Robot Visions

“Ask it,” said the one with the nose.

“Are you the Martin robot?” asked the tall one.

“I am Andrew Martin, sir,” Andrew said.

“Good. Take off your clothes. Robots don’t wear clothes.” He said to the other, “That’s disgusting. Look at him!”

Andrew hesitated. He hadn’t heard an order in that tone of voice in so long that his Second Law circuits had momentarily jammed.

The tall one repeated, “Take off your clothes. I order you.”

Slowly, Andrew began to remove them.

“Just drop them,” said the tall one.

The nose said, “If it doesn’t belong to anyone, it could be ours as much as someone else’s.”

“Anyway,” said the tall one, “who’s to object to anything we do. We’re not damaging property.” tie turned to Andrew. “Stand on your head.” “The head is not meant-” Andrew began.

“That’s an order. If you don’t know how, try anyway.”

Andrew hesitated again, then bent to put his head on the ground. He tried to lift his legs but fell, heavily.

The tall one said, “Just lie there.” He said to the other, “We can take him apart. Ever take a robot apart?”

“Will he let us?”

“How can he stop us?”

There was no way Andrew could stop them, if they ordered him in a forceful enough ma

The tall one walked over and pushed at him with his foot. “He’s heavy. I think we’ll need tools to do the job.”

The nose said, “We could order him to take himself, apart. It would be fun to watch him try.”

“Yes,” said the tall one, thoughtfully, “but let’s get him off the road. If someone comes along-”

It was too late. Someone had, indeed, come along and it was George. From where he lay, Andrew had seen him topping a small rise in the middle distance. He would have liked to signal him in some way, but the last order had been “Just lie there!”

George was ru

“Andrew, has something gone wrong?” George asked, anxiously.

Andrew replied, “I am well, George.”

“Then stand up. What happened to your clothes?”

“That your robot, Mac?” the tall young man asked.

George turned sharply. “He’s no one’s robot. What’s been going on here.”

“We politely asked him to take his clothes off. What’s that to you, if you don’t own him.”

George turned to Andrew. “What were they doing, Andrew?”

“It was their intention in some way to dismember me. They were about to move me to a quiet spot and order me to dismember myself.”

George looked at the two young men, and his chin trembled.

The young men retreated no farther. They were smiling.

The tall one said, lightly, “What are you going to do, pudgy? Attack us?”

George said, “No. I don’t have to. This robot has been with my family for over seventy-five years. He knows us and he values us more than he values anyone else. I am going to tell him that you two are threatening my life and that you plan to kill me. I will ask him to defend me. In choosing between me and you two, he will choose me. Do you know what will happen to you when he attacks you?”

The two were backing away slightly, looking uneasy.

George said, sharply, “Andrew, I am in danger and about to come to harm from these young men. Move toward them!”

Andrew did so, and the young men did not wait. They ran.

“All right, Andrew, relax,” George said. He looked unstrung. He was far past the age where he could face the possibility of a dustup with one young man, let alone two.

“I couldn’t have hurt them, George: I could see they were not attacking you.”

“I didn’t order you to attack them. I only told you to move toward them. Their own fears did the rest.”

“How can they fear robots?”

“It’s a disease of mankind, one which has not yet been cured. But never mind that. What the devil are you doing here, Andrew? Good thing I found your note. I was just on the point of turning back and hiring a helicopter when I found you. How did you get it into your head to go to the library? I would have brought you any books you needed”

“I am a-” Andrew began.

“Free robot. Yes, yes. All right, what did you want in the library?”

“I want to know more about human beings, about the world, about everything. And about robots, George. I want to write a history about robots.”

George put his arm on the other’s shoulder. “Well, let’s walk home. But pick up your clothes first. Andrew, there are a million books on robotics and all of them include histories of the science. The world is growing saturated not only with robots but with information about robots.”

Andrew shook his head, a human gesture he had lately begun to adopt. “Not a history of robotics, George. A history of robots, by a robot. I want to explain how robots feel about what has happened since the first ones were allowed to work and live on Earth.”

George’s eyebrows lifted, but he said nothing in direct response.

Little Miss was just past her eighty-third birthday, but there was nothing about her that was lacking in either energy or determination. She gestured with her cane oftener than she propped herself up with it.

She listened to the story in a fury of indignation. “George, that’s horrible. Who were those young ruffians?”

“I don’t know. What difference does it make? In the end they did not do any damage.”

“They might have. You’re a lawyer, George; and if you’re well off, it’s entirely due to the talents of Andrew. It was the money he earned that is the foundation of everything we have. He provides the continuity for this family, and I will not have him treated as a wind-up toy.”

“What would you have me do, Mother?” George asked.

“I said you’re a lawyer. Don’t you listen? You set up a test case somehow, and you force the regional courts to declare for robot rights and get the legislature to pass the necessary bills. Carry the whole thing to the World Court, if you have to. I’ll be watching, George, and I’ll tolerate no shirking.”

She was serious, so what began as a way of soothing the fearsome old lady became an involved matter with enough legal entanglement to make it interesting. As senior partner of Feingold and Martin, George plotted strategy. But he left the actual work to his junior partners, with much of it a matter for his son, Paul, who was also a member of the firm and who reported dutifully nearly every day to his grandmother. She, in turn, discussed the case every day with Andrew.

Andrew was deeply involved. His work on his book on robots was delayed again, as he pored over the legal arguments and even, at times, made very diffident suggestions.

“George told me that day I was attacked that human beings have always been afraid of robots,” he said one day. “As long as they are, the courts and the legislatures are not likely to work hard on behalf of robots. Should not something be done about public opinion?”

So while Paul stayed in court, George took to the public platform. It gave him the advantage of being informal, and he even went so far sometimes as to wear the new, loose style of clothing which he called drapery.

Paul chided him, “Just don’t trip over it on stage, Dad.”

George replied, despondently, “I’ll try not to.”

He addressed the a