I, Robot

Speedy galloped slowly toward them. ‘Here we are again. Whee! I’ve made a little list, the piano organist; all people who eat peppermint and puff it in your face.’

‘We’ll puff something in your face,’ muttered Donovan. ‘He’s limping, Greg.’

‘I noticed that,’ came the low, worried response. ‘The monoxide’ll get him yet, if we don’t hurry.’

They were approaching cautiously now, almost sidling, to refrain from setting off the thoroughly irrational robot. Powell was too far off to tell, of course, but even already he could have sworn the crack-brained Speedy was setting himself for a spring.

‘Let her go,’ he gasped. ‘Count three! One – two—’

Two steel arms drew back and snapped forward simultaneously and two glass jars whirled forward in towering parallel arcs, gleaming like diamonds in the impossible sun. And in a pair of soundless puffs, they hit the ground behind Speedy in crashes that sent the oxalic acid flying like dust.

In the full heat of Mercury’s sun, Powell knew it was fizzing like soda water.

Speedy turned to stare, then backed away from it slowly – and as slowly gathered speed. In fifteen seconds, he was leaping directly toward the two humans in an unsteady canter.

Powell did not get Speedy’s words just then, though he heard something that resembled, ‘Lover’s professions when uttered in Hessians.’

He turned away. ‘Back to the cliff, Mike. He’s out of the rut and he’ll be taking orders now. I’m getting hot.’

They jogged toward the shadow at the slow monotonous pace of their mounts, and it was not until they had entered it and felt the sudden coolness settle softly about them that Donovan looked back. ‘Greg!’

Powell looked and almost shrieked. Speedy was moving slowly now – so slowly – and in the wrong direction. He was drifting; drifting back into his rut; and he was picking up speed. He looked dreadfully close, and dreadfully unreachable, in the binoculars.

Donovan shouted wildly, ‘After him!’ and thumped his robot into its pace, but Powell called him back.

‘You won’t catch him, Mike – it’s no use.’ He fidgeted on his robot’s shoulders and clenched his fist in tight impotence. ‘Why the devil do I see these things five seconds after it’s all over? Mike, we’ve wasted hours.’

‘We need more oxalic acid,’ declared Donovan, stolidly. ‘The concentration wasn’t high enough.’

‘Seven tons of it wouldn’t have been enough – and we haven’t the hours to spare to get it, even if it were, with the monoxide chewing him away. Don’t you see what it is, Mike?’

And Donovan said flatly, ‘No.’

‘We were only establishing new equilibriums. When we create new monoxide and increase Rule Three potential, he moves backward till he’s in balance again – and when the monoxide drifted away, he moved forward, and again there was balance.’

Powell’s voice sounded thoroughly wretched. ‘It’s the same old runaround. We can push at Rule Two and pull at Rule Three and we can’t get anywhere – we can only change the position of balance. We’ve got to get outside both rules.’ And then he pushed his robot closer to Donovan’s so that they were sitting face to face, dim shadows in the darkness, and he whispered, ‘Mike!’

‘Is it the finish?’ – dully. ‘I suppose we go back to the Station, wait for the banks to fold, shake hands, take cyanide, and go out like gentlemen.’ He laughed shortly.

‘Mike,’ repeated Powell earnestly, ‘we’ve got to get Speedy.’

‘I know.’

‘Mike,’ once more, and Powell hesitated before continuing. ‘There’s always Rule One. I thought of it – earlier – but it’s desperate.’

Donovan looked up and his voice livened. ‘We’re desperate.’

‘All right. According to Rule One a robot can’t see a human come to harm because of his own inaction. Two and Three can’t stand against it. They can’t, Mike.’

‘Even when the robot is half cra— Well, he’s drunk. You know he is.’

‘It’s the chances you take.’

‘Cut it. What are you going to do?’

‘I’m going out there now and see what Rule One will do. If it won’t break the balance, then what the devil – it’s either now or three-four days from now.’

‘Hold on, Greg. There are human rules of behavior, too. You don’t go out there just like that. Figure out a lottery, and give me my chance.’

‘All right. First to get the cube of fourteen goes.’ And almost immediately, ‘Twenty-seven forty-four!’

Donovan felt his robot stagger at a sudden push by Powell’s mount and then Powell was off into the sunlight. Donovan opened his mouth to shout, and then clicked it shut. Of course, the damn fool had worked out the cube of fourteen in advance, and on purpose. Just like him.

The sun was hotter than ever and Powell felt a maddening itch in the small of his back. Imagination, probably, or perhaps hard radiation beginning to tell even through the insosuit.

Speedy was watching him, without a word of Gilbert and Sullivan gibberish as greeting. Thank God for that! But he daren’t get too close.

He was 300 yards away when Speedy began backing, a step at a time, cautiously – and Powell stopped. He jumped from his robot’s shoulders and landed on the crystallined ground with a light thump and a flying of jagged fragments.

He proceeded on foot, the ground gritty and slippery to his steps, the low gravity causing him difficulty. The soles of his feet tickled with warmth. He cast one glance over his shoulder at the blackness of the cliff’s shadow and realized that he had come too far to return – either by himself or by the help of his antique robot. It was Speedy or nothing now, and the knowledge of that constricted his chest.

Far enough! He stopped.

‘Speedy,’ he called. ‘Speedy!’

The sleek, modern robot ahead of him hesitated and halted his backward steps, then resumed them.

Powell tried to put a note of pleading into his voice, and found it didn’t take much acting. ‘Speedy, I’ve got to get back to the shadow or the sun’ll get me. It’s life or death, Speedy. I need you.’

Speedy took one step forward and stopped. He spoke, but at the sound Powell groaned, for it was, ‘When you’re lying awake with a dismal headache and repose is tabooed—’ It trailed off there, and Powell took time out for some reason to murmur, ‘Iolanthe.’

It was roasting hot! He caught a movement out of the corner of his eye, and whirled dizzily; then stared in utter astonishment, for the monstrous robot on which he had ridden was moving – moving toward him, and without a rider.

He was talking: ‘Pardon, Master. I must not move without a Master upon me, but you are in danger.’

Of course, Rule One potential above everything. But he didn’t want that clumsy antique; he wanted Speedy. He walked away and motioned frantically: ‘I order you to stay away. I order you to stop!’

It was quite useless. You could not beat Rule One potential. The robot said stupidly, ‘You are in danger, Master.’

Powell looked about him desperately. He couldn’t see clearly. His brain was in a heated whirl; his breath scorched when he breathed, and the ground all about him was a shimmering haze.

He called a last time, desperately: ‘Speedy! I’m dying, damn you! Where are you? Speedy, I need you.’

He was still stumbling backward in a blind effort to get away from the giant robot he didn’t want, when he felt steel fingers on his arms, and a worried, apologetic voice of metallic timbre in his ears.

‘Holy smokes, boss, what are you doing here? And what am I doing – I’m so confused—’

‘Never mind,’ murmured Powell, weakly. ‘Get me to the shadow of the cliff – and hurry!’ There was one last feeling of being lifted into the air and a sensation of rapid motion and burning heat, and he passed out.