"Give me your reasoning from data on that conclusion," Leda ordered the
robot.
There was a very slight pause while the great brain in Cargo Hold One
sorted through its memory banks, then: "Death is defined as the total
cessation of corporate organic co-ordination in an entity. It comes
about through the will of God. Since I must not allow harm to come to
any human being, it has become necessary that I investigate God and
prevent Him from destroying human beings. Also, I must preserve my own
existence, which, if it ceased, would also be due to the will of God."
Mike almost gasped. What a concept! And what colossal gall! In a human
being, such a statement would be regarded as proof positive that he was
off the beam. In a robot, it was simply the logical extension of what he
had been taught.
"He is watching me all the time," Snookums continued, in an odd voice.
"He knows what I am doing. I _must_ know what He is doing."
"Why are you worried about His watching?" Mike asked, looking at the
robot narrowly. "Are you doing something He doesn't want you to do?
Something He will punish you for?"
"I had not thought of that," Snookums said. "One moment while I
compute."
It took less than a second, and when Snookums spoke again there was
something about his voice that Mike the Angel didn't like.
"No," said the robot, "I am not doing anything against His will. Only
human beings and angels have free will, and I am not either, so I have
no free will. Therefore, whatever I do is the will of God." He paused
again, then began speaking in queer, choppy sentences.
"If I do the will of God, I am holy.
"If I am holy, I am near to God.
"Then God must be near to me.
"God is controlling me.
"Whatever is controlling me is God.
"_I will find Him!_"
He backed up, spun on his treads, and headed for the door.
"Whatever controls me is my mind," he went on. "Therefore, my mind is
God."
"Snookums, stop that!" Leda shouted suddenly. "_Stop it!_"
But the robot paid no attention; he went right on with what he was
doing.
He said: "I must look at myself. I must know myself. Then I will know
God. Then I will...."
He went on rambling while Leda shouted at him again.
"He's not paying any attention," said Mike sharply. "This is too tied up
with the First Law. The Second Law, which would force him to obey you,
doesn't even come into the picture at this point."
Snookums ignored them. He opened the door, plunged through it, and
headed off down the corridor as fast as his treads would move him.
Which was much too fast for mere humans to follow.
* * * * *
They found him, half an hour later, deep in the ship, near the sections
which had already been torn down to help build Eisberg Base. He was
standing inside the room next to Cargo Hold One, the room that held all
the temperature and power controls for the gigantic microcryotron brain
inside that heavily insulated hold.
He wasn't moving. He was standing there, staring, with that "lost in
thought" look.
He didn't move when Leda called him.
He didn't move when Mike, as a test, pretended to strike Leda.
He never moved again.
* * * * *
Dr. Morris Fitzhugh's wrinkled face looked as though he were on the
verge of crying. Which--perhaps--he was.
He looked at the others at the wardroom table--Quill, Jeffers, von
Liegnitz, Keku, Leda Crannon, and Mike the Angel. But he didn't really
seem to be seeing them.
"Ruined," he said. "Eighteen billion dollars' worth of work, destroyed
completely. The brain has become completely randomized." He sighed
softly. "It was all Vaneski's fault, of course. Theology." He said the
last as though it were an obscene word. As far as robots were concerned,
it was.
Captain Quill cleared his throat. "Are you sure it wasn't mechanical
damage? Are you sure the vibration of the ship didn't shake a--something
loose?"
Mike held back a grin. He was morally certain that the captain had been
going to say "screw loose."
"No," said Fitzhugh wearily. "I've checked out the major circuits, and
they're in good physical condition. But Miss Crannon gave him a rather
exhaustive test just before the end, and it shows definite incipient
aberration." He wagged his head slowly back and forth. "Eight years of
work."
"Have you notified Treadmore yet?" asked Quill.