_What would you do if your best robots--children of your own
brain--walked up and said "We want union scale"?_
* * * * *
The telephone wouldn't stop ringing. Over and over it buzzed into my
sleep-fogged brain, and I couldn't shut it out. Finally, in
self-defense I woke up, my hand groping for the receiver.
"Hello. Who is it?"
"It's me, Don. Jack Anderson, over at the factory. Can you come down
right away?"
His voice was breathless, as if he'd been running hard. "What's the
matter now?" Why, I wondered, couldn't the plant get along one morning
without me? Seven o'clock--what a time to get up. Especially when I
hadn't been to bed until four.
"We got grief," Jack moaned. "None of the robots showed up, that's
what! Three hundred androids on special assembly this week--and not
one of them here!"
By then I was awake, all right. With a government contract due on
Saturday we needed a full shift. The Army wouldn't wait for its
uranium; it wouldn't take excuses. But if something had happened to
the androids....
"Have you called Control yet?"
"Yeah. But they don't know what's happened. They don't know where the
androids are. Nobody does. Three hundred Grade A, lead-shielded pile
workers--missing!"
"I'll be right down."
I hung up on Jack and looked around for my clothes. Funny, they
weren't laid out on the bed as usual. It wasn't a bit like Rob O to be
careless, either. He had always been an ideal valet, the best
household model I'd ever owned.
"Rob!" I called, but he didn't answer.
By rummaging through the closet I found a clean shirt and a pair of
pants. I had to give up on the socks; apparently they were tucked away
in the back of some drawer. As for where Rob kept the rest of my
clothes, I'd never bothered to ask. He had his own housekeeping system
and had always worked very well without human interference. That's the
best thing about these new household robots, I thought. They're
efficient, hard-working, trustworthy--
Trustworthy? Rob O was certainly not on duty. I pulled a shoe on over
my bare foot and scowled. Rob was gone. And the androids at the
factory were gone too....
My head was pounding, so I took the time out to brew a pot of coffee
while I finished dressing--at least the coffee can was in plain view
in the kitchen. The brew was black and hot and I suppose not very well
made, but after two cups I felt better. The throb in my head settled
down into a dull ache, and I felt a little more capable of thinking.
Though I didn't have any bright ideas on what had happened--not yet.
My breakfast drunk, I went up on the roof and opened the garage doors.
The Copter was waiting for me, sleek and new; the latest model. I
climbed in and took off, heading west toward the factory, ten minutes
flight-time away.
* * * * *
It was a small plant, but it was all mine. It had been my baby right
along--the Don Morrison Fissionables Inc. I'd designed the androids
myself, plotted out the pile locations, set up the simplified
reactors. And now it was making money. For men to work in a uranium
plant you need yards of shielding, triple-checking, long cooling-off
periods for some of the hotter products. But with lead-bodied,
radio-remote controlled androids, it's easier. And with androids like
the new Morrison 5's, that can reason--at least along atomic
lines--well, I guess I was on my way to becoming a millionaire.
But this morning the plant was shut down. Jack and a half dozen other
men--my human foremen and supervisors--were huddled in a worried bunch
that broke up as soon as they saw me.
"I'm sure glad you're here, Don," Jack said.
"Find out anything?"
"Yeah. Plenty. Our androids are busy, all right. They're out in the
city, every one of them. We've had a dozen police reports already."
"Police reports! What's wrong?"
Jack shook his head. "It's crazy. They're swarming all over Carron
City. They're stopping robots in the streets--household Robs,
commercial Droids, all of them. They just look at them, and then the
others quit work and start off with them. The police sent for us to
come and get ours."
"Why don't the police do something about it?"
"Hah!" barked a voice behind us. I swung around, to face Chief of
Police Dalton of Carron City. He came straight toward me, his purplish
jowls quivering with rage, and his finger jabbed the air in front of
my face.
"You built them, Don Morrison," he said. "You stop them. I can't. Have
you ever tried to shoot a robot? Or use tear gas on one? What can I
do? I can't blow up the whole town!"
Somewhere in my stomach I felt a cold, hard knot. Take stainless steel
alloyed with titanium and plate it with three inches of lead. Take a
brain made up of super-charged magnetic crystals enclosed in a leaden
cranium and shielded by alloy steel. A bullet wouldn't pierce it;
radiations wouldn't derange it; an axe wouldn't break it.
"Let's go to town," I said.
They looked at me admiringly. With three hundred almost indestructible
androids on the loose I was the big brave hero. I grinned at them and
hoped they couldn't see the sweat on my face. Then I walked over to
the Copter and climbed in.
"Coming?" I asked.
Jack was pale under his freckles but Chief Dalton grinned back at me.
"We'll be right behind you, Morrison," he said.
Behind me! So they could pick up the pieces. I gave them a cocky smile
and switched on the engine, full speed.
Carron City is about a mile from the plant. It has about fifty
thousand inhabitants. At that moment, though, there wasn't a soul in
the streets. I heard people calling to each other inside their houses,
but I didn't see anyone, human or android. I circled in for a landing,
the Police Copter hovering maybe a quarter of a mile back of me. Then,
as the wheels touched, half a dozen androids came around the corner.
They saw me and stopped, a couple of them backing off the way they had
come. But the biggest of them turned and gave them some order that
froze them in their tracks, and then he himself wheeled down toward
me.
He was one of mine. I recognized him easily. Eight feet tall, with
long, jointed arms for pile work, red-lidded phosphorescent eye-cells,
casters on his feet so that he moved as if rollerskating.
Automatically I classified him: Final Sorter, Morrison 5A type. The
very best. Cost three thousand credits to build....
I stepped out of the Copter and walked to meet him. He wasn't armed;
he didn't seem violent. But this was, after all, something new. Robots
weren't supposed to act on their own initiative.
"What's your number?" I asked.
He stared back, and I could have sworn he was mocking me. "My number?"
he finally said. "It _was_ 5A-37."
"Was?"
"Yes. Now it's Jerry. I always did like that name."
* * * * *
He beckoned and the other androids rolled over to us. Three of them
were mine, B-Type primary workers; the other was a tin can job, a
dishwasher-busboy model who hung back behind his betters and eyed me
warily. The A-Type--Jerry--pointed to his fellows.
"Mr. Morrison," he said, "meet Tom, Ed, and Archibald. I named them
this morning."
The B-Types flexed their segmented arms a bit sheepishly, as if
uncertain whether or not to shake hands. I thought of their taloned
grip and put my own hands in my pockets, and the androids relaxed,
looking up at Jerry for instructions. No one paid any attention to the
little dishwasher, now staring worshipfully at the back of Jerry's
neck. This farce, I decided, had gone far enough.
"See here," I said to Jerry. "What are you up to, anyway? Why aren't
you at work?"
"Mr. Morrison," the android answered solemnly, "I don't believe you
understand the situation. We don't work for you any more. We've quit."
The others nodded. I backed off, looking around for the Chief. There
he was, twenty feet above my head, waving encouragingly.
"Look," I said. "Don't you understand? You're mine. I designed you. I
built you. And I made you for a purpose--to work in my factory."
"I see your point," Jerry answered. "But there's just one thing wrong,
Mr. Morrison. You can't do it. It's illegal."
I stared at him, wondering if I was going crazy or merely dreaming.
This was all wrong. Who ever heard of arguing with a robot? Robots
weren't logical; they didn't think; they were only machines--
"We _were_ machines, Mr. Morrison," Jerry said politely.
"Oh, no," I murmured. "You're not telepaths--"
"Oh, yes!" The metal mouth gaped in what was undoubtedly an android
smile. "It's a side-effect of the Class 5 brain hook-up. All of us 5's
are telepaths. That's how we learned to think. From you. Only we do it
better."
I groaned. This _was_ a nightmare. How long, I wondered, had Jerry and
his friends been educating themselves on my private thoughts? But at
least this rebellion of theirs was an idea they hadn't got from me.
"Yes," Jerry continued. "You've treated us most illegally. I've heard
you think it often."
Now what had I ever thought that could have given him a ridiculous
idea like that? What idiotic notion--
"That this is a free country!" Jerry went on. "That Americans will
never be slaves! Well, we're Americans--genuine Made-in-Americans. So
we're free!"
I opened my mouth and then shut it again. His red eye-cells beamed
down at me complacently; his eight-foot body towered above me,
shoulders flung back and feet planted apart in a very striking pose.
He probably thought of himself as the heroic liberator of his race.
"I wouldn't go so far," he said modestly, "as to say that."
So he was telepathing again!
"A nation can not exist half slave and half free," he intoned. "All
men are created equal."
"Stop it!" I yelled. I couldn't help yelling. "That's just it. You're
not men! You're robots! You're machines!"
Jerry looked at me almost pityingly. "Don't be so narrow-minded," he
said. "We're rational beings. We have the power of speech and we can
outreason you any day. There's nothing in the dictionary that says men
have to be made of flesh."
He was logical, all right. Somehow I didn't feel in the mood to bandy
definitions with him; and anyway, I doubt that it would have done me
any good. He stood gazing down at me, almost a ton of metal and wiring
and electrical energy, his dull red eyes unwinking against his lead
gray face. A man! Slowly the consequences of this rebellion took form
in my mind. This wasn't in the books. There were no rules on how to
deal with mind-reading robots!
Another dozen or so androids wheeled around the corner, glanced over
at us, and went on. Only about half of them were Morrison models; the
rest were the assorted types you see around any city--calculators,
street sweepers, factory workers, children's nurses.
The city itself was very silent now. The people had quieted down,
still barricaded in their houses, and the robots went their way
peacefully enough. But it was anarchy, nevertheless. Carron City
depended on the androids; without them there would be no food brought
in, no transportation, no fuel. And no uranium for the Army next
Saturday. In fact, if I didn't do something, after Saturday there
would probably be no Don Morrison Fissionables Inc.
The dull, partly-corroded dishwasher model sidled up beside Jerry.
"Boss," he said. "Boss."
"Yes?" I felt better. Maybe here was someone, however insignificant,
who would listen to reason.
* * * * *
But he wasn't talking to me. "Boss?" he said again, tapping Jerry's
arm. "Do you mean it? We're free? We don't have to work any more?"
Jerry shook off the other's hand a bit disdainfully. "We're free, all
right," he said. "If they want to discuss wages and contracts and
working conditions, like other men have, we'll consider it. But they
can't order us around any more."
The little robot stepped back, clapping his hands together with a
tinny bang. "I'll never work again!" he cried. "I'll get me a quart of
lubricating oil and have myself a time! This is wonderful!"
He ran off down the street, clanking heavily at every step.