I, Robot

Powell was yanking madly at his mustache, "Don't pretend you don't know your robotics, Mike. Before it's physically possible in any way for a robot to even make a start to breaking the First Law, so many things have to break down that it would be a ruined mess of scrap ten times over. There's some simple explanation to this."

"Oh sure, sure. Just have the butler call me in the morning. It's all just too, too simple for me to bother about before my beauty nap."

"Well, Jupiter, Mike, what are you complaining about so far? The Brain is taking care of us. This place is warm. It's got light. It's got air. There wasn't even enough of an acceleration jar to muss your hair if it were smooth enough to be mussable in the first place."

"Yeah? Greg, you must've taken lessons. No one could put Pollya

The voice that interrupted Donovan's tirade was not Powell's. It was nobody's. It was there, hanging in open air – stentorian and petrifying in its effects.

"GREGORY POWELL! MICHAEL DONOVAN! GREGORY POWELL! MICHAEL DONOVAN! PLEASE REPORT YOUR PRESENT POSITIONS. IF YOUR SHIP ANSWERS CONTROLS, PLEASE RETURN TO BASE. GREGORY POWELL! MICHAEL DONOVAN!-"

The message was repetitious, mechanical, broken by regular, untiring intervals.

Donovan said, "Where's it coming from?"

"I don't know." Powell's voice was an intense whisper, "Where do the lights come from? Where does anything come from?"

"Well, how are we going to answer?" They had to speak in the intervals between the loudly echoing, repeating message.

The walls were bare – as bare and as unbroken as smooth, curving metal can be. Powell said, "Shout an answer."

They did. They shouted, in turns, and together, "Position unknown! Ship out of control! Condition desperate!"

Their voices rose and cracked. The short businesslike sentences became interlarded and adulterated with screaming and emphatic profanity, but the cold, calling voice repeated and repeated and repeated unwearyingly.

"They don't hear us," gasped Donovan. "There's no sending mechanism. Just a receiver." His eyes focused blindly at a random spot on the wall.

Slowly the din of the outside voice softened and receded. They called again when it was a whisper, and they called again, hoarsely, when there was silence.

Something like fifteen minutes later, Powell said lifelessly, "Let's go through the ship again. There must be something to eat somewheres." He did not sound hopeful. It was almost an admission of defeat.

They divided in the corridor to the right and left. They could follow one another by the hard footsteps resounding, and they met occasionally in the corridor, where they would glare at each other and pass on.

Powell's search ended suddenly and as it did, he heard Donovan's glad voice rise boomingly.

"Hey, Greg," it howled, "the ship has got plumbing. How did we miss it?"

It was some five minutes later that he found Powell by hit-and-miss. He was saying, "Still no shower baths, though," but it got choked off in the middle.

"Food," he gasped.

The wall had dropped away, leaving a curved gap with two shelves. The upper shelf was loaded with unlabeled cans of a bewildering variety of sizes and shapes. The enameled cans on the lower shelf were uniform and Donovan felt a cold draft about his ankles. The lower half was refrigerated.

"How… how-"

"It wasn't there, before," said Powell, curtly. "That wall section dropped out of sight as I came in the door."

He was eating. The can was the preheating type with enclosed spoon and the warm odor of baked beans filled the room. "Grab a can, Mike!"

Donovan hesitated, "What's the menu?"

"How do I know! Are you finicky?"

"No, but all I eat on ships are beans. Something else would be first choice." His hand hovered and selected a shining elliptical can whose flatness seemed reminiscent of salmon or similar delicacy. It opened at the proper pressure.

"Beans!" howled Donovan, and reached for another. Powell hauled at the slack of his pants. "Better eat that, so

Donovan drew back sulkily, "Is that all we have? Beans?"

"Could be."

"What's on the lower shelf?"

"Milk."

"Just milk?" Donovan cried in outrage.

"Looks it."

The meal of beans and milk was carried through in silence, and as they left, the strip of hidden wall rose up and formed an unbroken surface once more.

Powell sighed, "Everything automatic. Everything just so. Never felt so helpless in my life. Where's your plumbing?"

"Right there. And that wasn't among those present when we first looked, either."

Fifteen minutes later they were back in the glassed-in room, staring at each other from opposing seats.

Powell looked gloomily at the one gauge in the room. It still said "parsecs," the figures still ended in "1,000,000" and the indicating needle was still pressed hard against the zero mark.

In the i

"It won't amplify on the matter, Alfred," she said, emphatically. "It says they can hear us… and when I try to press it, it becomes… well, it becomes sullen. And it's not supposed to- Whoever heard of a sullen robot?"

"Suppose you tell us what you have, Susan," said Bogert.

"Here it is! It admits it controls the ship itself entirely. It is definitely optimistic about their safety, but without details. I don't dare press it. However, the center of disturbance seems to be about the interstellar jump itself. The Brain definitely laughed when I brought up the subject. There are other indications, but that is the closest it's come to an open abnormality."

She looked at the others, "I refer to hysteria. I dropped the subject immediately, and I hope I did no harm, but it gave me a lead. I can handle hysteria. Give me twelve hours! If I can bring it back to normal, it will bring back the ship."

Bogert seemed suddenly stricken. "The interstellar jump!"

"What's the matter?" The cry was double from Calvin and La

"The figures for the engine The Brain gave us. Say… I just thought of something."

He left hurriedly.

La

Two hours later, Bogert was talking eagerly, "I tell you, La

Donovan felt as haggard as he looked. "Only five days?"

"Only five days. I'm sure of it."

Donovan looked about him wretchedly. The stars through the glass were familiar but infinitely indifferent. The walls were cold to the touch; the lights, which had recently flared up again, were unfeelingly bright; the needle on the gauge pointed stubbornly to zero; and Donovan could not get rid of the taste of beans.

He said, morosely, "I need a bath."

Powell looked up briefly, and said, "So do I. You needn't feel selfconscious. But unless you want to bathe in milk and do without drinking"

"We'll do without drinking eventually, anyway. Greg, where does this interstellar travel come in?'