What to do now? Go back and start again? Or keep on in this direction, and hope that his path would somehow link up with the proper route?
The most efficient thing, Andrew decided, was to ask someone for directions. It might be that he could regain the direction he wanted with relatively little effort.
But who was there to ask? Closer to the house he had seen an occasional field robot, but there were none in sight here. A vehicle passed, but did not stop. Perhaps another one would come by soon. He stood irresolute, which meant calmly motionless; and then he saw two human beings walking diagonally across the field that lay to his left.
He turned to face them.
They saw him, and changed course so that now they were heading in his direction. They changed their demeanor, too. A moment before, they had been talking loudly, laughing and whooping, their voices carrying far across the field-but now they had fallen silent. Their faces bore the look that Andrew associated with human uncertainty.
They were young, but not very young, twenty, perhaps? twenty-five? Andrew had never been very good at judging the age of humans.
He said, when they were still some distance away, "Pardon me, sirs. Would you kindly describe to me the route to the town library?"
They halted and stared.
One of them, the taller and thinner of the two, who was wearing a tall narrow black hat that looked like a length of pipe and extended his height still further, almost grotesquely, said-not to Andrew, but to the other-"I think it's a robot."
"I think you're right," said the other, who was short and plump, and had a bulbous nose and heavy eyelids. "It's got a robot kind of face, doesn't it?"
"It certainly does. Definitely a robot kind of face."
"But it's wearing clothes."
"Very fancy clothes too."
"Imagine that. A robot wearing fancy clothes! What will they think of next?"
"Pardon me, sirs," Andrew said again. "I am in need of assistance. I have been trying to locate the town library, but I seem to have lost my way."
"Speaks just like a robot," the taller one said.
"Got a face just like a robot," said the other.
"Then it must be a robot."
"You'd think so, wouldn't you?"
"But he's wearing clothes."
"Clothes. Absolutely. There's no denying the truth of that, is there?"
"Robots don't wear clothes, do they?"
"Not that I know of."
"If it's wearing clothes, do you think it can be a robot?"
"It's got a metal face. Metal everything. But if it's a robot, why is it wearing clothes?"
The taller one snapped his fingers. "You know what we have here? It's the free robot. There's a robot that lives at the old Charney place that isn't owned by anybody, and I bet this is the one. Why else would it be wearing clothes?"
"Ask it," said the one with the nose.
"Good idea," said the other. He took a few steps toward Andrew and said, " Are you the robot from the Charney place?"
"I am Andrew Martin, sir," said Andrew.
"Pretty snotty kind of robot, aren't you?" the tall one said. "Give me a direct answer when I ask you a question."
"The place where I live is the Martin estate, which is owned by the Charney family. It was formerly the home of Mr. Gerald Martin. Therefore my name is Andrew Martin."
"You're a robot, right?"
"Of course I am, sir."
"Then why are you wearing clothes? Robots don't wear clothes, do they?"
"I wear clothes when I choose to wear them," said Andrew quietly.
"That's disgusting. You're a hideous spectacle decked out like that, do you know that? Absolutely hideous. A robot wearing clothes! Who ever heard of that?" He glanced at his companion. "Have you ever seen anything so disgusting?" And to Andrew he said, "Take off your clothes."
Andrew hesitated. He hadn't heard an order in that tone of voice in so long that his Second Law circuits had momentarily jammed.
The tall one said, "Well, what are you waiting for? I told you to take off your clothes, didn't I? I order you to take off your clothes!"
Slowly, Andrew began to obey. He unfastened his shoulder chain and set it down carefully on the ground. Then he removed his satiny blouse and folded it with great care so that it would not look crumpled when he put it on again. He placed it on the ground next to the chain.
"Faster," said the tall one. "Don't bother folding your things. Just drop them, you hear? Get everything off. Everything."
Andrew unfastened the velvety leggings. He removed the elegant boots.
The nose said, "Well, at least he follows orders."
"He has to. Every robot does. There isn't any two ways about it. Following orders is built right into them. You say, 'Go jump in the lake,' and they jump. You say, 'Bring me a plate of strawberries,' and it goes right out and finds you some strawberries somewhere, even if it's the wrong time of year."
"Sounds like a good deal, having something like that around."
"You bet it is. I've always wondered what it would be like to have a robot of my own. Haven't you?"
The tall one shrugged. "Who could afford it?"
"This one's real available. If it doesn't belong to anyone, he could be ours as much as somebody else's. We just have to tell him that he belongs to us. Make it an order, don't you see?"
The tall one blinked. "Hey! That's right!"
"We'll make him run errands for us. Do all sorts of jobs. Anything we like, it'll have to do. And nobody can stop us. It isn't as if we're stealing anybody's property. He isn't anybody's property."
"But what if someone else tries to take him from us the same way?"
"We'll give him an order that says he can't go off with anybody else," said the nose.
The tall one frowned. "I'm not sure that would work. If he has to obey orders from humans, he'll have to obey orders from anybody else just the same as he does ours, right?"
"Well-"
"Let's worry about that later. -Hey! you! You, robot! Stand on your head!"
"The head is not meant-" Andrew began.
"I said, stand on your head. That's an order. If you don't know how to stand on your head, this is a good moment to start learning the way it's done."
Andrew hesitated again. Then he bent his head toward the ground and put his arms out so that they would bear his weight He attempted to lift his legs. But there was nothing in his circuitry to equip Andrew for dealing easily with such an inverted position, and he lost his balance almost at once. He toppled and fell heavily to the ground, landing on his back. For a moment he lay still, struggling to shake off the effects of his fall, before starting slowly to rise.
"No," the tall one said. "Just stay down there. And don't make a sound." To the other he said, "I bet you we could take him apart and put him back together again. You ever take a robot apart?"
"No. you?"
"Never. But I always wanted to."
"You think he'll let us?"
"How can he stop us?"
Indeed there was no way at all that Andrew was able to stop them, if they ordered him not to resist in a forceful enough manner. The Second Law-obedience to humans-would always take precedence over the Third Law of self-preservation. In any case, it was impossible for him to defend himself against them without running the risk of hurting them, and that would mean breaking the First Law. At that thought every motile unit in him contracted slightly and Andrew began to quiver as he lay stretched full length on the ground.
The tall one walked over and shoved at him with the tip of his boot.
"He's heavy. And I think we're going to need tools to do the job."
Bulbous-nose said, "What if we can't put him back the right way again afterward?"
"What of it?"
"Then we've wasted a perfectly good robot that we could have used for all sorts of other things. I think what we ought to do is order him to take himself apart. He's got to know the right way of doing it. It would be fun to watch him try, anyhow. And then we can assemble him again."
"Right," said the tall one thoughtfully. "But let's get him off the road. If someone happens to come along-"