, it’s a usuform ro
bot.” And I hastily sketched out the Quinby project.
The Head listened attentively. Occasionally he flashed his white grin, especially when I explained why we could not turn the notion over to Robinc. When I was through, he paused a moment and then said at last, “It’s a fine idea you have there. A great idea. But the difficulties are great, too. I don’t need to recount the history of robots to you,” he said, proceeding to do so. How Zwergenhaus’ discovery lay dormant for a century and a half because no one dared upset the economic system by developing it. How the Second War of Conquest so nearly depopulated the earth that the use of robot labor became not only possible but necessary. How our society is now so firmly based on it that the lowest laboring rank possible to a being is foreman. “The Empire is based on robots; robots are Robinc. We can’t fight Robinc.”
“Robinc is slowly using up all our resources of metallic and radioactive ore, isn’t it?” Quinby asked.
“Perhaps. Scaremongers can produce statistics—”
“And our usuforms will use only a fraction of what Robinc’s androids need.”
“A good point. An important one. You have convinced me that android robots are a prime example of conspicuous waste, and this epidemic shows that they are moreover dangerous. But I cannot attempt to fight Robinc now. My position—I shall be frank, gentlemen—my position is too precarious. I have problems of my own.”
“Try Quinby,” I said. “I had a problem and tried him, and he saw through it at once.”
“Saw through it,” the Head observed, “to a far vaster and more difficult problem beyond. Besides, I am not sure if my problem lies in his field. It deals with the question of how to mix a Three Planets cocktail.”
The excitement of our enterprise had made me forget my head. Now it began throbbing again at the memory. “A Three Planets?”
The Head hesitated. “Gentlemen,” he said at last, “I ask your pledge of the utmost secrecy.”
He got it.
“And even with that I cannot give you too many details. But you know that the Empire holds certain mining rights in certain districts of Mars—I dare not be more specific. These rights are essential to maintain our stocks of raw materials. And they are held only on lease, by an agreement which must be renewed quinquennially. It has heretofore been renewed as a matter of course, but the recent rise of the Planetary Party in Mars, which advocates the abolition of all interplanetary contact, makes this coming renewal a highly doubtful matter. Within the next three days I am to confer here with a certain high Martian dignitary, traveling incognito. Upon the result of that conference our lease depends.”
“And the Three Planets?” I asked. “Does the Planetary Party want to abolish them as a matter of principle?”
“Probably,” he smiled. “But this high individual is not a party member, and is devoted to Three Planets. He hates to travel, because only on Mars, he claims, is the drink ever mixed correctly. If I could brighten his trip here by offering him one perfect Three Planets—”
“Guzub!” I cried. “The bartender at the Sunspot. He’s a Martian and the drink is his specialty.”
“I know,” the Head agreed sadly. “Dza … the individual in question once said that your Guzub was the only being on this planet who knew how. Everyone else puts in too much or too little vuzd. But Guzub is an exiled member of the Varjinian Loyalists. He hates everything that the present regime represents. He would never consent to perform his masterpiece for my guest.”
“You could order one at the Sunspot and have it sent here by special—”
“You know that a Three Planets must be drunk within thirty seconds of mixing for the first sip to have its ideal flavor.” “Then—”
“All right,” Quinby said. “You let us know when your honored guest arrives, and we’ll have a Three Planets for him.”
The Head looked doubtful. “If you think you can— A bad one might be more dangerous than none—”
“And if we do,” I interposed hastily, “you’ll reconsider this business of the usuform robots?”
“If this mining deal goes through satisfactorily, I should be strong enough to contemplate facing Robinc.”
“Then you’ll get your Three Planets,” I said calmly, wondering what Quinby had seen straight now.
We met Mike at the Sunspot as arranged. He was drinking a Three Planets. “This is good,” he announced. “This has spacedrive and zoomf to it. You get it other places and—”
“I know,” I said. “Find a site?”
“A honey. Wait’ll I—”
“Hold it. We’ve got to know have we got anything to go on it. Guzub! One Three Planets.”
We watched entranced as he mixed the potion. “Get exactly what he does,” Quinby had said. “Then construct a usuform bartender who’ll be infallible. It’ll satisfy the Martian envoy and at the same time remind the Head of why we’re helping him out.”
But all we saw was a glittering swirl of tentacles. First a flash as each tentacle picked up its burden—one the shaker, one the lid, one the glass, and three others the bottles of rum, margil, and vuzd. Then a sort of spasm that shook all Guzub’s round body as the exact amount of each liquid went in, and finally a gorgeous pinwheel effect of shaking and pouring.
Guzub handed me my drink, and I knew as much as I had before. By the time I’d finished it, I had courage. “Guzub,” I said, “this is wonderful.”
“Zure,” Guzub glurked. “Always I maig id wondervul.”
“Nobody else can make ’em like you, Guz. But tell me. How much vuzd do you put in?”
Guzub made his kind of a shrug. “I dell you, boys, I dunno. Zome dime maybe I wadge myzelv and zee. I juzd go zo! I dunno how mudj.”
“Give me another one. Let’s see you watch yourself.”
“Businezz is good by you, you dring zo many Blanedz? O Gay, ere goes.”
But the whirl stopped in the middle. There was Guzub, all his eyes focused sadly on the characteristic green corkscrew-shaped bottle of vuzd. Twice he started to move that tentacle, then drew it back. At last he made a dash with it.
“Exactly two drops,” Quinby whispered.
Guzub handed over the drink unhappily. “Dry id,” he said.
I did. It was terrible. Too little vuzd, so that you could taste both the heavy sweetness of the rum and the acrid harshness of the margil. I said so.
“I know, boys. Wen I zdob do wadge, id bothers me. No gan do.” I gulped the drink. “Mix up another without watching. Maybe we can tell.”
This one was perfect. And we could see nothing.
The next time he “wadged.” He used precisely four and half drops of vuzd. You tasted nothing but the tart decay of the vuzd itself.
The next time—
But my memory gets a little vague after that. Like I said, I’m whiskey drinker. And four Three Planetses in quick succession—I’m told the party went on till closing hour at twenty-three, after which Guzub accepted Quinby’s invitation to come on and mix for us at my apartment. I wouldn’t know. All I remember is one point where I found a foot in my face. I bit it, decided it wasn’t mine, and stopped worrying about it. Or about anything.
I’m told that I slept thirty-six hours after that party—a whole day and more simply vanished out of my existence. I woke up feeling about twelve and spry for my age, but it took me a while to reconstruct what had been going on.
I was just beginning to get it straightened out when Quinby came in. His first words were, “How would you like a Three Planets?” I suddenly felt like two hundred and twelve, and on an off day at that. Not until I’d packed away a superman-size breakfast did he dare repeat the offer. By then I felt brave. “O. K.,” I said. “But with a whiskey chaser.”
I took one sip and said, “Where’s Guzub? I didn’t know he was staying here too.”
“He isn’t.”
“But this Three Planets— It’s perfect. It’s the McCoy. And
Guzub—”
Quinby opened a door. There sat the first original Quinby Usuform—no remake of a Robinc model, but a brand-new creation. Quinby said, “Three Planets,” and he went into action. He had tentacles, and the motions were exactly like Guzub’s except that he was himself the shaker. He poured the liquids into his maw, joggled about, and then poured them out of a hollow hoselike tentacle.
The televisor jangled. Quinby hastily shifted the ike so as to miss the usuform barkeep, as I answered. The screen showed the Head himself. He’d been there before on telecasts, but this was the real thing.
He didn’t waste time. “Tonight, nineteen thirty,” he said. “I don’t need to explain?”
“We’ll be there,” I choked out.
A special diplomatic messenger brought the pass to admit the two of us and “one robot or robotlike machine” to the Council building. I was thankful for that alternative phrase; I didn’t want to have to argue with each guard about the technical legal definition of a robot.
We were installed in a small room directly off the Head’s private reception room. It was soundproofed and there was no window; no chance of our picking up interplanetary secrets of diplomacy. And there was a bar.
A dream of a bar, a rhapsody of a bar. The vuzd, the rum, the margil were all of brands that you hear about and brood about but never think to see in a lifetime. And there was whiskey of the same caliber.
We had hardly set our usuform facing the bar when a servant came in. He was an android. He said. “The Head says now.” Quinby asked me, “Do you want one?”
I shook my head and selected a bottle of whiskey.
“Two Three Planetses,” Quinby said.
The tentacles flickered, the shaker-body joggled, the hose-tentacle poured. The android took the tray from our usuform. He looked at him with something as close to a mixture of fear, hatred, and envy as his eye cells could express. He went out with the tray.
I turned to Quinby. “We’ve been busy getting ready for this party ever since I woke up. I still don’t understand how you made him into another Guzub.”
There was a click and the room was no longer soundproof. The Head was allowing us to hear the reception of our creation. First his voice came, quiet, reserved and suave. “I think your magnitude would enjoy this insignificant drink. I have been to some slight pains to see that it was worthy of your magnitude’s discriminating taste.”
Adventures in Time and Space Page 64
