"You can understand now why Miss Blushes was troubled at the thought of being viewed with open sockets while being given emergency electricity.
"Copying human institutions has also played a great part, not always for the best perhaps, in patterning robot courtships, marriages, and other degrees of attachment and types of union. It has certainly also discouraged the development of additional sexes and wholly new sorts of sexual thrill. After all, you see, since we robots are an artificial, manufactured species, now as often manufactured by robots as by humans, we could in theory engineer sex exactly the way we want it; design wholly new sexes (roboids, robettes, robos, robucks and even robitches have been among the names suggested), devise new sexual organs and modes of intercourse not necessarily limited to two persons (that sort of experience-daisy circuits, as they're called- is occasionally available to robots today but it's not talked about) and in general look at sex with a fresh creative eye.
"So much for theory," Zane said with a little sigh. "In practice, we robots tend to copy human sex quite closely. After all, our lives are currently much mixed with those of flesh earthlings, and when on earth one acts earthy, especially in bed-or 'with hot cords out,' as we sometimes guttily put it.
"Moreover there surely is something a bit decadent, I must admit, about unlimited creative sex engineering; it might readily become a mania, absorbing all robot thought, perhaps especially because sex is a luxury with us, in the sense that although essential for electronic health it is not essential for reproduction, at least not yet.
"A final practical reason keeping us conventional in our sex is the fear that, if we developed a richly varied sexual life, fanciful and elegant, human beings with their biologically limited resources in this direction might become deeply jealous and resentful of us, and we certainly don't want that to happen!
"At all events, our robots and robixes are closely similar to your men and women. Our robixes are generally lighter in build, quicker in reactions, more sensitive, more adaptable, and on the whole a bit steadier, though with occasional hysterical tendencies. While our robots, again in the sense of robost robots, are built for heavier physical work and the more profound types of mental activity requiring extralarge electronic brains; they're apt to be a little on the single-minded compulsive side with some schizoid tendencies.
"Attachments between individual robots and robixes are generally of the monogamous sort, involving marriage or at least steady dating. Fortunately most jobs on which robots are employed require an equal number of brunch and ixy types. We seem to get the same satisfaction you humans do out of knowing there's one individual we can wholly depend on and monopolize with our griefs and joys, though we also seem to share your wistful desire for a wider circle of companionship, empathy, and shared delight.
"So there you have robot sexuality in a nutshell-well, some sort of shell at any rate," Zane concluded. "I hope, Nurse Bishop, that it gives you perspective for judging my own personal problem, which is, to repeat: how far should I go with a robix I find supremely beautiful and attractive, yet at the same time somewhat stupid and very puritanical?"
Nurse Bishop frowned. "Well, Zane, my first thought is: can't Miss Blushes' circuits be changed, so she's less puritanical at any rate? I should think you robots would be doing that sort of thing all the time."
"You jest," Zane said sharply. "Or by Saint Eando, do you not?" He took a quick step toward Nurse Bishop and raised his open pinchers to grip her throat.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Nurse Bishop paled and Gaspard started to grab at Zane's pinchers, but they stayed a foot away from the nurse's neck.
"I mean, you had damn well better be jesting," the robot continued, enunciating the words with chilling precision. "Changing a robot's personal circuits to alter its behavior is two degrees worse in my bookspools than psychosurgery on a human, if only because it's much easier. A robot's personality is so easily tampered with that he instinctively guards it with the utmost ferocity." He dropped his pinchers. "Pardon me if I have alarmed you," he said in an easier voice, "but I had to demonstrate to you how very strongly I feel on this matter. Now pray give me your advice."
"Well. . uh. . I don't know, Zane," Nurse Bishop began uncertainly with a quick sidelong glance at Gaspard that seemed to him to convey more of exasperation than panic. "Offhand. . uh. . you and Miss Blushes are hardly well-matched, though it's an old human notion that the strong brilliant husband and the beautiful dumb wife get on famously together, but I'm not sure how accurate that is. The psychometrist Sharon Rosenblum says there should be a gap of 30 or more I.Q. points between husband and wife, or else no gap at all. Gaspard, do your experiences throw any light on this? How dumb is Heloise Ibsen?"
Ignoring the question as well as he could, which wasn't too well-it gave him a rather silly haughty look-Gaspard said, "I don't want to seem a cad, Zane, but would your relationship with Miss Blushes have to involve marriage?"
"I'm no immaculate," Zane replied, "but yes, it would. Talking to you two alone I can admit that many robots are quite promiscuous, especially when they get the chance-and by Saint Henry, who's to blame them? — but I'm not built that way. I find the experience incomplete, unsatisfying, unless there is a prolonged relationship at the levels of thought, feeling, action-in short, a life together.
"Aside from that, there is a very practical consideration in my case: I have to think about the reactions of my reading public. The hero of a Zane Gort book is always a one-robix robot. Silver Vilya turns up here and there, maddeningly attractive, but Dr. Tungsten always ditches her in the end for Blanda, his golden mate."
"Zane," Nurse Bishop said, "has it occurred to you that Miss Blushes may be pretending to be dumber than she is? Human robixes have been known to do that to flatter a man they're interested in."
"Do you think it's possible?" Zane asked excitedly. "By Saint Hank, I believe it is! Many thanks, Nurse! You've given me something to think about."
"You're welcome. And I wouldn't worry too much about the puritanism angle, at least it's an old bit of human foildore that most puritanical women turn out to be very highly sexed indeed, even demandingly so. Oh Lord, it's time for me to turn the brats and shift them around." She began to rearrange the stands according to no obvious plan, occasionally setting a silver egg on one of the larger tables during the process. Whenever she got an egg relocated it had an opposite tilt to the one it had before.
"What's the point?" Gaspard asked.
"Changes the pressure on their brain tissue and gives them a little variety," she said over her shoulder. "Anyway it's one of Zukie's rules."
"Did Zukertort-?"
"Oh yes, Mr. Daniel Zukertort set up a complete regimen governing the care of the brains and their social relations with each other, the dormitory bible you might say. And since we've never had a fatality-as we shouldn't if we're careful, nerve tissue being practically immortal according to Zukie-you can understand that we follow it to the letter."
Zane Gort was watching her very attentively. After a bit the robot said, quite hesitantly, "Excuse me, Nurse, but. . would you let me hold one?"