Sense of Wonder: A Century of Science Fiction

by Leigh Grossman

  (SULLA, who has sat motionless during dictation, now types rapidly for a few seconds, then stops, withdrawing the completed letter)

  Ready?

  SULLA: Yes.

  DOMIN: Another letter. To the E. B. Huyson Agency, New York, U.S.A. “We beg to acknowledge receipt of order for five thousand Robots. As you are sending your own vessel, please dispatch as cargo equal quantities of soft and hard coal for R.!U.!R., the same to be credited as part payment of the amount due to us. We beg to remain, for Rossum’s Universal Robots. Yours truly.”

  (SULLA repeats the rapid typing)

  Ready?

  SULLA: Yes.

  DOMIN: Another letter. “Friedrichswerks, Hamburg, Germany. We beg to acknowledge receipt of order for fifteen thousand Robots.”

  (Telephone rings)

  Hello! This is the Central Office. Yes. Certainly. Well, send them a wire. Good.

  (Hangs up telephone)

  Where did I leave off?

  SULLA: “We beg to acknowledge receipt of order for fifteen thousand Robots.”

  DOMIN: Fifteen thousand R. Fifteen thousand R.

  (Enter MARIUS)

  Well, what is it?

  MARIUS: There’s a lady, sir, asking to see you.

  DOMIN: A lady? Who is she?

  MARIUS: I don’t know, sir. She brings this card of introduction.

  DOMIN: (reads the card)

  Ah, from President Glory. Ask her to come in.

  MARIUS: Please step this way.

  Enter HELENA GLORY. Exit MARIUS.

  HELENA: How do you do?

  DOMIN: How do you do.

  (Standing up)

  What can I do for you?

  HELENA: You are Mr. Domin, the General Manager.

  DOMIN: I am.

  HELENA: I have come—

  DOMIN: With President Glory’s card. That is quite sufficient.

  HELENA: President Glory is my father. I am Helena Glory.

  DOMIN: Miss Glory, this is such a great honor for us to be allowed to—welcome our great President’s daughter, that—

  HELENA: That you can’t show me the door?

  DOMIN: Please sit down. Sulla, you may go.

  (Exit SULLA. Sitting down)

  How can I be of service to you, Miss Glory?

  HELENA: I have come—

  DOMIN: To have a look at our famous works where people are manufactured. Like all visitors. Well, there is no objection.

  HELENA: I thought it was forbidden to—

  DOMIN: To enter the factory. Yes, of course. Everybody comes here with someone’s visiting card, Miss Glory.

  HELENA: And you show them—

  DOMIN: Only certaAgilin things. The manufacture of artificial people is a secret process.

  HELENA: If you only knew how enormously that—

  DOMIN: Interests me. Europe’s talking about nothing else.

  HELENA: Why don’t you let me finish speaking?

  DOMIN: I beg your pardon. Did you want to say something different?

  HELENA: I only wanted to ask—

  DOMIN: Whether I could make a special exception in your case and show you our factory. Why, certainly Miss Glory.

  HELENA: How do you know I wanted to say that?

  DOMIN: They all do. But we shall consider it a special honor to show you more than we do the rest.

  HELENA: Thank you.

  DOMIN: But you must agree not to divulge the least…

  HELENA: (standing up and giving him her hand)

  My word of honor.

  DOMIN: Thank you. Won’t you raise your veil?

  HELENA: Of course. You want to see whether I’m a spy or not. I beg your pardon.

  DOMIN: What is it?

  HELENA: Would you mind releasing my hand?

  DOMIN: (releasing it)

  I beg your pardon.

  HELENA: (raising her veil)

  How cautious you have to be here, don’t you?

  DOMIN: (observing her with deep interest)

  Hm, of course—we—that is—

  HELENA: But what is it? What’s the matter?

  DOMIN: I’m remarkably pleased. Did you have a pleasant crossing?

  HELENA: Yes.

  DOMIN: No difficulty?

  HELENA: Why?

  DOMIN: What I mean to say is—you’re so young.

  HELENA: May we go straight into the factory?

  DOMIN: Yes. Twenty-two, I think.

  HELENA: Twenty-two what?

  DOMIN: Years.

  HELENA: Twenty-one. Why do you want to know?

  DOMIN: Because—as—

  (with enthusiasm)

  you will make a long stay, won’t you?

  HELENA: That depends on how much of the factory you show me.

  DOMIN: Oh, hang the factory. Oh, no, no, you shall see everything, Miss Glory. Indeed you shall. Won’t you sit down?

  HELENA: (crossing to couch and sitting)

  Thank you.

  DOMIN: But first would you like to hear the story of the invention?

  HELENA: Yes, indeed.

  DOMIN: (observes HELENA with rapture and reels off rapidly)

  It was in the year 1920 that old Rossum, the great physiologist, who was then quite a young scientist, took himself to this distant island for the purpose of studying the ocean fauna, full stop. On this occasion he attempted by chemical synthesis to imitate the living matter known as protoplasm until he suddenly discovered a substance which behaved exactly like living matter although its chemical composition was different. That was in the year of 1932, exactly four hundred forty years after the discovery of America. Whew!

  HELENA: Do you know that by heart?

  DOMIN: Yes. You see physiology is not in my line. Shall I go on?

  HELENA: Yes, please.

  DOMIN: And then, Miss Glory, old Rossum wrote the following among his chemical specimens: “Nature has found only one method of organizing living matter. There is, however, another method, more simple, flexible and rapid, which has not yet occurred to nature at all. This second process by which life can be developed was discovered by me today.” Now imagine him, Miss Glory, writing those wonderful words over some colloidal mess that a dog wouldn’t look at. Imagine him sitting over a test tube, and thinking how the whole tree of life would grow from it, how all animals would proceed from it, beginning with some sort of beetle and ending with a man. A man of different substance from us. Miss Glory, that was a tremendous moment.

  HELENA: Well?

  DOMIN: Now, the thing was how to get the life out of the test tubes, and hasten development and form organs, bones and nerves, and so on, and find such substances as catalytics, enzymes, hormones, and so forth, in short—you understand?

  HELENA: Not much, I’m afraid.

  DOMIN: Never mind. You see with the help of his tinctures he could make whatever he wanted. He could have produced a Medusa with the brain of a Socrates or a worm fifty yards long. But being without a grain of humor, he took it into his head to make a vertebrate or perhaps a man. This artificial living matter of his had a raging thirst for life. It didn’t mind being sewn or mixed together. That couldn’t be done with natural albumen. And that’s how he set about it.

  HELENA: About what?

  DOMIN: About imitating nature. First of all he tried making an artificial dog. That took him several years and resulted in a sort of stunted calf which died in a few days. I’ll show it to you in the museum. And then old Rossum started on the manufacture of man.

  HELENA: And I must divulge this to nobody?

  DOMIN: To nobody in the world.

  HELENA: What a pity that it’s to be found in all the school books of both Europe and America.

  DOMIN: Yes. But do you know what isn’t in the school books? That old Rossum was mad. Seriously, Miss Glory, you must keep this to yourself. The old crank wanted to actually make people.

  HELENA: But you do make people.

  DOMIN: Approximately, Miss Glory. But old Rossum meant it literally. He wanted
to become a sort of scientific substitute for God. He was a fearful materialist, and that’s why he did it all. His sole purpose was nothing more nor less than to prove that God was no longer necessary. Do you know anything about anatomy?

  HELENA: Very little.

  DOMIN: Neither do I. Well, he then decided to manufacture everything as in the human body. I’ll show you in the museum the bungling attempt it took him ten years to produce. It was to have been a man, but it lived for three days only. Then up came young Rossum, an engineer. He was a wonderful fellow, Miss Glory. When he saw what a mess of it the old man was making, he said: “It’s absurd to spend ten years making a man. If you can’t make him quicker than nature, you might as well shut up shop.” Then he set about learning anatomy himself.

  HELENA: There’s nothing about that in the school books.

  DOMIN: No. The school books are full of paid advertisements, and rubbish at that. What the school books say about the united efforts of the two great Rossums is all a fairy tale. They used to have dreadful rows. The old atheist hadn’t the slightest conception of industrial matters, and the end of it was that young Rossum shut him up in some laboratory or other and let him fritter the time away with his monstrosities, while he himself started on the business from an engineer’s point of view. Old Rossum cursed him and before he died he managed to botch up two physiological horrors. Then one day they found him dead in the laboratory. And that’s his whole story.

  HELENA: And what about the young man?

  DOMIN: Well, any one who has looked into human anatomy will have seen at once that man is too complicated, and that a good engineer could make him more simply. So young Rossum began to overhaul anatomy and tried to see what could be left out or simplified. In short—but this isn’t boring you, Miss Glory?

  HELENA: No indeed. You’re—it’s awfully interesting.

  DOMIN: So young Rossum said to himself: “A man is something that feels happy, plays the piano, likes going for a walk, and in fact, wants to do a whole lot of things that are really unnecessary.”

  HELENA: Oh.

  DOMIN: That are unnecessary when he wants, let us say, to weave or count. Do you play the piano?

  HELENA: Yes.

  DOMIN: That’s good. But a working machine must not play the piano, must not feel happy, must not do a whole lot of other things. A gasoline motor must not have tassels or ornaments, Miss Glory. And to manufacture artificial workers is the same thing as to manufacture gasoline motors. The process must be of the simplest, and the product of the best from a practical point of view. What sort of worker do you think is the best from a practical point of view?

  HELENA: What?

  DOMIN: What sort of worker do you think is the best from a practical point of view?

  HELENA: Perhaps the one who is most honest and hardworking.

  DOMIN: No; the one that is the cheapest. The one whose requirements are the smallest. Young Rossum invented a worker with the minimum amount of requirements. He had to simplify him. He rejected everything that did not contribute directly to the progress of work—everything that makes man more expensive. In fact, he rejected man and made the Robot. My dear Miss Glory, the Robots are not people. Mechanically they are more perfect than we are, they have an enormously developed intelligence, but they have no soul.

  HELENA: How do you know they’ve no soul?

  DOMIN: Have you ever seen what a Robot looks like inside?

  HELENA: No.

  DOMIN: Very neat, very simple. Really, a beautiful piece of work. Not much in it, but everything in flawless order. The product of an engineer is technically at a higher pitch of perfection than a product of nature.

  HELENA: But man is supposed to be the product of God.

  DOMIN: All the worse. God hasn’t the least notion of modern engineering. Would you believe that young Rossum then proceeded to play at being God?

  HELENA: How do you mean?

  DOMIN: He began to manufacture Super-Robots. Regular giants they were. He tried to make them twelve feet tall. But you wouldn’t believe what a failure they were.

  HELENA: A failure?

  DOMIN: Yes. For no reason at all their limbs used to keep snapping off. Evidently our planet is too small for giants. Now we only make Robots of normal size and of very high class human finish.

  HELENA: I saw the first Robots at home. The town counsel bought them for—I mean engaged them for work.

  DOMIN: Bought them, dear Miss Glory. Robots are bought and sold.

  HELENA: These were employed as street sweepers. I saw them sweeping. They were so strange and quiet.

  DOMIN: Rossum’s Universal Robot factory doesn’t produce a uniform brand of Robots. We have Robots of finer and coarser grades. The best will live about twenty years.

  (He rings for MARIUS.)

  HELENA: Then they die?

  DOMIN: Yes, they get used up.

  (Enter MARIUS)

  Marius, bring in samples of the Manual Labor Robot.

  (Exit MARIUS)

  I’ll show you specimens of the two extremes. This first grade is comparatively inexpensive and is made in vast quantities.

  (MARIUS reenters with two Manual Labor ROBOTS)

  There you are; as powerful as a small tractor. Guaranteed to have average intelligence. That will do, Marius.

  MARIUS exits with ROBOTS.

  HELENA: They make me feel so strange.

  DOMIN: (rings)

  Did you see my new typist?

  He rings for SULLA.

  HELENA: I didn’t notice her.

  Enter SULLA.

  DOMIN: Sulla, let Miss Glory see you.

  HELENA: So pleased to meet you. You must find it terribly dull in this out-of-the-way spot, don’t you?

  SULLA: I don’t know, Miss Glory.

  HELENA: Where do you come from?

  SULLA: From the factory.

  HELENA: Oh, you were born there?

  SULLA: I was made there.

  HELENA: What?

  DOMIN: (laughing)

  Sulla is a Robot, best grade.

  HELENA: Oh, I beg your pardon.

  DOMIN: Sulla isn’t angry. See, Miss Glory, the kind of skin we make.

  (Feels the skin on Sulla’s face)

  Feel her face.

  HELENA: Oh, no, no.

  DOMIN: You wouldn’t know that she’s made of different material from us, would you? Turn round, Sulla.

  HELENA: Oh, stop, stop.

  DOMIN: Talk to Miss Glory, Sulla.

  SULLA: Please sit down.

  (HELENA sits)

  Did you have a pleasant crossing?

  HELENA: Oh, yes, certainly.

  SULLA: Don’t go back on the Amelia, Miss Glory. The barometer is falling steadily. Wait for the Pennsylvania. That’s a good, powerful vessel.

  DOMIN: What’s its speed?

  SULLA: Twenty knots. Fifty thousand tons. One of the latest vessels, Miss Glory.

  HELENA: Thank you.

  SULLA: A crew of fifteen hundred, Captain Harpy, eight boilers—

  DOMIN: That’ll do, Sulla. Now show us your knowledge of French.

  HELENA: You know French?

  SULLA: I know four languages. I can write: Dear Sir, Monsieur, Geehrter Herr, Cteny pane.

  HELENA: (jumping up)

  Oh, that’s absurd! Sulla isn’t a Robot. Sulla is a girl like me. Sulla, this is outrageous! Why do you take part in such a hoax?

  SULLA: I am a Robot.

  HELENA: No, no, you are not telling the truth. I know they’ve forced you to do it for an advertisement. Sulla, you are a girl like me, aren’t you?

  DOMIN: I’m sorry, Miss Glory. Sulla is a Robot.

  HELENA: It’s a lie!

  DOMIN: What?

  (Rings)

  Excuse me, Miss Glory, then I must convince you.

  Enter MARIUS.

  DOMIN: Marius, take Sulla into the dissecting room, and tell them to open her up at once.

  HELENA: Where?

  DOMIN: Into the diss
ecting room. When they’ve cut her open, you can go and have a look.

  HELENA: No, no!

  DOMIN: Excuse me, you spoke of lies.

  HELENA: You wouldn’t have her killed?

  DOMIN: You can’t kill machines.

  HELENA: Don’t be afraid, Sulla, I won’t let you go. Tell me, my dear, are they always so cruel to you? You mustn’t put up with it, Sulla. You mustn’t.

  SULLA: I am a Robot.

  HELENA: That doesn’t matter. Robots are just as good as we are. Sulla, you wouldn’t let yourself be cut to pieces?

  SULLA: Yes.

  HELENA: Oh, you’re not afraid of death, then?

  SULLA: I cannot tell, Miss Glory.

  HELENA: Do you know what would happen to you in there?

  SULLA: Yes, I should cease to move.

  HELENA: How dreadful!

  DOMIN: Marius, tell Miss Glory what you are.

  MARIUS: Marius, the Robot.

  DOMIN: Would you take Sulla into the dissecting room?

  MARIUS: Yes.

  DOMIN: Would you be sorry for her?

  MARIUS: I cannot tell.

  DOMIN: What would happen to her?

  MARIUS: She would cease to move. They would put her into the stamping mill.

  DOMIN: That is death, Marius. Aren’t you afraid of death?

  MARIUS: No.

  DOMIN: You see, Miss Glory, the Robots have no interest in life. They have no enjoyments. They are less than so much grass.

  HELENA: Oh, stop. Send them away.

  DOMIN: Marius, Sulla, you may go.

  Exeunt SULLA and MARIUS.