The Positronic Man (4 page)

When he was done, he handed the carving to Sir, and went to fetch the dust-pan so that he could sweep up the shavings. Upon his return to the room he found Sir sitting motionless, staring at the carving in a kind of numb, stunned way.

"I asked for a household robot of the NDR series," Sir said softly. "I don't remember specifying anything about special craftsman adaptations."

"Indeed, Sir. I am an NDR household robot. I have no specialized implants having to do with craft skills."

"Yet you made this. I saw you do it with my own eyes."

"That is so, Sir."

"Could you make other things out of wood, do you think? Cabinets, let's say? Desks? Lamps? Large-scale sculptures?"

"I am unable to tell you, Sir. I have never attempted such things."

"Well, you will now."

After that, Andrew spent very little time preparing meals and waiting at the table, or doing the other minor jobs around the house that had become part of his daily routine. He was ordered to read books on woodcarving and design, with a special emphasis on furniture-making, and one of the empty attic rooms was set aside as a workshop for him.

Although he continued to carve small wooden trinkets for Miss and Little Miss and occasionally for Ma'am as well-bracelets, earrings, necklaces, pendants-Andrew devoted much of his time, at Sir's suggestion, to such things as cabinets and desks. His designs were striking and unusual. He employed rare and exotic woods which Sir provided, and decorated them with inlays of the most intricate and ingenious patterns.

Sir went upstairs to the workshop every day or two to inspect the latest creations.

"These are amazing productions, Andrew," he would say again and again. "Utterly amazing. You aren't just an artisan, do you realize that? You're a true artist. And the things you've been turning out are works of art."

Andrew said, "I enjoy making them, Sir."

"Enjoy?"

"Should I not be using that word?"

"It's a little unusual to hear a robot speaking of 'enjoying' something, that's all. I didn't realize that robots had the capacity for feelings of that sort."

"Perhaps I use the concept loosely."

"Perhaps you do," Sir said. "But I'm not so sure. You say that you enjoy making this furniture. What exactly do you mean by that?"

"When I do the work, it makes the circuits of my brain somehow flow more easily. That seems to me to be the equivalent of the human feeling known as 'enjoyment.' I have heard you use the word 'enjoy' and I think I understand its significance. The way you use it fits the way I feel. So it seems appropriate for me to say that I enjoy making these things, Sir."

"Ah. Yes."

Sir was quiet for a time.

"You are a very unusual robot, do you know that, Andrew?"

"I am entirely standard, Sir. My circuitry is modular NDR, nothing more, nothing less."

"Indeed."

"Does my doing this cabinetwork trouble you, Sir?"

"Not at all, Andrew. Quite the contrary."

"Yet I sense some uneasiness in your vocal tones. There is a quality in them of-how shall I express it?-a quality of surprise? No, 'surprise' is inaccurate. A quality of uncertainty? Of doubt?-What I mean is that you appear to be thinking, Sir, that I am working beyond the programmed levels of my capacities."

"Yes," said Sir. "That's exactly what I do think, Andrew. Well beyond your programmed levels, as a matter of fact. Not that I'm troubled that you've unexpectedly turned out to have this little streak of artistic ability in you, you understand. But I'd like to know just why it's there."

A FEW DAYS LATER Gerald Martin telephoned the managing director of the regional headquarters of the United States Robots and Mechanical Men Corporation and said, "I'm having a little problem with the NDR household robot that you assigned to me."

The managing director's name was Elliot Smythe. Like many of the high executives of U.S.R.M.M., Smythe was a member of the extensive and powerful Robertson family, descended from the original Lawrence Robertson who had founded the U. S. Robots Corporation in the latter part of the Twentieth Century.

Although by this time the company was so huge that it could no longer strictly be considered a Robertson family enterprise-the constant need to bring in fresh capital for expansion had forced the Robertsons and Smythes steadily to sell off a good-sized portion of their holdings of U.S.R.M.M. stock to outside investors-it was never a simple matter for outsiders to pick up the telephone and ask to speak to a Robertson or a Smythe. But Gerald Martin, after all, was Chairman of the Regional Legislature's Science and Technology Committee. Robertsons and Smythes, wealthy and powerful though they might be, were in no position to ignore telephone calls from Gerald Martin.

"A problem?" Elliott Smythe said, and his face on the telephone screen registered deep and sincere concern. "I'm tremendously sorry to hear that, Mr. Martin. And more than a little startled, too, I have to confess. Your NDR is a state-of-the-art product, you know, and the testing it received before it left here was extremely thorough. -What kind of malfunction have you been experiencing, actually? Is the robot failing to live up to your expectations in any way?"

"I didn't say anything about a malfunction."

"But you mentioned a problem, Mr. Martin. The NDR should be able to handle any household duty that you-"

Sir said crisply, "This has nothing to do with assigned household duties, Mr. Smythe. NDR-113 is performing his assigned duties perfectly. The problem is that the robot appears to have a few capabilities that weren't apparent in the specifications when you and I first discussed the notion of outfitting my home with a staff of robot servants."

Smythe's look of concern began to shade into serious apprehensiveness now. "Are you saying that he's overstepping its programmed group of responsibilities and doing things he hasn't been asked to do?"

"Not at all. You'd have heard from me a lot sooner if anything like that was going on, I guarantee you. No, Mr. Smythe, the thing is that quite unexpectedly he's gone in for woodworking. He makes wooden jewelry and furniture. My younger daughter gave him a very small request along those lines and he fulfilled it in a fashion that was beyond all expectation, and I've had him make a good many other things since. The way he carves wood is something phenomenally exquisite and he never does anything the same way twice. And what he produces are works of art, Mr. Smythe. Absolute works of art. Any museum would be proud to display them."

Smythe was silent for a time when Sir finished speaking. The corners of his mouth quirked a little but he showed no other outward display of emotion.

Then he said, "The NDR series is relatively versatile, Mr. Martin. It's not entirely unthinkable that an NDR should be able to do a little cabinetwork."

"I thought I made it clear that this goes far beyond being 'a little cabinetwork,' " said Sir.

"Yes. I suppose you have." There was another long pause. Then Smythe said, "I'd like to see some of this work. I'd like to have a look at this robot of yours, for that matter. Would it be all right, Mr. Martin, if I flew out to the Coast and gave him a quick inspection?"

"But if you need to inspect him, wouldn't you want to do it under laboratory conditions? You'd need to have all sorts of testing equipment, I'd imagine, and how could you transport all that to my house? It seems to me that it would be much easier all around if I simply brought Andrew to your headquarters, where he could be checked out properly."

"Andrew?"

Sir smiled briefly. "My girls call him that. From NDR, you know."

"Yes. Yes, I see. But there's no need for you to go to the inconvenience of flying east, Mr. Martin. I'm overdue for a visit to some of our West Coast facilities anyway, and this will give me a good excuse to go out there. And at this point I don't intend to put your NDR through any sort of complicated tests. I'd just like to talk to him a bit-and to you-and of course I'd like to see the kinds of thing your robot has been carving. I could hardly expect you to haul a van full of desks and cabinets out here, you know."

"That makes sense, I guess."

"Next Tuesday, then? Would that be convenient for you?"

"I'll see to it that it is," said Sir.

"Oh, and one more thing. I'd like to bring Merwin Mansky with me, if I may. Our Chief Robopsychologist. I think Dr. Mansky will want to take a look at NDR-113's cabinetwork also. In fact, I'm quite sure of it."

Sir cleared his Tuesday schedule and arranged to remain at home all afternoon. Smythe and Mansky were due to arrive in San Francisco on a noon flight and then it would take them another thirty minutes to hop up the coast by local shuttle.

Andrew was told that visitors were coming to see him, of course. That seemed a little odd to him-why would anyone want to pay a social call on a robot? -but he felt no need to try to understand what was taking place. In those days Andrew rarely tried to question the doings of the human beings around him or to analyze events in any systematic way. It was only in later years, when he had attained a far greater comprehension of his situation, that he was able to review that early scene and understand it in its proper light.

A splendid robochauffeured limousine delivered the U. S. Robots executive and the Chief Robopsychologist to the Martin estate. They were a curiously mismatched pair, for Elliott Smythe was a slender, towering, athletic-looking man with long limbs and a great mane of dense white hair, who seemed as though he would be more at home on a tennis court or in a polo match than in a corporate office, while Merwin Mansky was short and stocky and had no hair at all, and gave the appearance of someone who would leave his desk only under great duress.

"This is Andrew," Sir told them. "His carpentry workshop is upstairs, but you can see some of his products all around this room. That bookcase-the lamps, and the table they're on-the light fixture-"

"Remarkable work," said Elliot Smythe. "No exaggeration at all, Mr. Martin: they certainly are masterpieces, every one of them."

Merwin Mansky gave the furniture only the most minimal glance. His attention was drawn much more powerfully to Andrew.

"Code check," Mansky said brusquely. "Aleph Nine, Andrew."

Andrew's response was immediate. It had to be: code checks were subsumed under Second Law priorities and they required unhesitating obedience. Andrew, red photoelectric eyes glowing intently, ran through the entire set of Aleph Nine parameters while Mansky listened, nodding.

"Very good, Andrew. Code check: Epsilon Seven."

Andrew gave Mansky Epsilon Seven. He gave him Omicron Fourteen. He gave him Kappa Three, which was one of the most elaborate checks of all, embodying the parameters that contained the Three Laws.

"Well done," said Mansky. "One more, now. Code check: the entire Omega series."

Andrew recited the Omega codes, which governed the pathways dealing with the ability to process and correlate newly acquired data. That set took quite a while also. Throughout the long recitation Sir looked on in puzzlement. Elliott Smythe seemed scarcely to be listening.

Mansky said, "He's in perfect working order. Every parameter is exactly as it should be."

"As I told Mr. Smythe," Sir began, "the question isn't one of Andrew's failure to perform. It's that his performance is so far beyond expectation."

"Beyond your expectation, perhaps," said Mansky.

Sir swung around as though he had been stung. " And what is that supposed to mean, may I ask?"

Mansky frowned all the way up to the top of his bare scalp. The heavy lines in his forehead were so pronounced that they might have been carved by Andrew. He had drawn features and deep-set weary eyes and pallid skin, and generally looked unhealthy. Andrew suspected that Mansky might actually be a good deal younger than he seemed.

He said, "Robotics isn't an exact art, Mr. Martin. I can't explain it to you in detail, or, rather, I could, but it would take a great deal of time and I'm not certain you'd get much benefit from the explanation, but what I mean is that the mathematics governing the plotting of the positronic pathways is far too complicated to permit any but approximate solutions. So robots of Andrew's level of construction often turn out somewhat unexpectedly to have abilities somewhat beyond the basic design specifications. -I want to assure you, though, that simply because Andrew apparently is a master carpenter there's no reason whatever to fear any sort of unpredictable behavior that might jeopardize you or your family. Whatever else is variable about a robot's performance, the Three Laws are utterly incontrovertible and undefeatable. They are intrinsic to the positronic brain. Andrew would cease to function entirely before he committed any violation of the Laws."

"He's more than simply a master carpenter, Dr. Mansky," Sir said. "We're not just talking about some nice tables and chairs here."

"Yes. Yes, of course. I understand he does little trinkets and knickknacks too."

Sir smiled, but it was a singularly icy smile. He opened the cabinet where Little Miss kept some of the treasures Andrew had created for her and took something out.

"See for yourself," he said acidly to Mansky. "Here's one of his trinkets. One of his knickknacks."

Sir handed over a little sphere of shining ebony: a playground scene in which the boys and girls were almost too small to make out, yet they were in perfect proportion, and they blended so naturally with the grain that that, too, seemed to have been carved. The figures appeared on the verge of coming to life and moving about. The boys were about to have a fistfight; two girls were intently studying a necklace of almost microscopic size that a third girl was showing them; a teacher stood to one side, stooping a little to answer a question that a very short boy was asking her.

The robopsychologist stared at the tiny carving for an extraordinarily long while without saying anything.

"May I look at it, Dr. Mansky?" Elliott Smythe said.

"Yes. Yes, certainly."

Mansky's hand trembled a little as he passed the little object across to the U. S. Robots executive.

Now it was Smythe's turn to stare in solemn silence. Andrew, watching him, experienced a new little burst of the sensation that he had come to identify as enjoyment. Plainly these two men were impressed with what he had carved. Indeed they appeared to be so impressed that they were unable to express their appreciation in words.

Mansky said, finally, "He did that?"

Sir nodded. "He's never seen a school playground. My daughter Amanda described this scene to him one afternoon when he asked her to tell him what one was like. He spoke with her for about five minutes. Then he went upstairs and made this."

"Remarkable," Smythe said. "Phenomenal."

"Phenomenal, yes," said Sir. "Now do you see why I thought I ought to bring this to your attention? This kind of work goes well beyond the standard hardwired capacity of your NOR series, does it not? I hate to use a clichй, gentlemen, but what we have here is a bit of a genius robot, wouldn't you say? Something that might be considered to verge almost on the human?"

"There is nothing human whatsoever about NDR-113," said Mansky with a kind of prissy firmness. "Please don't confuse the issue, Mr. Martin. What we have here is a machine, and you must never forget that A machine with some degree of intelligence, yes, and evidently possessing something simulating creativity as well. But a machine all the same. I've spent my entire career dealing with robot personalities-yes, they do have personalities, after their fashion-and if anyone were to be tempted to believe that robots partake of humanity, it would be me, Mr. Martin. But I don't believe it and neither should you."

"I didn't mean it seriously. But how can you account for this kind of artistic ability, then?"

"The luck of the draw," Mansky said. "Something in the pathways. A fluke. We've been attempting to design generalized pathways for the last couple of years-robots, I mean, who are not simply limited to the job they're designed for, but are capable of expanding their own scope by a process that can be compared to inductive reasoning-and it's not entirely surprising that something like this, this sort of simulated creativity, should turn up in one of them. As I said a few moments ago, robotics is not an exact art. Sometimes unusual things happen."

"Could you make it happen again? Could you build another robot who duplicates Andrew's special abilities? A whole series of them, perhaps?"

"Probably not. We're talking about a stochastic event here, Mr. Martin. Do you follow me? We don't know in any precise and quantifiable fashion how we managed to get those abilities into Andrew in the first place, so there's no way as of now that we could set out to reproduce whatever deviant pathway it is that allows him to create work of this sort. What I mean," Mansky said, "is that Andrew must have been something of an accident, and very likely he is unique."

"Good! I don't in the least mind Andrew's being the only one of his kind."

Smythe, who had been at the window for some time now, looking out over the fog-shrouded ocean, turned abruptly and said, "Mr. Martin, what I'd like to do is take Andrew back to our headquarters for extensive study. Naturally, we'll supply you with an equivalent NDR robot by way of a replacement, and we'll see to it that he is programmed with full knowledge of whatever domestic assignments you may already have given Andrew, so that-"

"No," Sir said, with sudden grimness.

Smythe delicately flicked one eyebrow upward. "Since you came to us with this situation in the first place, you must surely recognize the importance of our making a detailed examination of Andrew, so that we can begin to understand how-"