Isaac Asimov - The Positronic Man

Even now, Andrew remained in his posture of threat.

"All right, Andrew, you can relax," said George. He was shaking and his face was pale and sweaty. He looked very much unstrung. George was well past the age where he could comfortably face the possibility of a physical confrontation with one young man, let alone two of them at once.

Andrew said, "It is just as well that they ran away. You know that I could never have hurt them, George. I could plainly see that they weren't attacking you."

"But they might have, if things had gone on any further."

"That is only a speculation. In my judgment, George-"

"Yes. I know. Most likely they'd never have had the guts to raise a hand against me. But in any case I didn't order you to attack them. I only told you to move toward them. Their own fears did all the rest. That and that prizefighter stance that you were clever enough to adopt."

"But how could they possibly fear robots? The First Law insures that a robot could never-"

"Fear of robots is a disease that much of mankind has, and there doesn't really seem to be any cure for it-not yet, at any rate. But never mind that. They're gone and you're still in one piece and that's all that matters right now. What I'd like to know, though, is what the devil were you doing here in the first place, Andrew?"

"I was going to the library."

"Yes. I know that. I found the note you left. But this isn't the way to the library. The library's back there, in town. And when I phoned the library the librarian said you hadn't been there, that she hadn't heard a thing from you. I went out looking for you on the library road and there wasn't any sign of you there, and nobody I met along the way to town had seen you either. So I knew you were lost. As a matter of fact, you've gotten yourself turned around by 180 degrees."

"I suspected that there was some error in my directional plan," Andrew said.

"There certainly was. I was just about ready to order a sky-search scan for you, do you know that? And then it occurred to me that you might have wandered over this way, somehow. -What were you doing going to the library anyway, Andrew? Sometimes you get the strangest ideas into your head. You know that I'd be happy to bring you any book you needed."

"Yes, I know that, George. But I am a-"

"Free robot. Yes. Yes. With every right to pick himself up and march off to town to use the library, if that's what he wants to do, even though his extraordinary robotic intelligence is mysteriously incapable of keeping him on the right road. And what was it, may I ask, that you wanted to get at the library?"

"A book on modern language."

"Are you planning to give up woodworking for linguistics, Andrew?"

"I feel inadequate in regard to speech."

"But you have a fantastic command of the language! Your vocabulary, your grammar-"

"The language-its metaphors, its colloquialisms, even its grammar-constantly changes, George. My programming does not. If I don't update myself, I will be almost unable to communicate with human beings in another few generations."

"Well-perhaps you have a point there."

"So I must study the patterns of linguistic change. And many other things as well." Suddenly Andrew heard himself saying, "George, I feel it's important that I get to know much more about human beings, about the world, about everything. I have lived such an isolated life all these years, in our beautiful estate here on this little secluded strip of coast. The world beyond my own doorstep is a mystery to me, really. -and I need to know more about robots also, George. I want to write a book about them."

"A book," George said, sounding puzzled. " About robots. A manual of design?"

"Not at all. A history of their development is what I have in mind."

"Ah," George said, nodding and frowning at the same time. "Well, then. Let's walk home, shall we?"

"Of course. May I put my clothes on or shall I simply carry them?"

"Put them on. By all means."

"Thank you."

Andrew dressed quickly and he and George began to walk back up the road.

"You want to write a book on the history of robotics," George said, as if revolving the concept in his mind. "But why, Andrew? There are a million books on robotics already and at least half a million of them go into the history of the robot concept. The world is growing saturated not only with robots but with information about robots."

Andrew shook his head, a human gesture that he had lately begun to make more and more frequently. "Not a history of robotics, George. A history of robots-by a robot. Surely no such book has ever been written. I want to explain how robots feel about themselves. And especially about how it has been for us in our relationships with human beings, ever since the first robots were allowed to work and live on Earth."

George's eyebrows lifted. But he offered no other direct response.

LITTLE MISS was making one of her periodic visits to her family's California estate. She had reached her eighty-third birthday and she seemed frail as a bird these days. But there was nothing about her that was lacking in either energy or determination. Though she carried a cane, she used it more often to gesture with than she did for support.

She listened to the story of Andrew's unhappy attempt to reach the library in a fury of mounting indignation. At the end she tapped her cane vehemently against the floor and said, "George, that's absolutely horrible. Who were those two young ruffians, anyway?"

"I don't know, Mother."

"Then you should make it your business to find out."

"What difference does it make? Just a couple of local hooligans, I suppose. The usual idling foolish kids. In the end they didn't do any damage."

"But they might have. If you hadn't come along when you did, they could have caused serious harm to Andrew. And even when you did come along, you might well have been physically attacked yourself. The only thing that saved you from that, it seems, is that they were so stupid that they failed to realize that Andrew wouldn't be able to harm them even at your direct order."

"Really, Mother. Do you think they would have touched me? People attacking an absolute stranger on a country road? In the Twenty-Third Century?"

"Well-perhaps not. But Andrew was certainly in danger. And that's something we can't allow. You know that I regard Andrew as a member of our family, George."

"Yes, of course. So do I. We always have."

"Then we can't permit a couple of moronic young louts to treat him like some kind of disposable wind-up toy, can we?"

"What would you have me do, Mother?" asked George.

"You're a lawyer, aren't you? Put your legal training to some good use, then! Listen to me: I want you to set up a test case, somehow, that will force the Regional Court to declare for robot rights, and then get the Regional Legislature to pass the necessary enabling bills, and if there are any political problems you carry the whole thing to the World Court, if you have to. I'll be watching, George, and I'll tolerate no shirking. "

"Mother, didn't you say just a short while ago that what you wanted most in the world for me was that I run for the seat that Grandfather held in the Legislature?"

"Yes, of course. But what does that have to do with-"

"And now you want me to launch a controversial campaign for robot rights. Robots can't vote, Mother. But there are plenty of human beings who do, and a lot of them aren't as fond of robots as you are. Do you know what will happen to my candidacy if the main thing that people know about me is that I was the lawyer who forced the Legislature to pass robot-rights laws?"

"So?"

"Which is more important to you, Mother? That I get elected to the Legislature, or that I get myself involved with this test case of yours?"