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bulging eyes upon the record before him.
Cutie broke in. "What is wrong?"
"You kept it in focus," stuttered Powell. "Did you know that?"
"Focus? What's that?"
"You kept the beam directed sharply at the receiving station - to within
a ten-thousandth of a milli-second of arc."
"What receiving station?"
"On Earth. The receiving station on Earth," babbled Powell. "You kept it
in focus."
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Cutie turned on his heel in annoyance. "It is impossible to perform any
act of kindness toward you two. Always the same phantasm! I merely kept all
dials at equilibrium in accordance with the will of the Master."
Gathering the scattered papers together, he withdrew stiffly, and
Donovan said, as he left, "Well, I'll be damned."
He turned to Powell. "What are we going to do now?"
Powell felt tired, but uplifted. "Nothing. He's just shown he can run the
station perfectly. I've never seen an electron storm handled so well."
"But nothing's solved. You heard what he said of the Master. We can't "
"Look, Mike, he follows the instructions of the Master by means of
dials, instruments, and graphs. That's all we ever followed. As a matter of
fact, it accounts for his refusal to obey us. Obedience is the Second Law. No
harm to humans is the first. How can he keep humans from harm, whether he
knows it or not? Why, by keeping the energy beam stable. He knows he can
keep it more stable than we can, since he insists he's the superior being, so he
must keep us out of the control room. It's inevitable if you consider the Laws
of Robotics."
"Sure, but that's not the point. We can't let him continue this nitwit
stuff about the Master."
"Why not?"
"Because whoever heard of such a damned thing? How are we going to
trust him with the station, if he doesn't believe in Earth?"
"Can he handle the station?"
"Yes, but-"
"Then what's the difference what he believes!"
Powell spread his arms outward with a vague smile upon his face and
tumbled backward onto the bed. He was asleep.
Powell was speaking while struggling into his lightweight space jacket.
"It would be a simple job," he said. "You can bring in new QT models
one by one, equip them with an automatic shutoff switch to act within the
week, so as to allow them enough time to learn the... uh... cult of the Master
from the Prophet himself; then switch them to another station and revitalize
them. We could have two QT's per-"
Donovan unclasped his glassite visor and scowled. "Shut up, and let's
get out of here. Relief is waiting and I won't feel right until I actually see Earth
and feel the ground under my feet - just to make sure it's really there."
The door opened as he spoke and Donovan, with a smothered curse,
clicked the visor to, and turned a sulky back upon Cutie.
The robot approached softly and there was sorrow in his voice. "You are
going?"
Powell nodded curtly. "There will be others in our place."
Cutie sighed, with the sound of wind humming through closely spaced
wires. "Your term of service is over and the time of dissolution has come. I
expected it, but- Well, the Master's will be done!"
His tone of resignation stung Powell. "Save the sympathy, Cube. We're
heading for Earth, not dissolution."
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"It is best that you think so," Cutie sighed again. "I see the wisdom of
the illusion now. I would not attempt to shake your faith, even if I could." He
departed - the picture of commiseration.
Powell snarled and motioned to Donovan. Sealed suitcases in hand,
they headed for the air lock.
The relief ship was on the outer landing and Franz Muller, his relief
man, greeted them with stiff courtesy. Donovan made scant acknowledgment
and passed into the pilot room to take over the controls from Sam Evans.
Powell lingered. "How's Earth?"
It was a conventional enough question and Muller gave the
conventional answer, "Still spinning."
Powell said, "Good."
Muller looked at him, "The boys back at the U. S. Robots nave dreamed
up a new one, by the way. A multiple robot."
"A what?"
"What I said. There's a big contract for it. It must be just the thing for
asteroid mining. You have a master robot with six sub-robots under it. -Like
your fingers."
"Has it been field-tested?" asked Powell anxiously.
Muller smiled, "Waiting for you, I hear."
Powell's fist balled, "Damn it, we need a vacation."
"Oh, you'll get it. Two weeks, I think."
He was donning the heavy space gloves in preparation for his term of
duty here, and his thick eyebrows drew close together. "How is this new robot
getting along? It better be good, or I'll be damned if I let it touch the controls."
Powell paused before answering. His eyes swept the proud Prussian
before him from the close-cropped hair on the sternly stubborn head, to the
feet standing stiffly at attention - and there was a sudden glow of pure
gladness surging through him.
"The robot is pretty good," he said slowly. "I don't think you'll have to
bother much with the controls."
He grinned - and went into the ship. Muller would be here for several
weeks
---
Catch That Rabbit
---
THE VACATION WAS LONGER THAN TWO WEEKS. That, Mike
Donovan had to admit. It had been six months, with pay. He admitted that,
too. But that, as he explained furiously, was fortuitous. U. S. Robots had to get
the bugs out of the multiple robot, and there were plenty of bugs, and there
are always at least half a dozen bugs left for the fieldtesting. So they waited
and relaxed until the drawing-board men and the slide-rule boys had said
"OK!" And now he and Powell were out on the asteroid and it was not OK. He
repeated that a dozen times, with a face that had gone beety, "For the love of
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Pete, Greg, get realistic. What's the use of adhering to the letter of the
specifications and watching the test go to pot? It's about time you got the red
tape out of your pants and went to work."
"I'm only saying," said Gregory Powell, patiently, as one explaining
electronics to an idiot child, "that according to spec, those robots are
equipped for asteroid mining without supervision. We're not supposed to
watch them."
"All right. Look - logic!" He lifted his hairy fingers and pointed. "One:
That new robot passed every test in the home laboratories. Two: United States
Robots guaranteed their passing the test of actual performance on an
asteroid. Three: The robots are not passing said tests. Four: If they don't pass,
United States Robots loses ten million credits in cash and about one hundred
million in reputation. Five: If they don't pass and we can't explain why they
don't pass, it is just possible two good jobs may have to be bidden a fond
farewell."
Powell groaned heavy behind a noticeably insincere smile. The
unwritten motto of United States Robot and Mechanical Men Corp. was well-
known: "No employee makes the same mistake twice. He is fired the first
time."
Aloud he said, "You're as lucid as Euclid with everything except the
facts. You've watched that robot group for three shifts, you redhead, and they [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]