Asimov's Future History Volume 3

by Isaac Asimov

  Andrew was right. It was the battle over public opinion that held the key to courts and legislature. In the end, a law was passed that set up conditions under which robot-harming orders were forbidden. It was endlessly qualified and the punishments for violating the law were totally inadequate, but the principle was established. The final passage by the World Legislature came through on the day of Little Miss’ death.

  That was no coincidence. Little Miss held on to life desperately during the last debate and let go only when word of victory arrived. Her last smile was for Andrew. Her last words were, “You have been good to us, Andrew.” She died with her hand holding his, while her son and his wife and children remained at a respectful distance from both.

  12

  ANDREW WAITED PATIENTLY when the receptionist-robot disappeared into the inner office. The receptionist might have used the holographic chatterbox, but un-questionably it was perturbed by having to deal with another robot rather than with a human being.

  Andrew passed the time revolving the matter his mind: Could “unroboted” be used as an analog of “unmanned,” or had unmanned become a metaphoric term sufficiently divorced from its original literal meaning to be applied to robots — or to women for that matter? Such problems frequently arose as he worked on his book on robots. The trick of thinking out sentences to express all complexities had undoubtedly increased his vocabulary.

  Occasionally, someone came into the room to stare at him and he did not try to avoid the glance. He looked at each calmly, and each in turn looked away.

  Paul Martin finally emerged. He looked surprised, or he would have if Andrew could have made out his expression with certainty. Paul had taken to wearing the heavy makeup that fashion was dictating for bath sexes. Though it made sharper and firmer the somewhat bland lines of Paul’s face, Andrew disapproved. He found that disapproving of human beings, as long as he did not express it verbally, did not make him very uneasy. He could even write the disapproval. He was sure it had not always been so.

  “Come in, Andrew. I’m sorry I made you wait, but there was something I had to finish. Come in, you had said you wanted to talk to me, but I didn’t know you meant here in town.”

  “If you are busy, Paul, I am prepared to continue to wait.”

  Paul glanced at the interplay of shifting shadows on the dial on the wall that served as timepieces and said, “I can make some time. Did you come alone?”

  “I hired an automatobile.”

  “Any trouble?” Paul asked, with more than a trace of anxiety.

  “I wasn’t expecting any. My rights are protected.”

  Paul looked all the more anxious for that. “Andrew, I’ve explained that the law is unenforceable, at least under most conditions. And if you insist on wearing clothes, you’ll run into trouble eventually; just like that first time.”

  “And only tine, Paul. I’m sorry you are displeased”

  “Well, look at it this way: you are virtually a living legend, Andrew, and you are too valuable in many different ways for you to have any right to take chances with yourself. By the way, how’s the book coming?”

  “I am approaching the end, Paul. The publisher is quite pleased.”

  “Good!”

  “I don’t know that he’s necessarily pleased with the book as a book. I think he expects to sell many copies because it’s written by a robot and that’s what pleases him.

  “Only human, I’m afraid.”

  “I am not displeased. Let it sell for whatever reason, since it will mean money and I can use some.”

  “Grandmother left you —”

  “Little Miss was generous, and I’m sure I can count on the family to help me out further. But it is the royalties from the book on which I am counting to help me through the next step.”

  “What next step is that?”

  “I wish to see the head of U.S. Robots and Mechanical Men Corporation. I have tried to make an appointment; but so far I have not been able to reach him. The Corporation did not cooperate with me in the writing of the book, so I am not surprised, you understand.”

  Paul was clearly amused. “Cooperation is the last thing you can expect. They didn’t cooperate with us in our great fight for robot rights. Quite the reverse, and you can see why. Give a robot rights and people may not want to buy them.”

  “Nevertheless,” said Andrew, “if you call them, you may be able to obtain an interview for me.”

  “I’m no more popular with them than you are, Andrew.”

  “But perhaps you can hint that by seeing me they may head off a campaign by Feingold and Martin to strengthen the rights of robots further.”

  “Wouldn’t that be a lie, Andrew?”

  “Yes, Paul, and I can’t tell one. That is why you must call.”

  “Ah, you can’t lie, but you can urge me to tell a lie, is that it? You’re getting more human all the time, Andrew.”

  13

  THE MEETING WAS not easy to arrange, even with Paul’s supposedly weighted name.

  But it finally came about. When it did, Harley Smythe-Robertson, who, on his mother’s side, was descended from the original founder of the corporation and who had adopted the hyphenation to indicate it, looked remarkably unhappy. He was approaching retirement age and his entire tenure as president had been devoted to the matter of robot rights. His gray hair was plastered thinly over the top of his scalp; his face was not made up, and he eyed Andrew with brief hostility from time to time.

  Andrew began the conversation. “Sir, nearly a century ago, I was told by a Merton Mansky of this corporation that the mathematics governing the plotting of the positronic pathways was far too complicated to permit of any but approximate solutions and that, therefore, my own capacities were not fully predictable.”

  “That was a century ago.” Smythe-Robertson hesitated, then said icily, “Sir. It is true no longer. Our robots are made with precision now and are trained precisely to their jobs.”

  “Yes,” said Paul, who had come along, as he said, to make sure that the corporation played fair, “with the result that my receptionist must be guided at every point once events depart from the conventional, however slightly.”

  “You would be much more displeased if it were to improvise,” Smythe-Robertson said.

  “Then you no longer manufacture robots like myself which are flexible and adaptable.”

  “No longer.”

  “The research I have done in connection with my book,” said Andrew, “indicates that I am the oldest robot presently in active operation.”

  “The oldest presently,” said Smythe-Robertson, “and the oldest ever. The oldest that will ever be. No robot is useful after the twenty-fifth year. They are called in and replaced with newer models.”

  “No robot as presently manufactured is useful after the twentieth year,” said Paul, with a note of sarcasm creeping into his voice. “Andrew is quite exceptional in this respect.”

  Andrew, adhering to the path he had marked out for himself, continued, “As the oldest robot in the world and the most flexible, am I not unusual enough to merit special treatment from the company?”

  “Not at all,” Smythe-Robertson said, freezing up. “Your unusualness is an embarrassment to the company. If you were on lease, instead of having been an outright sale through some mischance, you would long since have been replaced.”

  “But that is exactly the point,” said Andrew. “I am a free robot and I own myself. Therefore I come to you and ask you to replace me. You cannot do this without the owner’s consent. Nowadays, that consent is extorted as a condition of the lease, but in my time this did not happen.”

  Smythe-Robertson was looking both startled and puzzled, and for a moment there was silence. Andrew found himself staring at the hologram on the wall. It was a death mask of Susan Calvin, patron saint of all roboticists. She had been dead for nearly two centuries now, but as a result of writing his book Andrew knew, her so well he could half persuade himself that he had met her in life.


  Finally Smythe-Robertson asked, “How can I replace you for you? If I replace you, as robot, how can I donate the new robot to you as owner since in the very act of replacement you cease to exist.” He smiled grimly.

  “Not at all difficult,” Paul interposed. “The seat of Andrew’s personality is his positronic brain and it is the one part that cannot be replaced without creating a new robot. The positronic brain, therefore, is Andrew the owner. Every other part of the robotic body can be replaced without affecting the robot’s personality, and those other parts are the brain’s possessions. Andrew, I should say, wants to supply his brain with a new robotic body.”

  “That’s right,” said Andrew, calmly. He turned to Smythe-Robertson. “You have manufactured androids, haven’t you? Robots that have the outward appearance of humans, complete to the texture of the skin?”

  “Yes, we have. They worked perfectly well, with their synthetic fibrous skins and tendons. There was virtually no metal anywhere except for the brain, yet they were nearly as tough as metal robots. They were tougher, weight for weight.”

  Paul looked interested. “I didn’t know that. How many are on the market?”

  “None,” said Smythe-Robertson. “They were much more expensive than metal models and a market survey showed they would not be accepted. They looked too human.”

  Andrew was impressed. “But the corporation retains its expertise, I assume. Since it does, I wish to request that I be replaced by an organic robot, an android.”

  Paul looked surprised. “Good Lord!” he said.

  Smythe-Robertson stiffened. “Quite impossible!”

  “Why is it impossible?” Andrew asked. “I will pay any reasonable fee, of course.”

  “We do not manufacture androids.”

  “You do not choose to manufacture androids,” Paul interjected quickly. “That is not the same as being unable to manufacture them.”

  “Nevertheless,” Smythe-Robertson responded, “the manufacture of androids is against public policy.”

  “There is no law against it,” said Paul.

  “Nevertheless, we do not manufacture them — and we will not.”

  Paul cleared his throat. “Mr. Smythe-Robertson,” he said, “Andrew is a free robot who comes under the purview of the law guaranteeing robot rights. You are aware of this, I take it?”

  “Only too well.”

  “This robot, as a free robot, chooses to wear clothes. This results in his being frequently humiliated by thoughtless human beings despite the law against the humiliation of robots. It is difficult to prosecute vague offenses that don’t meet with the general disapproval of those who must decide on guilt and innocence.”

  “U.S. Robots understood that from the start. Your father’s firm unfortunately did not.”

  “My father is dead now, but what I see is that we have here a clear offense with a clear target.”

  “What are you talking about?” said Smythe-Robertson.

  “My client, Andrew Martin — he has just become my client — is a free robot who is entitled to ask U.S. Robots and Mechanical Men Corporation for the rights of replacement, which the corporation supplies to anyone who owns a robot for more than twenty-five years. In fact, the corporation insists on such replacement.”

  Paul was smiling and thoroughly at ease. “The positronic brain of my client,” he went on, “is the owner of the body of my client which is certainly more than twenty-five years old. The positronic brain demands the replacement of the body and offers to pay any reasonable fee for an android body as that replacement. If you refuse the request, my client undergoes humiliation and we will sue.

  “While public opinion would not ordinarily support the claim of a robot in such a case, may I remind you that U.S. Robots is not popular with the public generally. Even those who most use and profit from robots are suspicious of the corporation. This may be a hangover from the days when robots were widely feared. It may be resentment against the power and wealth of U.S. Robots, which has a worldwide monopoly. Whatever the cause may be, the resentment eats. I think you will find that you would prefer not to be faced with a lawsuit, particularly since my client is wealthy and will live for many more centuries and will have no reason to refrain from fighting the battle forever.”

  Smythe-Robertson had slowly reddened. “You are trying to force —”

  “I force you to do nothing,” said Paul. “If you wish to refuse to accede to my client’s reasonable request, you may by all means do so and we will leave without another word. But we will sue, as is certainly our right, and you will find that you will eventually lose.”

  “Well.”

  “I see that you are going to accede,” said Paul. “You may hesitate but you will come to it in the end. Let me assure you, then, of one further point: If, in the process of transferring my client’s positronic brain from his present body to an organic one, there is any damage, however slight, then I will never rest until I’ve nailed the corporation to the ground. I will, if necessary, take every possible step to mobilize public opinion against the corporation if one brain path of my client’s platinum-iridium essence is scrambled.” He turned to Andrew and asked, “Do you agree to all this, Andrew?”

  Andrew hesitated a full minute. It amounted to the approval of lying, of blackmail, of the badgering and humiliation of a human being. But not physical harm, he told himself, not physical harm.

  He managed at last to come out with a rather faint “Yes.”

  14

  HE FELT AS though he were being constructed again. For days, then for weeks, finally for months, Andrew found himself not himself somehow, and the simplest actions kept giving rise to hesitation.

  Paul was frantic. “They’ve damaged you, Andrew. We’ll have to institute suit!”

  Andrew spoke very slowly. “You — mustn’t. You’ll never be able to prove — something — like m-m-m-m —”

  “Malice?”

  “Malice. Besides, I grow — stronger, better. It’s the tr — tr — tr —”

  “Tremble?”

  “Trauma. After all, there’s never been such an op-op-op — before.”

  Andrew could feel his brain from the inside. No one else could. He knew he was well, and during the months that it took him to learn full coordination and full positronic interplay he spent hours before the mirror.

  Not quite human! The face was stiff — too stiff and the motions were too deliberate. They lacked the careless, free flow of the human being, but perhaps that might come with time. At least now he could wear clothes without the ridiculous anomaly of a metal face going along with it.

  Eventually, he said, “I will be going back to work.”

  Paul laughed. “That means you are well. What will you be doing? Another book?”

  “No,” said Andrew, seriously. “I live too long for any one career to seize me by the throat and never let me go. There was a time when I was primarily an artist, and I can still turn to that. And there was a time when I was a historian, and I can still turn to that. But now I wish to be a robobiologist.”

  “A robopsychologist, you mean.”

  “No. That would imply the study of positronic brains, and at the moment I lack the desire to do that. A robobiologist, it seems to me, would be concerned with the working of the body attached to that brain.”

  “Wouldn’t that be a roboticist?”

  “A roboticist works with a metal body. I would be studying an organic humanoid body, of which I have the only one, as far as I know.”

  “You narrow your field,” said Paul, thoughtfully. “As an artist, all conception is yours; as a historian you deal chiefly with robots; as a robobiologist, you will deal with yourself.”

  Andrew nodded. “It would seem so.”

  Andrew had to start from the very beginning, for he knew nothing of ordinary biology and almost nothing of science. He became a familiar sight in the libraries, where he sat at the electronic indices for hours at a time, looking perfectly normal in clothes. Th
ose few who knew he was a robot in no way interfered with him.

  He built a laboratory in a room which he added to his house; and his library grew, too.

  Years passed, and Paul came to him one day and said, “It’s a pity you’re no longer working on the history of robots. I understand U.S. Robots is adopting a radically new policy.”

  Paul had aged, and his deteriorating eyes had been replaced with photoptic cells. In that respect, he had drawn closer to Andrew.

  “What have they done?” Andrew asked.

  “They are manufacturing central computers, gigantic positronic brains, really, which communicate with anywhere from a dozen to a thousand robots by microwave. The robots themselves have no brains at all. They are the limbs of the gigantic brain, and the two are physically separate.”

  “Is that more efficient?”

  “U.S. Robots claims it is. Smythe-Robertson established the new direction before he died, however, and it’s my notion that it’s a backlash at you. U.S. Robots is determined that they will make no robots that will give them the type of trouble you have, and for that reason they separate brain and body. The brain will have no body to wish changed; the body will have no brain to wish anything.

  “It’s amazing, Andrew,” Paul went on, “the influence you have had on the history of. robots. It was your artistry that encouraged U.S. Robots to make robots more precise and specialized; it was your freedom that resulted in the establishment of the principle of robotic rights; it was your insistence on an android body that made U.S. Robots switch to brain-body separation”

  Andrew grew thoughtful. “I suppose in the end the corporation will produce one vast brain controlling several billion robotic bodies. All the eggs will be in one basket. Dangerous. Not proper at all.”

  “I think you’re right,” said Paul, “but I don’t suspect it will come to pass for a century at least and I won’t live to see it. In fact, I may not live to see next year.”

  “Paul!” cried Andrew, in concern.