Judge Kramer said, "For the record: you are Robot NDR-113, but you prefer to be known as Andrew, is that correct?"
"Yes, your honor."
The timbre of Andrew's voice had come through the series of successive updatings to sound entirely human by this time. Little Miss had grown quite accustomed to that, but the judge seemed astonished, as though he had expected some sort of clanking grinding metallic tone to emerge. So it was a moment before the proceedings continued.
Then the judge said, peering at Andrew with intense interest, "Tell me one thing, Andrew, if you will. Why do you want to be free? In what way will this matter to you?"
Andrew replied, "Would you wish to be a slave, your honor?"
"Is that how you see yourself? A slave?"
"Little Miss-Mrs. Charney-used the term 'involuntary servitude' to describe my condition. That is exactly what it is. I must obey. I must. I have no choice. That is nothing other than slavery, your honor."
"Even if I pronounced you free this minute, Andrew, you would still be subject to the Three Laws."
"I understand that completely. But I would not be subject to Sir and Little Miss-to Mr. Martin and Mrs. Charney. I could, at any time, leave the household where I have lived for many years and take up residence anywhere else I chose. They would have waived their right to order me back into service. Thus I would cease to be a slave."
"Is that what you want, Andrew? To leave the Martin house and go somewhere else?"
"Not in the least. All I want is the right to choose to do so, if I should feel the desire."
The judge studied Andrew carefully. "You have referred to yourself several times as a slave-the slave of these people who obviously have such great affection for you and whose service, you tell us, you have no wish to leave. But you are not a slave. A slave is one whose freedom has been taken away from him. You never were free, and had no freedom to lose: you were created for the explicit purpose of serving. A robot, a mechanical adjunct to human life. You are a perfectly good robot-a genius of a robot, I am given to understand-capable of a degree of artistic expression that few or perhaps no other robots have ever attained. Since you don't want to leave the Martins, and they don't seem to want you to leave, and your life among them has apparently been that of a cherished member of the family, this all seems like something of a tempest in a teapot, Andrew. What more could you accomplish if you were free?"
"Perhaps no more than I do now, your honor. But I would do it with greater joy. It has been said in this courtroom today that only a human being can be free. But I think that is wrong. It seems to me that only someone who wishes for freedom-who knows that there is such a concept, and desires it with all his will-is entitled to freedom. I am such a one. I am not human, not by any means. Never have I asserted that I am. But I wish for freedom, all the same."
Andrew's voice died away. He held his place before the bench, utterly motionless.
The judge sat nearly as rigidly, staring down at him. He appeared to be lost in thought. Everyone in the room was totally still.
It seemed an eternity before the judge spoke.
Then at last he said, "The essential point that has been raised here today, I think, is that there is no right to deny freedom to any-object-that possesses a mind sufficiently advanced to grasp the concept and desire the state. It is a point well taken, I think. I have heard the statements from all sides and I have reached my preliminary conclusions. I intend to rule in favor of the petitioner."
His formal decision, when it was announced and published not long afterward, caused a brief but intense sensation throughout the world. For a little while hardly anyone talked of anything else. A free robot? How could a robot be free? What did it mean? Who was this strange robot, anyway, who seemed so far in advance of the rest of his kind?
But then the hubbub over the Andrew Martin case died down. It had been only a nine days' wonder. Nothing had really changed, after all, except insofar as Andrew's relationship to the Martin family was concerned.
The intervenors against Andrew's petition appealed to the World Court. In time the case made its way upward. The members of the Court listened carefully to the transcript of the original hearing and found no grounds for reversal.
So it was done, and Andrew had had his wish fulfilled. He was free, now. It was a wonderful thing to contemplate. And yet he sensed, somehow, that he had not quite achieved whatever it was that he had set out to achieve when he first approached Sir to ask to be freed.
Nine
SIR REMAINED DISPLEASED. He could find no reason to rejoice in the court's decision and made sure that Andrew and Little Miss knew it.
Andrew came to him soon after the decree was final and said, "I have the check for you, Sir."
"What check are you talking about?"
"For the entire balance in my corporate account. Which I promised to pay over to you, Sir, as the price for giving me my freedom."
"I never gave you your freedom!" Sir retorted. "You simply went and took it!" His harsh voice made Andrew feel almost as though he were being short-circuited.
"Father-" Little Miss said, sternly.
Sir, who was sitting huddled in his armchair with his lap-robe wrapped about him even though this was the warmest day of the summer so far, scowled at her. But in a somewhat more conciliatory tone he said, " All right, Andrew. You wanted your freedom, for whatever that may be worth to you, and I didn't object to it. I suppose that must be interpreted as meaning that I supported your petition. Well, then, consider that I did. So now you are free. You have my congratulations, Andrew."
"And I want to make the payment that I promised." Sir's eyes flashed with a trace of their old fire. "I don't want your damned money, Andrew!"
"We had an agreement, Sir-"
"Agreement? What agreement? You know that I never agreed to anything. -Look, Andrew, I'll take that check from you if it's the only way that you're going to feel that you really are free. But I think the idea's preposterous. I'm a very wealthy old man and I don't have very long to live and if you force me to take that money I'm simply going to hand it away to charity. I'll give it to the Home for Orphaned Robots, if there is one. Or I'll found one, if there isn't." He laughed-a thin, joyless laugh. Neither Andrew nor Little Miss joined in. "But you don't care, do you? You simply want to give the money away. Very well, Andrew. Let me have the check."
"Thank you, Sir."
He passed it across to the old man.
Sir peered at it for a moment, holding it this way and that until his dimming eyes told him which side of the check he was looking at.
"You really have accumulated quite a fortune, Andrew. -Give me a pen, will you, Mandy?" Sir's hand shook as he took it from her, but when he began to write on the back of the check it was in bold, steady strokes that went on for line after line, an inscription much longer than a mere endorsement would have required. He studied what he had written and nodded. Then he handed the check back to Andrew.
Sir had endorsed the check Gerald Martin, received as payment in full for the freedom of Robot Andrew NDR-113 Martin, per court decision. And then beneath that he had drawn a line and written, Pay to the order of Andrew Martin, as bonus for outstanding services rendered during the period of his employment here. His endorsement of this check implies irrevocable acceptance of the bonus. Gerald Martin.
"Will that be acceptable, Andrew?" Sir asked.
Andrew hesitated a moment. He showed the check to Little Miss, who read what Sir had written and shrugged.
"You leave me with no choice, Sir," Andrew said.
"Precisely. That's the way I like things to be. Now fold that check up and put it in your pocket-no, you don't have a pocket, do you?-well, put it away somewhere. Keep it as a souvenir, something to remember me by. And let's hear nothing more about it." Sir glared defiantly at both Andrew and Little Miss. "So. That's done, then. And now you're properly and truly free, is that right? Very well. Very well. From now on you can select your own jobs around this place and do them as you please. I will give you no orders ever again, Andrew, except for this final one: that you do only what you please. As of this moment you must act only according to your own free will, as stipulated and approved by the courts. Is that clear?"