Bigman felt a moment of panic and strove uselessly to knock aside the robot's arm. "I was searched on the ship before they let me get off," he howled, but the robot completed the search without paying attention.
The two seized him again, made ready to take him into a building. The time, then, was now. Once he was in an actual cell, with force planes cutting him off, his task would be much harder.
Bigman kicked his feet desperately forward and turned a somersault between the robots. He was kept from turning completely around only by the robots' hold of his arms.
One said, "It distresses me, master, that you have placed yourself in what must be a painful position. If you will hold yourself motionless so that you will not interfere with our assigned task, we will hold you as lightly as we can."
But Bigman kicked again and then shrieked piercingly, "My arm!"
The robots knelt at once and deposited Bigman gently on his back. "Are you in pain, master?"
"You stupid cobbers, you've broken my arm. Don't touch it! Get some human being who knows how to take care of a broken arm, or get some robot who can," he ended in a moan, his face twisted in agony.
The robots moved slowly backward, eyes upon him. They had no feelings, could have none. But inside them were the positronic brain paths whose orientation was controlled by the potentials and counter-potentials set up by the Three Laws of Robotics. In the course of their fulfillment of one law, the Second-that they obey an order, in this case an order to lead a human being to a specific spot-they had broken a higher law, the First: that they never bring harm to. a human being. The result in their brains must have been a kind of positronic chaos.
Bigman cried out sharply, "Get help… Sands
of Mars-get… "
It was an order, backed by the power of the First Law. A human being was hurt. The robots turned, started away-and Bigman's right arm flashed down to the top of his hip boot and snaked inside. He rose nimbly, with a needle gun wanning the palm of his hand.
At the sound of that, one of the robots turned back, voice blurred and thickened as a sign of the weakening hold of the confused positronic brain. "Ith the mathter not in pain, then?" The second robot turned back too.
"Take me back to your Sirian masters," Bigman said tightly.
It was another order, but the First Law was no longer reinforcing it. A human being had not, after all, been harmed. There was no shock or surprise at this revelation. The nearest robot simply said, in a voice that had sharpened once more, "As your arm is not, indeed, damaged, it becomes necessary for us to carry out our original order. Please come with us."
Bigman wasted no time. His needle gun flashed noiselessly, and the robot's head was a gout of melting metal. What was left of it collapsed.
The second robot said, "It will not help to destroy our functioning," and walked toward him.
Self-protection was the Third Law only. A robot could not refuse to carry out an order (Second Law) on the basis of the Third alone. So it was bound to walk into a pointing needle gun. And other robots were coming from all directions, summoned, no doubt, by some radioed call at the moment when Bigman had first pretended the broken arm.
They would all walk into a needle gun, but there would be enough to survive his pumping shots. Those who would survive would then overpower him and carry him into imprisonment. He would be deprived of the quick death he needed, and Lucky would still be faced with the unbearable alternative.
There was only one way out. Bigman put the needle gun to his temple.
11. Bigman Against All
Bigman cried out piercingly, "Not one step nearer. Any closer and I'll have to shoot. You'll kill me."
He nerved himself for the possible shot. If nothing else could be done, it would have to be that
But the robots stopped. Not one moved. Bigman's eyes moved slowly to right and left. One robot was on the ground, headless, a useless lump of metal. One was standing, arms half reaching out toward him. One was a hundred feet away, caught in mid-stride.
Slowly Bigman turned. A robot was coming out of a building. It was caught on the threshold. Still others were farther off. It was as though a freezing blight had struck them all, struck them with instant paralysis.
He was not really surprised. It was the First Law. All else had to take second place: orders, their own existence, everything. They could not move if motion meant harm to a human being.
Bigman said, "Every robot but that one"-he pointed to the one facing him, the nearest, the companion of the one he had destroyed-"leave now. Back to your immediately previous task and forget me and what has just happened. Failure to obey at once will mean my death."
So all but one had to leave. This was dealing with them harshly, and Bigman, grim-faced, wondered if the potential being set up to drive the positrons might not be intense enough to harm the platinum-indium sponge that made up the delicate robotic brains.
He had the Earthman's distrust of robots and he rather hoped that was so.
All the robots but one were gone now. The muzzle of the needle gun was still against Bigman's temple.
He said to the remaining robot, "Take me back to your master." (He wanted to use a harsher term but what would a robot understand of the insult implied. With difficulty he forced it down.)
"Now," he said, "and quickly. Do not allow any master or robot to interfere with us on our way. I have this needle gun and shall use it on any master near us, or on myself if I have to."
The robot said hoarsely (the first signs of posi-tronic malfunction, Lucky had once told Bigman, showed up in the timbre of the voice), "I will follow orders. The master may be certain that I shall do nothing that will harm him or another master."
It turned and led the way into the diagravitic car. Bigman followed. He was half prepared for trickery on the way back, but there was none. A robot was a machine following inescapable rules of action. He had to remember that. Only human beings could lie and cheat.
When they stopped at Devoure's office, Bigman said, "I'll wait in the car. I won't leave. You go in and tell the master Devoure that the master Bigman is free and waiting for him." Bipman struggled with temptation and this time succumbed. He was too close to Devoure to resist successfully. He said, "Tell him he can take me on with needle gun or fists, I don't care which. Tell him that if he's too saffron-spined to do either, I'll come in and kick him from here to Mars."
Sten Devoure stared at the robot in disbelief, his dark face scowling and his angry eyes peering out from under hunched eyebrows.
"Do you mean he's out there free? And armed?"
He looked at the two Servicemen, who stared back with blank astonishment. (Lucky muttered "Great Galaxy!" under his breath. The irrepressible Bigman would rum everything-and lose his life as well.)
Serviceman Zayon rose heavily to his feet. "Well, Devoure, you don't expect the robot to be lying, do you?" He stepped across to the wall phone and punched the emergency combination. "If we have an Earthman on base, armed and determined, we had better take action."
"But how does he come to be armed?" Devoure had still not wiped away the traces of confusion, but now he made for the door. Lucky followed him, and the Sirian whirled at once. "Get back, Starr."
He turned to the robot. "Stay with this Earthman. He is not to leave this building under any circumstances."
And now he seemed to have come to a decision. He rushed from the room pulling out a heavy blaster as he did so. Zayon and Yonge hesitated, cast a quick look at Lucky, then at the robot, made their own decision, and followed Devoure.
The area before Devoure's offices was wide and bathed in the artificial light that reproduced Sirius's faintly bluish tinge. Bigman stood alone in the center, and at a hundred yards' distance were five robots. Others were approaching from another direction.
"Come and get that," roared Devoure, gesturing to the nearer robots and pointing to Bigman.