Asimov's Future History Volume 1 (39 page)

“Good. Now I will ask each one of you four men to show me what you have in your pockets. Please put everything into a pile in front of you.”

Smithson’s voice was so compelling, his eyes so bright and sharp, that none of the men thought of disobeying.

“Shirt pockets, too. Inside jacket pockets. All the pockets.”

There was quite a pile, credit cards, keys, spectacles, pens, some coins. Smithson looked at the four piles coldly, his mind taking in everything.

Then he said, “Just to make sure that we are all meeting the same requirements, I will make a pile of the contents of my own pockets and, Mr. Wassell, you do the same.”

Now there were six piles. Smithson reached over to the pile in front of Mr. Wassell, and said, “What is this shiny quarter I see, Mr. Wassell. Yours?”

Wassell looked confused. “Yes.”

“It couldn’t be. It has my mark on it. I left it on the table when I went out to call my office. You took it.”

Wassell was silent. The other four men looked at him.

Smithson said, “I felt that if one of you was a thief, you wouldn’t be able to resist a shiny quarter. Mr. Wassell, you’ve been stealing from your own company, and, afraid you would be caught, you tried to spread the guilt among your men. That was a wicked and cowardly thing to do.”

Wassell hung his head. “You are right, Mr. Smithson. I thought if I hired you to investigate you would find one of the men guilty, and then perhaps I could stop taking the money for my private use.”

“You little realize the detective’s mind,” said Calumet Smithson. “I will turn you over to the authorities. They will decide what to do with you, though if you are sincerely sorry and promise never to do it again, I will try to keep you from being punished badly.”

the end

I showed it to Mr. Northrop, who read it silently. He hardly smiled at all. Just in one or two places.

Then he put it down and stared at me. “Where did you get the name Euphrosyne Durando?”

“You said, sir, I was not to use my own name, so I used one as different as possible.”

“But where did you get it?”

“Sir, one of the minor characters in one of your stories –”

“Of course! I thought it sounded familiar! Do you realize it’s a feminine name?”

“Since I am neither masculine nor feminine –”

“Yes, you’re quite right. But the name of the detective, Calumet Smithson. That ‘Cal’ part is still you, isn’t it?”

“I wanted some connection, sir.”

“You’ve got a tremendous ego, Cal.”

I hesitated. “What does that mean, sir?”

“Never mind. It doesn’t matter.”

He put the manuscript down and I was troubled. I said, “But what did you think of the mystery?”

“It’s an improvement, but it’s still not a good mystery. Do you realize that?”

“In what way is it disappointing, sir?”

“Well, you don’t understand modern business practices or computerized financing for one thing. And no one would take a quarter from the table with four other men present, even if they weren’t looking. It would have been seen. Then, even if that happened, Mr. Wassell’s taking it isn’t proof he was the thief. Anyone could pocket a quarter automatically, without thinking. It’s an interesting indication, but it’s not proof. And the title of the story tends to give it away, too.”

“I see.”

“And, in addition, the Three Laws of Robotics are still getting in your way. You keep worrying about punishment.”

“I must, sir.”

“I know you must. That’s why I think you shouldn’t try to write crime stories.”

“What else should I write, sir?”

“Let me think about it.”

Mr. Northrop called in the technician again. This time, I think, he wasn’t very eager to have me overhear what he was saying, but even from where I was standing, I could hear the conversation. Sometimes human beings forget how sharp the senses of robots can be.

After all, I was very upset. I wanted to be a writer and I didn’t want Mr. Northrop telling me what I could write and what I couldn’t write. Of course, he was a human being and I had to obey him, but I didn’t like it.

“What’s the matter now, Mr. Northrop?” asked the technician in a voice that sounded sardonic to my ears. “Has this robot of yours been writing a story again?”

“Yes, he has,” said Mr. Northrop, trying to sound indifferent. “He’s written another mystery story and I don’t want him writing mysteries.”

“Too much competition, eh, Mr. Northrop?”

“No. Don’t be a jackass. There’s just no point in two people in the same household writing mysteries. Besides, the Three Laws of Robotics get in the way. You can easily imagine how.”

“Well, what do you want me to do?”

“I’m not sure. Suppose he writes satire. That’s one thing I don’t write, so we won’t be competing, and the Three Laws of Robotics won’t get in his way. I want you to give this robot a sense of the ridiculous.”

“A sense of the what?” said the technician, angrily. “How do I do that? Look, Mr. Northrop, be reasonable. I can put in instructions on how to run a Writer. I can put in a dictionary and grammar. But how can I possibly put in a sense of the ridiculous?”

“Well, think about it. You know the workings of a robot’s brain patterns. Isn’t there some way of readjusting him so that he can see what’s funny, or silly, or just plain ridiculous about human beings?”

“I can fool around, but it’s not safe.”

“Why isn’t it safe?”

“Because, look, Mr. Northrop, you started off with a pretty cheap robot, but I’ve been making it more elaborate. You admit that it’s unique and that you never heard of one that wants to write stories, so now it’s a pretty expensive robot. You may even have a Classic model here that should be given to the Robotic Institute. If you want me to fool around, I might spoil the whole thing. Do you realize that?”

“I’m willing to take the chance. If the whole thing is spoiled, it will be spoiled, but why should it be? I’m not asking you to work in a hurry. Take the time to analyze it carefully. I have lots of time and lots of money, and I want my robot to write satire.”

“Why satire?”

“Because then his lack of worldly knowledge may not matter so much and the Three Laws won’t be so important and in time, some day, he may possibly turn out something interesting, though I doubt it.”

“And he won’t be treading on your turf.”

“All right, then. He won’t be treading on my turf. Satisfied?”

I still didn’t know enough about the language to know what ‘treading on my turf’ meant, but I gathered that Mr. Northrop was annoyed by my mystery stories. I didn’t know why.

There was nothing I could do, of course. Every day, the technician studied me and analyzed me and finally, he said, “All right, Mr. Northrop, I’m going to take a chance, but I’m going to ask you to sign a paper absolving me and my company of all responsibility if anything goes wrong.”

“You just prepare the paper. I’ll sign it,” said Mr. Northrop.

It was very chilling to think that something might go wrong, but that’s how things are. A robot must accept all that human beings decide to do.

This time, after I became aware of everything again, I was quite weak for a long time. I had difficulty standing, and my speech was slurred.

I thought that Mr. Northrop looked at me with a worried expression. Perhaps he felt guilty at how he had treated me – he
should
feel guilty – or perhaps he was just worried at the possibility of having lost a great deal of money.

As my sense of balance returned and my speech became clear, an odd thing happened. I suddenly understood how
silly
human beings were. They had no laws governing their actions. They had to make up their own, and even when they did, nothing forced them to obey.

Human beings were simply
confused;
one had to laugh at them. I understood laughter now and could even make the sound, but naturally I didn’t laugh out loud. That would have been impolite and offensive. I laughed inside myself, and I began to think of a story in which human beings
did
have laws governing their actions but they hated them and couldn’t stick to them.

I also thought of the technician and decided to put him into the story, too. Mr. Northrop kept going to the technician and asking him to do things to me, harder and harder things. Now he had given me a sense of the ridiculous.

So suppose I wrote a story about ridiculous human beings, with no robots present because, of course, robots aren’t ridiculous and their presence would simply spoil the humor. And suppose I put in a person who was a technician of human beings. It might be some creature with strange powers who could alter
human
behavior as my technician could alter robot behavior. What would happen in that case?

It might show clearly how human beings were not sensible.

I spent days thinking about the story and getting happier and happier about it. I would start with two men having dinner, and one of them would own a technician – well,
have
a technician of some sort – and I would place the setting in the twentieth century so as not to offend Mr. Northrop and the other people of the twenty-first.

I read books to learn about human beings. Mr. Northrop let me do this and he hardly ever gave me any tasks to do. Nor did he try to hurry me to write. Maybe he still felt guilty about the risk he had taken of doing me harm.

I finally started the story, and here it is:

Perfectly Formal

by Euphrosyne Durando

George and I were dining at a rather posh restaurant, one in which it was not unusual to see men and women enter in formal wear.

George looked up at one of those men, observing him narrowly and without favor, as he wiped his lips with my napkin, having carelessly dropped his own.

“A pox on all tuxedos, say I,” said George.

I followed the direction of his glance. As nearly as I could tell, he was studying a portly man of about fifty who was wearing an intense expression of self-importance as he helped a rather glittering woman, considerably younger than himself, to her chair.

I said, “George, are you getting ready to tell me that you know yon bloke in the tux?”

“No,” said George. “I intend to tell you no such thing. My communications with you, and with all living beings, are always predicated on total truth.”

“Like your tales of your two-centimeter demon, Az
 
–
“The look of agony on his face made me stop.

“Don’t speak of such things,” he whispered hoarsely. “Azazel has no sense of humor, and he has a powerful sense of power.” Then, more normally, he went on, “I was merely expressing my detestation of tuxedos, particularly when infested by fat slobs like yon bloke, to use your own curious turn of expression.”

“Oddly enough,” I said, “I rather agree with you. I, too, find formal wear objectionable and, except when it is impossible to do so, I avoid all black-tie affairs, for that reason alone.”

“Good for you,” said George. “That rather spoils my impression that you have no redeeming social qualities. I’ve told everyone that you haven’t, you know.”

“Thank you, George,” I said. “That was very thoughtful of you, considering that you gorge yourself at my expense every chance you get.”

“I merely allow you to enjoy my company on those occasions, old man. I would tell all my friends now that you do have one redeeming social quality, but that would merely confuse everyone. They seem quite content with the thought that you have none.”

“I thank all your friends,” I said.

“As it happens, I know a man,” said George, “who was to the manor born. His diapers had been clamped shut with studs, not safety pins. On his first birthday, he was given a little black tie, to be knotted and
not
clipped on. And so things continued all his life. His name is Winthrop Carver Cabwell, and he lived on so rarefied a level of Boston’s Brahman aristocracy that he had to carry an oxygen mask for occasional use.”

“And you knew this patrician?
You?”

George looked offended. “Of course, I did,” he said. “Do you, for one moment, think that I am such a snob that I would refuse to associate with someone for no other reason than that he was a rich and aristocratic man of Brahman persuasion? You little know me if you do, old man. Winthrop and I knew each other quite well. I was his escape.”

George heaved a vinous sigh that sent a neighboring fly into an alcoholic tailspin. “Poor fellow,” he said. “Poor rich aristocrat.”

“George,” I said. “I believe you’re winding yourself up to tell me one of your improbable tales of disaster. I don’t wish to hear it.”

“Disaster? On the contrary. I have a tale to tell of great happiness and joy, and since that is what you want to hear, I will now tell it to you.”

As I told you [said George] my Brahman friend was a gentleman from toe to crown, clean-favored and imperially slim
 
–

[Why are you interrupting me with your asinine mouthing of Richard Corey, old fellow? I never heard of him. I’m talking of Winthrop Carver Cabwell. Why don’t you listen? Where was I? Oh, yes.]

He was a gentleman from toe to crown, clean-favored and imperially slim. As a result, he was naturally a hissing and a byword to all decent people, as he would have known, if he had ever associated with decent people which, of course, he did not, only with other lost souls like himself.

Yes, as you say, he did know me and it was the eventual saving of him
 
–
not that I ever profited by the matter. However, as you know, old fellow, money is the last thing on my mind.