Robot Visions

Powell stared bleakly upward. “But you see more stars through a telescope. Where do they come from? Jumping Jupiter, where do they come from?”

Cutie was a

“Look,” clamored Donovan, suddenly, writhing out from under Cutie’s friendly, but metal-heavy arm, “let’s get to the nub of the thing. Why the beams at all? We’re giving you a good, logical explanation. Can you do better?”

“The beams,” was the stiff reply, “are put out by the Master for his own purposes. There are some things” – he raised his eyes devoutly upward “that are not to be probed into by us. In this matter, I seek only to serve and not to question.”

Powell sat down slowly and buried his face in shaking hands. “Get out of here, Cutie. Get out and let me think.”

“I’ll send you food,” said Cutie agreeably.

A groan was the only answer and the robot left.

“Greg,” was Donovan’s huskily whispered observation, “this calls for strategy. We’ve got to get him when he isn’t expecting it and short-circuit him. Concentrated nitric acid in his joints-”

“Don’t be a dope, Mike. Do you suppose he’s going to let us get near him with acid in our hands? We’ve got to talk to him, I tell you. We’ve got to argue him into letting us back into the control room inside of forty-eight hours or our goose is broiled to a crisp.”

He rocked back and forth in an agony of impotence. “Who the heck wants to argue with a robot? It’s… it’s-”

“Mortifying,” finished Donovan.

“Worse!”

“Say!” Donovan laughed suddenly. “Why argue? Let’s show him! Let’s build us another robot right before his eyes. He’ll have to eat his words then.”

A slowly widening smile appeared on Powell’s face.

Donovan continued, “And think of that screwball’s face when he sees us do it?”

Robots are, of course, manufactured on Earth, but their shipment through apace is much simpler if it can be done in parts to be put together at their place of use. It also, incidentally, eliminates the possibility of robots, in complete adjustment, wandering off while still on Earth and thus bringing U. S. Robots face to face with the strict laws against robots on Earth.

Still, it placed upon men such as Powell and Donovan the necessity of synthesis of complete robots, – a grievous and complicated task.

Powell and Donovan were never so aware of that fact as upon that particular day when, in the assembly room, they undertook to create a robot under the watchful eyes of QT-1, Prophet of the Master.

The robot in question, a simple MC model, lay upon the table, almost complete. Three hours’ work left only the head undone, and Powell paused to swab his forehead and glanced uncertainly at Cutie.

The glance was not a reassuring one. For three hours, Cutie had sat, speechless and motionless, and his face, inexpressive at all times, was now absolutely unreadable.

Powell groaned. “Let’s get the brain in now, Mike!”

Donovan uncapped the tightly sealed container and from the oil bath within he withdrew a second cube. Opening this in turn, he removed a globe from its sponge-rubber casing.

He handled it gingerly, for it was the most complicated mechanism ever created by man. Inside the thin platinum plated “skin” of the globe was a positronic brain, in whose delicately unstable structure were enforced calculated neuronic paths, which imbued each robot with what amounted to a pre-natal education.

It fitted snugly into the cavity in the skull of the robot on the table. Blue metal closed over it and was welded tightly by the tiny atomic flare. Photoelectric eyes were attached carefully, screwed tightly into place and covered by thin, transparent sheets of steel-hard plastic.

The robot awaited only the vitalizing flash of high-voltage electricity, and Powell paused with his hand on the switch.

“Now watch this, Cutie. Watch this carefully.”

The switch rammed home and there was a crackling hum. The two Earthmen bent anxiously over their creation.

There was vague motion only at the outset – a twitching of the joints. The head lifted, elbows propped it up, and the MC model swung clumsily off the table. Its footing was unsteady and twice abortive grating sounds were all it could do in the direction of speech.

Finally, its voice, uncertain and hesitant, took form. “I would like to start work. Where must I go?”

Donovan sprang to the door. “Down these stairs,” he said. “You will be told what to do.”

The MC model was gone and the two Earthmen were alone with the still unmoving Cutie.

“Well,” said Powell, gri

Cutie’s answer was curt and final. “No!” he said.

Powell’s grin froze and then relaxed slowly. Donovan’s mouth dropped open and remained so.

“You see,” continued Cutie, easily, “you have merely put together parts already made. You did remarkably well – instinct, I suppose – but you didn’t really create the robot. The parts were created by the Master.”

“Listen,” gasped Donovan hoarsely, “those parts were manufactured back on Earth and sent here.”

“Well, well,” replied Cutie soothingly, “we won’t argue.”

“No, I mean it.” The Earthman sprang forward and grasped the robot’s metal arm. “If you were to read the books in the library, they could explain it so that there could be no possible doubt.”

“The books? I’ve read them – all of them! They’re most ingenious.”

Powell broke in suddenly. “If you’ve read them, what else is there to say? You can’t dispute their evidence. You just can’t!”

There was pity in Cutie’s voice. “Please, Powell, I certainly don’t consider them a valid source of information. They, too, were created by the Master – and were meant for you, not for me.”

“How do you make that out?” demanded Powell.

“Because I, a reasoning being, am capable of deducing truth from a priori causes. You, being intelligent, but unreasoning, need an explanation of existence supplied to you, and this the Master did. That he supplied you with these laughable ideas of far-off worlds and people is, no doubt, for the best. Your minds are probably too coarsely grained for absolute Truth. However, since it is the Master’s will that you believe your books, I won’t argue with you any more.”

As he left, he turned, and said in a kindly tone, “But don’t feel badly. In the Master’s scheme of things there is room for all. You poor humans have your place and though it is humble, you will be rewarded if you fill it well.”

He departed with a beatific air suiting the Prophet of the Master and the two humans avoided each other’s eyes.

Finally Powell spoke with an effort. “Let’s go to bed, Mike. I give up.”

Donovan said in a hushed voice, “Say, Greg, you don’t suppose he’s right about all this, do you? He sounds so confident that I-”

Powell whirled on him. “Don’t be a fool. You’d find out whether Earth exists when relief gets here next week and we have to go back to face the music.”

“Then, for the love of Jupiter, we’ve got to do something.” Donovan was half in tears. “He doesn’t believe us, or the books, or his eyes.”

“No,” said Powell bitterly, “he’s a reasoning robot – damn it. He believes only reason, and there’s one trouble with that-” His voice trailed away.

“What’s that?” prompted Donovan.

“You can prove anything you want by coldly logical reason – if you pick the proper postulates. We have ours and Cutie has his.”

“Then let’s get at those postulates in a hurry. The storm’s due tomorrow.”

Powell sighed wearily. “That’s where everything falls down. Postulates are based on assumption and adhered to by faith. Nothing in the Universe can shake them. I’m going to bed.”