Isaac Asimov - I , Robot

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I, Robot

Isaac Asimov

-----

TO JOHN W. CAMPBELL, JR, who Godfathered THE ROBOTS

The story entitled "Bobbie" was first published as "Strange Playfellow" in Super Science Stories.

The following stories were originally published in Astounding Science Fiction:

Asimov.

CONTENTS

lntroduction 7

Bobbie 11

Runaround 30

Reason 47

Catch That Rabbit 65

Liar! 84

Little Lost Robot 100

Escape! 126

Evidence 147

The Evitable Conflict 170

Introduction

I LOOKED AT MY NOTES AND I DIDN'T LIKE THEM. I'd spent three days at U. S. Robots and

might as well have spent them at home with the Encyclopedia Tellurica.

Susan Calvin had been born in the year 1982, they said, which made her seventy-five now.

Everyone knew that. Appropriately enough, U. S. Robot and Mechanical Men, Inc. was seventy-five

also, since it had been in the year of Dr. Calvin's birth that Lawrence Robertson had first taken

out incorporation papers for what eventually became the strangest industrial giant in man's

history. Well, everyone knew that, too.

At the age of twenty, Susan Calvin had been part of the particular Psycho-Math seminar at

which Dr. Alfred Lanning of U. S. Robots had demonstrated the first mobile robot to be equipped

with a voice. It was a large, clumsy unbeautiful robot, smelling of machine-oil and destined for

the projected mines on Mercury. But it could speak and make sense.

Susan said nothing at that seminar; took no part in the hectic discussion period that

followed. She was a frosty girl, plain and colorless, who protected herself against a world she

disliked by a masklike expression and a hypertrophy of intellect. But as she watched and listened,

she felt the stirrings of a cold enthusiasm.

She obtained her bachelor's degree at Columbia in 2003 and began graduate work in

cybernetics.

All that had been done in the mid-twentieth century on "calculating machines" had been

upset by Robertson and his positronic brain-paths. The miles of relays and photocells had given

way to the spongy globe of plantinumiridium about the size of a human brain.

She learned to calculate the parameters necessary to fix the possible variables within the

"positronic brain"; to construct "brains" on paper such that the responses to given stimuli could

be accurately predicted.

In 2008, she obtained her Ph.D. and joined United States Robots as a "Robopsychologist,"

becoming the first great practitioner of a new science. Lawrence Robertson was still president of

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the corporation; Alfred Lanning had become director of research.

For fifty years, she watched the direction of human progress change and leap ahead.

Now she was retiring - as much as she ever could. At least, she was allowing someone

else's name to be inset upon the door of her office.

That, essentially, was what I had. I had a long list of her

published papers, of the patents in her name; I had the

chronological details of her promotions. In short I had her

professional "vita" in full detail.

But that wasn't what I wanted.

I needed more than that for my feature articles for Interplanetary Press. Much more.

I told her so.

"Dr. Calvin," I said, as lushly as possible, "in the mind of the public you and U. S.

Robots are identical. Your retirement will end an era and-"

"You want the human-interest angle?" She didn't smile at me. I don't think she ever

smiles. But her eyes were sharp, though not angry. I felt her glance slide through me and out my

occiput and knew that I was uncommonly transparent to her; that everybody was.

But I said, "That's right."

"Human interest out of robots? A contradiction."

"No, doctor. Out of you."

"Well, I've been called a robot myself. Surely, they've told you I'm not human."

They had, but there was no point in saying so.

She got up from her chair. She wasn't tall and she looked frail. I followed her to the

window and we looked out.

The offices and factories of U. S. Robots were a small city; spaced and planned. It was

flattened out like an aerial photograph.

"When I first came here," she said, "I had a little room in a building right about there

where the fire-house is now." She pointed. "It was torn down before you were born. I shared the

room with three others. I had half a desk. We built our robots all in one building. Output - three

a week. Now look at us."

"Fifty Years," I hackneyed, "is a long time."

"Not when you're looking back at them," she said. "You wonder how they vanished so

quickly."

She went back to her desk and sat down. She didn't need expression on her face to look

sad, somehow.

"How old are you?" she wanted to know.

"Thirty-two," I said.

"Then you don't remember a world without robots. There was a time when humanity faced the

universe alone and without a friend. Now he has creatures to help him; stronger creatures than

himself, more faithful, more useful, and absolutely devoted to him. Mankind is no longer alone.

Have you ever thought of it that way?"

"I'm afraid I haven't. May I quote you?"

"You may. To you, a robot is a robot. Gears and metal; electricity and positrons. Mind and

iron! Human-made! It necessary, human-destroyed! But you haven't worked with them, so you don't

know them. They're a cleaner better breed than we are."

I tried to nudge her gently with words, "We'd like to hear some of the things you could

tell us; get your views on robots. The Interplanetary Press reaches the entire Solar System.

Potential audience is three billion, Dr. Calvin. They ought to know what you could tell them on

robots."

It wasn't necessary to nudge. She didn't hear me, but she was moving in the right

direction.

"They might have known that from the start. We sold robots for Earth-use then - before my

time it was, even. Of course, that was when robots could not talk. Afterward, they became more

human and opposition began. The labor unions, of course, naturally opposed robot competition for

human jobs, and various segments of religious opinion had their superstitious objections. It was

all quite ridiculous and quite useless. And yet there it was."

I was taking it down verbatim on my pocket-recorder, trying not to show the knuckle-

motions of my hand. If you practice a bit, you can get to the point where you can record

accurately without taking the little gadget out of your pocket.

"Take the case of Robbie," she said. "I never knew him. He was dismantled the year before

I joined the company - hopelessly out-of-date. But I saw the little girl in the museum-"

She stopped, but I didn't say anything. I let her eyes mist up and her mind travel back.

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She had lots of time to cover.

"I heard about it later, and when they called us blasphemers and demon-creators, I always

thought of him. Robbie was a non-vocal robot. He couldn't speak. He was made and sold in 1996.

Those were the days before extreme specialization, so he was sold as a nursemaid-"

"As a what?"

"As a nursemaid-"

Robbie

"NINETY-EIGHT - NINETY-NINE - ONE HUNDRED." Gloria withdrew

her chubby little forearm from before her eyes and stood for a moment,

wrinkling her nose and blinking in the sunlight. Then, trying to watch in all directions at once,

she withdrew a few cautious steps from the tree against which she had been leaning.

She craned her neck to investigate the possibilities of a clump of bushes to the right and

then withdrew farther to obtain a better angle for viewing its dark recesses. The quiet was

profound except for the incessant buzzing of insects and the occasional chirrup of some hardy

bird, braving the midday sun.

Gloria pouted, "I bet he went inside the house, and I've told him a million times that

that's not fair."

With tiny lips pressed together tightly and a severe frown crinkling her forehead, she

moved determinedly toward the two-story building up past the driveway.

Too late she heard the rustling sound behind her, followed by the distinctive and rhythmic

clump-clump of Robbie's metal feet. She whirled about to see her triumphing companion emerge from

hiding and make for the home-tree at full speed.

Gloria shrieked in dismay. "Wait, Robbie! That wasn't fair, Robbie! You promised you

wouldn't run until I found you." Her little feet could make no headway at all against Robbie's

giant strides. Then, within ten feet of the goal, Robbie's pace slowed suddenly to the merest of

crawls, and Gloria, with one final burst of wild speed, dashed pantingly past him to touch the

welcome bark of home-tree first.

Gleefully, she turned on the faithful Robbie, and with the basest of ingratitude, rewarded

him for his sacrifice by taunting him cruelly for a lack of running ability.

"Robbie can't run," she shouted at the top of her eight-year. old voice. "I can beat him

any day. I can beat him any day." She chanted the words in a shrill rhythm.

Robbie didn't answer, of course-not in words. He pantomimed running instead, inching away

until Gloria found herself running after him as he dodged her narrowly, forcing her to veer in

helpless circles, little arms outstretched and fanning at the air.

"Robbie," she squealed, "stand still!" - And the laughter was forced out of her in

breathless jerks.

-Until he turned suddenly and caught her up, whirling her round, so that for her the world

fell away for a moment with a blue emptiness beneath, and green trees stretching hungrily downward

toward the void. Then she was down in the grass again, leaning against Robbie's leg and still

holding a hard, metal finger.

After a while, her breath returned. She pushed uselessly at her disheveled hair in vague

imitation of one of her mother's gestures and twisted to see if her dress were torn.

She slapped her hand against Robbie's torso, "Bad boy! I'll spank you!"

And Robbie cowered, holding his hands over his face so that she had to add, "No, I won't,

Robbie. I won't spank you. But anyway, it's my turn to hide how because you've got longer legs and

you promised not to run till I found you."

Robbie nodded his head - a small parallelepiped with rounded edges and corners attached to

a similar but much larger parallelepiped that served as torso by means of a short, flexible stalk -

and obediently faced the tree. A thin, metal film descended over his glowing eyes and from within

his body came a steady, resonant ticking.

"Don't peek now - and don't skip any numbers," warned Gloria, and scurried for cover.

With unvarying regularity, seconds were ticked off, and at the hundredth, up went the

eyelids, and the glowing red of Robbie's eyes swept the prospect. They rested for a moment on a

bit of colorful gingham that protruded from behind a boulder. He advanced a few steps and

convinced himself that it was Gloria who squatted behind it.

Slowly, remaining always between Gloria and home-tree, he advanced on the hiding place,

and when Gloria was plainly in sight and could no longer even theorize to herself that she was not

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seen, he extended one arm toward her, slapping the other against his leg so that it rang again.

Gloria emerged sulkily.

"You peeked!" she exclaimed, with gross unfairness. "Besides I'm tired of playing hide-and-

seek. I want a ride."

But Robbie was hurt at the unjust accusation, so he seated

himself carefully and shook his head ponderously from side to side.

Gloria changed her tone to one of gentle coaxing immediately, "Come on, Robbie. I didn't

mean it about the peeking. Give me a ride."

Robbie was not to be won over so easily, though. He gazed stubbornly at the sky, and shook

his head even more emphatically.

"Please, Robbie, please give me a ride." She encircled his neck with rosy arms and hugged

tightly. Then, changing moods in a moment, she moved away. "If you don't, I'm going to cry," and

her face twisted appallingly in preparation.

Hard-hearted Robbie paid scant attention to this dreadful possibility, and shook his head

a third time. Gloria found it necessary to play her trump card.

"If you don't," she exclaimed warmly, "I won't tell you any more stories, that's all. Not

one-"

Robbie gave in immediately and unconditionally before this ultimatum, nodding his head

vigorously until the metal of his neck hummed. Carefully, he raised the little girl and placed her

on his broad, fiat shoulders.

Gloria's threatened tears vanished immediately and she crowed with delight. Robbie's metal

skin, kept at a constant temperature of seventy by the high resistance coils within, felt nice and

comfortable, while the beautifully loud sound her heels made as they bumped rhythmically against

his chest was enchanting.

"You're an air-coaster, Robbie, you're a big, silver aircoaster. Hold out your arms

straight. - You got to, Robbie, if you're going to be an aircoaster."

The logic was irrefutable. Robbie's arms were wings catching the air currents and he was a

silver 'coaster.

Gloria twisted the robot's head and leaned to the right. He banked sharply. Gloria

equipped the 'coaster with a motor that went "Br-r-r" and then with weapons that went "Powie" and

"Sh-sh-shshsh." Pirates were giving chase and the ship's blasters were coming into play. The

pirates dropped in a steady rain.

"Got another one. Two more," she cried.

Then "Faster, men," Gloria said pompously, "we're running out of ammunition." She aimed

over her shoulder with undaunted courage and Robbie was a blunt-nosed spaceship zooming through

the void at maximum acceleration.

Clear across the field he sped, to the patch of tall grass on

the other side, where he stopped with a suddenness that evoked a shriek from his flushed rider,

and then tumbled her onto the soft, green carpet.

Gloria gasped and panted, and gave voice to intermittent whispered exclamations of "That

was nice!"

Robbie waited until she had caught her breath and then pulled gently at a lock of hair.

"You want something?" said Gloria, eyes wide in an apparently artless complexity that

fooled her huge "nursemaid" not at all. He pulled the curl harder.

"Oh, I know. You want a story."

Robbie nodded rapidly.

"Which one?"

Robbie made a semi-circle in the air with one finger.

The little girl protested, "Again? I've told you Cinderella a million times. Aren't you

tired of it? -It's for babies."

Another semi-circle.

"Oh, well," Gloria composed herself, ran over the details of the tale in her mind

(together with her own elaborations, of which she had several) and began:

"Are you ready? Well - once upon a time there was a beautiful little girl whose name was

Ella. And she had a terribly cruel step-mother and two very ugly and very cruel step-sisters and-"

Gloria was reaching the very climax of the tale - midnight was striking and everything was

changing back to the shabby originals lickety-split, while Robbie listened tensely with burning

eyes - when the interruption came.

"Gloria!"

It was the high-pitched sound of a woman who has been calling not once, but several times;

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and had the nervous tone of one in whom anxiety was beginning to overcome impatience.

"Mamma's calling me," said Gloria, not quite happily. "You'd better carry me back to the

house, Robbie."

Robbie obeyed with alacrity for somehow there was that in him which judged it best to obey

Mrs. Weston, without as much as a scrap of hesitation. Gloria's father was rarely home in the

daytime except on Sunday - today, for instance - and when he was, he proved a genial and

understanding person. Gloria's mother, however, was a source of uneasiness to Robbie and there was

always the impulse to sneak away from her sight.

Mrs. Weston caught sight of them the minute they rose above the masking tufts of long

grass and retired inside the house to wait.

"I've shouted myself hoarse, Gloria," she said, severely. "Where were you?"

"I was with Robbie," quavered Gloria. "I was telling him Cinderella, and I forgot it was

dinner-time."

"Well, it's a pity Robbie forgot, too." Then, as if that reminded her of the robot's

presence, she whirled upon him. "You may go, Robbie. She doesn't need you now." Then, brutally,

"And don't come back till I call you."

Robbie turned to go, but hesitated as Gloria cried out in his defense, "Wait, Mamma, you

got to let him stay. I didn't finish Cinderella for him. I said I would tell him Cinderella and

I'm not finished."

"Gloria!"

"Honest and truly, Mamma, he'll stay so quiet, you won't even know he's here. He can sit

on the chair in the corner, and he won't say a word,I mean he won't do anything. Will you,

Robbie?"

Robbie, appealed to, nodded his massive head up and down once.

"Gloria, if you don't stop this at once, you shan't see Robbie for a whole week."

The girl's eyes fell, "All right! But Cinderella is his favorite story and I didn't finish

it. -And he likes it so much."

The robot left with a disconsolate step and Gloria choked back a sob.

George Weston was comfortable. It was a habit of his to be comfortable on Sunday

afternoons. A good, hearty dinner below the hatches; a nice, soft, dilapidated couch on which to

sprawl; a copy of the Times; slippered feet and shirtless chest; how could anyone help but be

comfortable?

He wasn't pleased, therefore, when his wife walked in. After ten years of married life, be

still was so unutterably foolish as to love her, and there was no question that he was always glad

to see her - still Sunday afternoons just after dinner were sacred to him and his idea of solid

comfort was to be left in utter solitude for two or three hours. Consequently, he fixed his eye

firmly upon the latest reports of the Lefebre-Yoshida expedition to Mars (this one was to take off

from Lunar Base and might actually succeed) and pretended she wasn't there.

Mrs. Weston waited patiently for two minutes, then impatiently for two more, and finally

broke the silence.

"George!"

"Hmpph?"

"George, I say! Will you put down that paper and look at me?"

The paper rustled to the floor and Weston turned a weary face toward his wife, "What is

it, dear?"

"You know what it is, George. It's Gloria and that terrible machine."

"What terrible machine?"

"Now don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about. It's that robot Gloria calls

Robbie. He doesn't leave her for a moment."

"Well, why should he? He's not supposed to. And he certainly isn't a terrible machine.

He's the best darn robot money can buy and I'm damned sure he set me back half a year's income.

He's worth it, though - darn sight cleverer than half my office staff."

He made a move to pick up the paper again, but his wife was quicker and snatched it away.

"You listen to me, George. I won't have my daughter entrusted to a machine - and I don't

care how clever it is. It has no soul, and no one knows what it may be thinking. A child just

isn't made to be guarded by a thing of metal."

Weston frowned, "When did you decide this? He's been with Gloria two years now and I

haven't seen you worry till now."

"It was different at first. It was a novelty; it took a load off me, and - and it was a

fashionable thing to do. But now I don't know. The neighbors-"

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"Well, what have the neighbors to do with it. Now, look. A robot is infinitely more to be

trusted than a human nursemaid. Robbie was constructed for only one purpose really - to be the

companion of a little child. His entire `mentality' has been created for the purpose. He just

can't help being faithful and loving and kind. He's a machine-made so. That's more than you can

say for humans."

"But something might go wrong. Some- some-" Mrs. Weston was a bit hazy about the insides

of a robot, "some little jigger will come loose and the awful thing will go berserk and- and-" She

couldn't bring herself to complete the quite obvious thought.

"Nonsense," Weston denied, with an involuntary nervous shiver. "That's completely

ridiculous. We had a long discussion at the time we bought Robbie about the First Law of Robotics.

You know that it is impossible for a robot to harm a human being; that long before enough can go

wrong to alter that First Law, a robot would be completely inoperable. It's a mathematical

impossibility. Besides I have an engineer from U. S. Robots here twice a year to give the poor

gadget

a complete overhaul. Why, there's no more chance of any thing at all going wrong with Robbie than

there is of you or I suddenly going looney - considerably less, in fact. Besides, how are you

going to take him away from Gloria?"

He made another futile stab at the paper and his wife tossed it angrily into the next

room.

"That's just it, George! She won't play with anyone else. There are dozens of little boys

and girls that she should make friends with, but she won't. She won't go near them unless I make

her. That's no way for a little girl to grow up. You want her to be normal, don't you? You want

her to be able to take her part in society."

"You're jumping at shadows, Grace. Pretend Robbie's a dog. I've seen hundreds of children

who would rather have their dog than their father."

"A dog is different, George. We must get rid of that horrible thing. You can sell it back

to the company. I've asked, and you can."

"You've asked? Now look here, Grace, let's not go off the deep end. We're keeping the

robot until Gloria is older and I don't want the subject brought up again." And with that he

walked out of the room in a huff.

Mrs. Weston met her husband at the door two evenings later. "You'll have to listen to

this, George. There's bad feeling in the village."

"About what?" asked Weston. He stepped into the washroom and drowned out any possible

answer by the splash of water.

Mrs. Weston waited. She said, "About Robbie."

Weston stepped out, towel in hand, face red and angry, "What are you talking about?"

"Oh, it's been building up and building up. I've tried to close my eyes to it, but I'm not

going to any more. Most of the villagers consider Robbie dangerous. Children aren't allowed to go

near our place in the evenings."

"We trust _our_ child with the thing."

"Well, people aren't reasonable about these things."

"Then to hell with them."

"Saying that doesn't solve the problem. I've got to do my shopping down there. I've got to

meet them every day. And it's even worse in the city these days when it comes to robots. New York

has just passed an ordinance keeping all robots off the streets between sunset and sunrise."

"All right, but they can't stop us from keeping a robot in our home. -Grace, this is one

of your campaigns. I recognize it. But it's no use. The answer is still, no! We're keeping

Robbie!"

And yet he loved his wife - and what was worse, his wife knew it. George Weston, after

all, was only a man - poor thing - and his wife made full use of every device which a clumsier and

more scrupulous sex has learned, with reason and futility, to fear.

Ten times in the ensuing week, he cried, "Robbie stays,and that's final!" and each time it

was weaker and accompanied by a louder and more agonized groan.

Came the day at last, when Weston approached his daughter guiltily and suggested a

"beautiful" visivox show in the village.

Gloria clapped her hands happily, "Can Robbie go?"

"No, dear," he said, and winced at the sound of his voice, "they won't allow robots at the

visivox - but you can tell him all about it when you get home." He stumbled all over the last few

words and looked away.

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Gloria came back from town bubbling over with enthusiasm, for the visivox had been a

gorgeous spectacle indeed.

She waited for her father to maneuver the jet-car into the sunken garage, "Wait till I

tell Robbie, Daddy. He would have liked it like anything. -Especially when Francis Fran was

backing away so-o-o quietly, and backed right into one of the Leopard-Men and had to run." She

laughed again, "Daddy, are there really Leopard-Men on the Moon?"

"Probably not," said Weston absently. "It's just funny make-believe." He couldn't take

much longer with the car. He'd have to face it.

Gloria ran across the lawn. "Robbie. -Robbie!"

Then she stopped suddenly at the sight of a beautiful collie which regarded her out of

serious brown eyes as it wagged its tail on the porch.

"Oh, what a nice dog!" Gloria climbed the steps, approached cautiously and patted it. "Is

it for me, Daddy?"

Her mother had joined them. "Yes, it is, Gloria. Isn't it nice - soft and furry. It's very

gentle. It likes little girls."

"Can he play games?"

"Surely. He can do any number of tricks. Would you like to see some?"

"Right away. I want Robbie to see him, too. -Robbie!" She stopped, uncertainly, and

frowned, "I'll bet he's just staying in his room because he's mad at me for not taking him to the

visivox. You'll have to explain to him, Daddy. He might not believe me, but he knows if you say

it, it's so."

Weston's lip grew tighter. He looked toward his wife but could not catch her eye.

Gloria turned precipitously and ran down the basement steps, shouting as she went, "Robbie-

Come and see what Daddy and Mamma brought me. They brought me a dog, Robbie."

In a minute she had returned, a frightened little girl. "Mamma, Robbie isn't in his room.

Where is he?" There was no answer and George Weston coughed and was suddenly extremely interested

in an aimlessly drifting cloud. Gloria's voice quavered on the verge of tears, "Where's Robbie,

Mamma?"

Mrs. Weston sat down and drew her daughter gently to her, "Don't feel bad, Gloria. Robbie

has gone away, I think."

"Gone away? Where? Where's he gone away, Mamma?"

"No one knows, darling. He just walked away. We've looked and we've looked and we've

looked for him, but we can't find him."

"You mean he'll never come back again?" Her eyes were round with horror.

"We may find him soon. We'll keep looking for him. And meanwhile you can play with your

nice new doggie. Look at him! His name is Lightning and he can-"

But Gloria's eyelids had overflown, "I don't want the nasty dog - I want Robbie. I want

you to find me Robbie." Her feelings became too deep for words, and she spluttered into a shrill

wail.

Mrs. Weston glanced at her husband for help, but he merely shuffled his feet morosely and

did not withdraw his ardent stare from the heavens, so she bent to the task of consolation, "Why

do you cry, Gloria? Robbie was only a machine, just a nasty old machine. He wasn't alive at all."

"He was not no machine!" screamed Gloria, fiercely and ungrammatically. "He was a person

just like you and me and he was my friend. I want him back. Oh, Mamma, I want him back."

Her mother groaned in defeat and left Gloria to her sorrow.

"Let her have her cry out," she told her husband. "Childish griefs are never lasting. In a

few days, she'll forget that awful robot ever existed."

But time proved Mrs. Weston a bit too optimistic. To be sure, Gloria ceased crying, but

she ceased smiling, too, and the passing days found her ever more silent and shadowy. Gradually,

her attitude of passive unhappiness wore Mrs. Weston down and all that kept her from yielding was

the impossibility of admitting defeat to her husband.

Then, one evening, she flounced into the living room, sat down, folded her arms and looked

boiling mad.

Her husband stretched his neck in order to see her over his newspaper, "What now, Grace?"

"It's that child, George. I've had to send back the dog today. Gloria positively couldn't

stand the sight of him, she said. She's driving me into a nervous breakdown."

Weston laid down the paper and a hopeful gleam entered his eye, "Maybe- Maybe we ought to

get Robbie back. It might be done, you know. I can get in touch with-"

"No!" she replied, grimly. "I won't hear of it. We're not giving up that easily. My child

shall not be brought up by a robot if it takes years to break her of it."

Weston picked up his paper again with a disappointed air. "A year of this will have me

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prematurely gray."

"You're a big help, George," was the frigid answer. "What Gloria needs is a change of

environment. Of course she can't forget Robbie here. How can she when every tree and rock reminds

her of him? It is really the silliest situation I have ever heard of. Imagine a child pining away

for the loss of a robot."

"Well, stick to the point. What's the change in environment you're planning?"

"We're going to take her to New York."

"The city! In August! Say, do you know what New York is like in August? It's unbearable."

"Millions do bear it."

"They don't have a place like this to go to. If they didn't have to stay in New York, they

wouldn't."

"Well, we have to. I say we're leaving now - or as soon as we can make the arrangements.

In the city, Gloria will find sufficient interests and sufficient friends to perk her up and make

her forget that machine."

"Oh, Lord," groaned the lesser half, "those frying pavements!"

"We have to," was the unshaken response. "Gloria has lost five pounds in the last month

and my little girl's health is more important to me than your comfort."

"It's a pity you didn't think of your little girl's health before you deprived her of her

pet robot," he muttered - but to himself.

Gloria displayed immediate signs of improvement when told of the impending trip to the

city. She spoke little of it, but when she did, it was always with lively anticipation. Again, she

began to smile and to eat with something of her former appetite.

Mrs. Weston hugged herself for joy and lost no opportunity to triumph over her still

skeptical husband.

"You see, George, she helps with the packing like a little angel, and chatters away as if

she hadn't a care in the world. It's just as I told you - all we need do is substitute other

interests."

"Hmpph," was the skeptical response, "I hope so."

Preliminaries were gone through quickly. Arrangements were made for the preparation of

their city home and a couple were engaged as housekeepers for the country home. When the day of

the trip finally did come, Gloria was all but her old self again, and no mention of Robbie passed

her lips at all.

In high good-humor the family took a taxi-gyro to the airport (Weston would have preferred

using his own private 'gyro, but it was only a two-seater with no room for baggage) and entered

the waiting liner.

"Come, Gloria," called Mrs. Weston. "I've saved you a seat near the window so you can

watch the scenery."

Gloria trotted down the aisle cheerily, flattened her nose into a white oval against the

thick clear glass, and watched with an intentness that increased as the sudden coughing of the

motor drifted backward into the interior. She was too young to be frightened when the ground

dropped away as if let through a trap-door and she herself suddenly became twice her usual weight,

but not too young to be mightily interested. It wasn't until the ground had changed into a tiny

patch-work quilt that she withdrew her nose, and faced her mother again.

"Will we soon be in the city, Mamma?" she asked, rubbing her chilled nose, and watching

with interest as the patch of moisture which her breath had formed on the pane shrank slowly and

vanished.

"In about half an hour, dear." Then, with just the faintest trace of anxiety, "Aren't you

glad we're going? Don't you think you'll be very happy in the city with all the buildings and

people and things to see? We'll go to the visivox every day and see shows and go to the circus and

the beach and-"

"Yes, Mamma," was Gloria's unenthusiastic rejoinder. The liner passed over a bank of

clouds at the moment, and Gloria was instantly absorbed in the usual spectacle of clouds

underneath one. Then they were over clear sky again, and she turned to her mother with a sudden

mysterious air of secret knowledge.

"I know why we're going to the city, Mamma."

"Do you?" Mrs. Weston was puzzled. "Why, dear?"

"You didn't tell me because you wanted it to be a surprise, but I know." For a moment, she

was lost in admiration at her own acute penetration, and then she laughed gaily. "We're going to

New York so we can find Robbie, aren't we? -With detectives."

The statement caught George Weston in the middle of a drink of water, with disastrous

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results. There was a sort of strangled gasp, a geyser of water, and then a bout of choking coughs.

When all was over, he stood there, a red-faced, water-drenched and very, very annoyed person.

Mrs. Weston maintained her composure, but when Gloria repeated her question in a more

anxious tone of voice, she found her temper rather bent.

"Maybe," she retorted, tartly. "Now sit and be still, for Heaven's sake."

New York City, 1998 A.D., was a paradise for the sightseer more than ever in its history.

Gloria's parents realized this and made the most of it.

On direct orders from his wife, George Weston arranged to have his business take care of

itself for a month or so, in order to be free to spend the time in what he, termed "dissipating

Gloria to the verge of ruin." Like everything else Weston did, this was gone about in an

efficient, thorough, and business-like way. Before the month had passed, nothing that could be

done had not been done.

She was taken to the top of the half-mile tall Roosevelt Building, to gaze down in awe

upon the jagged panorama of rooftops that blended far off in the fields of Long Island and the

flatlands of New Jersey. They visited the zoos where Gloria stared in delicious fright at the

"real live lion" (rather disappointed that the keepers fed him raw steaks, instead of human

beings, as she had expected), and asked insistently and peremptorily to see "the whale."

The various museums came in for their share of attention, together with the parks and the

beaches and the aquarium.

She was taken halfway up the Hudson in an excursion steamer fitted out in the archaism of

the mad Twenties. She travelled into the stratosphere on an exhibition trip, where the sky turned

deep purple and the stars came out and the misty earth below looked like a huge concave bowl. Down

under the waters of the Long Island Sound she was taken in a glass-walled sub-sea vessel, where in

a green and wavering world, quaint and curious sea-things ogled her and wiggled suddenly away.

On a more prosaic level, Mrs. Weston took her to the department stores where she could

revel in another type of fairyland.

In fact, when the month had nearly sped, the Westons were convinced that everything

conceivable had been done to take Gloria's mind once and for all off the departed Robbie - but

they were not quite sure they had succeeded.

The fact remained that wherever Gloria went, she displayed the most absorbed and

concentrated interest in such robots as happened to be present. No matter how exciting the

spectacle before her, nor how novel to her girlish eyes, she turned away instantly if the corner

of her eye caught a glimpse of metallic movement.

Mrs. Weston went out of her way to keep Gloria away from all robots.

And the matter was finally climaxed in the episode at the Museum of Science and Industry.

The Museum had announced a special "children's program" in which exhibits of scientific witchery

scaled down to the child mind were to be shown. The Westons, of course, placed it upon their list

of "absolutely."

It was while the Westons were standing totally absorbed in the exploits of a powerful

electro-magnet that Mrs. Weston suddenly became aware of the fact that Gloria was no longer with

her. Initial panic gave way to calm decision and, enlisting the aid of three attendants, a careful

search was begun.

Gloria, of course, was not one to wander aimlessly, however. For her age, she was an

unusually determined and purposeful girl, quite full of the maternal genes in that respect. She

had seen a huge sign on the third floor, which had said, "This Way to the Talking Robot" Having

spelled it out to herself and having noticed that her parents did not seem to wish to move in the

proper direction, she did the obvious thing. Waiting for an opportune moment of parental

distraction, she calmly disengaged herself and followed the sign.

The Talking Robot was a tour de force, a thoroughly impractical device, possessing

publicity value only. Once an hour, an escorted group stood before it and asked questions of the

robot engineer in charge in careful whispers. Those the engineer decided were suitable for the

robot's circuits were transmitted to the Talking Robot.

It was rather dull. It may be nice to know that the square of fourteen is one hundred

ninety-six, that the temperature at the moment is 72 degrees Fahrenheit, and the air-pressure

30.02 inches of mercury, that the atomic weight of sodium is 23, but one doesn't really need a

robot for that. One especially does not need an unwieldy, totally immobile mass of wires and coils

spreading over twenty-five square yards.

Few people bothered to return for a second helping, but one girl in her middle teens sat

quietly on a bench waiting for a third. She was the only one in the room when Gloria entered.

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Gloria did not look at her. To her at the moment, another human being was but an

inconsiderable item. She saved her attention for this large thing with the wheels. For a moment,

she hesitated in dismay. It didn't look like any robot she had ever seen.

Cautiously and doubtfully she raised her treble voice; "Please, Mr. Robot, sir, are you

the Talking Robot, sir?" She wasn't sure, but it seemed to her that a robot that actually talked

was worth a great deal of politeness.

(The girl in her mid-teens allowed a look of intense concentration to cross her thin,

plain face. She whipped out a small notebook and began writing in rapid pot-hooks.)

There was an oily whir of gears and a mechanically timbred voice boomed out in words that

lacked accent and intonation, "I- am- the- robot- that- talks."

Gloria stared at it ruefully. It did talk, but the sound came from inside somewheres.

There was no face to talk to. She said, "Can you help me, Mr. Robot, sir?"

The Talking Robot was designed to answer questions, and only such questions as it could

answer had ever been put to it. It was quite confident of its ability, therefore, "I- can- help-

you."

"Thank you, Mr. Robot, sir. Have you seen Robbie?"

"Who -is Robbie?"

"He's a robot, Mr. Robot, sir." She stretched to tip-toes. "He's about so high, Mr. Robot,

sir, only higher, and he's very nice. He's got a head, you know. I mean you haven't, but he has,

Mr. Robot, sir."

The Talking Robot had been left behind, "A- robot?"

"Yes, Mr. Robot, sir. A robot just like you, except he can't talk, of course, and- looks

like a real person."

"A- robot- like- me?"

"Yes, Mr. Robot, sir."

To which the Talking Robot's only response was an erratic splutter and an occasional

incoherent sound. The radical generalization offered it, i.e., its existence, not as a particular

object, but as a member of a general group, was too much for it. Loyally, it tried to encompass

the concept and half a dozen coils burnt out. Little warning signals were buzzing.

(The girl in her mid-teens left at that point. She had enough for her Physics-1 paper on

"Practical Aspects of Robotics." This paper was Susan Calvin's first of many on the subject.)

Gloria stood waiting, with carefully concealed impatience, for the machine's answer when

she heard the cry behind her of "There she is," and recognized that cry as her mother's.

"What are you doing here, you bad girl?" cried Mrs. Weston, anxiety dissolving at once

into anger. "Do you know you frightened your mamma and daddy almost to death? Why did you run

away?"

The robot engineer had also dashed in, tearing his hair, and demanding who of the

gathering crowd had tampered with the machine. "Can't anybody read signs?" he yelled. "You're not

allowed in here without an attendant."

Gloria raised her grieved voice over the din, "I only came to see the Talking Robot,

Mamma. I thought he might know where Robbie was because they're both robots." And then, as the

thought of Robbie was suddenly brought forcefully home to her, she burst into a sudden storm of

tears, "And I got to find Robbie, Mamma. I got to."

Mrs. Weston strangled a cry, and said, "Oh, good Heavens. Come home, George. This is more

than I can stand."

That evening, George Weston left for several hours, and the next morning, he approached

his wife with something that looked suspiciously like smug complacence.

"I've got an idea, Grace."

"About what?" was the gloomy, uninterested query.

"About Gloria."

"You're not going to suggest buying back that robot?"

"No, of course not."

"Then go ahead. I might as well listen to you. Nothing I've done seems to have done any

good."

"All right. Here's what I've been thinking. The whole trouble with Gloria is that she

thinks of Robbie as a person and not as a machine. Naturally, she can't forget him. Now if we

managed to convince her that Robbie was nothing more than a mess of steel and copper in the form

of sheets and wires with electricity its juice of life, how long would her longings last? It's the

psychological attack, if you see my point."

"How do you plan to do it?"

"Simple. Where do you suppose I went last night? I persuaded Robertson of U. S. Robots and

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file:///F|/rah/Isaac%20Asimov/I%20Robot.txtI,RobotIsaacAsimov-----TOJOHNW.CAMPBELL,JR,whoGodfatheredTHEROBOTSThestoryentitled"Bobbie"wasfirstpublishedas"StrangePlayfellow"inSuperScienceStories.Copyright1940byFictioneers,Inc.;copyright®1968byIsaacAsimov.ThefollowingstorieswereoriginallypublishedinA...

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Isaac Asimov - I , Robot

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