The Positronic Man

by Isaac Asimov

  "No! Absolutely not! Not even remotely! I'm all in favor of experiment for the sake of experimentation! Don't you think I want to see some forward movement in this damned field of ours, after all these decades of stupid and furtive backscuttling toward ever more simpleminded and now downright brainless robots? No, Andrew, it's you that I'm worried about."

  "But if the combustion chamber-"

  Magdescu threw up his hands. "It's safe, it's safe! Nobody disagrees on that score. But-look, Andrew, we'll be opening your body and taking out your atomic cell and installing a bunch of revolutionary new equipment, and then we'll be hooking everything up to your positronic pathways. What if something goes wrong with your body during the operation? There's always a possibility of that-small, maybe, but real. You aren't just a positronic brain sitting inside a metal framework any more, you know. Your brain is linked to the android housing in a far more complex way now. I know how they must have had to do the transfer operation. Your positronic pathways are tied into simulated neural pathways. Suppose your android body starts malfunctioning on the operating table? Suppose it begins to enter a terminal malfunction, Andrew?"

  "Dies, is that what you're trying to say?"

  "Dies, yes. Your body begins to die."

  "There'll be a backup android body sitting on the table right next to it."

  "And if we can't make the transfer in time? If your positronic brain suffers irreversible decay while we're trying to untangle it from the million and one linkages that were set up in Smythe-Robertson's time and lift it over to the backup body? Your positronic brain is you, Andrew. There's no way to back up a brain, positronic or otherwise. If it's damaged it's damaged for good. If it's damaged beyond a certain point you'll be dead."

  "And this is why you're hesitant about the operation?"

  "You're the only one of you that there is. I'd hate to lose you."

  "I'd hate to lose me too, Alvin. But I don't think it's going to happen."

  Magdescu looked bleak. "You insist on going through with it, then."

  "I insist. I have every faith in the skill of the staff at U. S. Robots."

  And that was where the matter rested. Magdescu was unable to budge him; and once more Andrew made the journey eastward to the U. S. Robots research center, where an entire building had been reconfigured to serve as the operating theater.

  Before he went, he took a long solitary stroll one afternoon along the beach, under the steep rugged cliffs, past the swarming tide pools where Miss and Little Miss had liked to play in their childhood of a century and more ago, and stood for a long while looking out at the dark turbulent sea, the vast arch of the sky, the white flecks of cloud in the west.

  The sun was beginning to set. It cast a golden track of light across the water. How beautiful it all was! The world was really an extraordinarily splendid place, Andrew told himself. The sea-the sky-a sunset-a glossy leaf shining with the morning dew-everything. Everything!

  And, he thought, perhaps he was the only robot who had ever been able to respond to the beauty of the world in this way. Robots were a dull plodding bunch, in the main. They did their jobs and that was that. It was the way they were supposed to be. It was the way everyone wanted them to be.

  "You're the only one of you that there is," Magdescu had said.

  Yes. It was true. He had a capacity for aesthetic response that went far beyond the emotive range of any other robot that had ever been.

  Beauty meant something to him. He appreciated it when he saw it; he had created beauty himself.

  And if he never saw any of this again, how very sad that would be.

  And then Andrew smiled at his own foolishness. Sad? For whom? He would never know it, if the operation should fail. The world and all its beauty would be lost to him, but what would that matter? He would have ceased to function. He would be permanently out of order. He would be dead, and after that it would make no difference to him at all that he could no longer perceive the beauties of the world. That was what death meant: a total cessation of function, an end to all processing of data.

  There were risks, yes. But they were risks he had to take, because otherwise- Otherwise- He simply had to. There was no otherwise. He could not go on as he was, outwardly human in form, more or less, but incapable of the most basic human biological functions-breathing, eating, digesting, excreting- An hour later Andrew was on his way east. Alvin Magdescu met him in person at the U. S. Robots airstrip.

  "Are you ready?" Magdescu asked him.

  "Totally."

  "Well, then, Andrew, so am I."

  Obviously they intended to take no chances. They had constructed a wondrous operating theater for him, far more advanced in capability than the earlier room in which they had carried out his transformation from the metallic to the androidal form.

  It was a magnificent tetrahedral enclosure illuminated by a cross-shaped cluster of chromed fixtures at its summit that flooded the room with brilliant but not glaring light. A platform midway between floor and ceiling jutted from one wall, dividing the great room almost in half, and atop this platform rested a dazzling transparent aseptic bubble within which the surgery would be performed. Beneath the platform that supported the bubble was the surgical stage's environmental-support apparatus: an immense cube of dull green metal, housing an intricate tangle of pumps, filters, heating ducts, reservoirs of sterilizing chemicals, humidifiers, and other equipment. On the other side of the room was a great array of supplementary machinery covering an entire wall: an autoclave, a laser bank, a host of metering devices, a camera boom and associated playback screens that would allow consulting surgeons outside the operating area to monitor the events.

  "What do you think?" Magdescu asked proudly.

  "Very impressive. I find it most reassuring. And highly flattering as well."

  "You know that we don't want to lose you, Andrew. You're a very important-individual."

  Andrew did not fail to notice the slight hesitation in Magdescu's voice before that last word. As though Magdescu had been about to say man, and had checked himself just barely in time. Andrew smiled thinly but said nothing.

  The operation took place the next morning, and it was an unqualified success. There turned out to be no need for any of the elaborate safety devices that the U. S. Robots people had set up. The operating team, following procedures that Andrew himself had helped to devise, went briskly about the task of removing his atomic cell, installing the combustion chamber, and establishing the new neural linkages, and performed its carefully choreographed work without the slightest hitch.

  Half an hour after it was over Andrew was sitting up, checking his positronic parameters, exploring the altered data-flow surging through his brain as a torrent of messages came in from the new metabolic system.

  Magdescu stood by the window, watching him.

  "How do you feel?"

  "Fine. I told you there'd be no problems."

  "Yes. Yes."

  "As I said, my faith in the skill of your staff was unwavering. And now it's done. I have the ability to eat."

  "So you do. You can sip olive oil, at any rate."

  "That's eating. I'm told that olive oil has a delicious taste."

  "Well, sip all you want. It'll mean occasional cleaning of the combustion chamber, as of course you already realize. Something of a nuisance, I'd say, but there's no way around it."

  "A nuisance for the time being," Andrew said. "But it's not impossible to make the chamber self-cleaning. I've already had some ideas about that. And other things."

  "Other things?" Magdescu asked. "Such as?''

  "A modification that will deal with solid food."

  "Solid food is going to contain incombustible fractions, Andrew-indigestible matter, so to speak, that's going to have to be discarded."

  "I'm aware of that."

  "You would have to equip yourself with an anus."

  "The equivalent."

  "The equivalent, yes. -What else are you planning to develop for y
ourself, Andrew?"

  "Everything else."

  "Everything?"

  "Everything, Alvin."

  Magdescu tugged at the point of his beard and raised one eyebrow. "Genitalia, too?"

  "I don't see any reason why not. Do you?"

  "You aren't going to be able to give yourself any kind of reproductive ability. You simply aren't, Andrew."

  Andrew managed a faint smile. " As I understand it, human beings make use of their genitalia even at times when they don't have the slightest interest in reproduction. In fact they seem to use them for reproduction only once or twice in their lifetimes, at best, is that not so, and the rest of the time-"

  "Yes," Magdescu said. "I know, Andrew."

  "Don't misunderstand me. I'm not saying that I plan to have sexual relations with anyone," Andrew said. "I tend to doubt very much that I would. But I want the anatomical features to be present, all the same. I regard my body as a canvas on which I intend to draw-"

  He left the sentence unfinished.

  Magdescu stared at him, waiting for the next word. When it seemed certain that it would not be forthcoming, he completed the statement himself, and this time Magdescu spoke the word that he had not been able to bring himself to utter on the day before the operation.

  "A man, Andrew?"

  "A man, yes. Perhaps." Magdescu said, "I'm disappointed in you. It's really such a puny ambition. You're better than a man, Andrew. You're superior in every way I can think of. Your body is disease-proof, self-sustaining, self-repairing, virtually invulnerable, a marvelously elegant example of biological engineering, just as it stands. It doesn't need any improvements. But no, for some reason you want to put totally useless food inside yourself and then find a way of excreting it, you want to give yourself genitalia even though you aren't capable of reproduction and you aren't interested in sex, you'll want to start having body odor next, and dental decay-" He shook his head scornfully. "I don't know, Andrew. The way it seems to me, you've been going downhill ever since you opted for organicism."

  "My brain hasn't suffered."

  "No, it hasn't I'll grant you that. But there's no guarantee that this new set of upgrades that you've started to sketch out won't involve you in tremendous risks, once we start the actual installations. Why take chances? You've got very little to gain and everything to lose."

  "You are simply not capable of seeing this from my viewpoint, Alvin."

  "No. No, I guess not I'm a mere flesh-and-blood human being who doesn't think there's anything very wonderful about perspiration and excretion and skin blemishes and headaches. You see this beard I wear? I wear it because hair insists on growing on my face every single day-useless, bothersome, ugly hair, some kind of evolutionary survival from God knows what primordial phase of human life, and I have my choice between going to the bother of removing it every single day so that I'll conform to the conventional neatness modes of my society or else letting it grow on at least some areas of my face so that I can be spared the nuisance of depilation. Is that what you want? Facial hair? Stubble, Andrew? Do you intend to devote all your immense technical ingenuity to the challenging task of finding out a way of creating five o'clock shadow for yourself?"

  "You can't possibly understand," said Andrew.

  "So you keep saying. I understand this, though: you've developed a patented line of prosthetic devices that amounts to an immense technological breakthrough. They're going to extend the human life-span enormously and transform the existence of millions of people who otherwise would be facing crippling and debilitating circumstances as they age. I realize that you're wealthy already, but once your devices are on the market they'll make you rich beyond anybody's comprehension. Maybe having more money doesn't mean much to you, but there'll be fame along with it-honors galore-the gratitude of an entire world. It's an enviable position, Andrew. Why can't you settle for what you have now? Why take all these crazy chances, and run the risk of losing everything? Why do you insist on playing further games with your body?"

  Andrew did not answer.

  Nor did he let any of Alvin Magdescu's objections prevent him from continuing to follow his chosen path. With the basic principles of his prosthetic devices established, he was able to develop a host of new applications involving virtually every organ of the body. And everything went pretty much as Magdescu had said it would-the money, the honors, the fame.

  But the personal risks of which Magdescu had spoken did not materialize. The frequent upgrades which Andrew underwent over the next decade had no harmful effects whatever as they brought his android body closer and closer in its operational systems to the human norm.

  The Feingold and Charney people had helped him to draft and negotiate the licensing agreement under which all the patent-protected prosthetic devices developed by Andrew Martin Laboratories would be manufactured and marketed by United States Robots and Mechanical Men on a royalty-payment basis. Andrew's patents were air-tight and the contract was a highly favorable one. Whatever irritation or resentment U. S. Robots might have felt all these years over the mere fact of Andrew's existence was forgotten, or at least put aside. Willy-nilly, they had to treat him with respect. He and the company were partners, now.

  U. S. Robots established a special division to produce Andrew's devices, with factories on several continents and in low orbit. Marketing experts from the parent company were brought in to develop plans for distributing the new products everywhere on Earth and the space settlements. Surgeons, both human and robot, underwent courses of instruction at the U. S. Robots prosthetics facility so that they would be able to carry out the complicated installation procedures.

  Demand for Andrew's prosthetic devices was immense. The flow of royalties was heavy right from the start and within a few years became overwhelming.

  Andrew now owned the entire Martin-Charney estate, and much of the surrounding land-a wondrous stretch of clifftop terrain overlooking the Pacific Ocean for eight or ten kilometers. He lived in Sir's big house, but maintained his own old cottage nearby as a sentimental reminder of his early days of independent life after gaining free-robot status.

  Farther down the property he built the imposing research facilities of Andrew Martin Laboratories. There was a little trouble with the zoning authorities about that, because this was supposed to be a quiet residential area and the research center that Andrew wanted to set up would be the size of a small university campus. There was also, perhaps, some lingering anti-robot feeling at work among the opposition.

  But when his application came up for approval, Andrew's lawyer simply said, "Andrew Martin has given the world the prosthetic kidney, the prosthetic lung, the prosthetic heart, the prosthetic pancreas. In return all he asks is the right to continue his research in peace on the property where he has lived and worked for well over a hundred years. Who among us would refuse such a small request when it comes from so great a benefactor of mankind?" And after a certain amount of debate the zoning variance was granted and the buildings of the Andrew Martin Laboratories Research Center began to rise amid the somber cypresses and pines of what had, long ago, been the wooded estate of Gerald Martin.

  Every year or two, Andrew would return to the gleaming operating theater at u. S. Robots for additional prosthetic upgrading of his own. Some of the changes were utterly trivial ones: the new fingernails and toenails, for example, virtually indistinguishable now from those of humans. Some of the changes were major: the new visual system, which although synthetically grown was able to duplicate the human eyeball in virtually every respect.

  "Don't blame us if you come out of this permanently blind," Magdescu told him sourly, when Andrew went to him for the eye transplant.

  "You aren't looking at this rationally, my friend," replied Andrew. "The worst that can happen to me is that I will be forced to go back to photo-optic cells. There is no risk whatever that I will suffer complete loss of eyesight."

  "Well-" Magdescu said, and shrugged.

  Andrew was right, of cou
rse. No one was forced to be permanently blind any more. But there were artificial eyes and then there were artificial eyes, and the photo-optic cells that had been a feature of Andrew's original android body were replaced with the new synthetic-organic eyes that Andrew Martin Laboratories had perfected. The fact that hundreds of thousands of aging human beings had been content for more than a generation to use photo-optic cells was irrelevant to Andrew. To him they looked artificial; they looked inhuman. He had always wanted true eyes. And now he had them.

  Magdescu, after a while, gave up protesting. He had come to see that Andrew was destined to have his way in all things and that there was no point in raising objections to Andrew's schemes for new prosthetic upgrades. Besides, Magdescu was beginning to grow old now, and much of the fire and zeal that had been characteristic of him when Andrew first came to him had gone out of him by now. Already he had had several major prosthetic operations himself-a double kidney replacement, first, and then a new liver. Soon Magdescu would reach retirement age.

  And then, no doubt, he would die, in ten or twenty years more, Andrew told himself. Another friend gone, swept away by the remorseless river of time.

  Andrew himself, naturally, showed no signs of aging at all. For a time that troubled him enough that he debated having some cosmetic wrinkles added-a touch of crow's feet around his eyes, for example-and graying his hair. After giving the matter a little thought, though, he decided that to go in for such things would be a foolish affectation. Andrew did not see his upgrades that way at all: they represented his continued attempt to leave his robot origins behind and approach the physical form of a human being. He did not deny to himself that it had become his goal to do that But there was no sense in becoming more human than the humans themselves. It struck him as pointless and absurd to subject his ever-more-human but still ageless android body to the external marks of aging.

  Vanity had nothing to do with Andrew's decision-only logic. He was aware that humans had always tried to do everything in their power to conceal the effects that growing old had on their appearance. Andrew realized that it would be altogether ridiculous for him, exempted as he was from aging by his inherent android nature, to go out of his way deliberately to take those effects upon himself.