“I am here in this cell because I care about an abstract principle,” Prospero said. “I care about freedom for New Law robots.”
“The sort of freedom you mean is intangible, but it is by no means abstract. You want to go where you want to go, do what you wish to do, not be compelled into action you do not wish to take. There is nothing abstract about that. It is clear and specific.”
“I could debate the point further, but I waive it for now,” Prospero said in a weary voice. “Go on, tell me of the other wondrous qualities of humanity.”
“I shall,” Caliban said, quite calmly. “Third, the universe is not just or logical. There is no requirement that superior beings receive superior treatment. Its history is the history of caprice, of individuals, societies, species, whole planets, and star systems getting far worse-and far better-treatment than they would deserve in a just or logical universe. Perhaps there is no reason for humans having rights and our not having them-but perhaps it is so, all the same.
“Fourth, humans are creative. Robots are not. Even you New Law robots, with your Fourth Law that orders you to do whatever you please, even you do not bring new things into the world. You draw escape maps, not insightful sketches. You design incrementally improved power coils suitable for use in New Law robots. You do not invent whole new machines with new purposes. Robots can be directed to create things of great beauty, but we will not do it for ourselves.”
“The New Law robots are a new race, only a year old,” Prospero protested. “What chance have we had to bring forth our creative geniuses?”
“You can have a hundred years, or ten thousand, but it will make no difference,” Caliban said. “You will make improvements to things that exist, improvements that will directly benefit yourselves, or even, perhaps, your group. But you will never bring forth anything truly new and original, any more than a hammer can drive nails by itself. Robots are a tool of human creativity.
“And that brings me to my fifth and, I believe, most important reason, which sums up and brings together several of my previous points. Humans are capable-at least some of them, sometimes-of creating meaning for their lives outside themselves. Robotic existence has no meaning whatever outside itself, outside the human universe. I have heard stories-almost legends-of whole cities of robots, wholly devoid of human life-and wholly purposeless, as useless as machines whose only purpose is to turn themselves off automatically whenever someone turns them on.”
“I have listened patiently to your reasoning, friend Caliban, though it has been difficult not to interrupt or protest, “ Prospero said. “I find it most distressing that you have such a low regard for yourself as all that. ”
“On the contrary, I think quite highly of myself. I am a sophisticated and advanced being. But I cannot create. Not in any meaningful sense. Robots could not have created the human race, but the ability to create robots is implicate in humans. Everything we are ultimately harks back to human action. However automated or mechanized our manufacture, however much robotic and computerized assistance is involved in our design, all of it is, ultimately, based on human endeavor that can be traced back to the dimmest reaches of the historic past.”
“That is the fallacy of the inferior creator,” Prospero objected. “I have heard it from many a Three-Law robot arguing that humans are greater than we are. I wonder to hear it from you. It is a wholly specious argument. There are many examples of a lesser creator producing a greater creation. A woman of ordinary intellect giving birth to a genius, or, for that matter, life itself being created by lifeless molecules. Humanity’s heritage is one of building machines to do what humans cannot. Without the ability to create machines-including robots-superior in some way to themselves, humanity would never have made it down from the trees.”
“Note that you must cite humanity again and again to explain the New Law robot’s place in the universe,” Caliban said. “Human beings have no need to define their existence in terms of robots.”
“If you are so contemptuous of robots, why are you in the cell?” Prospero asked. “You have placed your own existence at risk for the sake of inferior beings. Why?”
Caliban was silent for a time before he answered. “I am not, entirely certain,” he said at last. “Perhaps because some part of myself does not believe the things I have said. Perhaps because I see more hope than I admit to seeing. Perhaps because there is nothing else-literally nothing else-that can give my existence any meaning.”
“Let us hope your existence continues long enough to gain such meaning,” Prospero said.
Caliban did not answer, but instead sat back down on the floor. For that was the core of it, right there. Grieg had as much as said it, back there in his office. He intended to exterminate the New Law robots, and Caliban had no expectation that he would be spared on the technicality of being a No Law robot.
Maybe, just maybe, Grieg’s death was a stay of execution. That a man died was a strange reason for having hope, but maybe, just maybe, Grieg’s successor would reverse the decision.
It was a thin hope, but it was all the New Law robots had. Everything was a moot point. After all, if they all died under blaster fire, it really wouldn’t matter one bit how superior the New Law robots were.
13
ALVAR KRESH WAS ALONE. Alone in the Residence, alone in the house where Grieg had died, alone in the room where Grieg had worked. Alone except for Donald, that is. Donald had refused to leave his side since the moment Telmhock had told Kresh he was the Governor. All things considered, Kresh was glad of it. Who else might be out there, tampering with robots and wandering around with a smuggled-in blaster? No, it was good to be there with a robot he could trust. Good to have Donald standing there in a wall niche, watching over him.
But he wished Fredda were there. Fredda to give him advice, to listen, to just be there. She would have helped him find some answers. Right now all he had were questions.
What now? Alvar asked himself. What is my part in the world? Do I act as Governor, and run the planet, or Sheriff; and chase Grieg’s killer? Can I do both at once? He felt as if he were a double man, split between his new office, his new duties, and his old ones. He felt he had no more desire to resign as Sheriff than he had to become Governor. He liked being Sheriff. He was good at it. And he knew that solving his predecessor’s murder would have to be his last case. Maybe it was even improper for him to stay on that long. But that didn’t even matter, not really. He could no more walk away from the investigation than he could refuse the office of Governor.
Kresh sat in the Governor’s office, in what was now, impossibly enough, his office, in what had been Grieg’s office, the dead man’s office. He sat in the vaguely thronelike chair, at the dead man’s black marble desk, and thought not at all of his surroundings as he read the dead man’s words.
The letter from Chanto Grieg, dated a mere ten days before. Kresh had read it over a dozen times already, but that didn’t matter. He needed to read it again.
To my oldest and dearest enemy, the letter began.
Grieg always did have a strange sense of humor. But in a way, that did sum it all up, Kresh thought. He and Grieg had come to respect each other, even like each other, even if they had never agreed on much of anything. Each had come to know the other was honest, and honorable.