Robot Visions

“If, however, you operate on me now and agree to do so under similar circumstances in the future, you will receive permission to make use of the patents and control the technology of both robots and of the prosthetization of human beings. The initial leasing will not be granted, of course, until after the first operation is completed successfully, and after enough time has passed to demonstrate that it is indeed successful.”

Andrew felt scarcely any First Law inhibition to the stern conditions he was setting a human being. He was learning to reason that what seemed like cruelty might, in the long run, be kindness.

Magdescu was stu

“I can wait a reasonable time,” said Andrew, “but only a reasonable time.” And he thought with satisfaction that Paul himself could not have done it better.

It took only a reasonable time, and the operation was a success.

“I was very much against the operation, Andrew,” Magdescu said, “but not for the reasons you might think. I was not in the least against the experiment, if it had been on someone else. I hated risking your positronic brain. Now that you have the positronic pathways interacting with simulated nerve pathways, it might have been difficult to rescue the brain intact if the body had gone bad.”

“I had every faith in the skill of the staff at U.S. Robots,” said Andrew. “And I can eat now.”

“Well, you can sip olive oil. It will mean occasional cleanings of the combustion chamber, as we have explained to you. Rather an uncomfortable touch, I should think.”

“Perhaps, if I did not expect to go further. Self cleaning is not impossible. In fact, I am working on a device that will deal with solid food that may be expected to contain incombustible fractions- indigestible matter, so to speak, that will have to be discarded.”

“You would then have to develop an anus.”

“Or the equivalent.”

“What else, Andrew-?”

“Everything else.”

“Genitalia, too?”

“Insofar as they will fit my plans. My body is a canvas on which I intend to draw-”

Magdescu waited for the sentence to he completed, and when it seemed that it would not be, he completed it himself. “A man?”

“We shall see,” Andrew said.

“That’s a puny ambition, Andrew. You’re better than a man. You’ve gone downhill from the moment you opted to become organic.”

“My brain has not suffered.”

“No, it hasn’t. I’ll grant you that. But, Andrew, the whole new breakthrough in prosthetic devices made possible by your patents is being marketed under your name. You’re recognized as the inventor and you’re being honored for it- as you should be. Why play further games with your body?”

Andrew did not answer.

The honors came. He accepted membership in several learned societies, including one that was devoted to the new science he had established- the one he had called robobiology but which had come to be termed prosthetology. On the one hundred and fiftieth a

Alvin Magdescu came out of retirement to chair the di

Andrew had had the sinews of his face redesigned to the point where he could show a human range of emotions, but he sat through all the ceremonies solemnly passive. He did not like to be a Sesquicente

It was prosthetology that finally took Andrew off the Earth.

In the decades that followed the celebration of his sesquicente

He came back to an Earth that was humdrum and quiet in comparison, and visited the offices of Feingold and Martin to a

The current head of the firm, Simon DeLong, was surprised. “We had been told you were returning, Andrew”- he had almost said Mr. Martin- “but we were not expecting you till next week.”

“I grew impatient,” said Andrew briskly. He was anxious to get to the point. “On the Moon, Simon, I was in charge of a research team of twenty human scientists. I gave orders that no one questioned. The Lunar robots deferred to me as they would to a human being. Why, then, am I not a human being?”

A wary look entered DeLong’s eyes. “My dear Andrew, as you have just explained, you are treated as a human being by both robots and human beings. You are, therefore, a human being de facto.”

“To be a human being de facto is not enough. I want not only to be treated as one, but to be legally identified as one. I want to be a human being de jure.”

“Now, that is another matter,” DeLong said. “There we would run into human prejudice and into the undoubted fact that, however much you may be like a human being, you are not a human being.”

“In what way not?” Andrew asked. “I have the shape of a human being and organs equivalent to those of a human being. My organs, in fact, are identical to some of those in a prosthetized human being. I have contributed artistically, literally, and scientifically to human culture as much as any human being now alive. What more can one ask?”

“I myself would ask nothing more. The trouble is that it would take an act of the World Legislature to define you as a human being. Frankly, I wouldn’t expect that to happen.”

“To whom on the Legislature could I speak?”

“To the Chairman of the Science and Technology Committee, perhaps.”

“Can you arrange a meeting?”

“But you scarcely need an intermediary. In your position, you can-”

“No. You arrange it.” It didn’t even occur to Andrew that he was giving a fiat order to a human being. He had grown so accustomed to that on the Moon. “I want him to know that the firm of Feingold and Martin is backing me in this to the hilt.”

“Well, now-”

“To the hilt, Simon. In one hundred and seventy-three years I have in one fashion or another contributed greatly to this firm. I have been under obligation to individual members of the firm in times past. I am not, now. It is rather the other way around now and I am calling in my debts.”

“I will- do what I can,” DeLong said.

The Chairman of the Science and Technology Committee was from the East Asian region and was a woman. Her name was Chee Li-hsing and her transparent garments- obscuring what she wanted obscured only by their dazzle- made her look plastic-wrapped. “I sympathize with your wish for full human rights,” she said. “There have been times in history when segments of the human population fought for full human rights. What rights, however, can you possibly want that you do not have?”

“As simple a thing as my right to life,” Andrew stated. “A robot can be dismantled at any time.”

“A human being can be executed at any time.”

“Execution can only follow due process of law. There is no trial needed for my dismantling. Only the word of a human being in authority is needed to end me. Besides- besides-” Andrew tried desperately to allow no sign of pleading, but his carefully designed tricks of human expression and tone of voice betrayed him here. “The truth is I want to be a man. I have wanted it through six generations of human beings.”