Asimov's Future History Volume 1

by Isaac Asimov

  He turned slowly on his heel and considered. Every part of the ship, from the engine itself to each individual two-way toggle switch. had been exhaustively checked and tested on Hyper Base. It was almost impossible to believe that anything could go wrong. There wasn’t a thing on board ship

  Well, yes, there was, of course. The robot! That had been tested at U. S. Robots and they, blast their devils’ hides, could be assumed to be competent.

  What was it everyone always said: A robot can just naturally do a better job.

  It was the normal assumption, based in part on U. S. Robots’ own advertising campaigns. They could make a robot that would be better than a man for a given purpose. Not “as good as a man.” but “better than a man.”

  And as Gerald Black stared at the robot and thought that, his brows contracted under his low forehead and his look became compounded of astonishment and a wild hope.

  He approached and circled the robot. He stared at its arms holding the control bar in trigger position, holding it forever so, unless the ship jumped or the robot’s own power supply gave out.

  Black breathed. “I bet. I bet.”

  He stepped away, considered deeply, He said. “It’s got to be.”

  He turned on ship’s radio. Its carrier beam was already focused on Hyper Base. He barked into the mouthpiece. “Hey, Schloss.”

  Schloss was prompt in his answer. “Great Space. Black –”

  “Never mind,” said Black crisply. “No speeches. I just want to make sure you’re watching.”

  “Yes, of course. We all are. Look –”

  But Black turned off the radio. He grinned with tight one-sidedness at the TV camera inside the pilot room and chose a portion of the hyperfield mechanism that would be in view. He didn’t know how many people would be in the viewing room. There might be only Kallner, Schloss and Susan Calvin. There might be all personnel. In any case, he would give them something to watch.

  Relay Box #3 was adequate for the purpose, he decided. It was located in a wall recess, coated over with a smooth cold-seamed panel. Black reached into his tool kit and removed the splayed, blunt-edged seamer. He pushed his space suit farther back on the rack (having turned it to bring the tool kit in reach) and turned to the relay box.

  Ignoring a last tingle of uneasiness, Black brought up the seamer, made contact at three separated points along the cold seam. The tool’s force field worked deftly and quickly, the handle growing a trifle warm in his hand as the surge of energy came and left. The panel swung free.

  He glanced quickly, almost involuntarily, at the ship’s visiplate. The stars were normal. He, himself, felt normal.

  That was the last bit of encouragement he needed. He raised his foot and smashed his shoe down on the feather-delicate mechanism within the recess.

  There was a splinter of glass, a twisting of metal, and a tiny spray of mercury droplets

  Black breathed heavily. He turned on the radio once more. “Still there, Schloss?”

  “Yes, but –”

  “Then I report the hyperfield on board the Parsec to be deactivated. Come and get me.”

  Gerald Black felt no more the hero than when he had left for the Parsec, but he found himself one just the same. The men who had brought him to the small asteroid came to take him off. They landed this time. They clapped his back.

  Hyper Base was a crowded mass of waiting personnel when the ship arrived, and Black was cheered. He waved at the throng and grinned, as was a hero’s obligation, but he felt no triumph inside. Not yet. Only anticipation. Triumph would come later, when he met Susan Calvin.

  He paused before descending from the ship. He looked for her and did not see her. General Kallner was there, waiting, with all his soldierly stiffness restored and a bluff look of approval firmly plastered on his face. Mayer Schloss smiled nervously at him. Ronson of Interplanetary Press waved frantically. Susan Calvin was nowhere.

  He brushed Kallner and Schloss aside when he landed. “I’m going to wash and eat first.”

  He had no doubts but that, for the moment at least, he could dictate terms to the general or to anybody.

  The security guards made a way for him. He bathed and ate leisurely in enforced isolation, he himself being solely responsible for the enforcement. Then he called Ronson of Interplanetary and talked to him briefly. He waited for the return call before he felt he could relax thoroughly. It had all worked out so much better than he had expected. The very failure of the ship had conspired perfectly with him.

  Finally he called the general’s office and ordered a conference. It was what it amounted to – orders. Major-general Kallner all but said, “Yes, Sir.”

  They were together again. Gerald Black, Kallner, Schloss – even Susan Calvin. But it was Black who was dominant now. The robopsychologist, graven-faced as ever, as unimpressed by triumph as by disaster, had nevertheless seemed by some subtle change of attitude to have relinquished the spotlight.

  Dr. Schloss nibbled a thumbnail and began by saying, cautiously, “Dr. Black, we are all very grateful for your bravery and success.” Then, as though to institute a healthy deflation at once, he added, “Still, smashing the relay box with your heel was imprudent and – well, it was an action that scarcely deserved success.”

  Black said, “It was an action that could scarcely have avoided success. You see” (this was bomb number one) “by that time I knew what had gone wrong.”

  Schloss rose to his feet. “You did? Are you sure?”

  “Go there yourself. It’s safe now. I’ll tell you what to look for.” Schloss sat down again, slowly. General Kallner was enthusiastic. “Why, this is the best yet, if true.”

  “It’s true,” said Black. His eyes slid to Susan Calvin, who said nothing.

  Black was enjoying the sensation of power. He released bomb number two by saying, “It was the robot, of course. Did you hear that, Dr. Calvin?”

  Susan Calvin spoke for the first time. “I hear it. I rather expected it, as a matter of fact. It was the only piece of equipment on board ship that had not been tested at Hyper Base.”

  For a moment Black felt dashed. He said, “You said nothing of that.”

  Dr. Calvin said, “As Dr. Schloss said several times, I am not an etherics expert. My guess, and it was no more than that, might easily have been wrong. I felt I had no right to prejudice you in advance of your mission.”

  Black said, “All right, did you happen to guess how it went wrong?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Why, it was made better than a man. That’s what the trouble was. Isn’t it strange that the trouble should rest with the very specialty of U. S. Robots? They make robots better than men, I understand.”

  He was slashing at her with words now but she did not rise to his bait.

  Instead, she sighed. “My dear Dr. Black. I am not responsible for the slogans of our sales-promotion department.”

  Black felt dashed again. She wasn’t an easy woman to handle, this Calvin. He said, “Your people built a robot to replace a man at the controls of the Parsec. He had to pull the control bar toward himself, place it in position and let the heat of his hands twist the trigger to make final contact. Simple enough, Dr. Calvin?”

  “Simple enough, Dr. Black.”

  “And if the robot had been made no better than a man, he would have succeeded. Unfortunately, U. S. Robots felt compelled to make it better than a man. The robot was told to pull back the control bar firmly. Firmly. The word was repeated, strengthened, emphasized. So the robot did what it was told. It pulled it back firmly. There was only one trouble. He was easily ten times stronger than the ordinary human being for whom the control bar was designed.”

  “Are you implying –”

  “I’m saying the bar bent. It bent back just enough to misplace the trigger. When the heat of the robot’s hand twisted the thermocouple’ it did not make contact.” He grinned. “This isn’t the failure of just one robot, Dr. Calvin. It’s symbolic of the failure of the robot idea.”<
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  “Come now, Dr. Black,” said Susan Calvin icily, “you’re drowning logic in missionary psychology. The robot was equipped with adequate understanding as well as with brute force. Had the men who gave it its orders used quantitative terms rather than the foolish adverb ‘firmly,’ this would not have happened. Had they said, ‘apply a pull of fifty-five pounds,’ all would have been well.”

  “What you are saying,” said Black, “is that the inadequacy of a robot must be made up for by the ingenuity and intelligence of a man. I assure you that the people back on Earth will look at it in that way and will not be in the mood to excuse U. S. Robots for this fiasco.”

  Major-general Kallner said quickly, with a return of authority to his voice, “Now wait, Black, all that has happened is obviously classified information.”

  “In fact,” said Schloss suddenly, “your theory hasn’t been checked yet. We’ll send a party to the ship and find out. It may not be the robot at all.”

  “You’ll take care to make that discovery, will you? I wonder if the people will believe an interested party. Besides which, I have one more thing to tell you.” He readied bomb number three and said, “As of this moment, I’m resigning from this man’s project. I’m quitting.”

  “Why?” asked Susan Calvin.

  “Because, as you said, Dr. Calvin, I am a missionary,” said Black, smiling. “I have a mission. I feel I owe it to the people of Earth to tell them that the age of the robots has reached the point where human life is valued less than robot life. It is now possible to order a man into danger because a robot is too precious to risk. I believe Earthmen should hear that. Many men have many reservations about robots as is. U. S. Robots has not yet succeeded in making it legally permissible to use robots on the planet Earth itself. I believe what I have to say, Dr. Calvin, will complete the matter. For this day’s work, Dr. Calvin, you and your company and your robots will be wiped off the face of the solar system.”

  He was forewarning her, Black knew; he was forearming her, but he could not forego this scene. He had lived for this very moment ever since he had first left for the Parsec, and he could not give it up.

  He all but gloated at the momentary glitter in Susan Calvin’s pale eyes and at the faintest flush in her cheeks. He thought, How do you feel now, madam scientist?

  Kallner said, “You will not be permitted to resign, Black, nor will you be permitted –”

  “How can you stop me, general? I’m a hero, haven’t you heard? And old Mother Earth will make much of its heroes. It always has. They’ll want to hear from me and they’ll believe anything I say. And they won’t like it if I’m interfered with, at least not while I’m a fresh, brand-new hero. I’ve already talked to Ronson of Interplanetary Press and told him I had something big for them, something that would rock every government official and science director right out of the chair plush, so Interplanetary will be first in line, waiting to hear from me. So what can you do except to have me shot? And I think you’d be worse off after that if you tried it.”

  Black’s revenge was complete. He had spared no word. He had hampered himself not in the least. He rose to go.

  “One moment, Dr. Black,” said Susan Calvin. Her low voice carried authority.

  Black turned involuntarily, like a schoolboy at his teacher’s voice, but he counteracted that gesture by a deliberately mocking, “You have an explanation to make, I suppose?”

  “Not at all,” she said primly. “You have explained for me, and quite well. I chose you because I knew you would understand, though I thought you would understand sooner. I had had contact with you before. I knew you disliked robots and would, therefore, be under no illusions concerning them. From your records, which I asked to see before you were given your assignment, I saw that you had expressed disapproval of this robot-through-hyperspace experiment. Your superiors held that against you, but I thought it a point in your favor.”

  “What are you talking about, doctor, if you’ll excuse my rudeness?”

  “The fact that you should have understood why no robot could have been sent on this mission. What was it you yourself said? Something about a robot’s inadequacies having to be balanced by the ingenuity and intelligence of a man. Exactly so, young man, exactly so. Robots have no ingenuity. Their minds are finite and can be calculated to the last decimal. That, in fact, is my job.

  “Now if a robot is given an order, a precise order, he can follow it. If the order is not precise, he cannot correct his own mistake without further orders. Isn’t that what you reported concerning the robot on the ship? How then can we send a robot to find a flaw in a mechanism when we cannot possibly give precise orders, since we know nothing about the flaw ourselves? ‘Find out what’s wrong’ is not an order you can give to a robot; only to a man. The human brain, so far at least, is beyond calculation.”

  Black sat down abruptly and stared at the psychologist in dismay. Her words struck sharply on a substratum of understanding that had been larded over with emotion. He found himself unable to refute her. Worse than that, a feeling of defeat encompassed him.

  He said, “You might have said this before I left.”

  “I might have,” agreed Dr. Calvin, “but I noticed your very natural fear for your sanity. Such an overwhelming concern would easily have hampered your efficiency as an investigator, and it occurred to me to let you think that my only motive in sending you was that I valued a robot more. That, I thought, would make you angry, and anger, my dear Dr. Black, is sometimes a very useful emotion. At least, an angry man is never quite as afraid as he would be otherwise. It worked out nicely, I think.” She folded her hands loosely in her lap and came as near a smile as she ever had in her life.

  Black said, “I’ll be damned.” Susan Calvin said, “So now, if you’ll take my advice, return to your job, accept your status as hero, and tell your reporter friend the details of your brave deed. Let that be the big news you promised him.”

  Slowly, reluctantly, Black nodded.

  Schloss looked relieved; Kallner burst into a toothy smile. They held out hands, not having said a word in all the time that Susan Calvin had spoken, and not saying a word now.

  Black took their hands and shook them with some reserve. He said, “It’s your part that should be publicized, Dr. Calvin.”

  Susan Calvin said icily, “Don’t be a fool, young man. This is my job.”

  Galley Slave

  2034 A.D.

  THE UNITED STATES Robots and Mechanical Men Corporation, as defendants in the case, had influence enough to force a closed-doors trial without a jury.

  Nor did Northeastern University try hard to prevent it. The trustees knew perfectly well how the public might react to any issue involving misbehavior of a robot, however rarefied that misbehavior might be. They also had a clearly visualized notion of how an antirobot riot might become an antiscience riot without warning.

  The government, as represented in this case by Justice Harlow Shane, was equally anxious for a quiet end to this mess. Both U. S. Robots and the academic world were bad people to antagonize.

  Justice Shane said, “Since neither press, public nor jury is present, gentlemen, let us stand on as little ceremony as we can and get to the facts.”

  He smiled stiffly as he said this, perhaps without much hope that his request would be effective, and hitched at his robe so that he might sit more comfortably. His face was pleasantly rubicund, his chin round and soft, his nose broad and his eyes light in color and wide-set. All in all, it was not a face with much judicial majesty and the judge knew it.

  Barnabas H. Goodfellow, Professor of Physics at Northeastern U., was sworn in first, taking the usual vow with an expression that made mincemeat of his name.

  After the usual opening-gambit questions, Prosecution shoved his hands deep into his pockets and said, “When was it, Professor, that the matter of the possible employ of Robot EZ-27 was first brought to your attention, and how?”

  Professor Goodfellow’s small and angular face s
et itself into an uneasy expression, scarcely more benevolent than the one it replaced. He said, “I have had professional contact and some social acquaintance with Dr. Alfred Lanning, Director of Research at U. S. Robots. I was inclined to listen with some tolerance then when I received a rather strange suggestion from him on the third of March of last year –”

  “Of 2033?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Excuse me for interrupting. Please proceed.”

  The professor nodded frostily, scowled to fix the facts in his mind, and began to speak.

  Professor Goodfellow looked at the robot with a certain uneasiness. It had been carried into the basement supply room in a crate, in accordance with the regulations governing the shipment of robots from place to place on the Earth’s surface.

  He knew it was coming; it wasn’t that he was unprepared. From the moment of Dr. Lanning’s first phone call on March 3, he had felt himself giving way to the other’s persuasiveness, and now, as an inevitable result, he found himself face to face with a robot.

  It looked uncommonly large as it stood within arm’s reach. Alfred Lanning cast a hard glance of his own at the robot, as though making certain it had not been damaged in transit. Then he turned his ferocious eyebrows and his mane of white hair in the professor’s direction.

  “This is Robot EZ-27, first of its model to be available for public use.” He turned to the robot. “This is Professor Goodfellow, Easy.”

  Easy spoke impassively, but with such suddenness that the professor shied. “Good afternoon, Professor.”

  Easy stood seven feet tall and had the general proportions of a man – always the prime selling point of U. S. Robots. That and the possession of the basic patents on the positronic brain had given them an actual monopoly on robots and a near-monopoly on computing machines in general.

  The two men who had uncrated the robot had left now and the professor looked from Lanning to the robot and back to Lanning. “It is harmless, I’m sure.” He didn’t sound sure.