Asimov's Future History Volume 1 (77 page)

I thought: How I wish we were
 
—
but I just said, “Well, why not program Rambo how to operate our controls. I’m sure he can pour and mix and heat and do whatever else is necessary.”

“I’m sure he can,” said Hortense, “but thank Fate he doesn’t have to. I’m not going to interfere with his programming. It will make him less efficient.”

Gracie said, worried, but amiable, “But if we don’t interfere with his programming, then I’ll just have to instruct him, step by step, but I don’t know how it’s done. I’ve never done it.”

I said, “Rodney can tell him.”

Gracie said, “Oh, Howard, we’ve given Rodney a vacation.”

“I know, but we’re not going to ask him to
do
anything; just tell Rambo here what to do and then Rambo can do it.”

Whereupon Rambo said stiffly, “Madam, there is nothing in my programming or in my instructions that would make it mandatory for me to accept orders given me by another robot, especially one that is an earlier model.”

Hortense said, soothingly, “Of course, Rambo. I’m sure that grandfather and grandmother understand that. “(I noticed that DeLancey never said a word. I wonder if he
ever
said a word when his dear wife was present.)

I said, “All right, I tell you what. I’ll have Rodney tell
me,
and then I will tell Rambo.”

Rambo said nothing to that. Even Rambo is subject to the second law of robotics which makes it mandatory for him to obey human orders.

Hortense’s eyes narrowed and I knew that she would like to tell me that Rambo was far too fine a robot to be ordered about by the likes of me, but some distant and rudimentary near-human waft of feeling kept her from doing so.

Little LeRoy was hampered by no such quasi-human restraints. He said, “I don’t want to have to look at Rodney’s ugly puss. I bet he don’t know how to do
anything
and if he does, ol’ Grampa would get it all wrong anyway.”

It would have been nice, I thought, if I could be alone with little LeRoy for five minutes and reason calmly with him, with a brick, but a mother’s instinct told Hortense never to leave LeRoy alone with any human being whatever.

There was nothing to do, really, but get Rodney out of his niche in the closet where he had been enjoying his own thoughts (I wonder if a robot has his own thoughts when he is alone) and put him to work. It was hard. He would say a phrase, then I would say the same phrase, then Rambo would do something, then Rodney would say another phrase and so on.

It all took twice as long as if Rodney were doing it himself and it wore
me
out, I can tell you, because everything had to be like that, using the dishwasher/sterilizer, cooking the Christmas feast, cleaning up messes on the table or on the floor, everything.

Gracie kept moaning that Rodney’s vacation was being ruined, but she never seemed to notice that mine was, too, though I
did
admire Hortense for her manner of saying something unpleasant at every moment that some statement seemed called for. I noticed, particularly, that she never repeated herself once. Anyone can be nasty, but to be unfailingly creative in one’s nastiness filled me with a perverse desire to applaud now and then.

But, really, the worst thing of all came on Christmas Eve. The tree had been put up and I was exhausted. We didn’t have the kind of situation in which an automated box of ornaments was plugged into an electronic tree, and at the touch of one button there would result an instantaneous and perfect distribution of ornaments. On our tree (of ordinary, old-fashioned plastic) the ornaments had to be placed, one by one, by hand.

Hortense looked revolted, but I said, “Actually, Hortense, this means you can be creative and make your own arrangement.”

Hortense sniffed, rather like the scrape of claws on a rough plaster wall, and left the room with an obvious expression of nausea on her face. I bowed in the direction of her retreating back, glad to see her go, and then began the tedious task of listening to Rodney’s instructions and passing them on to Rambo.

When it was over, I decided to rest my aching feet and mind by sitting in a chair in a far and rather dim corner of the room. I had hardly folded my aching body into the chair when little LeRoy entered. He didn’t see me, I suppose, or, then again, he might simply have ignored me as being part of the less important and interesting pieces of furniture in the room.

He cast a disdainful look on the tree and said, to Rambo, “Listen, where are the Christmas presents? I’ll bet old Gramps and Gram got me lousy ones, but I ain’t going to wait for no tomorrow morning.”

Rambo said, “I do not know where they are, Little Master.”

“Huh!” said LeRoy, turning to Rodney. “How about you, Stink-face. Do you know where the presents are?”

Rodney would have been within the bounds of his programming to have refused to answer on the grounds that he did not know he was being addressed, since his name was Rodney and not Stink-face. I’m quite certain that that would have been Rambo’s attitude. Rodney, however, was of different stuff. He answered politely, “Yes, I do, Little Master.”

“So where is it, you old puke?”

Rodney said, “I don’t think it would be wise to tell you, Little Master. That would disappoint Gracie and Howard who would like to give the presents to you tomorrow morning.”

“Listen,” said little LeRoy, “who you think you’re talking to, you dumb robot? Now I gave you an order. You bring those presents to me.” And in an attempt to show Rodney who was master, he kicked the robot in the shin.

It was a mistake. I saw it would be that a second before and that was a joyous second. Little LeRoy, after all, was ready for bed (though I doubted that he ever went to bed before he was
good
and ready). Therefore, he was wearing slippers. What’s more, the slipper sailed off the foot with which he kicked, so that he ended by slamming his bare toes hard against the solid chrome-steel of the robotic shin.

He fell to the floor howling and in rushed his mother. “What is it, LeRoy? What is it?”

Whereupon little LeRoy had the immortal gall to say, “He hit me. That old monster-robot
hit
me.”

Hortense screamed. She saw me and shouted, “That robot of yours must be destroyed.”

I said, “Come, Hortense. A robot can’t hit a boy. First law of robotics prevents it.”

“It’s an
old
robot, a
broken
robot. LeRoy says —”

“LeRoy lies. There is no robot, no matter how old or how broken, who could hit a boy.”

“Then
he
did it.
Grampa
did it,” howled LeRoy.

“I wish I did,” I said, quietly, “but no robot would have allowed me to. Ask your own. Ask Rambo if he would have remained motionless while either Rodney or I had hit your boy. Rambo!”

I put it in the imperative, and Rambo said, “I would not have allowed any harm to come to the Little Master, Madam, but I did not know what he purposed. He kicked Rodney’s shin with his bare foot, Madam.”

Hortense gasped and her eyes bulged in fury. “Then he had a good reason to do so. I’ll still have your robot destroyed.”

“Go ahead, Hortense. Unless you’re wining to ruin your robot’s efficiency by trying to reprogram him to lie, he win bear witness to just what preceded the kick and so, of course, with pleasure, win I.”

Hortense left the next morning, carrying the pale-faced LeRoy with her (it turned out he had broken a toe — nothing he didn’t deserve) and an endlessly wordless DeLancey.

Gracie wrung her hands and implored them to stay, but I watched them leave without emotion. No, that’s a lie. I watched them leave with lots of emotion, an pleasant.

Later, I said to Rodney, when Gracie was not present, “I’m sorry, Rodney. That was a horrible Christmas, an because we tried to have it without you. We’ll never do that again, I promise.”

“Thank you, Sir,” said Rodney. “I must admit that there were times these two days when I earnestly wished the laws of robotics did not exist.”

I grinned and nodded my head, but that night I woke up out of a sound sleep and began to worry. I’ve been worrying ever since.

I admit that Rodney was greatly tried, but a robot
can’t
wish the laws of robotics did not exist. He
can’t,
no matter what the circumstances.

If I report this, Rodney will undoubtedly be scrapped, and if we’re issued a new robot as recompense, Gracie will simply never forgive me. Never! No robot, however new, however talented, can possibly replace Rodney in her affection.

In fact, I’ll never forgive myself. Quite apart from my own liking for Rodney, I couldn’t bear to give Hortense the satisfaction.

But if I do nothing, I live with a robot capable of wishing the laws of robotics did not exist. From wishing they did not exist to acting as if they did not exist is just a step. At what moment will he take that step and in what form will he show that he has done so?

What do I do? What do I do?

Kid Brother

2120 A.D.

I
T
WAS
A
great shock to me when our application for a second child was refused. We had really expected to get the license.

I’m a respectable citizen; pillar of the community; all that kind of stuff. I was a little old, maybe. Josie – my wife – may have been past her best childbearing years. So what? We know other people worse off than us, older, trashy in character, who – Well, never mind.

We had one son, Charlie, and we really wanted another child. Boy or girl, it didn’t matter. Of course, if there was something wrong with Charlie, if he developed some illness, maybe then we could license a second child. Or maybe not. And if we did get the license, they would probably take care of Charlie as a defective. You know what I mean; I don’t have to say it.

The trouble was we were late getting started, and that was Josie’s fault. She had irregular periods and you never knew when to get her, if you know what I mean. And we couldn’t get any medical help, either. How could we? The clinics said if we couldn’t have children without help, that was great for the world. It’s patriotic, or something, to be childless.

But we fooled them and had a child after all. Charlie.

When Charlie was eight months old, we started applying for a second child. We wanted them pretty close in age. Was that so much to ask? Even if we were getting a little old for it? What kind of a world do we live in, anyway. No matter how much the population drops, they say it has to drop further, and if life gets easier and people live longer, it has to drop still further.

They won’t be satisfied till they wipe out humanity alto –

Well, look! I’ll tell this just the way I want to. If you want the story, officer, you’ll have to take it my way. What can you do to me? I really don’t much care if I live or die. Would you in my position?

– Look, it’s no use arguing. I’ll tell it my way, or I’ll shut up and you can do your worst. You understand?

– Well then, okay.

As it turned out, we didn’t have to worry about Charlie being sickly, or anything like that. He grew like a bear, or one of those other animals that used to hang around in the woods and places like that in the old days. He came of good stock. You could see that. So why couldn’t we have had another child? That’s what I want to know.

Intelligent? You bet. Strong. Knew what he wanted. Ideal boy. When I think of it, I could – I could – Oh, well.

You should have seen him with the other kids as he was growing up. A natural leader. Always had his way. Always had the other children in the neighborhood doing what he wanted. He knew what he wanted and what he wanted was always right. That was the thing.

Josie didn’t like it, though. She said he was spoiled. In fact, she said I spoiled him. I don’t know what she was talking about. I was the making of him.

He was two years ahead of his age in strength and in brains. I could see that. And if the other children got out of line, sometimes he would have to show them who was boss.

Josie thought he was getting to be a bully. She said he had no friends; all the children were afraid of him.

So what! A leader doesn’t want friends. He wants people to respect him, and if they get out of line, they better
fear
him. Charlie was coming along all right. Sure, the other children stayed away mostly. That was their parents’ fault; and they’re just a bunch of milksops. Once they get one child, and know they won’t have any more, they start hovering over him or her like they were the family jewels, and rare jewels, too. You smother them if you do that. They become useless – worthless.

There was this guy Stevenson down the block. He had two girls, both pitiful things, giggling and empty-headed. How did he come to get two, I ask you? He knew somebody, maybe. A little money passed from hand to hand. Why not, he’s got more money than he admits, too. Naturally. That accounts for it. You’d think with two, he could afford to risk one, but no –

– That’s all right. I’ll get to the point, when I get to the point. If you push, you’ll get nothing and we’ll let it go straight to the court. See if I care.

These other parents, they didn’t want their babies hurt. Don’t play with the Janowitz boy, they would say. I never heard them say so but I’m sure that’s what they said. Well, who needed them? I was planning for Charlie to go to college eventually, so he could take courses in microelectronics or in spatial dynamics, or that kind of stuff. And economics and business, too, so he would know how to get money and power out of his know-how. That’s the way I saw it. I wanted him on top of the heap.

But Josie kept talking about Charlie not having friends and Charlie growing up alone, and like that. All the time. It was like living in an echo chamber. And then, one day, she came to me and said, “Why don’t we get Charlie a kid brother?”

“Oh, sure,” I said. “You’re past menopause so what do we do? Call in the stork? Look under cabbage leaves?”

I could have divorced her, you know. Married a young chick. After all,
I
wasn’t past menopause. But I was – loyal. Fat lot of good that did me. Besides, if I had divorced her, she would mostly have kept Charlie, so what good would
that
have done me?