Isaac Asimov - The Positronic Man

"Well, Andrew. So good to see you again. I'm sorry I made you wait, but there was something I had to finish."

"Quite all right. I am never in a hurry, Paul."

Paul had taken lately to wearing the heavy makeup that fashion was currently dictating for both sexes, and though it made the somewhat bland lines of his face sharper and firmer, Andrew disapproved. He felt that Paul's strong, incisive personality needed no such cosmetic enhancement. It would have been perfectly all right for Paul to allow himself to look bland; there was nothing bland about the man himself, and no need for all this paint and powder.

Andrew kept his disapproval to himself, of course. But the fact that he disapproved of Paul's appearance at all was something of a novelty for him. He had only just begun to have such thoughts. Since finishing the first draft of his book, Andrew had discovered that disapproving of the things human beings did, as long as he avoided expressing such opinions openly, did not make him as uneasy as he might have anticipated. He could think disapproving thoughts without difficulty and he was even able to put his disapproval in writing. He was certain that it had not always been like that for him.

Paul said, "Come inside, Andrew. I heard that you wanted to talk to me, but I wasn't really expecting that you'd come all the way down here to do it."

"If you are too busy to see me just now, Paul, I am prepared to continue to wait."

Paul glanced at the interplay of shifting shadows on the dial on the wall that served as the reception-office's timepiece and said, "I can make some time. Did you come alone?"

"I hired an automatobile."

"Any trouble doing that?" Paul asked, with more than a trace of anxiety in his tone.

"I wasn't expecting any. My rights are protected."

Paul looked all the more anxious for that. "Andrew, I've explained to you half a dozen times that that law is essentially unenforceable, at least in most circumstances. -and if you insist on wearing clothes, you're bound to run into trouble eventually, you know. Just as you did that first time when my father had to rescue you."

"It was the only such time, Paul. But I'm sorry that you're displeased."

"Well, look at it this way: you're virtually a living legend, do you realize that? People sometimes like to win a little ugly fame for themselves by making trouble for celebrities, and a celebrity is certainly what you are. Besides, as I've already told you, you're too valuable in too many ways for you to have any right to take chances with yourself. -How's the book coming along, by the way?"

"I've finished a complete draft. Now I'm doing the final editing and polishing. At least, I hope it will be the final editing and polishing. The publisher is quite pleased with what he's seen so far."

"Good!"

"I don't know that he's necessarily pleased with the book as a book. There are parts of it that make him uncomfortable, I think. But it's my guess that he expects to sell a great many copies simply because it's the first book written by a robot, and it's that aspect that pleases him."

"It's only human, I'm afraid, to be interested in making money, Andrew."

"I would not be displeased by it either. Let the book sell, for whatever reason it does. I can find good uses for whatever money it brings in."

"But I thought you were well off, Andrew! You've always had your own income-and there was the quite considerable amount of money my grandmother left you-"

"Little Miss was extremely generous. And I'm sure I can count on the family to help me out further, if a time comes when my expenses begin to exceed my income. Still, I would rather be able to earn my own way at all times. I would not want to draw on your resources except as a last resort."

"Expenses? What expenses can you be talking about? Yachts? Trips to Mars?"

"Nothing like that," said Andrew. "But I do have something rather costly in mind, Paul. It's my hope that the royalties from my book will be large enough to see me through what I have in mind. My next step, so to speak."

Paul looked a little uneasy. "And what is that?"

"Another upgrade."

"You've always been able to pay for your upgrades out of your own funds up till now."

"This one may be more expensive than the others."

Paul nodded. "Then the book royalties will come in handy. And if they're disappointing, I'm sure that we can find some way of making up-"

"It isn't only a matter of money," Andrew said. "There are some other complications. -Paul, for this one I have to go straight to the top. I need to see the head of the U. S. Robots and Mechanical Men Corporation and get his clearance for the job. I've tried to make an appointment, but so far I haven't been able to get through to him at all. No doubt it's because of my book. The corporation wasn't particularly enthusiastic about my writing a book, you know-they provided no cooperation whatever, as a matter of fact-"

A grin appeared on Paul's face. "Cooperation, Andrew? Cooperation's the last thing you could have expected from them. You scare them silly. They didn't cooperate with us in either stage of our great fight for robot rights, did they? Quite the reverse, actually. And you surely understand why. Give a robot too many rights and no one's going to want to buy one, eh?"

"That may be true, or perhaps not. In any case, I want to speak with the head of the company concerning a very special request that I have. I can't manage to get through by myself, but perhaps if you make the call for me-"

"You know that I'm not any more popular with them than you are, Andrew."

"Nevertheless, you're the head of a powerful and influential law firm and a member of a great and distinguished family. They can't simply ignore you. And if they try, you can always hint that by seeing me they stand a chance of heading off a new campaign by Feingold and Charney to strengthen the civil rights of robots even further."

"Wouldn't that be a lie, Andrew?"

"Yes, Paul, and I'm not good at telling lies. I can't tell one at all, in fact, unless I do it under the constraint of one of the Three Laws. That's why you have to make the call for me."

Paul chuckled. "Ah, Andrew, Andrew! You can't tell a lie, but you can urge me to tell one for you, is that it? You're getting more human all the time!"

THE APPOINTMENT wasn't easy to arrange, even using Paul's supposedly powerful name.

But repeated pressure-coupled with the none too delicate hint that permitting Andrew to have a few minutes of Harley Smythe-Robertson's precious time might well save U. S. Robots and Mechanical Men from having to go through a troublesome new round of litigation over robot rights-finally carried the day. On a balmy spring day Andrew and Paul set out together across the country for the vast and sprawling complex of buildings that was the headquarters of the gigantic robotics company.

Harley Smythe-Robertson-who was descended from both branches of the family that had founded U. S. Robots, and had adopted the hyphenated name by way of declaring that fact-looked remarkably unhappy at the sight of Andrew. He was approaching retirement age and an extraordinary amount of his tenure as president of the company had been devoted to the controversies over robot rights. Smythe-Robertson was a tall, almost skeletally lean man whose gray hair was plastered thinly over the top of his scalp. He wore no facial makeup. From time to time during the meeting he eyed Andrew with brief but undisguised hostility

"And what new trouble have you come here to cause us, may I ask?" Smythe-Robertson said.

"Please understand, sir, it has never been my intention to cause this company trouble. Never."

"But you have. Constantly."

"I have only attempted to gain that to which I have felt entitled."