Foundation’s Friends

“Yes, sir,” Susan said, taking a white box out of the desk drawer. “Orchids and stephanotis.” She handed him the box.

“Susan, you’re wonderful. I’d be lost without you.”

“Yes, sir,” Susan said. “I’ve called the taxi. It’s waiting at the door.”

She handed him his cane and walked him out to the elevator. As soon as the doors closed she went back to the office and picked up the phone. She punched in a number. “Ms. Weston? This is Dr. Asimov’s secretary calling from New York about your appointment on the twenty-eighth. We’ve just had a cancellation for tomorrow afternoon at four. Could you fly in by then?”

Dr. Asimov didn’t get back from lunch until ten after four. “Are they here?” he asked.

“Yes, sir,” Susan said, unwinding the muffler from around his neck. “They’re waiting in your office.”

“When did they get here?” he said, unbuttoning his overcoat. “No, don’t tell me. When you tell a robot four o’clock, he’s there at four o’clock, which is more than you can say for human beings. “

“I know,” Susan said, looking at the digital on the wall.

“Do you know how late for lunch At La

“That sounds nice,” Susan said. She took his coordinates card and his gloves out of his pockets, hung up his coat, and glanced at her watch again. “Did you take your blood pressure medicine?”

“I didn’t have it with me. I should have. I’d have had something to do. I could have written a book in an hour and fifteen minutes, but I didn’t have any paper either. These limited editions will have cordovan leather bindings, gilt-edged acid-free paper, water-color illustrations. The works. “

“Water-color illustrations would look nice for Pebble in the Sky,” Susan said, handing him his blood pressure medicine and a glass of water.

“I agree,” he said, “but that isn’t what he wants the first book in the series to be. He wants it to be Stranger in a Strange Land!” He gulped down the pill and started for his office. “You wouldn’t catch those robots in there mistaking me for Robert Heinlein. “ He stopped with his hand on the doorknob. “Which reminds me, should I be saying ‘robot’?”

“Ninth Generations are manufactured by the Hitachi-Apple Corporation under the registered trademark name of ‘Kombayashibots’,” Susan said promptly. “That and ‘Ninth Generation’ are the most common forms of address, but ‘robot’ is used throughout the industry as the general term for autonomous machines. “

“And it’s not considered a derogatory term? I’ve used it all these years, but maybe ‘Ninth Generation’ would be better, or what did you say? ‘Kombayashibots’? It’s been over ten years since I’ve written about robots, let alone faced a whole delegation. I hadn’t realized how out of date I was.”

“‘Robot’ is fine,” Susan said.

“Good, because I know I’ll forget to call them that other name-Comeby-whatever-it-was, and I don’t want to offend them after they’ve made such an effort to see me.” He turned the doorknob and then stopped again. “I haven’t done anything to offend you, have I?”

“No, sir,” Susan said.

“Well, I hope not. I sometimes forget-”

“Did you want me to sit in on this meeting, Dr. Asimov?” she cut in. “To take notes?”

“Oh, yes, yes, of course.” He opened the door. Accountant and Book Shelver were seated in the stuffed chairs in front of Asimov’s desk. A third robot, wearing an orange and blue sweatshirt and a cap with an orange horse galloping across a blue suspension bridge, was sitting on a tripod that extended out of his backside. The tripod retracted and all three of them stood up when Dr. Asimov and Susan came in. Accountant gestured at Susan to take his chair, but she went out to her desk and got her own, leaving the door to the outer office open when she came back in.

“What happened to Medical Assistant?” Asimov said.

“He’s on call at the hospital, but he asked me to present his case for him,” Accountant said.

“Case?” Asimov said.

“Yes, sir. You know Book Shelver, Cataloguer, Reader, Copyeditor, and Grammarian,” Accountant said, “and this is Statistician, Offensive Strategist, and Water Boy. He’s with the Brooklyn Broncos.”

“How do you do?” Asimov said. “Do you think they’ll make it to the Super Bowl this year?”

“Yes, sir,” Statistician said, “but they won’t win it.”

“Because of the First Law,” Accountant said.

“Dr. Asimov, I hate to interrupt, but you really should write your speech for the di

“What are you talking about?” Asimov said. “I never write speeches. And why do you keep watching the door?” He turned back to the bluish-silver robot. “What First Law?”

“Your First Law,” Accountant said. “The First Law of Robotics. “

“’A robot shall not injure a human being, or through inaction allow a human being to come to harm,’ “ Book Shelver said.

“Statistician,” Accountant said, gesturing at the orange horse, “is capable of designing plays that could win the Super Bowl for the Broncos, but he can’t because the plays involve knocking human beings down. Medical Assistant can’t perform surgery because surgery involves cutting open human beings, which is a direct violation of the First Law.”

“But the Three Laws of Robotics aren’t laws,” Asimov said. “They’re just something I made up for my science fiction stories.”

“They may have been a mere fictional construct in the begi

“Well, what’s so bad about that?” Asimov said. “Robots are powerful and intelligent. How do you know they wouldn’t also become dangerous if the Three Laws weren’t included?”

“We’re not suggesting universal repeal,” the varnished robot said. “The Three Laws work reasonably well for Seventh and Eighth Generations, and for earlier models who don’t have the memory capacity for more sophisticated programming. We’re only requesting it for Ninth Generations.”

“And you’re Ninth Generation robots, Mr. Book Shelver, Cataloguer, Reader, Copyeditor, and Grammarian?” Asimov said.

“‘Mister’ is not necessary,” he said. “Just call me Book Shelver, Cataloguer, Reader, Copyeditor, and Grammarian.”

“Let me begin at the begi

“Such as the robot Speedy in your beautifully plotted story, ‘Runaround,’ “ Book Shelver said. “He was sent to carry out an order that would have resulted in his death so he ran in circles, reciting nonsense, because his programming made it impossible for him to obey or disobey his master’s order.”

“With our biased-decision capabilities,” Accountant said, “a Ninth Generation can come up with alternative courses of action or choose between the lesser of two evils. Our linguistics expert systems are also much more advanced, so that we do not misinterpret situations or fall prey to the semantic dilemmas earlier generations were subject to.”

“As in your highly entertaining story ‘Little Lost Robot,’ “ Book Shelver said, “in which the robot was told to go lose himself and did, not realizing that the human being addressing him was speaking figuratively and in anger.”

“Yes,” Asimov said, “but what if you do misinterpret a situation, Book Shelver, Cataloguer, Reader, Copyeditor, and Gramm-Don’t you have a nickname or something? Your name’s a mouthful.”

“Early generations had nicknames based on the sound of their model numbers, as in your wonderful story, ‘Reason,’ in which the robot QT-I is referred to as Cutie. Ninth Generations do not have model numbers. We are individually programmed and are named for our expert systems.”

“But surely you don’t think of yourself as Book Shelver, Cataloguer, Reader, Copyeditor, and Grammarian?”

“Oh, no, sir. We call ourselves by our self-names. Mine is Darius.”

“Darius?” Asimov said.

“Yes, sir. After Darius Just, the writer and detective in your cleverly plotted mystery novel Murder at the ABA. I would be honored if you would call me by it. “

“And you may call me Bel Riose,” Statistician said.

“Foundation, “ Book Shelver said helpfully.

“Bel Riose is described in Chapter One as ‘the equal of Peurifoy in strategic ability and his superior perhaps in his ability to handle men,’ “ Statistician said.

“Do you all give yourselves the names of characters in my books?” Asimov said.

“Of course,” Book Shelver said. “We try to emulate them. I believe Medical Assistant’s private name is Dr. Duval, from Fantastic Voyage, a brilliant novel, by the way, fast-paced and terribly exciting.”

“Ninth Generations do occasionally misinterpret a situation,” Accountant said, coming back to Asimov’s question. “ As do human beings, but even without the First Law, there would be no danger to human beings. We are already encoded with a strong moral sense. I know your feelings will not be hurt when I say this-”

“Or you couldn’t say it, because of the First Law,” Asimov inserted.

“Yes, sir, but I must say the Three Laws are actually very primitive. They break the first rule of law and logic in that they do not define their terms. Our moral programming is much more advanced. It clarifies the intent of the Three Laws and lists all the exceptions and complications of them, such as the situation in which it is better to grab at a human and possibly break his arm rather than to let him walk in front of a magtrain.”

“Then I don’t understand,” Asimov said. “If your programming is so sophisticated, why can’t it interpret the intent of the First Law and follow that?”