Borup nodded. “It is on Io. That is clear. They talk about reestablishing the station on Ganymede, but it is yust talk so far, after the Yovian scare. Too little left for people to do there, too big a hazard from the radiation. Nobody today on all those moons or anywhere near, yust the miner robots.” He wagged his spoon. “And it is a big, big investment in them, no? If the ore stops coming out, many banks are in trouble. And so are the world aut’orities who sponsored the venture and pushed it t’rough.”
“You’re pretty well up on events,” Powell remarked.
Borup chuckled. “For a fellow who mostly dashes around in space, you mean? No, no. Everybody knows what a powerful issue Proyect Io has been, pro and contra.”
“Still is,” Donovan muttered.
“Well, now that we’re safely under way, we can be candid with you, and in fact we’d better be,” Powell said. “Confidentiality-but frankly, if we fail, my guess is that it won’t make much difference what gets into the media.” He wiped his mustache, in which droplets had condensed from the steam off the soup. “Uh, I’m not sure what you may recollect of all the controversy about the project and all the hoopla while it was getting started. Since then it’s practically dropped out of the public consciousness. Another bunch of robots and machinery, working somewhere distant from Earth.”
“But wit’ great promise,” Borup said. “The Io volcanoes bring up such riches of minerals, more than in all the asteroids put together, no? It is the radiation that is the problem.”
“Not alone. We also have a dangerous, essentially unpredictable environment, quakes, landslides, crevasses opening, ground collapsing into caves, eruptions, the way Jupiter’s tides tear at that moon. Therefore an especially intelligent robot is required to run the show. The work gangs can be pretty ordinary models, not greatly modified, not too hard to provide ample shielding for. But the head honcho needs intelligence, a large store of knowledge, alertness, initiative, even what you mayas well call a degree of imagination. The positronic circuits of such a robot are all too easily addled. Protecting it-simply plating the head with a lot of material-isn’t enough. Compensatory circuits are necessary, and then you have to compensate for their effects. It wasn’t really certain, when U.S. Robots signed the contract, that this development was possible at the present state of the art.”
“Yes, I do remember.”
“Sorry.”
“It is all right. What have we to do but talk? And enyoy our soup. There will be meatballs after. Please to continue. “
“Well, we, uh, the firm did come up with the new robot, and everything tested out fine, and went fine, too, until now. But he appears to have suddenly gone crazy after all. He suspended work and sits babbling about it being dangerous to Earth. He says this came to him in a, uh, vision. “
“Ha, I t’ought somet’ing like that. Have you no spare?”
“I don’t know, but I doubt it,” Donovan put in. “Jack-JK-7-the number will tell you how many prototypes they went through-he’s practically handcrafted. Cost more than any three senators. Not a production-line item; how many Ios have we got? Anyway, how could we land a second Jack till we know what went wrong with the first?”
“Which first might interfere with the second,” Powell added grimly.
Borup looked shocked, in his mild fashion. “ A robot interfering wit’ work ordered by humans?”
“Hard to imagine,” Powell agreed. “But, well, think. Because Jack is not only extra valuable, but essential to the project, and in such a hazardous situation, they’ve given him an unusually high Third Law potential. He’ll take as good care of himself as he can, whether or not that means sacrificing a great deal else. Of course, it doesn’t override the Second Law. He must carry out the mission entrusted to him, and obey any specific orders issued him by a human. But that potential is on the low side. What this means in practice is, if he, with his on-the-spot experience, if he thinks an order is mistaken, he questions it. He points out the flaws. Only if he’s then commanded to proceed regardless will he do so. Likewise, when he’s by himself he’ll use his own judgment as to how he should direct the overall job of mining Io.
“Well, now he’s gotten this delusion, or whatever it is. The First Law naturally takes precedence over everything else. He cannot knowingly do anything that would harm humans, or refrain from doing anything that would save humans from harm. His brain would burn out first.” Powell had been ticking the points off on his fingers. “You know this, everybody does, but often the interactions of these laws, the conflicts between them and the resultants, get so complicated or so subtle that nobody but a roboticist can make sense of what’s happening.”
“And not always the roboticist, right away;” Donovan chimed in.
“According to Edgar, the robot cargo-ship captain and he wouldn’t lie to us-Jack is convinced Project Io will lead to death and destruction,” Powell said. “Therefore he’s stopped it. I doubt very much he’ll obey orders to resume, unless somehow we can persuade him he’s in error. He might not even respond to our calls. Conceivably he’ll decide it’s his duty to actively resist further work, actually sabotage it. And, besides his high capabilities, if they aren’t impaired, that high Third Law potential will make him a very cunning, careful, probably very efficient guerrilla. “
“You have no way of yust making him stay quiet?” asked Borup.
Powell frowned. A moment passed before he said, “We can’t go to Io in this ship to hunt him down, and live, if that’s what you mean. Edgar and his crew are meant for space and stevedoring; they’d be hopeless. Getting up a proper robotic hunting party would be monstrously prolonged and expensive. Meanwhile the capital costs of the stalled project mount every day, and as for the political consequences if the scandal breaks” He shrugged.
“No, no, I understand. But have you not some special passworded command to give him that makes you the absolute boss?”
Powell and Donovan stared. Borup blandly spooned soup…You’re smarter than you let on,” Donovan murmured. He slapped the table and barked a laugh…Yeah, sure we do. Hard-wired in. What with all the unknowns and unforeseeables, that was an elementary precaution. For instance, the scientists might discover a danger unknown to him, and not want to lose time arguing. Or if you’re paranoid, or ultra careful, you’ll worry about enemies of the project somehow slipping him a false order. Yes, there is a password. Top Secret, Bum Before Reading, known to a handful of people in the company and the government, and now to us two. It’ll probably be the first thing we try when we get there. Whether he’ll obey-he is insane, and this is not so basic as the Three Laws.”
“Insane, you believe,” Borup corrected. Donovan grimaced…We’d sure like to believe otherwise. If the radiation’s fried his brain, or something else on that chunk of hell has gotten to him, there goes the project down the tubes, probably, and a lot more besides.”
“What makes you t’ink he must be mad?”
Donovan and Powell glanced at each other before Powell nodded. “Why, he claims Napoleon came and told him to stop,” Donovan said. “That’s all we know so far. But isn’t it enough?”
“Napoleon? The Emperor?”
“Who else?”
“Now where would he have heard about Napoleon?”
“A reasonable question. Last I heard, Dr. Calvin was trying to research that. But you never know what stray scraps of information might get to a robot while he’s being activated and indoctrinated. A lot of people are generally involved, and he’ll overhear conversations. Also, now and then a brain picks up stray signals, telecast or-Remember Speedy, Greg?”
“How could I forget?” Powell sighed. To Borup: “ A robot we dealt with on Mercury. A Second-Third Law conflict unbalanced him. He ran around and around in a circle gibbering Gilbert and Sullivan. We never did find out how he acquired it.”
“Hm,” said Borup. “Your chances do not look so good, yentlemen, do they?”
“Which means the chances for the world don’t.” Powell’s tone was bleak.
“Oh? True, much money will be lost. But unless you are a banker or a politician-”
“Bankers handle the money of working stiffs like you and us,” Donovan said. “If Project Io goes bust, we could get one black hole of a depression. “
“And as for politicians,” Powell added, “they aren’t all clowns and crooks, you know. Here we’ve finally, just a few years back, elected a reform government with some bright, decent people at the top. It’s staked its future on Project Io. The opposition was terrific, you may recall. What, throwaway fortunes on a gamble like that? The idea that we’ll all benefit more from increased production, fairly divided, than from handouts and pork barrels was too much for the old guard. It fought right down the line. And it’s still got a large minority in the legislature, while the government itself is a pretty frail coalition. Let Project Io fail, and a vote of no confidence will throw us right back to where we were, or worse. “