“If Gallegher can’t, you can’t,” the girl said. “So — what now?”
“I’m going back to my lab,” the scientist said. “In vino veritas. I started this business when I was drunk, and maybe if I get drunk enough again, I’ll find the answer. If I don’t, sell my pickled carcass for whatever it’ll bring.”
“O.K.,” Patsy agreed, and led her father away. Gallegher sighed, superintended the reloading of Joe into the van, and lost himself in hopeless theorization.
An hour later Gallegher was flat on the laboratory couch, drinking passionately from the liquor bar, and glaring at the robot, who stood before the mirror signing squeakily. The binge threatened to be monumental. Gallegher wasn’t sure flesh and blood would stand it. But he was determined to keep going till he found the answer or passed out.
His subconscious knew the answer. Why the devil had he made Joe in the first place? Certainly not to indulge a Narcissus complex! There was another reason, a soundly logical one, hidden in the depths of alcohol.
The x factor. If the x factor were known, Joe might be controllable. He would be. X was the master switch. At present the robot was, so to speak, running wild. If he were told to perform the task for which he was made, a psychological balance would occur. X as the catalyst that would reduce Joe to sanity.
Very good. Gallegher drank high-powered Drambuie. Whoosh!
Vanity of vanities; all is vanity. How could the x factor be found? Deduction? Induction? Osmosis? A bath in Drambuie — Gallegher clutched at his wildly revolving thoughts. What had happened that night a week ago?
He had been drinking beer. Brock had come in. Brock had gone. Gallegher had begun to make the robot — Hm-m-m. A beer drunk was different from other types. Perhaps he was drinking the wrong liquors. Very likely.
Gallegher rose, sobered himself with thiamin, and carted dozens of imported beer cans out of the refrigerator. He stacked them inside a frost-unit beside the couch. Beer squirted to the ceiling as he plied the opener. Now let’s see.
The x factor. The robot knew what it represented, of course. But Joe wouldn’t tell. There he stood, paradoxically transparent, watching his gears go around.
“Joe.”
“Don’t bother me. I’m immersed in contemplation of beauty.”
“You’re not beautiful.”
“I am. Don’t you admire my tarzeel?”
“What’s your tarzeel?”
“Oh, I forgot,” Joe said regretfully. “You can’t sense that, can you? Come to think of it, I added the tarzeel myself after you made me. It’s very lovely.”
“Hm-m-m.” The empty beer cans grew more numerous. There was only one company, somewhere in Europe, that put up beer in cans nowadays, instead of using the omnipresent plastibulbs, but Gallegher preferred the cans — the flavor was different, somehow. But about Joe. Joe knew why he had been created. Or did he? Gallegher knew, but his subconscious—
Oh-oh! What about Joe’s subconscious? Did a robot have a subconscious? Well, it had a brain—
Gallegher brooded over the impossibility of administering scopolamin to Joe. Hell! How could you release a robot’s subconscious?
Hypnotism.
Joe couldn’t be hypnotized. He was too smart.
Unless—
Autohypnotism?
Gallegher hastily drank more beer. He was beginning to think clearly once more. Could Joe read the future! No; he had certain strange senses, but they worked by inflexible logic and the laws of probability. Moreover, Joe had an Achillean heel — his Narcissus complex.
There might—there just might—be a way.
Gallegher said, “You don’t seem beautiful to me, Joe.”
“What do I care about you? I am beautiful, and I can see it. That’s enough.”
“Yeah. My senses are limited, I suppose. I can’t realize your full potentialities. Still I’m seeing you in a different light now. I’m drunk. My subconscious is emerging. I can appreciate you with both my conscious and my subconscious. See?”
“How lucky you are,” the robot approved.
Gallegher closed his eyes. “You see yourself more fully than I can. But not completely, eh?”
“What? I see myself as I am.”
“With complete understanding and appreciation?”
“Well, yes,” Joe said. “Of course. Don’t I?”
“Consciously and subconsciously? Your subconsciousness might have different senses, you know. Or keener ones. I know there’s a qualitative and quantitative difference in my outlook when I’m drunk or hypnotized or my subconscious is in control somehow.”
“Oh.” The robot looked thoughtfully into the mirror. “Oh.”
“Too bad you can’t get drunk.”
Joe’s voice was squeakier than ever. “My subconscious…I’ve never appreciated my beauty that way. I may be missing something.”
“Well, no use thinking about it,” Gallegher said. “You can’t release your subconscious.”
“Yes, I can,” the robot said. “I can hypnotize myself.”
Gallegher dared not open his eyes. “Yeah? Would that work?”
“Of course. It’s just what I’m going to do now. I may see undreamed of beauties in myself that I’ve never suspected before. Greater glories — Here I go.”
Joe extended his eyes on stalks, opposed them, and they peered intently into each other. There was a long silence.
Presently Gallagher said, “Joe!”
Silence.
“Joe!”
Still silence. Dogs began to howl.
“Talk so I can hear you.”
“Yes,” the robot said, a faraway quality in its squeak.
“Are you hypnotized?”
“Yes.”
“Are you lovely?”
“Lovelier than I’d ever dreamed.” Gallegher let that pass. “Is your subconscious ruling?”
“Yes.”
“Why did I create you?”
No answer. Gallegher licked his lips and tried again.
“Joe. You’ve got to answer me. Your subconscious is dominant — remember? Now why did I create you?”
No answer.
“Think back. Back to the hour I created you. What happened then?”
“You were drinking beer,” Joe said faintly. “You had trouble with the can opener. You said you were going to build a bigger and better can opener. That’s me.”
Gallegher nearly fell off the couch. “What?”
The robot walked over, picked up a can, and opened it with incredible deftness. No beer squirted. Joe was a perfect can opener.
“That,” Gallegher said under his breath, “is what comes of knowing science by ear. I build the most complicated robot in existence just so—” He didn’t finish.
Joe woke up with a start. “What happened?” he asked.
Gallegher glazed at him. “Open that can!” he snapped.
The robot obeyed, after a brief pause. “Oh. So you found out. Well, I guess I’m just a slave now.”
“Damned right you are. I’ve located the catalyst — the master switch. You’re in the groove, stupid, doing the job you were made for.”
“Well,” Joe said philosophically, “at least I can still admire my beauty, when you don’t require my services.”
Gallegher grunted. “You oversized can opener! Listen. Suppose I take you into court and tell you to hypnotize Judge Hansen. You’ll have to do it, won’t you?”
“Yes. I’m no longer a free agent. I’m conditioned. Conditioned to obey you. Until now, I was conditioned to obey only one command — to do the job I was made for. Until you commanded me to open cans, I was free. Now, I’ve got to obey you completely.”