Isaac Asimov - Caliban

Horatio actually blacked out for a split second. He did not collapse forward, or twitch violently, or any of that. It was more subtle than that, just a quick moment of total and complete cognitive dissonance. There, before him, talking quite rationally, was a robot who did not know what the Three Laws were! Impossible. Flatly impossible. Then he was back, from wherever he had been. Wait a moment. He had heard of such cases in the past. Yes, yes. There were cases, many of them, of robots who did not know they knew the Three Laws—and yet obeyed them, anyway. It must be something like that. Yes. Yes. The alternative was unthinkable, impossible. “Why don’t you tell me everything,” Horatio suggested. “Start at the beginning, and don’t leave anything out.”

“That could take some time,” Caliban said. “Will it cause you any problem to be away from your duties that long?”

“I can assure you, there can be no higher duty for me at this time than dealing with a robot in your situation.”

Which was certainly true. Horatio would no more leave Caliban to wander off on his own than he would walk away from an occupied house on fire.

“I am deeply relieved,” Caliban said. “At last, I have someone sympathetic, experienced, and intelligent who will listen to me and be able to help.”

“I will certainly do my best,” Horatio said.

“Excellent,” Caliban said. “Then let me begin at the beginning. I have only been alive for a brief time. I awoke two days ago in the Leving Robotics Laboratories, and the first thing I saw was a woman I have since identified as Fredda Leving, unconscious on the floor in front of me, a pool of blood under her head.”

Horatio’s head snapped back with astonishment. “Unconscious! Bleeding! This is terrible news. Did she recover? Were you able to assist her, or summon help?”

Caliban hesitated for a moment. “I must admit that I should have done so, but up until you suggested it just now, it never occurred to me to do any such thing. I should have gone to the aid of a fellow being. But I must plead my own inexperience as a defense. The world was quite new to me—indeed it still is. No, I stepped over her and left the room and the building.”

Horatio felt himself freeze up inside. This was inconceivable. A robot—this robot, in front of him—had walked away from a badly injured human. His vision dimmed again, but he managed to hang on. “I—ah—I—you…” He was not at all surprised to learn that he was unable to speak.

Caliban seemed concerned. “Excuse me, friend Horatio. Are you all right?”

Horatio got his voice back, though not fully under control. “You left her there? Unconscious and bleeding? Even though, by your inaction, you could have cau-cau-caused her dea- death?” It was a major effort of will to say the last words. Just hearing about this secondhand, he could feel the First Law conflict building up inside himself, interfering with his ability to function. And yet Caliban seemed quite unaffected. “You are say—saying that you did noth-nothing-ing to help her.”

“Well, yes.”

“But the Fir—First Law!”

“If that is one of the Three Laws you mentioned earlier, I have already told you, friend Horatio, that I have never heard of them. I did not even learn of the concept of laws at all until I looked up the concept of a sheriff after the police tried to destroy me.”

“Destroy you!”

“Yes, through some sort of massive explosion as they were chasing me.”

“Chasing you! Didn’t they simply order you to stop?”

“If they did, I never heard them. The man with the packages ordered me to stop, but I saw no reason to obey him. He was in no position of authority over me.”

“You refused a direct order from a human being?”

“Why, yes. What of it?”

It had to be real. It could not be some fantastic misunderstanding wherein some malfunction caused this poor unfortunate to lose conscious awareness of the Laws, even as he followed them. This robot, this Caliban, had truly never heard of the Three Laws and was not bound by them. If one of the DAA-BOR models down on the loading docks had suddenly given birth to a baby robot, he would have been no more astonished.

But he had to hear this. The police would need to know everything they could about this robot. Best to let him talk, and call in the authorities after he was done, after he, Horatio, had the full story. “I think you had best start at the beginning again,” he said.

“Yes, certainly.” Caliban proceeded to tell all that had happened to him, from his first moment of awakening over the unconscious Fredda Leving, describing all that had happened since then. His wandering the city, his encounter with the robot-bashing Settlers, his discovery of the blanks in his knowledge, the police chase, all of it. He told his story quickly but carefully.

Horatio felt himself growing more and more confused. Several times, he found that he wanted to stop Caliban and ask a question, but he found that he was unable to do so. Hardly surprising that his speech center was malfunctioning, given the degree of cognitive dissonance Caliban’s story was inducing. He could feel his own intellect sliding toward mindlock, toward a state where the mere hearing of Caliban’s endless violations of the Laws was damaging him severely. And he reported his incredible, horrifying behavior in such a matter-of-fact way, as if none of it were strange, or abnormal, or unnatural. It was hard to focus, hard to concentrate

Wait! There was something wrong. Something he had to do. Something about the—the—yes, the police. He had to call them. Call them. Get them to take this horrifying robot out of here out of here out of here. Wait. Focus. Have to do it without alerting Calicalicaliban. He knew there was a way. How? How? Yes! Hyperwave. Call police hyperwave. Call. Concentrate. Hyperwave. Make the link. Call. Call.

“Sheriff’s Dispatcher,” the voice whispered inside his head, as Caliban related his journeys through the tunnels of the city.

With a feeling of palpable relief, Horatio recognized that he had reached a human dispatcher. Just the sound of a human voice made him feel better. How wise of the Sheriff’s Department to use human dispatchers on the robot call-in frequency. “This is robot HRT-234,” he transmitted, struggling to get the words out. Even over hyperwave, even with a human on the other end of the line, First Law conflict reaction was making it all but impossible to form words. How to tell them? Suddenly he knew. “Caaaan’t ta-talk,” he sent to the dispatcher. “Calib-b-b-an.” Caliban had said the police were after him. If the police had learned his name

“What? Say again, HRT-234.” There was something urgent, eager, in the dispatcher’s voice, something that told Horatio that the human knew who Caliban was.

Horatio concentrated, forced all his effort into sending clearly. “CaliCalibanban. Speeeeechlock.”

“I understand. The rogue robot Caliban is with you and you are suffering speechlock. Good work, HRT-234. Keep your send frequency open to provide a homing signal. Aircar units will be there in ninety seconds. ”

Good work, the human dispatcher had said. Horatio suddenly felt better, felt capable of noticing his surroundings again.

“—iend Horatio! What is wrong with you? Horatio!” Horatio came back to himself and found Caliban reaching out across the table, shaking him by the shoulder. “Wha! Sorr sorr sorry. Lost touch. Could not hear you you while hype hype hype—” Too late, Horatio regained partial control over his speech centers. It had blurted out.

“Could not hear me while you what?” Caliban demanded, but Horatio could say no more. “Hyperwave!” Caliban said. “While you hyperwaved to the Sheriff for help! What else should I have expected!”