Isaac Asimov - The Positronic Man

"But don't you realize what that would mean?" Sir demanded. He was angry again. "All the issues that I just raised will be certain to come out. There'll be tremendous controversy. And then the filing of briefs-the appeals-the public outcry-and ultimately the verdict. Which will be against us, without any question."

He glared at Andrew. "See here, you!" There was a harsh grating quality in Sir's voice that Andrew had never heard before. "Do you comprehend what we've been saying here? The only way I can free you, if it's going to have the slightest meaning, is to do it by recognized legal means. But there are no recognized legal means for freeing robots. Once this thing gets into the courts, not only are you going to fail to achieve your goal, but the court will take official cognizance of an the money that you've been amassing, and you're going to lose that too. They'll tell you that a robot has no legal right to earn money or establish bank accounts to keep it in, and either they'll confiscate it outright or they'll force me to take it away from you myself, though I don't have any need for it whatever or any desire to have it. That'll be an embarrassment to me and a dead loss to you. You still won't be free, whatever that may mean to you, and you won't have your precious bank account either. Well, Andrew? Is all this rigmarole worth the chance of losing your money?"

"Freedom is a priceless thing, Sir," Andrew said. "And the chance of gaining my freedom is worth any amount of money that I may possess."

IT TROUBLED ANDREW greatly that the process of seeking his freedom might cause further distress for Sir. Sir was very fragile now-there was no disguising that, no avoiding the reality of it-and anything that might be a drain on his flagging energies, anything that might upset or disturb or in any way trouble him, might all too readily endanger his life.

And yet Andrew felt it essential that he press onward with his legal action, now that he had brought the matter up. To turn away from it at this point would be a betrayal of his own integrity. It would mean a repudiation of the independent and self-actuated persona that he had felt burgeoning within his positronic brain for year after year.

At first the promptings of that persona had bewildered and even alarmed him. It seemed wrong to him, a flaw in his design, that it should be there at all. But over the course of time he had come to accept its existence as a real thing. Freedom-the state of not being a slave, the state of not being a thing-was what that persona demanded now. And had to have.

He knew there were risks. The court might share his attitude that freedom was a thing without price-but could easily rule that there was no price, however great, for which a robot might be able to buy his freedom.

Andrew was willing to take his chances on that. But the other risk, the risk to Sir's well-being, troubled him deeply.

"I fear for Sir," he told Little Miss. "The publicity-the controversy-the uproar-"

"Don't worry, Andrew. He'll be shielded from everything, I promise you. John Feingold's lawyers will see to that This is entirely a procedural matter. It isn't going to involve my father personally at all."

"And if he is called into court?" Andrew asked.

"He won't be."

"If he is, though," Andrew persisted. "He is my owner, after all. And a famous former member of the Legislature besides. What if there is a subpoena? He'll have to appear. He will be asked why he thinks I should have my freedom. He doesn't even really believe that I should-he's going along with this entirely for your sake, Little Miss, I have no doubt about that-and he will have to come into court, sick and old as he is, to testify in favor of something about which he has deep reservations. It will kill him, Little Miss."

"He won't be called into court. "

"How can you assure me of that? I have no right to allow him to come to harm. I have no ability to allow him to come to harm. -I think I have to withdraw my petition."

"You can't," said Little Miss.

"But if my going to court should be the direct cause of your father's death-"

"You're getting overwrought, Andrew. And putting interpretations on the First Law that are completely unwarranted. My father isn't a defendant in this case, and he's not the plaintiff either, and he's not even going to be a witness. Don't you think John Feingold is capable of protecting someone who was as well known and important in this Region as my father from the nuisance of being called into court? I tell you, Andrew, he will be shielded. Some of the most powerful people in this Region will see to that, if it becomes necessary. But it won't become necessary."

"I wish I could be as sure of that as you are."

"I wish you could too. Trust me, Andrew. He's my father, let me remind you. I love hint more than anything in the-well, I love him very deeply. I wouldn't dream of letting you go ahead with this case if I saw any danger to him in it You've got to believe that, Andrew."

And in the end he did. He still was uneasy about the possibility of Sir's becoming involved. But Little Miss had given him enough assurance to proceed.

A man from the Feingold office came to the house with papers for him to sign, and Andrew signed them-proudly, with a flourish, the bold Andrew Martin signature in firm up-and-down strokes that he had been using on his checks ever since the founding of his corporation so many years before.

The petition was filed with the Regional Court. Months went by, and nothing in particular happened. Occasionally some dreary legal document would arrive, elaborately bound in the traditional stiff covers, and Andrew would scan it quickly and sign it and return it, and then nothing more would be heard for another few months.

Sir was very frail now. Andrew found himself thinking, sometimes, that it might be for the best if Sir died peacefully before the case ever came to court, so that he would be spared the possibility of any kind of emotional turmoil.

The thought was horrifying to him. Andrew banished it from his mind.

"We're on the docket," Little Miss told him finally. "It won't be long now."

And, exactly as Sir had predicted, the proceedings were far from simple.

Little Miss had assured him that it would merely be a matter of appearing before a judge, presenting a petition for a declaration of his status as a free robot, and sitting back to wait out the time it took for the judge to do some research, study the legal precedents, and issue his ruling. The California district of the Regional Court was notoriously farseeing in its interpretation of legal matters and there was every reason, so Little Miss asserted, to believe that the judge would, in the course of time, rule in Andrew's favor and issue some sort of certificate that gave him the free status he sought.

The first indication that things were going to be more complicated than that came when the offices of Feingold and Feingold received notice from the Regional Court-Judge Harold Kramer, presiding over the Fourth Circuit-that counter-petitions had been filed in the matter of Martin vs. Martin.

"Counter-petitions?" Little Miss asked. "And what does that mean?"

"It means that there is going to be intervention on the opposing side," Stanley Feingold told her. Stanley was the head of the firm now-old John was in semi-retirement-and he was handling Andrew's case personally. He looked so much like his father, down to the rounded belly and the amiable smile, that he could almost have been John's younger twin. But he did not affect green-tinted contact lenses.

"Intervention by whom?" Little Miss demanded.

Stanley took a deep breath. "The Regional Labor Federation, for one. They're worried about losing jobs to robots if robots are given their freedom."