"Oh, no, not at all," it agreed, smiling. "That's why it's only a fractional vote. You see, each of the CIMs is controlled by a central computer that is quite as intelligent as any of us, perhaps even more so; the central intelligence has no vote at all. So what Mayor Thom proposes is that each of the CIMs will have a fraction of a vote—one one-hundred-and-ninetieth of a vote, in the case of the workers here, since that's how many of them the plant computer runs. So if they all vote, the central computer will in effect have the chance to cast a ballot on its own—you know the old slogan, Mrs. O'Hare: One intelligence, one vote!"
Carrie nodded unhappily. It made sense—it was exactly the sort of thing her husband would have done himself, if he had thought of it. But he hadn't. Maybe he was getting past the point of thinking up the really good political ideas. Maybe— "You said there were three reasons."
"Well, just the obvious one, Mrs. O'Hare. The same reason as your husband does it. It's not just for votes with the Mayor. It's love." Then she hesitated, then confided, "I don't know whether you know this or not, Mrs. O'Hare, but autonomous-intellect mechanicals like Mayor Thom and I have a certain discretion in our behavior patterns. One of the first things we do is study the available modes and install the ones we like best. I happen to have chosen nearly twenty per cent you, Mrs. O'Hare. And the Mayor—he's nearly three-quarters your husband."
There is a time for all things, thought Carrie O'Hare as she walked over to the Mayor's procession to ask them to call her a cab. There is a time to stay, and a time to go, and maybe the time to stay in office was over for Fiorello Delano Fitzgerald O'Hare. Some of the robots her husband had greeted as they came off the assembly line were standing in a clump, waiting, no doubt, for the arrival of the next truck to bear them away. They waved to Carrie. She responded with a slight decrease of worry—they were sure votes, anyway. Unless—
She stopped short. What was the Mayor doing with them? She gazed incredulously at the scene, like a highspeed film, the Mayor thrusting a hand into a pouch, jerking it out, swiftly passing something that shone dully to the robot it was talking to and moving briskly to the next… And then, without willing it, Carrie herself was in high-speed mode, almost running toward the Mayor, her face crimson with rage. The Mayor looked up as she approached and politely geared down. "Mrs. O'Hare," it murmured, "how nice to see you here."
"I'm shocked!" she cried. "You're brainwashing them!"
The mobile robot face registered astonishment and what was almost indignation. "Why, certainly not, Mrs. O'Hare! I assure you I would never do such a thing."
"I saw you, Mayor Thom. You're reprogramming the robots with data chips!"
Comprehension broke over the Mayor's face, and it gestured to the she-robot who had given Carrie the flower. "Ah, the chips, yes. I see." It pulled a chip out of the pouch and passed it to the she with a burst of highspeed squeaks—"Oh, I beg your pardon, Mrs. O'Hare. Let me repeat what I just said in normal mode. I simply asked Millicent here to display the chip contents for you."
"Sure thing, Mayor." Millicent smiled, tucking the chip under the strap of its halter top. The running message on Millicent's forehead disappeared, and the legend appeared:
The Constitution of the United States of America
We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense—
"Move it on, please," ordered the Mayor. "Search 'O'Hare.' Most of it," he added to Carrie, "is only the basic legislation, the Constitution, the election laws and so on. We don't get to your husband until—ah, here it is!" And the legend read:
H.R. 29038. An Act to Propose a Constitutional Amendment to grant equal voting rights and other civil rights to citizens of mechanical origin which satisfy certain requirements as to autonomy of intellect and judgment.
"The Robot ERA," Carrie said.
"That's right, Mrs. O'Hare, and of course your husband's name is on it. Then there's nothing about him until—advance search, please, Millicent—yes. Until we come to his basic biographical information. Birth place, education, voting record, medical reports and so on—"
"Medical reports! That's confidential material!"
The Mayor looked concerned. "Confidential, Mrs. O'Hare? But I assure you, the data on myself is just as complete—"
"It's different with human beings! Fiorello's doctor had no business releasing that data!"
"Ah, I see," said the Mayor, nodding in comprehension. "Yes, of course, that is true for his present doctor, Mrs. O'Hare. But previously the Congressman made use of a CIM practitioner—a robot whose central processing functions took place in the general data systems, and of course all of that is public information. I'm sorry. I assumed you knew that. Display the Congressman's medical history," it added to the she, and Carrie gazed at the moving line of characters through tear-blurred eyes. It was all there. His mild tachycardia, the arthritis that kicked up every winter, the asthma, even the fact that now and then the Congressman suffered from occasional spells of constipation. "It's disgusting to use his illnesses against him, Mayor Thom! Half of his sickness was on behalf of you robots!"
"Why, that's true, yes." The Mayor nodded. "It is largely tension-induced, and much of it undoubtedly occurred during the struggle for robot rights. If you'll look at the detailed record—datum seventy-eight, line four, please, Millicent—you'll see that his hemorrhoidectomy was definitely stress-linked, and moreover occurred just after the Robot ERA debate." The expression on the Mayor's face was no longer neat and self-assured, it was beginning to be worried. "I don't understand why you are upset, Mrs. O'Hare," Thom added defensively.
"It's a filthy trick, that's why!" Carrie could feel by the dampness on her cheeks that she was actually weeping now, and mostly out of helpless frustration. It was the one political argument her husband could never answer. It was obvious that the strain of the Robot ERA had cost Congressman O'Hare physical damage. The robots would understand that, and would behave as programmed. They served human beings. They spared them drudgery and pain. They would, therefore, remove him from a task that might harm him—not out of dislike, but out of love. "Don't you see it's not like that any more?" she blazed. "There's no strain to being in Congress any more—no tax bills to pass, no foreign nations to arm against, no subversives to control—why, if you look at the record you'll see that his doctor urged Fiorello to run again!"
"Ah, yes." The Mayor nodded. "But one never knows what may come up in the future—"
"One damn well does," she snapped. "One knows that it'll break Fee's heart to lose this election!"
The Mayor glanced at the she-robot, then returned to Carrie. Its neat, concerned face was perplexed and it was silent for a moment in thought.
Then it spoke in the bat-squeak triple time to the she, which pulled the chip out of its scanning slot, handed it to the Mayor and departed on a trot for the van with the poll displays. "One moment, please, Mrs. O'Hare," said the Mayor, tucking the chip into its own scanner. "I've asked Millicent to get me a data chip on human psychogenic medicine. I must study this." And it closed its eyes for a moment, opening them only to receive and insert the second chip from the she.
When the Mayor opened its eyes its expression was— regret? Apology? Neither of those, Carrie decided. Possibly compassion. It said, "Mrs. O'Hare, my deepest apologies. You're quite right. It would cause the Congressman great pain to be defeated by me, and I will make sure that every voting mechanical in the district knows this by this time tomorrow morning."