"Half your time in cooking is wasted reaching around for what you need
next. We can build in a lot of that stuff. For instance, one tentacle
can be a registering thermometer. Tapering to a fine point--stick it in
a roast and--One can end in a broad spoon for stirring--heat-resistant,
of course. One might terminate in a sort of hand, of which each of the
digits was a different-sized measuring spoon. And best of all--why the
nuisance of bringing food to the mouth to taste? Install taste-buds in
the end of one tentacle."
I nodded. Quinby's pencil was covering the paper with tentative
hookups. Suddenly he paused. "I'll bet I know why android cooks were
never too successful. Nobody ever included the Verhaeren factor in
their brains."
The Verhaeren factor, if you've studied this stuff at all, is what
makes robots capable of independent creative action. For instance
it's used in the robots that turn out popular fiction--in very small
proportion, of course.
"Yes, that's the trouble. They never realized that a cook is an artist
as well as a servant. Well, we'll give him in his brain what he needs
for creation, and in his body the tools he needs to carry it out. And
when Mr. Grew has had his first meal from a usuform cook--"
It was an idea. I admitted, that might have worked on anybody but
Sanford Grew--get at a man and convert him through what's dearest to
his heart. But I'd worked for Grew. I knew him. And I knew that no
hobby, not even his passion for unconcentrated food, could be stronger
than his pride in his power as president of Robinc.
So while Quinby worked on his usuform cook and our foreman Mike Warren
got our dowser ready for the first big demonstration, I went ahead with
the anti-Robinc campaign.
"We've got four striking points," I explained to Quinby. "Android
robots atrophy or go nuts; usuforms are safe. Android robots are almost
as limited as man in what they can do without tools and accessories;
usuforms can be constructed to do anything. Android robots are
expensive because you've got to buy an all-purpose one that can do more
than you need; usuforms save money because they're specialized. Android
robots use up mineral resources; usuforms save them."
"The last reason is the important one." Quinby said.
I smiled to myself. Sure it was, but can you sell the people on
anything as abstract as conservation? Hell no. Tell 'em they'll save
credits, tell 'em they'll get better service, and you've got 'em signed
up already. But tell 'em they're saving their grandchildren from a
serious shortage and they'll laugh in your face.
So as usual, I left Quinby to ideas and followed my own judgment on
people, and by the time he'd sent the cook to Grew I had all lined up
the campaign that could blast Grew and Robinc out of the Empire. The
three biggest telecommentators were all sold on usuforms. A major solly
producer was set to do a documentary on them. Orders were piling up
about twice as fast as Mike Warren could see his way clear to turning
them out.
So then came the day of the big test.
We'd wanted to start out with something big and new that no android
could possibly compete with, and we'd had the luck to run onto Mike's
brother-in-law, who'd induced in robot brains the perception of that
_n_th sense that used to enable dowsers to find water. Our usuform
dowser was God's gift to explorers and fresh exciting copy. So the Head
had arranged a big demonstration on a specially prepared field, with
grandstands and fireworks and two bands--one human, one android--and
all the trimmings.
We sat in our box, Mike and Quinby and I. Mike had a shakerful of Three
Planet cocktails mixed by our usuform barkeep; they aren't so good when
they stand, but they were still powerful enough to keep him going. I
was trying to get along on sheer will power, but little streams of
sweat were running down my back and my nails were carving designs in my
palms.
Quinby didn't seem bothered. He kept watching the android band and
making notes. "You see," he explained, "it's idiotic waste to train a
robot to play an instrument, when you could make an instrument that
_was_ a robot. Your real robot band would be usuforms, and wouldn't be
anything but a flock of instruments that could play themselves. You
could even work out new instruments, with range and versatility and
flexibility beyond the capacity of human or android fingers and lungs.
You could--"
"Oh, oh," I said. There was Sanford Grew entering our box.
The smile was still gentle and sad, but it had a kind of warmth about
it that puzzled me. I'd never seen that on Grew's face before. He
advanced to Quinby and held out his hand. "Sir," he said, "I have just
dined."
Quinby rose eagerly, his blond head towering above the little old
executive. "You mean my usuform--"
"Your usuform, sir, is indubitably the greatest cook since the Golden
Age before the devilish introduction of concentrates. Do you mind if I
share your box for this great exhibition?"
Quinby beamed and introduced him to Mike. Grew shook hands warmly with
our foreman, then turned to me and spoke even my name with friendly
pleasure. Before anybody could say any more, before I could even wipe
the numb dazzle off my face, the Head's voice began to come over the
speaker.
His words were few--just a succinct promise of the wonders of usuforms
and their importance to our civilization--and by the time he'd finished
the dowser was in place on the field.
To everybody watching but us, there was never anything that looked less
like a robot. There wasn't a trace of an android trait to it. It looked
like nothing but a heavy duralite box mounted on caterpillar treads.
But it was a robot by legal definition. It had a Zwergenhaus brain and
was capable of independent action under human commands or direction.
That box housed the brain, with its _n_th-sensory perception, and
eyes and ears, and the spike-laying apparatus. For when the dowser's
perception of water reached a certain level of intensity, it layed a
metal spike into the ground. An exploring party could send it out on
its own to survey the territory, then follow its tracks at leisure and
dig where the spikes were.
After the Head's speech there was silence. Then Quinby leaned over to
the mike in our box and said "Go find water."
The dowser began to move over the field. Only the Head himself
knew where water had been cached at various levels and in various
quantities. The dowser raced along for a bit, apparently finding
nothing. Then it began to hesitate and veer. Once it paused for
noticeable seconds. Even Quinby looked tense. I heard sharp breaths
from Sanford Grew, and Mike almost drained his shaker.
Then the dowser moved on. There was water, but not enough to bother
drilling for. It zoomed about a little more, then stopped suddenly and
definitely. It had found a real treasure trove.
I knew its mechanism. In my mind I could see the Zwergenhaus brain
registering and communicating its needs to the metal muscles of the
sphincter mechanism that would lay the spike. The dowser sat there
apparently motionless, but when you knew it you had the impression of a
hen straining to lay.
Then came the explosion. When my eyes could see again through the
settling fragments, there was nothing in the field but a huge crater.
It was Quinby, of course, who saw right off what had happened.
"Somebody," my numb ears barely heard him say, "substituted for the
spike an explosive shell with a contact-fuse tip."
Sanford Grew nodded. "Plausible, young man. Plausible. But I rather
think that the general impression will be simply that usuforms don't
work." He withdrew, smiling gently.
I held Mike back by pouring the rest of the shaker down his throat.
Mayhem wouldn't help us any.
"So you converted him?" I said harshly to Quinby. "Brother, the next
thing you'd better construct is a good guaranteed working usuform
converter."
The next week was the low point in the history of Q.U.R. I know now,
when Quinby's usuforms are what makes the world tick, it's hard to
imagine Q.U.R. ever hitting a low point. But one reason I'm telling
this is to make you realize that no big thing is easy, and that a lot
of big things depend for their success on some very little thing, like
that chance remark of mine I just quoted.
Not that any of us guessed then how important that remark was. We had
other things to worry about. The fiasco of that demonstration had just
about cooked our goose. Sure, we explained it must've been sabotage,
and the Head backed us up; but the wiseacres shook their heads and
muttered "Not bad for an alibi, _but_--"
Two of three telecommentators who had been backing us switched over to
Grew. The solly producer abandoned his plans for a documentary. I don't
know if this was honest conviction or the power of Robinc; it hit us
the same either way. People were scared of usuforms now; they might go
_boom_! And the biggest and smartest publicity and advertising campaign
of the past century was fizzling out _ffft_ before our helpless eyes.
It was the invaluable Guzub who gave us our first upward push. We were
drinking at the Sunspot when he said, "Ah, boys--Zo things are going
wrong with you, bud you zdill gome 'ere. No madder wad abbens, beoble
zdill wand three things: eading and dringing and--"
Quinby looked up with the sharp pleasure of a new idea. "There's
nothing we can do with the third," he said. "But eating and
drinking--Guzub, you want to see usuforms go over, don't you?"
"And remember," I added practically, "you've got a royalty interest in
our robot barkeep."
Guzub rolled all his eyes up once and down once--the Martian trick of
nodding assent.
"All right," said Quinby. "Practically all bartenders are Martians,
the tentacles are so useful professionally. Lots of them must be good
friends of yours?"
"Lodz," Guzub agreed.
"Then listen--"
That was how we launched the really appealing campaign. Words? Sure,
people have read and heard millions upon billions of words, and one set
of them is a lot like another. But when you get down to Guzub's three
essentials--
Within a fortnight there was one of our usuform barkeeps in one
bar out of five in the influential metropolitan districts. Guzub's
friends took orders for drinks, gave them to the usuforms, served the
drinks, and then explained to the satisfied customers how they'd been
made--pointing out besides that there had _not_ been an explosion. The
customers would get curious. They'd order more to watch the usuform
work. (It had Martoid tentacles and its own body was its shaker.) The
set-up was wonderful for business--and for us.
That got at the men. Meanwhile we had usuform cooks touring the
residential districts and offering to prepare old-fashioned meals free.
There wasn't a housewife whose husband didn't say regularly once a
week, "Why can't we have more old-fashioned food instead of all these
concentrates? Why, my mother used to--"
Few of the women knew the art. Those of them who could afford android
cooks hadn't found them too satisfactory. And husbands kept muttering
about mother. The chance of a happy home was worth the risk of these
dreadful dangerous new things. So our usuform cooks did their stuff and
husbands were rapturously pleased and everything began to look swell.
(We remembered to check up on a few statistics three quarters of an
hour later--it seemed we had in a way included Guzub's third appeal
after all.)
So things were coming on sweetly until one day at the Sunspot I looked
up to see we had a visitor. "I heard that I might find you here,"
Sanford Grew smiled. He beckoned to Guzub and said "Your oldest
brandy."
Guzub knew him by sight. I saw one tentacle flicker hesitantly toward a
bottle of mikiphin, that humorously named but none the less effective
knockout liquor. I shook my head, and Guzub shrugged resignedly.
"Well?" Quinby asked directly.
"Gentlemen," said Sanford Grew, "I have come here to make a last appeal
to you."
"You can take your appeal," I said, "and--"