Asimov's Future History Volume 1

by Isaac Asimov

  After the delay: “That may be. To me you … look similar. I had to exert myself to describe the Emperor Napoleon as closely as I did. Begging your pardon, sir,” Jack said to an unseen observer? His attention returned to Powell. “What do you want? He … he has instructed me … not to waste time on your … importunities. I must prepare … to resist … any invasion.”

  “Resist the will of the humans who sent you?” Powell purred. After a minute he saw the moonscape jerk, and went on quickly, hoping the robot would not cut him off, “Our purpose is to show you that we are indeed humans, ourselves, whatever Napoleon may be, and therefore you must, under Code Upsilon, accept that Earth is not endangered and you should resume work. Pay close attention.”

  Did a sentient machine afar in space tune himself high as the words reached him?

  Powell turned his gaze on Donovan. “Now, Mike,” he said, “I want you to tell me truthfully — truthfully, mind you — that you’re neither a human nor a robot.”

  Donovan shivered with eagerness. “I am neither,” he responded. “Now you, Greg, tell me truthfully that you are neither human nor robot.”

  “I am neither.” Powell looked straight before him again, into the vision whose eyes he could not see. “Did you hear, Jack? Think about it. The order was to answer the question truthfully. No threat to a human was involved, therefore any robot must obey to the extent possible. However, the single possible answer for him is, ‘I cannot.’ None but a human could disobey and give out the falsehood, ‘I am neither human nor robot.’”

  Wire-tense, the men waited.

  Did something whisper unrelayed from the deeps, of did Jack’s own intelligence see the fallacy? The reply took longer than transmission would account for. “That is correct if … if the questioner is human. But if … he is a robot … then another robot can … perfectly well, disobediently, lie — especially if he has been so directed beforehand. The same … holds good for … every such dialogue. It proves nothing. Stop pestering me!”

  Powell and Donovan sat mute. “Napoleon, have you any comment?” Borup attempted. Silence answered him.

  Jack blanked the screen.

  Not even fried herring with potatoes consoled.

  The men chewed unspeaking. It was as if they saw, they felt, the immensity and the cold outside this hull. The failure of a venture, the death of many hopes, what were those that the stars were mindful of them?

  When Ole at last brought coffee, it revived his master a little. “If Yack is pure crazy, he still has a good logical noodle,” he opined. “You keep after him. Make him t’ink. For instance, would not those viroids make Io have different rocks from what it does?”

  Powell shook his head. “No doubt, but what they educated him in was Ionian geology as it is. His job was practical, not scientific. Whenever he noticed anomalies, he was to get on the beam and query the specialists back home. We don’t have time to teach him. Couldn’t you hear how agitated he was?” Powell looked up. “Yes. Each contact has made his condition worse. Unless we can invent a scheme we know will be productive, we’d better quit. Maybe Susan Calvin can generate an idea.”

  “That won’t do anything productive for our careers,” Donovan muttered.

  “To hell with our careers … But I don’t expect the old lady can solve our problem from her armchair on Earth. Otherwise we wouldn’t have been dispatched. With the kind of transmission delay involved, she couldn’t work her slick robopsych tricks.”

  “I s’pose.” Donovan gusted a sigh. “I can’t think how to lure Napoleon into talking to us, and maybe he doesn’t exist anyway. What say we assume he doesn’t, assume Jack is demented, and try figuring out how to get him to board a ship, or at least keep from sniping at new arrivals? If there’ll ever be any.”

  “We’ll give our wits a few days to work, and hope for a script that he won’t see through.”

  “I wonder if you can,” Borup said. “I am no expert, but I have known people wit’ strange notions, and they can be very smart, yes, brilliant about defending those notions. They sit in their Plato caves till deat’ comes and kicks them in the behind —”

  He broke off. Donovan had smacked fist into palm. Powell drew a whistling breath.

  “Hello, Jack.”

  The scene was not the base. Rubble lay dark under waxing Jupiter, beneath gashed heights. Volcano fumes lifted dirty white and yellow beyond a ridge. Jack was in the field, readying his caches and strongpoints for war.

  The view swayed giddyingly as he straightened. “What do you want now?” It was nearly a shriek. “I told you to leave me alone. I need not listen to you. I can switch off.”

  “Just wait. Just wait. “Until these waves wing out to Napoleon, wherever he is, if he is. “Be calm,” Powell urged. “You’ve demanded positive proof that my companions and I are human. Well, we have it for you.”

  Empty time.

  “You have tried. What is the certainty? If … you are robots … you are acting under orders. Your … masters … can have foreseen … many … contingencies.”

  “Then our masters are human,” Donovan said. “Shouldn’t you hear what they tell you through us?”

  He was taking a risk. The suspense was like a slow fire before they heard Jack utter a raw noise. But it was desirable to perturb Napoleon too, if Napoleon was there to be troubled in his own sureness.

  “We are human,” Powell said quickly. “You force us, in this emergency, to demonstrate it, no matter what that costs us. Then maybe you ‘II be sorry and obey the surviving member of our party.”

  “Remember, if what Napoleon has told you is true,” Donovan joined in — if what Napoleon had been told was true —” we can’t be human. We must be robots, pretending. We must be what he sees on his screen. But if we are human, then Napoleon has told you wrong. Correct?”

  Probably Jack never noticed the sweat on the two faces. “Pay close attention,” Powell directed.

  Rising, he lifted a detonol stick and brandished it like a sword. Donovan got up too and said, “Greg, I hereby, uh, well, this is the time for you to do what I told you you’d have to do if matters got this desperate. Destroy yourself.”

  Powell pulled out the firing pin. It wobbled in his right hand, the stick in his left. “Mike,” he replied, “I order you to destroy yourself.”

  Donovan brought his explosive into view and, having yanked the pin free, held the stick dramatically against his throat. The men faced each other. In a proper gravity field their knees might have given way, but here they could somehow keep standing, after a fashion. They breathed hard and raggedly.

  “Stop!” Jack’s cry came loud, yet as if from across light-years. “Return those disarmers!”

  “If we are robots,” Donovan grated, “why should you care?”

  Empty time.

  “Third Law! You must!”

  “We, we have our orders,” Powell stammered.

  Each minute was forever.

  At four and a half, Borup entered, halted, stared. “What is this?” he shouted. “Are you crazy too?”

  “We have our orders,” Powell repeated.

  “I countermand them!” Borup said. “Disarm those stickst”

  For an instant it seemed that Donovan wouldn’t manage it, as badly as his hand was shaking. He did, though. Powell’s pin had already snicked home. They sank limply into their chairs and waited.

  After a sixth minute, the swaying image of what Jack saw abruptly had another in it, that of a short, stout man in a cocked hat and epauletted greatcoat. The representation was lifeless, practically a caricature — good enough for an unsophisticated robot — and the audio conveyed little of the torment behind the words.

  “Masters, masters! Forgive me! I must have been mistaken, deceived — Are you on Himalia? I shall come straight to you and do whatever you want. Hear me, judge me, forgive me!”

  Ole was preparing a victory feast. Borup would not tell his passengers what it was. “A surprise, somet’ing special and delicious,” he
averred, “wit’ red cabbage. Meanwhile, we have our akvavit and, yes, a case of beer I keep for emeryencies. Or for celebrations, no?”

  Powell and Donovan didn’t accept at once. They were amply elated as they sat before the station communicator and sent their encoded message homeward.

  “… yes, he’s here, thoroughly penitent. Still bewildered, of course, poor devil. After all, he was obeying the humans who’d trained him. No, we aren’t leaning on him about them. We’ve given him the impression we agree they were doubtless simply misguided, and once we reach Earth, everything will soon be straightened out. In case Napoleon does get rambunctious en route, well, he’s a little one, and we have two husky crewrobots to keep him in hand.

  “No, we haven’t played detective and tried to find out who the guilty parties are. That’s for the police, or for Dr. Calvin. We can’t help making some pretty shrewd guesses.

  “Jack will need a bit of therapy. He’s more than willing to go back to work, but he’s been through a nightmare and ought to be restabilized first. Any smart young robopsychologist should be able to come out here and take care of that in short order.

  “We look forward to seeing what this sensation will do to the political picture!”

  Powell had been talking. He glanced at Donovan. “Okay, pal,” he invited. “Your turn to bask in the glory.”

  Donovan beamed, cleared his throat, and began: “The problem was, what could we do that humans could but robots not, under the circumstances?

  “Well, uh, suppose we ordered each other to self-destruct. There was no clear reason for that. How could it help our purpose? Jack would still suppose we were play-acting. So if we were both robots, we’d disobey the order.

  “If one of us was a robot and the other not, the robot would obey; the human might or might not.

  “If we were both human, probably neither of us would obey, but we both could if we chose to.

  “We both chose to. At the last instant, Captain Borup came in and countermanded the orders. Now if he were a robot, that wouldn’t have changed the situation. Whether we were robot or human, neither of us was bound to obey him. Therefore, if either or both of us did, he must be human.”

  Donovan’s laugh was nervous. “Obviously, we never meant to go all the way, whatever happened. We certainly intended to heed Captain Borup — and sweated that out, I can tell you! But we had to show that this was not mere play-acting.

  “Jack might be too stressed to think fast, but if Napoleon was watching, he’d know that a robot can only tell a human to suicide if the robot knows in advance that this is a charade — whether or not the robot’s own suicide is part of the deal. If the human then actually pulls the pin, endangers himself, he’ll have to intervene. Maybe not at once, but in plenty of time to make sure the explosive won’t go off. But the two of us stood tight till the moment was only seconds away and the third man arrived.

  “Yes, it was still logically possible that all three of us were robots going through carefully planned motions. However, Jack’s only real experience of other robots had been with his simpleminded workers; Edgar’s crew came, took on cargo, and left. Napoleon’s knowledge of the world, including both humans and robots, had to be equally limited, or the contradictions in the viroid story would have confused him too badly to carry out his task. Neither of them would have believed any robot was capable of this much flexibility; and in fact, very few are. Nothing would ring true unless at least one human was present.

  “But then Napoleon’s orders must involve an untruth. Instead of a hypothetical situation where billions of people might die, he faced a real one where he’d caused a flesh-and-blood human, or maybe three, to be at risk of life. First Law took over.”

  Donovan switched off transmission, leaned back, and blew out his cheeks. “Whoo!” he snorted. “I’m wrung dry. Let’s get out of this icebox and go back to the ship for those drinks. We’ve an hour and a half till we need to talk to them yonder.”

  Powell laughed. “And if we don’t feel like official conversation at that moment, just what do they think they can do about it?”

  The Martian Dilemma

  2044 A.D.

  1.

  THE 2040’S WERE characterized by a brief period of Fundamentalism directed against space exploration. The movement itself was relatively short-lived; however, it was accompanied by an immediate financial crisis for U. S. Robots and Mechanical Men, inc., whose primary market since its creation was the extraterrestrial colonies.

  Scott Robertson, majority stockholder of the firm, rubbed his brow. “Society is too damn fickle … Just a decade ago, this very company gave Earth access to the stars!”

  Beside Robertson sat several close associates, joint heads of the Board of Marketing. One, Waters, offered a grim suggestion: “Perhaps U. S. Robots was only used to achieve those ends. We are no longer needed.”

  “Nonsense! Those colonies will continue to depend on robots, and we have the monopoly on them!”

  “Not quite, Mr. Robertson. There is Consolidated Robots, which currently specializes in industrial robots.”

  “Good grief! I didn’t expect competition with them.”

  “We should also note that Consolidated’s stock prices are rising, an ironic response to U. S. Robots’s dwindling popularity.”

  “But they make robots, too! Why can’t those Fundies direct their attacks at the whole market instead of just us?”

  “Mr. Robertson, sir, the radicals are currently focusing their attacks on space travel, not robots.”

  “All right, I get it. Now, let’s get back to the purpose of this meeting – Why are we losing our market, and how can we get it back? At first, of course, the government was our biggest client, thanks to its obsession with a hyperatomic drive. But why was that? Did they expect resources? National pride? The pure satisfaction of scientific progress?”

  Robertson paused, so Waters spoke up: “I think I see what you’re saying! All three of your reasons have practically vanished. The resources spent getting into space have exceeded the resources gained. Nationalism has fallen prey to Regionalism, and satisfaction has a way of crumbling away, just like any emotion.”

  Robertson continued: “And our conservative Congress was quick to do away with ‘unnecessary expenditures’. However, U. S. Robots does not have to rely on the government! The extraterrestrial colonies, especially Mars, have become increasingly self-reliant. Resources, including water, are mined. Ecologies are being created. How are they doing this without us? They need U. S. Robots! Any ideas?”

  Gutenburg, quiet up to this point, said, “It surprises me that we, the Board of Marketing, continue to blame the drop on radicals. Fundamentalism has kept the government from supporting the colonies, sure. Presumably, that would also mean a drop in colony expenditures, and thus a drop in U. S. Robots exports. And that’s the discrepancy! The colonies are prospering without us! The financial crisis we face cannot be explained by the current mood on Earth. Sure, it’s a factor. We are losing orders from every market. But that’s just it – every market. Mars, especially, is not asking us for robots anymore, and yet it continues to grow normally …”

  “Obviously, Mars does not need U. S. Robots anymore. They have found some other way of doing work. Perhaps Consolidated is giving them robots. Or maybe they’re actually doing their own work!” said Waters.

  “Colonists? Doing their own work? I think not,” said Robertson.

  “If you will excuse me, I was not finished.”

  “Continue.”

  “The drop in exports to Mars is staggering, and it cannot be explained by social or even economic changes. In 2043, we sent them 1,500 robots, with the rate increasing through December. This year – and we are 3 whole months into it – we have not sent a single one.”

  “It has to be Consolidated! But we have no way of finding out, unless we hack into their networks or break into their headquarters!” Waters’s comment was ignored.

  Gutenburg said, “I recommend we con
tact the Board of Research. We all know they’re the real power behind this company, and if they haven’t already noticed this Martian dilemma, they will know how to solve it.”

  ***

  Robertson stepped into Susan Calvin’s office. She was at her desk, gravely silent, in a thinking position.

  “Come, sit down,” she said. Robertson, somewhat intimidated, pulled up a chair and did so.

  “Fundamentalism comes and goes, Mr. Robertson. I must say I am disturbed at your last several reports. Maybe you shouldn’t be delegated with the responsibility of marketing.”

  “I have done my best, Dr. Calvin. Who better to make and keep the earnings of U. S. Robots than the primary stockholder?”

  “I guess marketing isn’t much of a responsibility for U. S. Robots, anyway. We’re the monopoly, and everyone knows who we are and what we do. But back to your reports – there have always been various degrees of Fundamentalism in society, but we’ve always pulled through. This is the worst economic crisis we’ve ever faced.”

  “This is also the worst rash of Fundamentalism we’ve ever faced –”

  “Please, Mr. Robertson. You must have a better reason.”

  “Yes. That’s exactly why I wanted to see you, Dr. Calvin.”

  Scott Robertson explained Gutenburg’s observations concerning Mars prosperity in spite of its sudden drop in U. S. Robots imports. “I know the blame for the Martian dilemma should rest on us, but we cannot explain it.”

  “Don’t worry. I won’t blame you for it. Like you said, it could be Consolidated’s fault. If they’re somehow capitalizing on our defeat, taking their business to Mars, that’s only sound business practice. But it still doesn’t explain the statistics.”

  “But Consolidated has neither the positronic brain nor its patent! How are they doing this? … if they’re doing this?”

  “Do you think I know –”

  “What are we going to do?”

  Susan sighed. “What else? We are going to Mars to find out for ourselves.”