Robots through the Ages, page 13
Then his hands took over. For a time he worked and thought, but the feeling of the protoplasm came into them, and his hands were almost one with the life stuff, sensing its tiny responses, inserting another link onto a chain, supplanting an atom of hydrogen with one of the hydroxyl radicals, wielding all the delicate chemical manipulation. He removed the defective genes and gently inserted the correct ones. Four hundred years of this work lay behind him—work he had loved, work which had meant the possible evolution of his race into all it might be.
It had become instinct to him—instinct in only a colloquial sense, however; this was learned response, and real instinct lay deeper than that, so deep that no reason could overcome it and that it was automatic even the first time. Only Man had had instinct and intelligence—stored somehow in this tiny cell that lay within the time field.
He stepped out, just as Ceofor was drawing back in a dead heat. But the younger robot inspected Senthree’s cell, and nodded. “Less disturbance and a neater job on the nucleus—I can’t see where you pierced the wall. Well, if we had thirty years—even twenty—we could have Man again—or a race. Yours is male and mine female. But there’s no time. Shall I leave the time field on?”
Senthree started to nod.
Then he swung to Beswun. “The time field. Can it be reversed?”
“You mean to speed time up within it? No, not with that model. Take a bigger one. I could build you one in half an hour. But who’d want to speed up time with all the troubles you’d get? How much?”
“Ten thousand—or at least seven thousand times! The period is up tomorrow when disbursements have to be made. I want twenty years in a day.”
Beswun shook his head. “No. That’s what I was afraid of. Figure it this way: you speed things up ten thousand times and that means the molecules in there speed up just that much, literally. Now 273 degrees times ten thousand—and you have more than two million degrees of temperature. And those molecules have energy! They come busting out of there. No, can’t be done.”
“How much can you do?” Senthree demanded.
Beswun considered. “Ten times—maybe no more than nine. That gives you all the refractories would handle, if we set it up down in the old pit under the building—you know, where they had the annealing oven.”
It wasn’t enough; it would still take two years. Senthree dropped onto a seat, vagrantly wondering again how this queer brain of his that the psychologists studied futilely could make him feel tired when his body could have no fatigue. It was probably one of those odd circuits they didn’t dare touch.
“Of course, you can use four fields,” Beswun stated slowly. “Big one outside, smaller one, still smaller, and smallest inside that. Fourth power of nine is about sixty-six hundred. That’s close—raise that nine a little and you’d have your twenty years in a day. By the time it leaked from field to field, it wouldn’t matter. Take a couple of hours.”
“Not if you get your materials together and build each shell inside the other—you’ll be operating faster each step then,” Ceofor shouted. “Somebody’ll have to go in and stay there a couple of our minutes toward the end to attach the educator tapes—and to revive the couple!”
“Take power,” Beswun warned.
Senthree shrugged. Let it. If the funds they had wouldn’t cover it, the Directorate would have to make it up, once it was used. Besides, once Man was created, they couldn’t fold up the biolabs. “I’ll go in,” he suggested.
“My job,” Ceofor told him flatly. “You won the contest in putting the cells right.”
Senthree gave in reluctantly, largely because the younger robot had more experience at reviving than he did. He watched Beswun assemble the complicated net of wires and become a blur as he seemed to toss the second net together almost instantly. The biochemist couldn’t see the third go up—it was suddenly there, and Beswun was coming out as it flashed into existence. He held up four fingers, indicating all nets were working.
Ceofor dashed in with the precious cells for the prepared incubators that would nurture the bodies until maturity, when they would be ready for the educators. His body seemed to blur, jerk, and disappear. And almost at once he was back.
Senthree stood watching for a moment more, but there was nothing to see. He hesitated again, then turned and moved out of the building. Across the street lay his little lodging place, where he could relax with his precious two books—almost complete—that had once been printed by Man. Tonight he would study that strange bit of Man’s history entitled Gather, Darkness!, with its odd indications of a science that Man had once had which had surpassed even that of the robots now. It was pleasanter than the incomprehensibility of the mysteriously titled Mein Kampf. He’d let his power idle, and mull over it, and consider again the odd behavior of male and female who made such a complicated business of mating. That was probably more instinct—Man, it seemed, was filled with instincts.
For a long time, though, he sat quietly with the book on his lap, wondering what it would be like to have instincts. There must be many unpleasant things about it. But there were also suggestions that it could be pleasant. Well, he’d soon know by observation, even though he could never experience it. Man should have implanted one instinct in a robot’s brain, at least, just to show what it was like.
He called the lab once, and Ceofor reported that all was doing nicely, and that both children were looking quite well. Outside the window, Senthree heard a group go by, discussing the latest bits of news on the Arcturus expedition. At least in that, Man had failed to equal the robots. He had somehow died before he could find the trick of using identity exchange to overcome the limitation imposed by the speed of light.
Finally he fell to making up a speech that he could deliver to the Director, Arpeten, when success was in his hands. It must be very short—something that would stick in the robot’s mind for weeks, but carrying everything a scientist could feel on proving that those who opposed him were wrong. Let’s see—
The buzzer on the telescreen cut through his thoughts, and he nipped it on to see Ceofor’s face looking out. Senthree’s spirits dropped abruptly as he stared at the younger robot.
“Failure? No!”
The other shook his head. “No. At least, I don’t know. I couldn’t give them full education. Maybe the tape was uncomfortable. They took a lot of it, but the male tore his helmet off and took the girl’s off. Now they just sit there, rubbing their heads and staring around.”
He paused, and the little darkened ridges of plastic over his eyes tensed. “The time speed-up is off. But I didn’t know what to do.”
“Let them alone until I get there. If it hurts them, we can give them the rest of it later. How are they otherwise?”
“I don’t know. They look all right, boss.” Ceofor hesitated, and his voice dropped. “Boss, I don’t like it. There’s something wrong here. I can’t quite figure out what it is, but it isn’t the way I expected. Hey, the male just pushed the female off her seat. Do you think their destructive instinct—No, she’s sitting down on the floor now, with her head against him, and holding one of his hands. Wasn’t that part of the mating ritual in one of the books?”
Senthree started to agree, a bit of a smile coming onto his face. It looked as if instinct were already in operation.
But a strange voice cut him off. “Hey, you robots. When do we eat around here?”
They could talk! It must have been the male. And if it wasn’t the polite thanks and gratitude Senthree had expected, that didn’t matter. There had been all kinds of Men in the books, and some were polite while others were crude. Perhaps forced education from the tapes without fuller social experience was responsible for that. But it would all adjust in time.
He started to turn back to Ceofor, but the younger robot was no longer there, and the screen looked out on a blank wall. Senthree could hear the loud voice crying out again, rough and harsh, and there was a shrill, whining sound that might be the female. The two voices blended with the vague mutter of robot voices until he could not make out the words.
He wasted no time in trying. He was already rushing down to the street and heading toward the labs. Instinct—the male had already shown instinct, and the female had responded. They would have to be slow with the couple at first, of course—but the whole answer to the robot problems lay at hand. It would only take a little time and patience now. Let Arpeten sneer, and let the world dote on the Arcturus explorers. Today, biochemistry had been crowned king with the magic of intelligence combined with instinct as its power.
Ceofor came out of the lab at a run with another robot behind him. The young robot looked dazed, and there was another emotion Senthree could not place. The older biochemist nodded, and the younger one waved quickly. “Can’t stop now. They’re hungry.” He was gone at full speed.
Senthree realized suddenly that no adequate supply of fruit and vegetables had been provided, and he hadn’t even known how often Man had to eat. Or exactly what. Luckily, Ceofor was taking care of that.
He went down the hall, hearing a tumult of voices, with robots apparently spread about on various kinds of hasty business. The main lab where the couple was seemed quiet. Senthree hesitated at the door, wondering how to address them. There must be no questioning now. Today he would not force himself on them, nor expect them to understand his purposes. He must welcome them and make them feel at ease in this world, so strange to them with their prehistoric tape education. It would be hard at first to adjust to a world of only robots, with no other Man people. The matter of instinct that had taken so long could wait a few days more.
The door opened in front of him and he stepped into the lab, his eyes turning to the low table where they sat. They looked healthy, and there was no sign of misery or uncertainty that he could see, though he could not be sure of that until he knew them better. He could not even be sure it was a scowl on the male’s face as the Man turned and looked at him.
“Another one, eh? O.K., come up here. What you want?”
Then Senthree no longer wondered how to address the Man. He bowed low as he approached them, and instinct made his voice soft and apologetic as he answered.
“Nothing, Master. Only to serve you.”
Our next selection, from the fertile year of 1953, by Fritz Leiber, pairs a future consumerist media landscape with massive, animated billboards, such as we’ve seen in movies like Blade Runner and Total Recall, with the first automated robotic vending machines released amid the disintegrating geopolitical relationship between the US and Russia. Questioning Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics, Leiber imagines the futility of automatons in a post-apocalyptic New York City. Deadpan humor collides with danse macabre horror here, and the results pack quite a punch . . . —BTS
A BAD DAY FOR SALES
FRITZ LEIBER
Don’t wait to “Get ’em while they’re hot.”By then, it is too late to get them at all!
The big bright doors of the office building parted with a pneumatic whoosh and Robie glided onto Times Square. The crowd that had been watching the fifty-foot-tall girl on the clothing billboard get dressed, or reading the latest news about the Hot Truce scrawl itself in yard-high script, hurried to look.
Robie was still a novelty. Robie was fun. For a little while yet, he could steal the show. But the attention did not make Robie proud. He had no more emotions than the pink plastic giantess, who dressed and undressed endlessly whether there was a crowd or the street was empty, and who never once blinked her blue mechanical eyes. But she merely drew business while Robie went out after it.
For Robie was the logical conclusion of the development of vending machines. All the earlier ones had stood in one place, on a floor or hanging on a wall, and blankly delivered merchandise in return for coins, whereas Robie searched for customers. He was the demonstration model of a line of sales robots to be manufactured by Shuler Vending Machines, provided the public invested enough in stocks to give the company capital to go into mass production.
The publicity Robie drew stimulated investments handsomely. It was amusing to see the TV and newspaper coverage of Robie selling, but not a fraction as much fun as being approached personally by him. Those who were usually bought anywhere from one to five hundred shares, if they had any money and foresight enough to see that sales robots would eventually be on every street and highway in the country.
Robie radared the crowd, found that it surrounded him solidly, and stopped. With a carefully built-in sense of timing, he waited for the tension and expectation to mount before he began talking.
“Say, Ma, he doesn’t look like a robot at all,” a child said. “He looks like a turtle.”
Which was not completely inaccurate. The lower part of Robie’s body was a metal hemisphere hemmed with sponge rubber and not quite touching the sidewalk. The upper was a metal box with black holes in it. The box could swivel and duck.
A chromium-bright hoopskirt with a turret on top.
“Reminds me too much of the Little Joe Paratanks,” a legless veteran of the Persian War muttered, and rapidly rolled himself away on wheels rather like Robie’s.
His departure made it easier for some of those who knew about Robie to open a path in the crowd. Robie headed straight for the gap. The crowd whooped.
Robie glided very slowly down the path, deftly jogging aside whenever he got too close to ankles in skylon or sockassins. The rubber buffer on his hoopskirt was merely an added safeguard.
The boy who had called Robie a turtle jumped in the middle of the path and stood his ground, grinning foxily.
Robie stopped two feet short of him. The turret ducked. The crowd got quiet.
“Hello, youngster,” Robie said in a voice that was smooth as that of a TV star, and was, in fact, a recording of one.
The boy stopped smiling. “Hello,” he whispered.
“How old are you?” Robie asked.
“Nine. No, eight.”
“That’s nice,” Robie observed. A metal arm shot down from his neck, stopped just short of the boy.
The boy jerked back.
“For you,” Robie said.
The boy gingerly took the red polly-lop from the neatly fashioned blunt metal claws, and began to unwrap it.
“Nothing to say?” asked Robie.
“Uh—thank you.”
After a suitable pause, Robie continued. “And how about a nice refreshing drink of Poppy Pop to go with your polly-lop?” The boy lifted his eyes, but didn’t stop licking the candy. Robie waggled his claws slightly. “Just give me a quarter and within five seconds—”
A little girl wriggled out of the forest of legs. “Give me a polly-lop, too, Robie,” she demanded.
“Rita, come back here!” a woman in the third rank of the crowd called angrily.
Robie scanned the newcomer gravely. His reference silhouettes were not good enough to let him distinguish the sex of children, so he merely repeated, “Hello, youngster.”
“Rita!”
“Give me a polly-lop!”
Disregarding both remarks, for a good salesman is single-minded and does not waste bait, Robie said winningly, “I’ll bet you read Junior Space Killers. Now I have here—”
“Uh-uh, I’m a girl. He got a polly-lop.”
At the word girl, Robie broke off. Rather ponderously, he said, “I’ll bet you read Gee-Gee Jones, Space Stripper. Now I have here the latest issue of that thrilling comic, not yet in the stationary vending machines. Just give me fifty cents and within five—”
“Please let me through. I’m her mother.”
A young woman in the front rank drawled over her powder-sprayed shoulder, “I’ll get her for you,” and slithered out on six-inch platform shoes. “Run away, children,” she said nonchalantly. Lifting her arms behind her head, she pirouetted slowly before Robie to show how much she did for her bolero half-jacket and her form-fitting slacks that melted into skylon just above the knees. The little girl glared at her. She ended the pirouette in profile.
At this age-level, Robie’s reference silhouettes permitted him to distinguish sex, though with occasional amusing and embarrassing miscalls. He whistled admiringly. The crowd cheered.
Someone remarked critically to a friend, “It would go over better if he was built more like a real robot. You know, like a man.”
The friend shook his head. “This way it’s subtler.”
No one in the crowd was watching the newscript overhead as it scribbled, “Ice Pack for Hot Truce? Vanadin hints Russ may yield on Pakistan.”
Robie was saying, “. . . in the savage new glamor-tint we have christened Mars Blood, complete with spray applicator and fit-all fingerstalls that mask each finger completely except for the nail. Just give me five dollars—uncrumpled bills may be fed into the revolving rollers you see beside my arm—and within five seconds—”
“No, thanks, Robie,” the young woman yawned.
“Remember,” Robie persisted, “for three more weeks, seductivizing Mars Blood will be unobtainable from any other robot or human vendor.”
“No, thanks.”
Robie scanned the crowd resourcefully. “Is there any gentleman here . . .” he began just as a woman elbowed her way through the front rank.
“I told you to come back!” she snapped at the little girl.
“But I didn’t get my polly-lop!”
“. . . who would care to . . .”
“Rita!”
“Robie cheated. Ow!”
Meanwhile, the young woman in the half bolero had scanned the nearby gentlemen on her own. Deciding that there was less than a fifty per cent chance of any of them accepting the proposition Robie seemed about to make, she took advantage of the scuffle to slither gracefully back into the ranks. Once again the path was clear before Robie.
He paused, however, for a brief recapitulation of the more magical properties of Mars Blood, including a telling phrase about “the passionate claws of a Martian sunrise.”
