"Dr. Mansky has just said that Andrew's a pure fluke, that you don't have any idea how he got to be able to do the things with wood that he can do, that you couldn't replicate him even if you tried. So I fail to see what purpose would be served by your taking him back and giving me some other robot in his place."
"Dr. Mansky may be too pessimistic. Once we begin to trace the actual course of Andrew's neural pathways-"
"Once you do," said Sir, "there may not be very much left of Andrew afterward, isn't that correct?"
"The pathways are fragile. Analysis often involves a certain degree of destruction, yes," Smythe conceded.
"My girls are extremely fond of Andrew," Sir said. "Especially the younger one, Amanda. I'd venture to say that Andrew is Amanda's best friend, in fact: that she loves Andrew as much as she loves anyone or anything on this planet. And Andrew appears to be equally fond of her. I called Andrew's capabilities to your attention because I thought it might be useful for you to become aware of what you had produced here-and because even as a layman I suspected that Andrew's skills might have been something that was inadvertently built into him, and I was curious about whether that was the case, which it appears now to be. But if you think there's even the slightest chance that I'm going to let you take Andrew apart, when we both know that you're not confident of putting him back together exactly as he was, forget it. Just forget it."
"I can quite appreciate the nature of the bond that can form between a young girl and her household robot. Nonetheless, for you to obstruct the ongoing course of our research in this way, Mr. Martin-"
"I can obstruct a lot more than that," said Sir. "Or have you forgotten who it is that has been pushing all sorts of pro-robot legislature through my Committee the past three years? I suggest that we go upstairs so that you can examine some of Andrew's other work, which I think you'll find of very great interest. And then you and Dr. Mansky ought to begin thinking about heading back down to San Francisco and getting on to those visits to your West Coast facilities that you were telling me you needed to make. Andrew stays here. Is that understood?"
There was a flicker of fury in Smythe's eyes. But only the merest of flickers, the barest quick change of expression, which even Andrew's superb vision was hard pressed to perceive. Then Smythe shrugged.
"As you wish, Mr. Martin. No harm will come to Andrew. You have my word."
"Good."
"And I would indeed like to go upstairs and see the rest of his work."
"My pleasure," said Sir. "I can even give you some of it, if you like. Pick out anything you want-of the furniture, I mean, not the little ornamental things that he's made for my wife and daughters-and it's yours. I'm serious."
"Very kind of you," said Smythe.
Mansky said, "May I repeat something I observed a little while back, Mr. Martin?"
"If you need to, Dr. Mansky."
"You raised the point that Andrew's creativity verges almost on the human. So it does: even I will admit that. But verging on the human and being human are not the same thing. I want to remind you that Andrew is a machine."
"I take note of that fact."
"It may become harder for you to bear it in mind after a time, since evidently Andrew is going to remain with you. Please try. You speak of this robot as your daughter's 'friend.' You speak of her 'love' for him. That's a dangerous attitude: dangerous to her, I mean. Friends are friends and machines are machines and they should not be confused. One may love another person but one ordinarily does not love a household appliance, however useful or attractive or pleasing it may be. All Andrew is is an ambulatory computer, Mr. Martin, a computer that is endowed with artificial intelligence and has been placed in a humanoid body-frame and so gives the superficial appearance of being something quite different from the computers that guide our air traffic and operate our communications systems and do all our other routine chores. The personality that your daughter believes she perceives in Andrew, and which you say has caused her to 'love' him, is merely a simulated personality, a pre-designed construct, wholly synthetic. I beg of you, Mr. Martin: never forget that a computer with arms and legs and a positronic brain is still nothing but a computer, albeit a somewhat enhanced computer. A machine. A gadget, Mr. Martin. A household appliance."
"I will keep that in mind," said Sir in a dry, cool tone. "You know, Dr. Mansky, I've always endeavored to think clearly and in an orderly way. I never confuse an arm with a leg or a hand with a foot or a cow with a horse, and I'll do my best not to confuse a robot with a human being, however great the temptation may become. Thank you very much for your advice. And now, if you'd like to have a quick tour of Andrew's workshop-"
Five
MISS HAD BEGUN to cross the threshold that truly separates girlhood from womanhood, now. She was enjoying an active social life and going off with her new friends-not all of them girls-on excursions to the mountains, to the deserts of the south, to the wilderness to the north. Her presence in the Martin house was becoming an increasingly rare event.
So it was Little Miss-not as little as before-who filled Andrew's horizon now. She was turning into a coltish, tireless girl who loved to run great distances along the beach, with Andrew effortlessly keeping pace beside her. She went rambling in the forested areas adjacent to the house, and relied on Andrew to help her down when she had scrambled a little too far up some tree to peer into a bird's nest, or when she had trapped herself on some precarious rocky ledge that she had climbed for the sake of getting a better view of the sea.
As ever, Andrew was vigilant and endlessly protective as Little Miss romped about. He would let her take her little tomboyish risks, yes, because they seemed to make her happy, but not without his calculating the real risk of anything serious happening to her, and he was always poised and ready to intervene swiftly on her behalf if that should be necessary.
The First Law, of course, compelled Andrew to exert constant diligence to protect Little Miss from harm. But, as he sometimes told himself, he would willingly and gladly defend her against peril of any sort even if the First Law did not exist.
That was an odd thought: that there might be no First Law. Andrew could barely conceive of that The First Law (and the Second, and the Third) were such fundamental aspects of his neural pathways that it made him dizzy to imagine himself without them. And yet he had imagined it. Andrew was puzzled by that: how strange, having a capacity to imagine the unimaginable! It made him feel almost human, when paradoxical concepts like that went through his mind.
But what did almost human mean? That was another paradox, and an even more dizzying one. Either you were human or you were not How could there be any sort of intermediate state?
You are a robot, Andrew reminded himself sternly.
You are a product of the United States Robots and Mechanical Men Corporation.
And then Andrew would look at Little Miss and a sensation of great joy and warmth would spread through his positronic brain-a sensation that he had come to identify as "love"-and he would have to remind himself, allover again, that he was nothing more than a cleverly designed structure of metal and plastic with an artificial platinum-iridium brain inside his chrome-steel skull, and he had no right to feel emotions, or to think paradoxical thoughts, or to do any other such complex and mysterious human thing. Even his woodworking art-and he did allow himself to think of it as "art"-was simply a function of the skills with which he had been programmed by his designers.
Little Miss never allowed herself to forget that the very first piece of woodcarving Andrew had done had been for her. She was rarely without the little pendant that he had made for her out of that piece of driftwood, wearing it on a silver chain about her neck and reaching up to finger it fondly again and again.