3 - A human being must not harm a robot, or, through inaction, allow a robot to come to harm, unless such harm is needed to keep a human being from harm or to allow a vital order to be carried out.
Of course, we cannot enforce these laws as we can the Robotic Laws. We cannot design human brains as we design robot brains. It is, however, a beginning, and I honestly think that if we are to have power over intelligent robots, we must feel a corresponding responsibility for them, as the human character in my story “The Bicentennial Man” said.
Certainly in Robot City, these are the sorts of rules that robots might suggest for the only human beings on the planet, as you may soon learn.
Chapter 1. Parades
It was sunset in the city of robots, and it was snowing paper.
The sun was a yellow one and the atmosphere, mostly nitrogen/oxygen blue, was flush with the veins of iron oxides that traced through it, making the whole twilight sky glow bright orange like a forest fire.
The one who called himself Derec marveled at the sunset from the back of the huge earthmover as it slowly made its way through the city streets, crowds of robots lining the avenue to watch him and his companions make this tour of the city. The tiny shards of paper floated down from the upper stories of the crystal-like buildings, thrown (for reasons that escaped Derec) by the robots that crowded the windows to watch him.
Derec took it all in, sure that it must have significance or the robots wouldn’t do it. And that was the only thing he was sure of-for Derec was a person without memory, without notion of who he was. Worse still, he had come to this impossible world, unpopulated by humans, by means that still astounded him; and he had no idea, no idea, of where in the universe he was.
He was young, the cape of manhood still new on his shoulders, and he only knew that by observing himself in a mirror. Even his name-Derec-wasn’t really his. It was a borrowed name, a convenient thing to call himself because not having a name was like not existing. And he desperately wanted to exist, to know who, to know what he was.
And why.
Beside him sat a young woman called Katherine Burgess, who had said she’d known him, briefly, when he’d had a name. But he wasn’t sure of her, of her truth or her motivations. She had told him his real name was David and that he’d crewed on a Settler ship, but neither the name nor the classification seemed to fit as well as the identity he’d already been building for himself; so he continued to call himself by his chosen name, Derec, until he had solid proof of his other existence.
Flanking the humans on either side were two robots of advanced sophistication (Derec knew that, but didn’t know how he knew it). One was named Euler, the other Rydberg, and they couldn’t, or wouldn’t, tell him any more than he already knew-nothing. The robots wanted information from him, however. They wanted to know why he was a murderer.
The First Law of Robotics made it impossible for robots to harm human beings, so when the only other human inhabitant of Robot City turned up dead, Derec and Katherine were the only suspects. Derec’s brief past had not included killing, but convincing Euler and Rydberg of that was not an easy task. They were being held, but treated with respect-innocent, perhaps, until proven guilty.
Both robots had shiny silver heads molded roughly to human equivalent. Both had glowing photocells where eyes would be. But where Euler had a round mesh screen in place of a human mouth, Rydberg had a small loudspeaker mounted atop his dome.
“Do you enjoy this, Friend Derec?” Euler asked him, indicating the falling paper and the seemingly endless stream of robots that lined the route of their drive.
Derec had no idea of what he was supposed to enjoy about this demonstration, but he didn’t want to offend his hosts, who were being very polite despite their accusations. “It’s really… very nice,” he replied, brushing a piece of paper off his lips.
“Nice?” Katherine said from beside him, angry. “Nice?” She ran fingers through her long black hair. “I’ll be a week getting all this junk out of my hair.”
“Surely it won’t take you that length of time,” Rydberg said, the speaker on his head crackling. “Perhaps there’s something I don’t understand, but it seems from a cursory examination that it shouldn’t take you any longer than… ”
“All right,” Katherine said. “All right.”
“… one or two hours. Unless of course you’re speaking microscopically, in which case… ”
“Please,” she said. “No more. I was mistaken about the time.”
“Our studies of human culture,” Euler told Derec, “indicate that the parade is indigenous to all human civilizations. We very much want to make you feel at home here, our differences notwithstanding.”
Derec looked out on both sides of the huge, open-air, V-shaped mover. The robots lining the streets stood quite still, their variegated bodies giving no hint of curiosity, though Derec felt it quite possible that he and Katherine were the first humans many of them had ever seen. Knowing nothing, Derec knew nothing of parades, but it seemed to be a friendly enough ritual, except for the paper, and it made him feel good that they should want him to feel at home.
“Is it not customary to wave?” Euler asked.
“What?” Derec replied.
“To wave your arm to the crowd,” Euler explained. “Is it no customary?”
“Of course,” Derec said, and waved on both sides of the machine that clanked steadily down the wide street, the robots returning the gesture with more nonreadable silence.
“Don’t you feel like a proper fool?” Katherine asked, scrunching up her nose at his antics.
“They’re just trying to be hospitable,” Derec replied. “With the trouble we’re in here, I don’t think it hurts to return a friendly gesture.”
“Is there some problem, Friend Katherine?” Euler asked.
“Only with her mouth,” Derec replied.
Rydberg leaned forward to stare intently at Katherine’s face. “Is there something we can do?”
“Yeah,” the girl answered. “Get me something to eat. I’m starving.”
Rydberg swiveled his head toward Euler. “Another untruth,” he said. “This is very discouraging.”
“What do you mean?” Derec asked.
“Our hypotheses concerning the philosophical nature of humanics,” Rydberg said, “must have their foundation in truth among species. Twice Katherine has said things that aren’t true… ”
“I am starving!” Katherine complained.
“… and how can any postulate be universally self-evident if the postulators do not adhere to the same truths? Perhaps this is the mark of a murderer.”
“Now wait a minute,” Derec said. “All humans make… creative use of the language. It’s no proof of anything.”
Rydberg examined Katherine’s face closely. Then he pressed a pincer to her bare arm, the place turning white for a second before resuming its natural color. “You say you are starving, but your color is good, your pulse rate strong and even, and you have no signs of physical deterioration. I must conclude, reluctantly, that you are not starving.”
“We are hungry, though,” Derec said. “Please take us where we might eat.”
Katherine fixed him with a sidelong glance. “And do it quickly.”
“Of course,” Euler said. “You will find that we are fully equipped to deal with any human emergency here. This is to be the perfect human world.”
“But there are no humans here,” Derec said.
“No.”
“Are you expecting any?”
“We have no expectations.”
“Oh.”
Euler directed the spider-like robot guiding the mover, and the machine turned dutifully at the next corner, taking them down a double-width street that was bisected by a large aqueduct, whose waters had turned dark under the ever-deepening twilight.