Asimov’s Future History Volume 11

by Isaac Asimov

  “If six robots rush in to save one person, and four are needlessly damaged as a result, we don’t care. This is absurd waste. But we don’t care about the loss of robots to needless overreaction. We have so many robots, we do not regard them as particularly valuable. If they destroy themselves needlessly in answer to our whims, so be it.

  “In short, we hold our robot servants in contempt. They are expendable, disposable. We send beings of many years’ wisdom and experience, beings of great intelligence and ability, off into grave danger, even to their destruction, for the most trivial of reasons. Robots are sent into burning buildings after favorite trinkets. Robots throw themselves in the face of oncoming traffic to protect a human who has crossed the street carelessly to look at a shop window. A robot is ordered to clear a smudge off an exterior window of a skyscraper in the midst of a hundred-kilometer-per-hour gale. In that last case, even if the robot should be swept off the side of the building, there need be no concern – the robot will use its arms and legs to guide its own fall, making sure it does not strike a human being when it hits, faithful to the First Law even as it plummets toward its doom.

  “We have all heard the stories about robots destroyed in this useless effort, or to indulge that pointless impulse. The stories are told, not as if they were disasters, but as if they were funny, as if a robot melted down to scrap or smashed to bits in pursuit of no useful purpose were a joke, instead of a scandalous waste.

  “Scarcely less serious are the endless abuses of robots. I have seen robots pressed into service as structural supports, simply ordered to stand there and hold a wall up – not for a minute, not as an emergency remedy while repairs are made – but as a permanent solution. I have seen robots – functional, capable robots – told to stand underwater and hold the anchorline of a sailboat. I know a woman who has one robot whose sole duty is to brush her teeth for her, and hold the brush in between times. A man with a broken water pipe in his basement set a robot to bailing the place out – full-time, nonstop, day in, day out, for six months – before the man finally bothered to have repairs made.

  “Think about it. Consider it. Sentient beings used as substitutes for anchors, for toothbrushes, for pipe welds. Does that make sense? Does it seem rational that we create robots with minds capable of calculating hyperspace jumps, and then set them to work as deadweights to keep pleasure boats from floating away?

  “These are merely the most glaring examples of robot abuse. I have not even touched on the endless tasks we all allow our robots to do for us, things that we should do for ourselves. But these things, too, are robot abuse, and they are demeaning to ourselves as much as to our mechanical servants.

  “I recall a morning, not so long ago, when I stood in front of my closet for twenty minutes, waiting for my robot to dress me. When I finally remembered that I had ordered the robot out on an errand, I still did not dress myself, but waited for the robot to return. It never dawned on me that I might select my own clothes, put them on my own body, close the fasteners myself. It had to be done for me.

  “I submit to you that such absurdities as that do more than waste the abilities of robots. They hurt us, do damage to humans. Such behavior teaches us to think that labor – all labor, any labor – is beneath us, that the only respectable, socially acceptable thing to do is sit still and allow our robot-slaves to care for us.

  “Yes, I said slaves. I asked a question at the beginning of this talk. I asked ‘What are robots for?’ Well, ladies and gentlemen, that is the answer that our society has come up with. That is what we use them as. Slaves. Slaves. Look into the history books, look into all the ancient texts of times gone by and all the cultures of the past. Slavery has always corrupted the societies in which it has existed, grinding down the slaves, degrading them, humiliating them – but likewise it has always corrupted the slave masters as well, poisoned them, weakened them. Slavery is a trap, one that always catches the society that condones it.

  “That is what is happening to us.” Fredda paused for a moment and looked around the auditorium. There was silence, dead silence.

  “Let me go back to that day when I waited for my robot-slave to dress me. Thinking about it after the fact, seeing just how ridiculous that moment had been, I resolved to manage for myself the next time.

  “And I found that I could not! I did not know how. I did not know where my clothes were. I did not know how the fasteners worked or how the clothes went on. I walked around half a day with a blouse on backwards before realizing my mistake. I was astonished by my ignorance on the subject of caring for myself.

  “I started watching myself go through my day, noticing how little I did for myself – how little I was capable of doing.”

  Alvar Kresh, watching the recording, began to understand. This was why she no longer kept a personal robot. A strange decision, yes, but it was beginning to make some sort of sense. He watched the recording with rapt attention, all thought of his own exhaustion quite forgotten.

  “I was astonished just how incompetent I was,” Fredda Leving, s voice said. “I was amazed how many little tasks I could not perform. I cannot begin to describe the humiliation I felt when I realized that I could not find my way around my own city by myself. I needed a robot to guide me, or I would get hopelessly lost.”

  There was a nervous titter or two in the audience, and Fredda nodded thoughtfully. “Yes, it is funny. But it is also very sad. Let me ask you out there who think I am being absurd – suppose all the robots simply stopped right now. Let us ignore the obvious fact that our entire civilization would collapse, because the robots are the ones who run it. Let’s keep it tight, and personal. Think what would happen to you if your robots shut down. What if your driver ceased to function, your personal attendant ground to a halt, your cook mindlocked and could not prepare meals, your valet lost power right now?

  “How many of you could find your way home? Very few of you can fly your own cars, I know that – but could you even walk home? Which way is home from here? And if and when you got home, would you remember how to use the manual controls to open the door? How many of you even know your own address?”

  Again, silence, at least at first. But then there was a shout from the audience. The camera cut away to show a man standing in front of his seat, a man dressed in one of the more comic-opera variants of the Ironhead uniform. “So what?” he yelled. “I don’t know my address. Big deal! All I need to know is, I’m the human being! I’m the one on top! I got a good life thanks to robots. I don’t want it messed up!”

  There was a ragged flurry of cheers and applause, mostly from the back of the house. The view cut back to Fredda as she stepped out from behind her lectern and joined in the applause herself, clapping slowly, loudly, ironically, still going long after everyone else had quit. “Congratulations,” she said. “You are the human being. I am sure you are proud of that, and you should be. But if Simcor Beddle sent you here to disrupt my speech, you go back and tell the leader of the Ironheads that you helped me make my point. What troubles me is that it almost sounds as if you are proud of your ignorance. That strikes me as terribly dangerous, and terribly sad.

  “So tell me this. You don’t know where you live. You don’t do much of anything. You don’t know how to do anything. So: What in the Nine Circles of Hell are you good for?” She looked up from the man to the entire audience. “What are we good for? What do we do? What are humans for?

  “Look around you. Consider your society. Look at the place of humans in it. We are drones, little else. There is scarcely an aspect of our lives that has not been entrusted to the care of the robots. In entrusting our tasks to them, we surrender our fate to them.

  “So what are humans for? That is the question, the real question it all comes down to in the end. And I would submit that our current use of robots has given us a terrifying answer, one that will doom us if we do not act.

  “Because right here, right now, we must face the truth, my friends. And the true answer to that question is:
not much.”

  Fredda took a deep breath, collected her notes, and stepped back from the podium. “Forgive me if I end this lecture on that grim note, but I think it is something we all need to face. In this lecture I have stated the problem I wished to address. In my next lecture, I will offer up my thoughts on the Three Laws of Robotics, and on a solution to the problems we face. I believe I am safe in saying it should be of interest to you all.”

  And with that, the recording faded away, and Alvar Kresh was left alone with his own thoughts. She couldn’t be right. She couldn’t.

  All right, then. Assume she was wrong. Then what were humans good for?

  “Well, Donald, what did you think?” Alvar asked.

  “I must confess I found it to be a most disturbing presentation.”

  “How so?”

  “Well, sir, it makes the clear implication that robots are bad for humans.”

  Kresh snorted derisively. “Old, old arguments, all of them. There isn’t a one that I haven’t heard before. She makes it sound like the entire population of Hades, of all Inferno, is made up of indolent incompetents. Well, I for one still know how to find my own way home.”

  “That is so, sir, but I fear that you might be in a minority.”

  “What? Oh, come on. She made it sound as if everyone were utterly incompetent. I don’t know anyone that helpless.”

  “Sir, if I may observe, most of your acquaintances are fellow law enforcement officers, or workers in fields that you as Sheriff often come into contact with.”

  “What’s your point?”

  “Police work is one of the very few fields of endeavor in which robots can be of only marginal help. A good police officer must be capable of independent thought and action, be willing to cooperate in a group, be ready to deal with all kinds of people, and be capable of working without robots. Your deputies must be rather determined, self-confident individuals, willing to endure a certain amount of physical danger – perhaps even relishing the stimulus of danger. I would suggest that police officers would make for a rather skewed sample of the population. Think for a moment, not of your officers, but of the people they encounter. The people that end up as victims in the police reports. I know that you do not hold those people in the highest regard. How competent and capable are they? How dependent on their robots are they?”

  Alvar Kresh opened his mouth as if to protest, but then stopped, frowned, and thought. “I see your point. Now you’ve disturbed me, Donald.”

  “My apologies, sir. I meant no –”

  “Relax, Donald. You ‘re sophisticated enough to know you’ve done no harm. You got me to thinking, that’s all.” He nodded at the televisor. “As if she hadn’t done that already.”

  “Yes, sir, quite so. But I would suggest, sir, that it is time for bed.”

  “It certainly is. Can’t be tired for the Governor, can I?” Alvar stood and yawned. “And what the hell could he want that can’t wait until later in the day?”

  Alvar Kresh walked wearily back to his bedroom, very much dreading the morning. Whatever the Governor wanted, it was unlikely to be good news.

  Chapter 10

  SIMCOR BEDDLE WAS up betimes, thoughtfully reviewing the results of the Ironhead action against Settlertown. The results were not good. Sheriff Kresh’s deputies were simply getting too good at their jobs. Too many arrests, too little damage, and worst of all, the publicity was bad. It made the Ironheads look inept at best.

  All right, then, it was time to come up with another tactic. Some way to tangle with the damned Settlers where Kresh’s people could not interfere so much.

  Wait a moment. He had the very thing. Leving’s next lecture. If his information was even remotely reliable, the place would be crawling with Settlers. Yes, yes. An altercation there would do nicely.

  But what about publicity? Not much point in staging a riot if no one saw it. Beddle leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling. Her first lecture had not drawn much of a crowd, though it should have, given the seditious material she had presented. Maybe that was the key. Plant a few belated reports here and there, accurate and otherwise, about what she had said then. Perhaps he could arrange for a few tame sources to drop a few inflammatory and extremely misleading speculations as to what the devil she was doing in the hospital.

  Yes, yes. That was it. Properly brought along, reports on that first lecture should get the hall filled for the second, and live televisor coverage to boot. Disrupt those goings-on and no one could help but pay attention.

  Simcor Beddle gestured for his secretary robot to come forward, and began dictating, setting down the details.

  It ought to work quite nicely.

  Alvar Kresh strode into the Governor’s office, feeling far more alert and awake than he had any right to feel, as if his body were getting used to the idea of not sleeping properly.

  The Governor rose from behind his desk and crossed half the length of the huge office, offering his hand to Alvar as he came closer. Grieg looked fresh, well rested, alert. He was dressed in a charcoal-grey suit of rather conservative cut, as if he were trying to appear as old as possible. Such was no doubt the case, given Grieg’s almost scandalously youthful election to the governorship.

  Grieg’s office was as opulent as Alvar had remembered – but there was something missing since his last visit, something no longer there. What was it?

  “Thank you for coming so early, Sheriff,” Governor Grieg said as he took Alvar’s hand.

  As if the summons here had been an invitation and not an order, Alvar thought. But the courteous words were themselves significant. The Governor did not often feel the need to be polite to Alvar Kresh.

  Alvar shook the Governor’s hand and looked him in the eye. There was no doubt about it. The man wanted something from him – no, needed something.

  “It’s a pleasure to be here,” Alvar lied smoothly.

  “I doubt that to be the case,” Grieg said with a politician’s overly frank smile, a smile born of too many years making promises. “But I assure you that it was necessary. Please, have a seat, Sheriff. Tell me, how is the investigation of the attack on Fredda Leving going?”

  Nothing like getting right to the point, Kresh thought grimly. “It’s early times, yet. We’ve collected a lot of information, and a lot of it seems rather contradictory. But that’s almost to be expected at this stage. There is one thing, though, sir, that you could do to make work go a bit more smoothly.”

  “And what might that be?”

  “Call off Tonya Welton. I must admit I don’t know the political side of the situation, but I assure you that inserting her into the case has made more work for me. I can’t quite see why you wanted to do it.”

  “Why I wanted to do it? She was the one who wanted it. Her people may have a connection to Leving Labs, but why would I want her interfering with local law enforcement? No, it was her idea to be attached to the case, and she was quite insistent about it. She made it clear that the political price would be high for Inferno if I did not allow her access to the investigation. In fact, she was the one who first told me about the case. She called me at home the night it happened and demanded that she be put into the picture.”

  Alvar Kresh frowned in confusion. Given the speed with which she had arrived at the scene, that would have to mean she knew about the attack almost before the maintenance robot called in to report it. How had she found out? “I see. I must admit that she rather gave the impression that it was your idea.”

  “Definitely not. As for calling her off, as you put it – I’m afraid the political situation is just too damned delicate. I’m very sorry, but I’ll have to ask you to endure her interference. I think you’ll understand why after you see what I brought you here to see.”

  The Governor gestured toward a rather severe-looking chair in the middle of the room. Alvar sat, facing the empty center of the room. Donald followed a step or two behind and stood behind Alvar’s chair. Grieg took a seat himself at a control consol
e that faced Alvar’s chair. That was it, Alvar realized. He looked around the big room and confirmed his suspicion. No robot. The Governor had no robot in attendance in his own private office. Now, there was a scandalous tidbit. No robot. Fredda Leving was one thing, but the Governor himself? Even if the politics of the moment had been calm and settled, it would have been titillating news, as if Grieg had gone out in public without his pants. With the Settlers so much in evidence, it was downright unpatriotic.

  But this was not the moment to bring any such thing up ‘with the Governor. Maybe he had seen that lecture of Leving’s – or maybe he knew something more. But Grieg was bent over the control unit, concentrating on it. Best to pay attention, Alvar told himself.

  “This is a simglobe unit,” the Governor said, a bit absently, concentrating on the controls in front of him. “You may have seen one before, or seen a recorded playback from a simulation run on one. But I doubt you have seen one like this. In fact, I am certain of it. It’s a Settler model, much more sophisticated than our own units. It’s a gift from Tonya Welton – and before you can get suspicious of that, it was quite thoroughly tested by our own people, and programmed by our people. It has not been rigged in any way.”

  “So what will it show me?” Alvar asked.

  The Governor finished adjusting the controls and looked up at his guest, his face suddenly grim. “The future,” he answered in a flat, emotionless voice that put a chill in Alvar’s spine.

  The windows made themselves opaque, and the room’s lights faded away into darkness. After a moment, a vague, dimly lit ball of light came into existence in the middle of the air between Alvar and Grieg. It quickly came into sharper and brighter focus, to become recognizably the globe of Inferno. Alvar found he was drawing in his breath sharply in spite of himself. There are few sights as beautiful to the human eye as a living world seen from space. Inferno was heart-stoppingly lovely, a blue-white gem gleaming in the void.