Isaac Asimov: Robot Visions

Mrs. Weston met her husband at the door two evenings later. “You’ll have to listen to this, George. There’s bad feeling in the village.”

“About what?” asked Weston? He stepped into the washroom and drowned out any possible answer by the splash of water.

Mrs. Weston waited. She said, “About Robbie.”

Weston stepped out, towel in hand, face red and angry, “What are you talking about?”

“Oh, it’s been building up and building up. I’ve tried to close my eyes to it, but I’m not going to any more. Most of the villagers consider Robbie dangerous. Children aren’t allowed to go near our place in the evenings.”

“We trust our child with the thing.”

“Well, people aren’t reasonable about these things.”

“Then to hell with them.”

“Saying that doesn’t solve the problem. I’ve got to do my shopping down there. I’ve got to meet them every day. And it’s even worse in the city these days when it comes to robots. New York has just passed an ordinance keeping all robots off the streets between sunset and sunrise.”

“All right, but they can’t stop us from keeping a robot in our home. Grace, this is one of your campaigns. I recognize it. But it’s no use. The answer is still, no! We’re keeping Robbie!”

And yet he loved his wife – and what was worse, his wife knew it. George Weston, after all, was only a man – poor thing – and his wife made full use of every device which a clumsier and more scrupulous sex has learned, with reason and futility, to fear.

Ten times in the ensuing week, he cried, “Robbie stays, and that’s final!” and each time it was weaker and accompanied by a louder and more agonized groan.

Came the day at last, when Weston approached his daughter guiltily and suggested a “beautiful” visivox show in the village.

Gloria clapped her hands happily, “Can Robbie go?”

“No, dear,” he said, and winced at the sound of his voice, “they won’t allow robots at the visivox – but you can tell him all about it when you get home.” He stumbled all over the last few words and looked away.

Gloria came back from town bubbling over with enthusiasm, for the visivox had been a gorgeous spectacle indeed.

She waited for her father to maneuver the jet-car into the sunken garage, “Wait till I tell Robbie, Daddy. He would have liked it like anything. Especially when Francis Fran was backing away so-o-o quietly, and backed right into one of the Leopard-Men and had to run.” She laughed again, “Daddy, are there really Leopard-Men on the Moon?”

“Probably not,” said Weston absently. “It’s just funny make-believe.” He couldn’t take much longer with the car. He’d have to face it.

Gloria ran across the lawn. “Robbie. -Robbie!”

Then she stopped suddenly at the sight of a beautiful collie which regarded her out of serious brown eyes as it wagged its tail on the porch.

“Oh, what a nice dog!” Gloria climbed the steps, approached cautiously and patted it. “Is it for me, Daddy?”

Her mother had joined them. “Yes, it is, Gloria. Isn’t it nice – soft and furry? It’s very gentle. It likes little girls.”

“Can he play games?”

“Surely. He can do any number of tricks. Would you like to see some?”

“Right away. I want Robbie to see him, too. Robbie!” She stopped, uncertainly, and frowned, “I’ll bet he’s just staying in his room because he’s mad at me for not taking him to the visivox. You’ll have to explain to him, Daddy. He might not believe me, but he knows if you say it, it’s so.”

Weston’s lip grew tighter. He looked toward his wife but could not catch her eye.

Gloria turned precipitously and ran down the basement steps, shouting as she went, “Robbie- Come and see what Daddy and Mamma brought me. They brought me a dog, Robbie.”

In a minute she had returned, a frightened little girl. “Mamma, Robbie isn’t in his room. Where is he?” There was no answer and George Weston coughed and was suddenly extremely interested in an aimlessly drifting cloud. Gloria’s voice quavered on the verge of tears, “Where’s Robbie, Mamma?”

Mrs. Weston sat down and drew her daughter gently to her, “Don’t feel bad, Gloria. Robbie has gone away, I think.”

“Gone away? Where? Where’s he gone away, Mamma?”

“No one knows, darling. He just walked away. We’ve looked and we’ve looked and we’ve looked for him, but we can’t find him.”

“You mean he’ll never come back again?” Her eyes were round with horror.

“We may find him soon. We’ll keep looking for him. And meanwhile you can play with your nice new doggie. Look at him! His name is Lightning and he can-”

But Gloria’s eyelids had overflown, “I don’t want the nasty dog – I want Robbie. I want you to find me Robbie.” Her feelings became too deep for words, and she spluttered into a shrill wail.

Mrs. Weston glanced at her husband for help, but he merely shuffled his feet morosely and did not withdraw his ardent stare from the heavens, so she bent to the task of consolation, “Why do you cry, Gloria? Robbie was only a machine, just a nasty old machine. He wasn’t alive at all.”

“He was not no machine!” screamed Gloria, fiercely and ungrammatically. “He was a person just like you and me and he was my friend. I want him back. Oh, Mamma, I want him back.”

Her mother groaned in defeat and left Gloria to her sorrow.

“Let her have her cry out,” she told her husband. “Childish griefs are never lasting. In a few days, she’ll forget that awful robot ever existed.”

But time proved Mrs. Weston a bit too optimistic. To be sure, Gloria ceased crying, but she ceased smiling, too, and the passing days found her ever more silent and shadowy. Gradually, her attitude of passive unhappiness wore Mrs. Weston down and all that kept her from yielding was the impossibility of admitting defeat to her husband.

Then, one evening, she flounced into the living room, sat down, folded her arms and looked boiling mad.

Her husband stretched his neck in order to see her over his newspaper, “What now, Grace?”

“It’s that child, George. I’ve had to send back the dog today. Gloria positively couldn’t stand the sight of him, she said. She’s driving me into a nervous breakdown.”

Weston laid down the paper and a hopeful gleam entered his eye, “Maybe- Maybe we ought to get Robbie back. It might be done, you know. I can get in touch with-”

“No!” she replied, grimly. “I won’t hear of it. We’re not giving up that easily. My child shall not be brought up by a robot if it takes years to break her of it.”

Weston picked up his paper again with a disappointed air. “A year of this will have me prematurely gray.”

“You’re a big help, George,” was the frigid answer. “What Gloria needs is a change of environment? Of course she can’t forget Robbie here. How can she when every tree and rock reminds her of him? It is really the silliest situation I have ever heard of. Imagine a child pining away for the loss of a robot.”

“Well, stick to the point. What’s the change in environment you’re planning?”

“We’re going to take her to New York.”

“The city! In August! Say, do you know what New York is like in August? It’s unbearable.”

“Millions do bear it.”

“They don’t have a place like this to go to. If they didn’t have to stay in New York, they wouldn’t.”

“Well, we have to. I say we’re leaving now – or as soon as we can make the arrangements. In the city, Gloria will find sufficient interests and sufficient friends to perk her up and make her forget that machine.”

“Oh, Lord,” groaned the lesser half, “those frying pavements!”