"Right now I'm going home."
I meant it too. I left him staring after me and went out to the
Copter. The sun was just sinking down behind the towers of Carron
City--how long it seemed since I'd flown in there this morning. The
roads around the factory were deserted. No one moved in the fields. I
flew along through the dusk, idling, enjoying the illusion of having a
peaceful countryside all to myself. It had been a pleasant way of life
indeed, until now.
When I dropped down on my own roof and rolled into the garage, my
sense of being really at home was complete. For there, standing at the
head of the stairs that led down to the living room, was Rob O.
"Well," I said: "What are you doing here?"
He looked sheepish. "I just wondered how you were getting along
without me," he said.
I felt like grinning triumphantly, but I didn't. "Why, just fine,
Rob," I told him, "though you really should have given me notice that
you were leaving. I was worried about you."
He seemed perplexed. Apparently I wasn't acting like the bullying
creature the radio had told him to expect. When I went downstairs he
followed me, quietly, and I could feel his wide photoelectric
eye-cells upon my back.
I went over to the kitchen and lifted a bottle down off the shelf.
"Care for a drink, Rob?" I asked, and then added, "I guess not. It
would corrode you."
He nodded. Then, as I reached for a glass, his hand darted out, picked
it up and set it down in front of me. He was already reaching for the
bottle when he remembered.
"You're not supposed to wait on me any more," I said sternly.
"No," he said. "I'm not." He sounded regretful.
"There's one thing, though, that I wish you'd do. Tell me where you
used to keep my socks."
He gazed at me sadly. "I made a list," he said. "Everything is down. I
wrote your dentist appointment in also. You always forget those, you
know."
"Thanks, Rob." I lifted my glass. "Here's to your new duties, whatever
they are. I suppose you have to go back to the city now?"
Once again he nodded. "I'm an aide to one of the best androids in the
country," he told me, half proudly and half regretfully. "Jerry."
"Well, wish him luck from me," I said, and stood up. "Goodbye, Rob."
"Goodbye, Mr. Morrison."
For a moment he stood staring around the apartment; then he turned and
clanked out the door. I raised my glass again, grinning. If only the
Army didn't interfere. Then I remembered Rob's list, and a disturbing
thought hit me. Where had he, of all robots, ever learned to write?
That night I didn't go to bed. I sat listening to the radio, hoping.
And toward morning what I had expected to happen began to crop up in
the programs. The announcer's tone changed. The ring of triumph was
less obvious, less assured. There was more and more talk about acting
in good faith, the well being of all, the necessity for coming to
terms about working conditions. I smiled to myself in the darkness.
I'd built the 5's, brains and all, and I knew their symptoms. They
were getting bored.
Maybe they had learned to think from me, but their minds were
nevertheless different. For they were built to be efficient, to work,
to perform. They were the minds of men without foibles, without human
laziness. Now that the excitement of organizing was over, now that
there was nothing active to do, the androids were growing restless. If
only the Army didn't come and get them stirred up again, I might be
able to deal with them.
At quarter to five in the morning my telephone rang. This time it
didn't wake me up; I was half waiting for it.
"Hello," I said. "Who is it?"
"This is Jerry."
There was a pause. Then he went on, rather hesitantly, "Rob O said you
were getting along all right."
"Oh, yes," I told him. "Just fine."
The pause was longer this time. Finally the android asked, "How are
you coming along on the contract?"
I laughed, rather bitterly. "How do you think, Jerry? You certainly
picked a bad time for your strike, you know. The government needs that
uranium. Oh, well, some other plant will have to take over. The Army
can wait a few weeks."
This time Jerry's voice definitely lacked self-assurance. "Maybe we
were a little hasty," he said. "But it was the only way to make you
people understand."
"I know," I told him.
"And you always have some rush project on," he added.
"Just about always."
"Mr. Morrison," he said, and now he was pleading with me. "Why don't
you come over to the city? I'm sure we could work something out."
This was what I'd been waiting for. "I will, Jerry," I said. "I want
to get this straightened out just as much as you do. After all, you
don't have to eat. I do. And I won't be eating much longer if we don't
get production going."
Jerry thought that over for a minute. "I'll be where we met before,"
he said.
I said that was all right with me and hung up. Then once again I
climbed the stairs to the roof and wheeled the Copter out for the trip
to the city.
It was a beautiful night, just paling into a false dawn in the east.
There in the Copter I was very much alone, and very much worried. So
much depended on this meeting. Much more, I realized now, than the Don
Morrison Fissionables Inc., much more even than the government's
uranium supply. No, the whole future of robot relations was at stake,
maybe the whole future of humanity. It was hard to be gloomy on such a
clear, clean night, but I managed it well enough.
* * * * *
Even before I landed I could see Jerry's eyes glowing a deep crimson
in the dark. He was alone, this time. He stood awaiting me--very tall,
very proud. And very human.
"Hello, Jerry," I said quietly.
"Hello, Mr. Morrison."
For a moment we just stood gazing at each other in the murky pre-dawn;
then he said sadly,
"I want to show you the city."
Side by side we walked through the streets of Carron City. All was
still quiet; the people were sleeping the exhausted sleep that follows
deep excitement. But the androids were all about. They did not sleep,
ever. They did not eat either, nor drink, nor smoke, nor make love.
Usually they worked, but now....
They drifted through the streets singly and in groups. Sometimes they
paused and felt about them idly for the tools of their trades, making
lifting or sweeping or computing gestures. Some laborers worked
silently tearing down a wall; they threw the demolished rocks in a
heap and a group of their fellows carried them back and built the wall
up again. An air trolley cruised aimlessly up and down the street, its
driver ringing out the stops for his nonexistent passengers. A little
chef-type knelt in the dirt of a rich man's garden, making mud pies.
Beside me Jerry sighed.
"One day," he said. "Just one day and they come to this."
"I thought they would," I answered quietly.
Our eyes met in a look of understanding. "You see, Jerry," I said, "we
never meant to cheat you. We would have paid you--we will pay you now,
if you wish it. But what good will monetary credits be to your people?
We need the things money buys, but you--"
"Need to work." Jerry's voice was flat. "I see, now. You were kind not
to give brains--real brains--to the robots. They're happy. It's just
us 5's who aren't."
"You're like us," I said softly.
He had learned to think from me and from others like me. He had the
brain of a man, without the emotions, without the sweet irrationality
of men--and he knew what he missed. Side by side we walked through the
graying streets. Human and android. Man and machine. And I knew that I
had found a friend.
We didn't have to talk any more. He could read my mind and I knew well
enough how his worked. We didn't have to discuss wages or hours, or
any of the myriad matters that human bargaining agents have to thresh
out. We just walked back to my Copter, and when we got to it, he
spoke.
"I'll tell them to go back to work, that we've come to terms," he
said. "That's what they want, anyway. Someone to think for them."
I nodded. "And if you bring the other 5's to the factory," I said,
"we'll work out our agreement."
He knew I was sincere. He looked at me for a long moment, and then
his great taloned hand gripped mine. And he said what I'd been
thinking for a long time.
"You're right about that hook-up, Mr. Morrison. We shouldn't have it.
It can only cause trouble."
He paused, and the events of the last twenty-four hours must have been
in his mind as well as in mine. "You'll leave us our brains, of
course. They came from you. But take out the telepathy."
He sighed then, and his sigh was very human. "Be thankful," he said to
me, "that you don't have to know what people think about. It's so
disillusioning."
* * * * *
Once again his mouth twisted into that strange android grin as he
added, "if you send in a hurry call to Cybernetics and have a truck
come out for us, we'll be de-telepathed in time for work this
morning."
That was all there was to it. I flew back to the plant and told Jack
what had happened, sent a call to the Army that everything was
settled, arranged with Cybernetics for a rewiring on three hundred
assorted 5-Types. Then I went home to a pot of Rob's coffee--the first
decent brew I'd had in twenty-four hours.
On Saturday we delivered to the Army right on the dot. Jerry and Co.
had worked overtime. Being intelligent made them better workers and
now they were extremely willing ones. They had their contract. They
were considered men. And they could no longer read my mind.
I walked into my office Saturday afternoon and sat down by the radio.
Jack and Chief Dalton looked across the room at me and grinned.
"All right, Don," Jack said. "Tell us how you did it."
"Did what?" I tried to act innocent, but I couldn't get away with it.
"Fooled those robots into going back to work, of course," he laughed.