Sense of Wonder: A Century of Science Fiction (33 page)

HELENA: Brothers, I have not come here as the President’s daughter. I have come on behalf of the Humanity League. Brothers, the Humanity League now has over two hundred thousand members. Two hundred thousand people are on your side, and offer you their help.

BUSMAN: Two hundred thousand people! Miss Glory, that’s a tidy lot. Not bad.

FABRY: I’m always telling you there’s nothing like good old Europe. You see, they’ve not forgotten us. They’re offering us help.

DR. GALL: What help? A theatre, for instance?

HALLEMEIER: An orchestra?

HELENA: More than that.

ALQUIST: Just you?

HELENA: Oh, never mind about me. I’ll stay as long as it is necessary.

BUSMAN: By Jove, that’s good.

ALQUIST: Domin, I’m going to get the best room ready for Miss Glory.

DOMIN: Just a minute. I’m afraid that Miss Glory is of the opinion that she has been talking to Robots.

HELENA: Of course.

DOMIN: I’m sorry. These gentlemen are human beings just like us.

HELENA: You’re not Robots?

BUSMAN: Not Robots.

HALLEMEIER: Robots indeed!

DR. GALL: No, thanks.

FABRY: Upon my honor, Miss Glory, we aren’t Robots.

HELENA: (to DOMIN)

Then why did you tell me that all your officials are Robots?

DOMIN: Yes, the officials, but not the managers. Allow me, Miss Glory: this is Mr. Fabry, General Technical Manager of R. U.R.; Dr. Gall, Head of the Psychological and Experimental Department; Dr. Hallemeier, Head of the Institute for the Psychological Training of Robots; Consul Busman, General Business Manager; and Alquist, Head of the Building Department of R.U.R.

ALQUIST: Just a builder.

HELENA: Excuse me, gentlemen, for—for—. Have I done something dreadful?

ALQUIST: Not at all, Miss Glory. Please sit down.

HELENA: I’m a stupid girl. Send me back by the first ship.

DR. GALL: Not for anything in the world, Miss Glory. Why should we send you back?

HELENA: Because you know I’ve come to disturb your Robots for you.

DOMIN: My dear Miss Glory, we’ve had close upon a hundred saviours and prophets here. Every ship brings us some. Missionaries, anarchists, Salvation Army, all sorts. It’s astonishing what a number of churches and idiots there are in the world.

HELENA: And you let them speak to the Robots?

DOMIN: So far we’ve let them all, why not? The Robots remember everything, but that’s all. They don’t even laugh at what the people say. Really, it is quite incredible. If it would amuse you, Miss Glory, I’ll take you over to the Robot warehouse. It holds about three hundred thousand of them.

BUSMAN: Three hundred and forty-seven thousand.

DOMIN: Good! And you can say whatever you like to them. You can read the Bible, recite the multiplication table, whatever you please. You can even preach to them about human rights.

HELENA: Oh, I think that if you were to show them a little love—

FABRY: Impossible, Miss Glory. Nothing is harder to like than a Robot.

HELENA: What do you make them for, then?

BUSMAN: Ha, ha, ha, that’s good! What are Robots made for?

FABRY: For work, Miss Glory! One Robot can replace two and a half workmen. The human machine, Miss Glory, was terribly imperfect. It had to be removed sooner or later.

BUSMAN: It was too expensive.

FABRY: It was not effective. It no longer answers the requirements of modern engineering. Nature has no idea of keeping pace with modern labor. For example: from a technical point of view, the whole of childhood is a sheer absurdity. So much time lost. And then again—

HELENA: Oh, no! No!

FABRY: Pardon me. But kindly tell me what is the real aim of your League—the…the Humanity League.

HELENA: Its real purpose is to—to protect the Robots—and—and ensure good treatment for them.

FABRY: Not a bad object, either. A machine has to be treated properly. Upon my soul, I approve of that. I don’t like damaged articles. Please, Miss Glory, enroll us all as contributing, or regular, or foundation members of your League.

HELENA: No, you don’t understand me. What we really want is to—to liberate the Robots.

HALLEMEIER: How do you propose to do that?

HELENA: They are to be—to be dealt with like human beings.

HALLEMEIER: Aha. I suppose they’re to vote? To drink beer? to order us about?

HELENA: Why shouldn’t they drink beer?

HALLEMEIER: Perhaps they’re even to receive wages?

HELENA: Of course they are.

HALLEMEIER: Fancy that, now! And what would they do with their wages, pray?

HELENA: They would buy—what they need…what pleases them…

HALLEMEIER: That would be very nice, Miss Glory, only there’s nothing that does please the Robots. Good heavens, what are they to buy? You can feed them on pineapples, straw, whatever you like. It’s all the same to them, they’ve no appetite at all. They’ve no interest in anything, Miss Glory. Why, hang it all, nobody’s ever yet seen a Robot smile.

HELENA: Why…why don’t you make them happier?

HALLEMEIER: That wouldn’t do, Miss Glory. They are only workmen.

HELENA: Oh, but they’re so intelligent.

HALLEMEIER: Confoundedly so, but they’re nothing else. They’ve no will of their own. No passion. No soul.

HELENA: No love?

HALLEMEIER: Love? Rather not. Robots don’t love. Not even themselves.

HELENA: Nor defiance?

HALLEMEIER: Defiance? I don’t know. Only rarely, from time to time.

HELENA: What?

HALLEMEIER: Nothing particular. Occasionally they seem to go off their heads. Something like epilepsy, you know. It’s called Robot’s cramp. They’ll suddenly sling down everything they’re holding, stand still, gnash their teeth—and then they have to go into the stamping-mill. It’s evidently some breakdown in the mechanism.

DOMIN: A flaw in the works that has to be removed.

HELENA: No, no, that’s the soul.

FABRY: Do you think that the soul first shows itself by a gnashing of teeth?

HELENA: Perhaps it’s a sort of revolt. Perhaps it’s just a sign that there’s a struggle within. Oh, if you could infuse them with it!

DOMIN: That’ll be remedied, Miss Glory. Dr. Gall is just making some experiments—

DR. GALL: Not with regard to that, Domin. At present I am making painnerves.

HELENA: Pain-nerves?

DR. GALL: Yes, the Robots feel practically no bodily pain. You see, young Rossum provided them with too limited a nervous system. We must introduce suffering.

HELENA: Why do you want to cause them pain?

DR. GALL: For industrial reasons, Miss Glory. Sometimes a Robot does damage to himself because it doesn’t hurt him. He puts his hand into the machine, breaks his finger, smashes his head, its all the same to him. We must provide them with pain. That’s an automatic protection against damage.

HELENA: Will they be happier when they feel pain?

DR. GALL: On the contrary; but they will be more perfect from a technical point of view.

HELENA: Why don’t you create a soul for them?

DR. GALL: That’s not in our power.

FABRY: That’s not in our interest.

BUSMAN: That would increase the cost of production. Hang it all, my dear young lady, we turn them out at such a cheap rate. A hundred and fifty dollars each fully dressed, and fifteen years ago they cost ten thousand. Five years ago we used to buy the clothes for them. To-day we have our own weaving mill, and now we even export cloth five times cheaper than other factories. What do you pay a yard for cloth, Miss Glory?

HELENA: I don’t know really, I’ve forgotten.

BUSMAN: Good gracious, and you want to found a Humanity League? It only costs a third now, Miss Glory. All prices are today a third of what they were and they’ll fall still lower, lower, lower, like that.

HELENA: I don’t understand.

BUSMAN: Why, bless you, Miss Glory, it means that the cost of labor has fallen. A Robot, food and all, costs three quarters of a cent per hour. That’s mighty important, you know. All factories will go pop like chestnuts if they don’t at once buy Robots to lower the cost of production.

HELENA: And get rid of their workmen?

BUSMAN: Of course. But in the meantime, we’ve dumped five hundred thousand tropical Robots down on the Argentine pampas to grow corn. Would you mind telling me how much you pay a pound for bread?

HELENA: I’ve no idea.

BUSMAN: We’ll I’ll tell you. It now costs two cents in good old Europe. A pound of bread for two cents, and the Humanity League knows nothing about it. Miss Glory, you don’t realize that even that’s too expensive. Why, in five years’ time I’ll wager—

HELENA: What?

BUSMAN: That the cost of everything won’t be a tenth of what it is now. Why, in five years we’ll be up to our ears in corn and everything else.

ALQUIST: Yes, and all the workers throughout the world will be employed.

DOMIN: Yes, Alquist, they will. Yes, Miss Glory, they will. But in ten years Rossum’s Universal Robots will produce so much corn, so much cloth, so much everything, that things will be practically without price. There will be no poverty. All work will be done by living machines. Everybody will be free from worry and liberated from the degradation of labor. Everybody will live only to perfect himself.

HELENA: Will he?

DOMIN: Of course. It’s bound to happen. But then the servitude of man to man and the enslavement of man to matter will cease. Of course, terrible things may happen at first, but that simply can’t be avoided. Nobody will get bread at the price of life and hatred. The Robots will wash the feet of the beggar and prepare a bed for him in his house.

ALQUIST: Domin, Domin. What you say sounds too much like Paradise. There was something good in service and something great in humility. There was some kind of virtue in toil and weariness.

DOMIN: Perhaps. But we cannot reckon with what is lost when we start out to transform the world. Man shall be free and supreme; he shall have no other aim, no other labor, no other care than to perfect himself. He shall serve neither matter nor man. He will not be a machine and a device for production. He will be Lord of creation.

BUSMAN: Amen.

FABRY: So be it.

HELENA: You have bewildered me—I should like—I should like to believe this.

DR. GALL: You are younger than we are, Miss Glory. You will live to see it.

HALLEMEIER: True. Don’t you think Miss Glory might lunch with us?

DR. GALL: Of course. Domin, ask on behalf of us all.

DOMIN: Miss Glory, will you do us the honor?

HELENA: When you know why I’ve come—

FABRY: For the League of Humanity, Miss Glory.

HELENA: Oh, in that case, perhaps—

FABRY: That’s fine! Miss Glory, excuse me for five minutes.

DR. GALL: Pardon me, too, dear Miss Glory.

BUSMAN: I won’t be long.

HALLEMEIER: We’re all very glad you’ve come.

BUSMAN: We’ll be back in exactly five minutes.

All rush out except DOMIN and HELENA.

HELENA: What have they all gone off for?

DOMIN: To cook, Miss Glory.

HELENA: To cook what?

DOMIN: Lunch. The Robots do our cooking for us and as they’ve no taste it’s not altogether—Hallemeier is awfully good at grills and Gall can make a kind of sauce, and Busman knows all about omelettes.

HELENA: What a feast! And what’s the specialty of Mr.—your builder?

DOMIN: Alquist? Nothing. He only lays the table. And Fabry will get together a little fruit. Our cuisine is very modest, Miss Glory.

HELENA: I wanted to ask you something—

DOMIN: And I wanted to ask you something, too.

(Looking at watch)

Five minutes.

HELENA: What did you want to ask me?

DOMIN: Excuse me, you asked first.

HELENA: Perhaps it’s silly of me, but why do you manufacture female Robots when—when—

DOMIN: When sex means nothing to them?

HELENA: Yes.

DOMIN: There’s a certain demand for them, you see. Servants, saleswomen, stenographers. People are used to it.

HELENA: But—but, tell me, are the Robots male and female mutually—completely without—

DOMIN: Completely indifferent to each other, Miss Glory. There’s no sign of any affection between them.

HELENA: Oh, that’s terrible.

DOMIN: Why?

HELENA: It’s so unnatural. One doesn’t know whether to be disgusted or to hate them, or perhaps—

DOMIN: To pity them?

HELENA: That’s more like it. What did you want to ask me about?

DOMIN: I should like to ask you, Miss Helena, whether you will marry me?

HELENA: What?