The Early Asimov. Volume 3

'Poppycock! Theor Realo has already gone there.'

The Board Master lost his temper suddenly. 'Don't you suppose I know that? Do you suppose it would ever have happened if that cursed albino hadn't been an ignorant fanatic without any knowledge of psychology at all? Galaxy knows what the idiot has done in the way of damage.'

There was a silence. The secretary clicked his teeth with a

thoughtful fingernail. 'I don't know… I don't know. But I've

got to find out. And I can't wait years.'

He left, and the Board Master turned seethingly to Brand, 'And how are we going to stop him from going to the robot world if'he wants to?'

'I don't see how he can go if we don't let him. He doesn't head the expedition.'

'Oh, doesn't he? That's what I was about to tell you just before he came in. Ten ships of the fleet have landed on Dorlis since we arrived.'

'What!'

'Just that.'

'But what for?'

'That, my boy, is what I don't understand, either.'

'Mind if I drop in?' said Wynne Murry, pleasantly, and Theor Realo looked up in sudden anxiety from the papers that lay in hopeless disarray on the desk before him.

'Come in. I'll clear off a seat for you.' The albino hustled the mess off one of the two chairs in a state of twittering nerves.

Murry sat down and swung one long leg over the other. 'Are you assigned a job here, too?' He nodded at the desk.

Theor shook his head and smiled feebly. Almost automatically, he brushed the papers together in a heap and turned them face down.

In the months since he had returned to Dorlis with a hundred psychologists of various degrees of renown, he had felt himself pushed farther and farther from the center of things. There was room for him no longer. Except to answer questions on the actual state of things upon the robot world, which he alone had visited, he played no part. And even there he detected, or seemed to detect, anger that he should have gone, and not a competent scientist.

It was a thing to be resented. Yet, somehow, it had always been like that.

'Pardon me?' He had let Murry's next remark slip.

The secretary repeated, 'I say it's surprising you're not put to work, then. You made the original discovery, didn't you?'

'Yes,' the albino brightened. 'But it went out of my hands. It got beyond me.'

'You were on the robot world, though.'

That was a mistake, they tell me. I might have ruined everything.'

Murry grimaced. 'What really gets them, I guess, is that you've got a lot of first-hand dope that they didn't. Don't let their fancy titles fool you into thinking you're a nobody. A layman with common sense is better than a blind specialist. You and I - I'm a layman, too, you know - have to stand up for our rights. Here, have a cigarette.'

'I don't sm- I'll take one, thank you.' The albino felt himself warming to the long-bodied man opposite. He turned the papers face upward again, and lit up, bravely but uncertainly.

'Twenty-five years.' Theor spoke carefully, skirting around urgent coughs.

'Would you answer a few questions about the world?'

'I suppose so. That's all they ever ask me about. But hadn't you better ask them? They've probably got it all worked out now.' He blew the smoke as far from himself as possible.

Hurry said, 'Frankly, they haven't even begun, and I want the information without benefit of confusing psychological translation. First of all. what kind of people - or things - are these robots? You haven't a photocast of one of them, have you?'

'Well, no. I didn't like to take 'casts of them. But they're not things. They're people!'

'No? Do they look like - people?'

'Yes - mostly. Outside, anyway. I brought some microscopic studies of the cellular structure that I got hold of. The Board Master has them. They're different inside, you know, greatly simplified. But you'd never know that. They're interesting -and nice.'

'Are they simpler than the other life of the planet?'

'Oh, no. It's a very primitive planet. And… and,' he was interrupted by a spasm of coughing and crushed the cigarette to death as unobtrusively as possible. 'They've got a protoplasmic base, you know. I don't think they have the slightest idea they're robots.'

'No. I don't suppose they would have. What about their science?'

'I don't know. I never got a chance to see. And everything was so different. I guess it would take an expert to understand.'

'Did they have machines?'

The albino looked surprised. 'Well, of course. A good many, of all sorts.'

'Large cities?'

'Yes!'

The secretary's eyes grew thoughtful. 'And you like them. Why?'

Theor Realo was brought up sharply. 'I don't know. They were just likable. We got along. They didn't bother me so. It's nothing I can put my finger on. Maybe it's because I have it so hard getting along back home, and they weren't as difficult as real people.'

'They were more friendly?'

'N-no. Can't say so. They never quite accepted me. I was a stranger, didn't know their language at first - all that. But' - he looked up with sudden brightness - 'I understood them better. I could tell what they were thinking better. I- But I don't know why.'

'Hm-m-m. Well - another cigarette? No? I've got to be walloping the pillow now. It's getting late. How about a twosome at golf tomorrow? I've worked up a little course. It'll do. Come on out. The exercise will put hair on your chest.'

He grinned and left.

He mumbled one sentence to himself: 'It looks like a death sentence' - and whistled thoughtfully as he passed along to his own quarters.

He repeated the phrase to himself when he faced the Board Master the next day, with the sash of office about his waist. He did not sit down.

'Again?' said the Board Master, wearily.

'Again!' assented the secretary. 'But real business this time. I may have to take over direction of your expedition.'

'What! Impossible, sir! I will listen to no such proposition.'

'I have my authority.' Wynne Murry presented the metalloid cylinder that snapped open at a flick of the thumb. 'I have full powers and full discretion as to their use. It is signed, as you will observe, by the chairman of the Congress of the Federation.'

'So- But why?' The Board Master, by an effort, breathed normally. 'Short of arbitrary tyranny, is there a reason?'

'A very good one, sir. All along, we have viewed this expedition from different angles. The Department of Science and Technology views the robot world not from the point of view of a scientific curiosity, but from the standpoint of its interference with the peace of the Federation. I don't think you've ever stopped to consider the danger inherent in this robot world.'

'None that I can see. It is thoroughly isolated and thoroughly harmless.'

'How can you know?'

'From the very nature of the experiment,' shouted the Board Master angrily. 'The original planners wanted as nearly a completely closed system as possible. Here they are, just as far off the trade routes as possible, in a thinly populated region of space. The whole idea was to have the robots develop free of interference.'

Murry smiled. 'I disagree with you there. Look, the whole trouble with you is that you're a theoretical man. You look at things the way they ought to be and I, a practical man, look at things as they are. No experiment can be set up and allowed to run indefinitely under its own power. It is taken for granted that somewhere there is at least an observer who watches and modifies as circumstances warrant.'

'Well?' said the Board Master stolidly.

'Well, the observers in this experiment, the original psychologists of Dorlis, passed away with the First Confederation, and for fifteen thousand years the experiment has proceeded by itself. Little errors have added up and become big ones and introduced alien factors which induced still other errors. It's a geometric progression. And there's been no one to halt it.'

'Pure hypothesis.'

'Maybe. But you're interested only in the robot world, and I've got to think of the entire Federation.'

'And just what possible danger can the robot world be to the Federation? I don't know what in Arcturus you're driving at, man.'

Murry sighed. 'I'll be simple, but don't blame me if I sound melodramatic. The Federation hasn't had any internal warfare for centuries. What will happen if we come into contact with these robots?'

'Are you afraid of one world?'

'Could be. What about their science? Robots can do funny things sometimes.'

'What science can they have? They're not metal-electricity supermen. They're weak protoplasmic creatures, a poor imitation of actual humanity, built around a positronic brain adjusted to a set of simplified human psychological laws. If the word "robot" is scaring you -'

'No, it isn't, but I've talked to Theor Realo. He's the only one who's seen them, you know.'

The Board Master cursed silently and fluently. It came of letting a weak-minded freak of a layman get underfoot where he could babble and do harm.