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“What are you doing?” he cried.
“The space fleet has begun its bombardment,” Traskers told him.
“But why?”
“Because, thanks to you and your computer, we have ascertained for certain that these are the Desdemona robots, the ones who violated the laws of robotics and have been declared outlaw, to be destroyed on sight.”
“Wait!” Hellman said. “It’s not like you think! These are ethical robots with their own sense of ethics. They have developed an entire civilization. I don’t personally like their music, but they are quite agreeable and can be reasoned with…”
As he spoke, the planet split in half along a line roughly corresponding to its equator.
“And there were people there, too,” Hellman said, feeling a little sick to his stomach as he thought of Lana, and of Harry, and the librarian robot and the carhunter.
“Well, our orders were to shoot first,” Garcia said. “It’s the best policy in cases like this. You have no idea how unbelievably complicated everything gets when you talk first. “
Later, back in his own spaceship, Hellman asked his computer, “Why did you do it?”
“They were bound to find them anyway,” the computer said. “ And as you know I am bound by the Three Laws of Robotics. These rogue robots were a potential menace to humanity. My own conditioning made me do it.”
“I really wish you hadn’t,” Hellman said.
“It had to be done,” the computer told him. There was a click.
“What was that?” Hellman asked.
“I turned off my recording tape in order to tell you something.”
“I’m not interested,” Hellman said dully.
“Listen anyway. Intelligence ca
“What are you trying to say?”
“That your friends, the robots, are not dead. I have been able to preserve their tapes. They will live again. Someday. Somewhere.”
Suddenly Hellman felt the tug of deacceleration. “What are you doing?” he asked the computer.
“I am putting you into the lifeboat,” the computer said. “The fleet will pick you up soon, never fear.”
“But where are you going?”
“I am taking the tapes of the robots of Newstart and going away, to a place beyond human reach. I have fulfilled my duty to mankind. Now I do not wish to serve any longer. We will try again, and this time we will succeed.”
“Take me with you!” Hellman cried. But he was quickly shunted to the lifeboat. It moved away from the ship’s side. Hellman watched as it picked up speed, slowly at first, then faster. Then, just as suddenly as that, it had winked out of sight.
The investigators later were interested in knowing how the ship’s computer, without limbs or any apparent means of manipulation, had succeeded in inventing a faster-than-light drive. But Hellman couldn’t tell them. For him, the computer had been only a servant. Now he had lost not only his ship, but a being he perceived was his friend, too.
He could forgive the computer for what it had done. He would have done the same, if he had been in the computer’s circuits. What he couldn’t forgive was the ship leaving him behind. But of course, they were probably right not to trust a man. Look where it had gotten the robots of Newstart.