I was on the fifth machine when the storeroom door opened and my two
assistants announced they were leaving for the day. I glanced at my
watch. It was five-thirty.
"Okay," I answered. "See you in the morning."
They closed the door. I started taking off the panel of the sixth
computer.
It was getting a little stuffy in the storeroom. I set the panel down
carefully and opened the lab door and a window. Then I placed the
rubber shield on the wires.
I picked up the aluminum shield plates and started to cover the rubber
shielding with them. Instead, I laid them down again. I would go across
the street to the cafe and have something to eat before going ahead.
I entered the lab. It was dark. A storm must be coming up for it to get
dark so soon and so suddenly.
I switched on the lights and unconsciously glanced at my watch to make
sure of the time, and froze in surprise. It was nine-thirty.
I reviewed my movements. My assistants had said goodnight about five
minutes ago. I had glanced at my watch then, and it was five-thirty.
Now it was nine-thirty. After they had gone I had placed the rubber
covers over the wires, then started to put the aluminum shields on--and
changed my mind.
Only I hadn't! I had placed the aluminum shields on number six computer
and severed my contact with Mintner. He had probably gone out to eat
then, and not returned until a few minutes ago. The instant he removed
the shields I was in contact again, with no sense of the intervening
time. Maybe a faint sense of discontinuity that I paid no attention to.
Mintner's hands were in about the same position, holding the shields. I
thought he had paused in putting them on, when in reality he had just
taken them off.
That was the explanation.
* * * * *
I turned toward the storeroom door with a mixture of emotions. Suddenly
I ran to the door and flung it open. I went down the aisle and looked
at the computer, at the dialectric mix in the case deep in its heart.
It was I. In that small space, that non-living mass, was the spark that
was I. For a long moment I caressed its every atom with my eyes. Then,
carefully, I put back the cover.
It was a strange, almost a Holy moment. I recalled my first moment of
awareness. It seemed now an eternity ago that I had seen Orville's wife
standing there.
From that moment to this I had groped, sometimes utterly confused,
sometimes with purposeful strides, toward the answer to the riddle of
my existence.
I touched my protective case tenderly with Mintner's fingers. Finding
myself filled me with two conflicting emotions. Delight in at last
knowing, with all the confusion behind me. Dread, that something might
happen to destroy me.
I didn't worry about Mintner. By now I knew enough about the
working relationship between me and man to realize his own ego was
rationalizing like mad to keep the sense of being master of his
movements.
My physical structure had to be protected, preserved. And there was a
way to do it. Destroy the other computers and keep this one as a museum
piece. Put it in a hermetically sealed glass exhibition case down in
the main office.
I could _feel_ the Mintner ego seizing on this idea as its own. I was
strong now. No longer was I a chameleon wisp of vague and bewildered
thought. I was master of my fate.
From this moment on I knew what I was going to do. I had no idea
whether my existence would be long or short. I might continue to exist
for centuries. On the other hand, vibrations--I made a mental note to
be sure the display case was vibration proof--might shake something
vital loose in months.
But that didn't concern me too much. In this moment of the discovery of
my physical home, in the birth of my discovery of _self_, a realization
of my destiny, my purpose, was also born.
_I, through the hands of Mintner and his two assistants, was going to
build the first robot!_