Asimov's Future History Volume 1 (21 page)

Herbie rose and approached with hesitant steps.

“You know, I suppose,” she continued, “just exactly at what point in the assembly an extraneous factor was introduced or an essential one left out.”

“Yes,” said Herbie, in tones barely heard.

“Hold on,” broke in Bogert angrily. “That’s not necessary true. You want to hear that, that’s all.”

“Don’t be a fool,” replied Calvin. “He certainly knows as much math as you and Lanning together, since he can read minds. Give him his chance.”

The mathematician subsided, and Calvin continued, “All right, then, Herbie, give! We’re waiting.” And in an aside, “Get pencils and paper, gentlemen.”

But Herbie remained silent, and there was triumph in the psychologist’s voice, “Why don’t you answer, Herbie?”

The robot blurted out suddenly, “I cannot. You know I cannot! Dr. Bogert and Dr. Lanning don’t want me to.”

“They want the solution.”

“But not from me.”

Lanning broke in, speaking slowly and distinctly, “Don’t be foolish, Herbie. We do want you to tell us.”

Bogert nodded curtly.

Herbie’s voice rose to wild heights, “What’s the use of saying that? Don’t you suppose that I can see past the superficial skin of your mind? Down below, you don’t want me to. I’m a machine, given the imitation of life only by virtue of the positronic interplay in my brain – which is man’s device. You can’t lose face to me without being hurt. That is deep in your mind and won’t be erased. I can’t give the solution.”

“We’ll leave,” said Dr. Lanning. “Tell Calvin.”

“That would make no difference,” cried Herbie, “since you would know anyway that it was I that was supplying the answer.”

Calvin resumed, “But you understand, Herbie, that despite that, Drs. Lanning and Bogert want that solution.”

“By their own efforts!” insisted Herbie.

“But they want it, and the fact that you have it and won’t give it hurts them. You see that, don’t you?”

“Yes! Yes!”

“And if you tell them that will hurt them, too”

“Yes! Yes!” Herbie was retreating slowly, and step-by-step Susan Calvin advanced. The two men watched in frozen bewilderment.

“You can’t tell them,” droned the psychologist slowly, “because that would hurt and you mustn’t hurt. But if you don’t tell them, you hurt, so you must tell them. And if you do, you will hurt and you mustn’t, so you can’t tell them; but if you don’t, you hurt, so you must; but if you do, you hurt, so you mustn’t; but if you don’t, you hurt, so you must; but if you do, you-”

Herbie was up against the wall, and here he dropped to his knees. “Stop!” he shrieked. “Close your mind! It is full of pain and frustration and hate! I didn’t mean it, I tell you! I tried to help! I told you what you wanted to hear. I had to!”

The psychologist paid no attention. “You must tell them, but if you do, you hurt, so you mustn’t; but if you don’t, you hurt, so you must; but-”

And Herbie screamed!

It was like the whistling of a piccolo many times magnified – shrill and shriller till it keened with the terror of a lost soul and filled the room with the piercingness of itself.

And when it died into nothingness, Herbie collapsed into a huddled heap of motionless metal.

Bogert’s face was bloodless, “He’s dead!”

“No!” Susan Calvin burst into body-racking gusts of wild laughter, “not dead – merely insane. I confronted him with the insoluble dilemma, and he broke down. You can scrap him now – because he’ll never speak again.”

Lanning was on his knees beside the thing that had been Herbie. His fingers touched the cold, unresponsive metal face and he shuddered. “You did that on purpose.” He rose and faced her, face contorted.

“What if I did? You can’t help it now.” And in a sudden access of bitterness, “He deserved it.”

The director seized the paralyzed, motionless Bogert by the wrist, “What’s the difference. Come, Peter.” He sighed, “A thinking robot of this type is worthless anyway.” His eyes were old and tired, and he repeated, “Come, Peter!”

It was minutes after the two scientists left that Dr. Susan Calvin regained part of her mental equilibrium. Slowly, her eyes turned to the living-dead Herbie and the tightness returned to her face. Long she stared while the triumph faded and the helpless frustration returned – and of all her turbulent thoughts only one infinitely bitter word passed her lips.

“
Liar!
”

Satisfaction Guaranteed

2023 A.D.

T
ONY
WAS
TALL
and darkly handsome, with an incredibly patrician air drawn into every line of his unchangeable expression, and Claire Belmont regarded him through the crack in the door with a mixture of horror and dismay.

“I can’t, Larry. I just can’t have him in the house.” Feverishly, she was searching her paralyzed mind for a stronger way of putting it; some way that would make sense and settle things, but she could only end with a simple repetition.

“Well, I can’t!”

Larry Belmont regarded his wife stiffly, and there was that spark of impatience in his eyes that Claire hated to see, since she felt her own incompetence mirrored in it. “We’re committed, Claire,” he said, “and I can’t have you backing out now. The company is sending me to Washington on this basis, and it probably means a promotion. It’s perfectly safe and you know it. What’s your objection?”

She frowned helplessly. “It just gives me the chills. I couldn’t bear him.”

“He’s as human as you or I, almost. So, no nonsense. Come, get out there.”

His hand was in the small of her back, shoving; and she found herself in her own living room, shivering.
It
was there, looking at her with a precise politeness, as though appraising his hostess-to-be of the next three weeks. Dr. Susan Calvin was there, too, sitting stiffly in thin-lipped abstraction. She had the cold, faraway look of someone who has worked with machines so long that a little of the steel had entered the blood.

“Hello,” crackled Claire in general, and ineffectual, greeting.

But Larry was busily saving the situation with a spurious gaiety. “Here, Claire, I want you to meet Tony, a swell guy. This is my wife, Claire, Tony, old boy.” Larry’s hand draped itself amiably over Tony’s shoulder, but Tony remained unresponsive and expressionless under the pressure.

He said, “How do you do, Mrs. Belmont.”

And Claire jumped at Tony’s voice. It was deep and mellow, smooth as the hair on his head or the skin on his face.

Before she could stop herself, she said, “Oh, my – you talk.”

“Why not? Did you expect that I didn’t?”

But Claire could only smile weakly. She didn’t really know what she had expected. She looked away, then let him slide gently into the comer of her eye. His hair was smooth and black, like polished plastic – or was it really composed of separate hairs? And was the even, olive skin of his hands and face continued on past the obscurement of his formally cut clothing?

She was lost in the shuddering wonder of it, and had to force her thoughts back into place to meet Dr. Calvin’s flat, unemotional voice.

“Mrs. Belmont, I hope you appreciate the importance of this experiment. Your husband tells me he has given you some of the background. I would like to give you more, as the senior psychologist of the U.S. Robots and Mechanical Men Corporation.

“Tony is a robot. His actual designation on the company files is TN-3, but he will answer to Tony. He
is
not a mechanical monster, nor simply a calculating machine of the type that were developed during World War II, fifty years ago. He has an artificial brain nearly as complicated as our own. It is an immense telephone switchboard on an atomic scale, so that billions of possible ‘telephone connections’ can be compressed into an instrument that will fit inside a skull.

“Such brains are manufactured for each model of robot specifically. Each contains a precalculated set of connections so that each robot knows the English language to start with and enough of anything else that may be necessary to perform his job.

“Until now, U.S. Robots has confined its manufacturing activity to industrial models for use in places where human labor is impractical – in deep mines, for instance, or in underwater work. But we want to invade the city and the home. To do so, we must get the ordinary man and woman to accept these robots without fear. You understand that there is nothing to fear.”

“There isn’t, Claire,” interposed Larry earnestly. “Take my word for it. It’s impossible for him to do any harm. You know I wouldn’t leave him with you otherwise.”

Claire cast a quick, secret glance at Tony and lowered her voice. “What if I make him angry?”

“You needn’t whisper,” said Dr. Calvin calmly. “He
can’t
get angry with you, my dear. I told you that the switchboard connections of his brain were predetermined. Well, the most important connection of all is what we call The First Law of Robotics,’ and it is merely this: ‘No robot can harm a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.’ All robots are built so. No robot can be forced in any way to do harm to any human. So, you see, we need you and Tony as a preliminary experiment for our own guidance, while your husband is in Washington to arrange for government-supervised legal tests.”

“You mean all this isn’t legal?”

Larry cleared his throat. “Not just yet, but it’s all right. He won’t leave the house, and you mustn’t let anyone see him. That’s all.... And, Claire, I’d stay with you, but I know too much about the robots. We must have a completely inexperienced tester so that we can have severe conditions. It’s necessary.”

“Oh, well,” muttered Claire. Then, as a thought struck her, “But what does he do?”

“Housework,” said Dr. Calvin shortly.

She got up to leave, and it was Larry who saw her to the front door. Claire stayed behind drearily. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror above the mantelpiece, and looked away hastily. She was very tired of her small, mousy face and her dim, unimaginative hair. Then she caught Tony’s eyes upon her and almost smiled before she remembered....

He was only a machine.

Larry Belmont was on his way to the airport when he caught a glimpse of Gladys Claffern. She was the type of woman who seemed made to be seen in glimpses.... Perfectly and precisely manufactured; dressed with thoughtful hand and eye; too gleaming to be stared at.

The little smile that preceded her and the faint scent that trailed her were a pair of beckoning fingers. Larry felt his stride break; he touched his hat, then hurried on.

As always he felt that vague anger. If Claire could only push her way into the Claffern clique, it would help so much. But what was the use.

Claire! The few times she had come face to face with Gladys, the little fool had been tongue-tied. He had no illusions. The testing of Tony was his big chance, and it was in Claire’s hands. How much safer it would be in the hands of someone like Gladys Claffern.

Claire woke the second morning to the sound of a subdued knock on the bedroom door. Her mind clamored, then went icy. She had avoided Tony the first day, smiling thinly when she met him and brushing past with a wordless sound of apology.

“Is that you – Tony?”

“Yes, Mrs. Belmont. May I enter?”

She must have said yes, because he was in the room, quite suddenly and noiselessly. Her eyes and nose were simultaneously aware of the tray he was carrying.

“Breakfast?” she said.

“If you please.”

She wouldn’t have dared to refuse, so she pushed herself slowly into a sitting position and received it: poached eggs, buttered toast, coffee.

“I have brought the sugar and cream separately,” said Tony. “I expect to learn your preference with time, in this and in other things.”

She waited.

Tony, standing there straight and pliant as a metal rule, asked, after a moment, “Would you prefer to eat in privacy?”

“Yes.... I mean, if you don’t mind.”

“Will you need help later in dressing?”

“Oh, my, no!” She clutched frantically at the sheet, so that the coffee hovered at the edge of catastrophe. She remained so, in rigor, then sank helplessly back against the pillow when the door closed him out of her sight again.

She got through breakfast somehow.... He was only a machine, and if it were only more visible that he were it wouldn’t be so frightening. Or if his expression would change. It just stayed there, nailed on. You couldn’t tell what went on behind those dark eyes and that smooth, olive skin-stuff. The coffee cup beat a faint castanet for a moment as she set it back, empty, on the tray.

Then she realized that she had forgotten to add the sugar and cream after all, and she did so hate black coffee.

She burned a straight path from bedroom to kitchen after dressing. It was her house, after all, and there wasn’t anything frippy about her, but she liked her kitchen clean. He should have waited for supervision....

But when she entered, she found a kitchen that might have been minted fire-new from the factory the moment before.

She stopped, stared, turned on her heel and nearly ran into Tony. She yelped.

“May I help?” he asked.

“Tony,” and she scraped the anger off the edges of her mind’s panic, “you must make some noise when you walk. I can’t have you stalking me, you know.... Didn’t you use this kitchen?”

“I did, Mrs. Belmont.”

“It doesn’t look it.”

“I cleaned up afterward. Isn’t that customary?”

Claire opened her eyes wide. After all, what could one say to that. She opened the oven compartment that held the pots, took a quick, unseeing look at the metallic glitter inside, then said with a tremor, “Very good. Quite satisfactory.”

If at the moment, he had beamed; if he had smiled; if he had quirked the corner of his mouth the slightest bit, she felt that she could have warmed to him. But he remained an English lord in repose, as he said, “Thank you, Mrs. Belmont. Would you come into the living room?”

She did, and it struck her at once. “Have you been polishing the furniture?”