I, Robot Read online

  Bogert expelled his breath sharply, "And this successor? Who is he?" He was quite close to Herbie now, eyes fixed fascinatedly on those unreadable dull-red photoelectric cells that were the robot's eyes.

  Words came slowly, "You are the next director."

  And Bogert relaxed into a tight smile, "This is good to know. I've been hoping and waiting for this. Thanks, Herbie."

  Peter Bogert was at his desk until five that morning and he was back at nine. The shelf just over the desk emptied of its row of reference books and tables, as he referred to one after the other. The pages of calculations before him increased microscopically and the crumpled sheets at his feet mounted into a hill of scribbled paper.

  At precisely noon, he stared at the final page, rubbed a blood-shot eye, yawned and shrugged. "This is getting worse each minute. Damn!"

  He turned at the sound of the opening door and nodded at Lanning, who entered, cracking the knuckles of one gnarled hand with the other.

  The director took in the disorder of the room and his eyebrows furrowed together.

  "New lead?" he asked.

  "No," came the defiant answer. "What's wrong with the old one?"

  Lanning did not trouble to answer, nor to do more than bestow a single cursory glance at the top sheet upon Bogert's desk. He spoke through the flare of a match as he lit a cigar.

  "Has Calvin told you about the robot? It's a mathematical genius. Really remarkable."

  The other snorted loudly, "So I've heard. But Calvin had better stick to robopsychology. I've checked Herbie on math, and he can scarcely struggle through calculus."

  "Calvin didn't find it so."

  "She's crazy."

  "And I don't find it so." The director's eyes narrowed dangerously.

  "You!" Bogert's voice hardened. "What are you talking about?"

  "I've been putting Herbie through his paces all morning, and he can do tricks you never heard of."

  "Is that so?"

  "You sound skeptical!" Lanning flipped a sheet of paper out of his vest pocket and unfolded it. "That's not my handwriting, is it?"

  Bogert studied the large angular notation covering the sheet, "Herbie did this?"

  "Right! And if you'll notice, he's been working on your time integration of Equation 22. It comes" -Lanning tapped a yellow fingernail upon the last step- "to the identical conclusion I did, and in a quarter the time. You had no right to neglect the Linger Effect in positronic bombardment."

  "I didn't neglect it. For Heaven's sake, Lanning, get it through your head that it would cancel out-"

  "Oh, sure, you explained that. You used the Mitchell Translation Equation, didn't you? Well – it doesn't apply."

  "Why not?"

  "Because you've been using hyper-imaginaries, for one thing."

  "What's that to do with?"

  "Mitchell's Equation won't hold when-"

  "Are you crazy? If you'll reread Mitchell's original paper in the Transactions of the Far-"

  "I don't have to. I told you in the beginning that I didn't like his reasoning, and Herbie backs me in that."

  "Well, then," Bogert shouted, "let that clockwork contraption solve the entire problem for you. Why bother with nonessentials?"

  "That's exactly the point. Herbie can't solve the problem. And if he can't, we can't – alone. I'm submitting the entire question to the National Board. It's gotten beyond us."

  Bogert's chair went over backward as he jumped up a-snarl, face crimson. "You're doing nothing of the sort."

  Lanning flushed in his turn, "Are you telling me what I can't do?"

  "Exactly," was the gritted response. "I've got the problem beaten and you're not to take it out of my hands, understand? Don't think I don't see through you, you desiccated fossil. You'd cut your own nose off before you'd let me get the credit for solving robotic telepathy."

  "You're a damned idiot, Bogert, and in one second I'll have you suspended for insubordination" – Lanning's lower lip trembled with passion.

  "Which is one thing you won't do, Lanning. You haven't any secrets with a mind-reading robot around, so don't forget that I know all about your resignation."

  The ash on Lanning's cigar trembled and fell, and the cigar itself followed, "What… what-"

  Bogert chuckled nastily, "And I'm the new director, be it understood. I'm very aware of that; don't think I'm not. Damn your eyes, Lanning, I'm going to give the orders about here or there will be the sweetest mess that you've ever been in."

  Lanning found his voice and let it out with a roar. "You're suspended, d'ye hear? You're relieved of all duties. You're broken, do you understand?"

  The smile on the other's face broadened, "Now, what's the use of that? You're getting nowhere. I'm holding the trumps. I know you've resigned. Herbie told me, and he got it straight from you."

  Lanning forced himself to speak quietly. He looked an old, old man, with tired eyes peering from a face in which the red had disappeared, leaving the pasty yellow of age behind, "I want to speak to Herbie. He can't have told you anything of the sort. You're playing a deep game, Bogert, but I'm calling your bluff. Come with me."

  Bogert shrugged, "To see Herbie? Good! Damned good!"

  It was also precisely at noon that Milton Ashe looked up from his clumsy sketch and said, "You get the idea? I'm not too good at getting this down, but that's about how it looks. It's a honey of a house, and I can get it for next to nothing."

  Susan Calvin gazed across at him with melting eyes. "It's really beautiful," she sighed. "I've often thought that I'd like to-" Her voice trailed away.

  "Of course," Ashe continued briskly, putting away his pencil, "I've got to wait for my vacation. It's only two weeks off, but this Herbie business has evervthing up in the air." His eyes dropped to his fingernails, "Besides, there's another point – but it's a secret."

  "Then don't tell me."

  "Oh, I'd just as soon, I'm just busting to tell someone – and you're just about the best -er- confidante I could find here." He grinned sheepishly.

  Susan Calvin's heart bounded, but she did not trust herself to speak.

  "Frankly," Ashe scraped his chair closer and lowered his voice into a confidential whisper, "the house isn't to be only for myself. I'm getting married!"

  And then he jumped out of his seat, "What's the matter?"

  "Nothing!" The horrible spinning sensation had vanished, but it was hard to get words out. "Married? You mean-"

  "Why, sure! About time, isn't it? You remember that girl who was here last summer. That's she! But you are sick. You-"

  "Headache!" Susan Calvin motioned him away weakly. "I've… I've been subject to them lately. I want to… to congratulate you, of course. I'm very glad-" The inexpertly applied rouge made a pair of nasty red splotches upon her chalk-white face. Things had begun spinning again. "Pardon me- please-"

  The words were a mumble, as she stumbled blindly out the door. It had happened with the sudden catastrophe of a dream – and with all the unreal horror of a dream.

  But how could it be? Herbie had said-

  And Herbie knew! He could see into minds!

  She found herself leaning breathlessly against the door jamb, staring into Herbie's metal face. She must have climbed the two flights of stairs, but she had no memory of it. The distance had been covered in an instant, as in a dream.

  As in a dream!

  And still Herbie's unblinking eyes stared into hers and their dull red seemed to expand into dimly shining nightmarish globes.

  He was speaking, and she felt the cold glass pressing against her lips. She swallowed and shuddered into a pertain awareness of her surroundings.

  Still Herbie spoke, and there was agitation in his voice – as if he were hurt and frightened and pleading.

  The words were beginning to make sense. "This is a dream," he was saying, "and you mustn't believe in it. You'll wake into the real world soon and laugh at yourself. He loves you, I tell you. He does, he does! But not here! Not now! This is an illusio
n."

  Susan Calvin nodded, her voice a whisper, "Yes! Yes!" She was clutching Herbie's arm, clinging to it, repeating over and over, "It isn't true, is it? It isn't, is it?"

  Just how she came to her senses, she never knew – but it was like passing from a world of misty unreality to one of harsh sunlight. She pushed him away from her, pushed hard against that steely arm, and her eyes were wide.

  "What are you trying to do?" Her voice rose to a harsh scream. "What are you trying to do?"

  Herbie backed away, "I want to help"

  The psychologist stared, "Help? By telling me this is a dream? By trying to push me into schizophrenia?" A hysterical tenseness seized her, "This is no dream! I wish it were!"

  She drew her breath sharply, "Wait! Why… why, I understand. Merciful Heavens, it's so obvious."

  There was horror in the robot's voice, "I had to!"

  "And I believed youl I never thought-"

  Loud voices outside the door brought her to a halt. She turned away, fists clenching spasmodically, and when Bogert and Lanning entered, she was at the far window. Neither of the men paid her the slightest attention.

  They approached Herbie simultaneously; Lanning angry and impatient, Bogert, coolly sardonic. The director spoke first.

  "Here now, Herbie. Listen to me!"

  The robot brought his eyes sharply down upon the aged director, "Yes, Dr. Lanning."

  "Have you discussed me with Dr. Bogert?"

  "No, sir." The answer came slowly, and the smile on Bogert's face flashed off.

  "What's that?" Bogert shoved in ahead of his superior and straddled the ground before the robot. "Repeat what you told me yesterday."

  "I said that " Herbie fell silent. Deep within him his metallic diaphragm vibrated in soft discords.

  "Didn't you say he had resigned?" roared Bogert. "Answer me!"

  Bogert raised his arm frantically, but Lanning pushed him aside, "Are you trying to bully him into lying?"

  "You heard him, Lanning. He began to say 'Yes' and stopped. Get out of my way! I want the truth out of him, understandl"

  "I'll ask him!" Lanning turned to the robot. "All right, Herbie, take it easy. Have I resigned?"

  Herbie stared, and Lanning repeated anxiously, "Have I resigned?" There was the faintest trace of a negative shake of the robot's head. A long wait produced nothing further.

  The two men looked at each other and the hostility in their eyes was all but tangible.

  "What the devil," blurted Bogert, "has the robot gone mute? Can't you speak, you monstrosity?"

  "I can speak," came the ready answer.

  "Then answer the question. Didn't you tell me Lanning had resigned? Hasn't he resigned'

  And again there was nothing but dull silence, until from the end of the room, Susan Calvin's laugh rang out suddenly, high-pitched and semi-hysterical.

  The two mathematicians jumped, and Bogerts eyes narrowed, "You here? What's so funny?"

  "Nothing's funny." Her voice was not quite natural. "It's just that I'm not the only one that's been caught. There's irony in three of the greatest experts in robotics in the world falling into the same elementary trap, isn't there?" Her voice faded, and she put a pale hand to her forehead, "But it isn't funny!"

  This time the look that passed between the two men was one of raised eyebrows. "What trap are you talking about?" asked Lansing stiffly. "Is something wrong with Herbie?"

  "No," she approached them slowly, "nothing is wrong with him – only with us." She whirled suddenly and shrieked at the robot, "Get away from me! Go to the other end of the room and don't let me look at you."

  Herbie cringed before the fury of her eyes and stumbled away in a clattering trot.

  Lanning's voice was hostile, "What is all this, Dr. Calvin?"

  She faced them and spoke sarcastically, "Surely you know the fundamental First Law of Robotics."

  The other two nodded together. "Certainly," said Bogert, Irritably, "a robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow him to come to harm"

  "How nicely put," sneered Calvin. "But what kind of harm?"

  "Why – any kind."

  "Exactly! Any kind! But what about hurt feelings? What about deflation of one's ego? What about the blasting of one's hopes? Is that injury?"

  Lanning frowned, "What would a robot know about-" And then he caught himself with a gasp.

  "You've caught on, have you? This robot reads minds. Do you suppose it doesn't know everything about mental injury? Do you suppose that if asked a question, it wouldn't give exactly that answer that one wants to hear? Wouldn't any other answer hurt us, and wouldn't Herbie know that?"

  "Good Heavens!" muttered Bogert.

  The psychologist cast a sardonic glance at him, "I take it you asked him whether Lanning had resigned. You wanted to hear that he had resigned and so that's what Herbie told you."

  "And I suppose that is why," said Lanning, tonelessly, "it would not answer a little while ago. It couldn't answer either way without hurting one of us."

  There was a short pause in which the men looked thoughtfully across the room at the robot, crouching in the chair by the bookcase, head resting in one hand.

  Susan Calvin stared steadfastly at the floor, "He knew of all this. That… that devil knows everything – including what went wrong in his assembly." Her eyes were dark and brooding.

  Lanning looked up, "You're wrong there, Dr. Calvin. He doesn't know what went wrong. I asked him."

  "What does that mean?" cried Calvin. "Only that you didn't want him to give you the solution. It would puncture your ego to have a machine do what you couldn't. Did you ask him?" she shot at Bogert.

  "In a way." Bogert coughed and reddened. "He told me he knew very little about mathematics."

  Lanning laughed, not very loudly and the psychologist smiled caustically. She said, "I'll ask him! A solution by him won't hurt my ego" She raised her voice into a cold, imperative, "Come here!"

  Herbie rose and approached with hesitant steps.

  "You know, I suppose," she continued, "just exactly at what point in the assembly an extraneous factor was introduced or an essential one left out."

  "Yes," said Herbie, in tones barely heard.

  "Hold on," broke in Bogert angrily. "That's not necessary true. You want to hear that, that's all."

  "Don't be a fool," replied Calvin. "He certainly knows as much math as you and Lanning together, since he can read minds. Give him his chance."

  The mathematician subsided, and Calvin continued, "All right, then, Herbie, give! We're waiting." And in an aside, "Get pencils and paper, gentlemen."

  But Herbie remained silent, and there was triumph in the psychologist's voice, "Why don't you answer, Herbie?"

  The robot blurted out suddenly, "I cannot. You know I cannot! Dr. Bogert and Dr. Lanning don't want me to."

  "They want the solution."

  "But not from me."

  Lanning broke in, speaking slowly and distinctly, "Don't be foolish, Herbie. We do want you to tell us."

  Bogert nodded curtly.

  Herbie's voice rose to wild heights, "What's the use of saying that? Don't you suppose that I can see past the superficial skin of your mind? Down below, you don't want me to. I'm a machine, given the imitation of life only by virtue of the positronic interplay in my brain-which is man's device. You can't lose face to me without being hurt. That is deep in your mind and won't be erased. I can't give the solution."

  "We'll leave," said Dr. Lanning. "Tell Calvin."

  "That would make no difference," cried Herbie, "since you would know anyway that it was I that was supplying the answer."

  Calvin resumed, "But you understand, Herbie, that despite that, Drs. Lanning and Bogert want that solution."

  "By their own efforts!" insisted Herbie.

  "But they want it, and the fact that you have it and won't give it hurts them. You see that, don't you?"

  "Yes! Yes!"

  "And if you tell them that will hurt t
hem, too"

  "Yes! Yes!" Herbie was retreating slowly, and step by step Susan Calvin advanced. The two men watched in frozen bewilderment.

  "You can't tell them," droned the psychologist slowly, "because that would hurt and you mustn't hurt. But if you don't tell them, you hurt, so you must tell them. And if you do, you will hurt and you mustn't, so you can't tell them; but if you don't, you hurt, so you must; but if you do, you hurt, so you mustn't; but if you don't, you hurt, so you must; but if you do, you-"

  Herbie was up against the wall, and here he dropped to his knees. "Stop!" he shrieked. "Close your mind! It is full of pain and frustration and hate! I didn't mean it, I tell you! I tried to help! I told you what you wanted to hear. I had to!"

  The psychologist paid no attention. "You must tell them, but if you do, you hurt, so you mustn't; but if you don't, you hurt, so you must; but-"

  And Herbie screamed!

  It was like the whistling of a piccolo many times magnified – shrill and shriller till it keened with the terror of a lost soul and filled the room with the piercingness of itself.

  And when it died into nothingness, Herbie collapsed into a huddled heap of motionless metal.

  Bogert's face was bloodless, "He's dead!"

  "No!" Susan Calvin burst into body-racking gusts of wild laughter, "not dead – merely insane. I confronted him with the insoluble dilemma, and he broke down. You can scrap him now-because he'll never speak again."

  Lanning was on his knees beside the thing that had been Herbie. His fingers touched the cold, unresponsive metal face and he shuddered. "You did that on purpose." He rose and faced her, face contorted.

  "What if I did? You can't help it now." And in a sudden access of bitterness, "He deserved it."

  The director seized the paralysed, motionless Bogert by the wrist, "What's the difference. Come, Peter." He sighed, "A thinking robot of this type is worthless anyway." His eyes were old and tired, and he repeated, "Come, Peter!"

  It was minutes after the two scientists left that Dr. Susan Calvin regained part of her mental equilibrium. Slowly, her eyes turned to the living-dead Herbie and the tightness returned to her face. Long she stared while the triumph faded and the helpless frustration returned – and of all her turbulent thoughts only one infinitely bitter word passed her lips.