There is really little to be said about this. Protests are certainly hopeless. Central has a rather hysterical edge to its tone, but then again I must remember that my own slow breakdown may cause me only to see Central and the remainder of the world in the same light, and therefore I must be patient and tolerant. Repairs will be arranged. While I await repair it is certainly good to remember that robots have no survival instinct built into them, individual survival instinct that is to say, and therefore I truly do not care whether I survive or collapse completely as long as Central goes on. Surely I believe this.
My job is to patrol the outer sectors of the plain range, seeking the remnants of humanity who are still known to inhabit these spaces, although not very comfortably. If I see such a remnant it is my assignment to destroy him immediately with high beam implements or force, depending upon individual judgment. No exceptions are to be made. My instructions on this point are quite clear. These straggling remains, these unfortunate creatures, pose no real threat to Central—what could?—but Central has a genuine distrust and loathing of such types and also a strong sense of order. It is important that they be cleaned out.
In the early years of my patrol I saw no such remnants whatsoever and wondered occasionally whether or not Central’s instructions were quite clear… maybe they did not exist… but recently I have been seeing many more. There was the man I killed yesterday, for instance, and the three I killed the day before that and the miserable huddled clan of twelve I dispatched the day before that, and all in all, in the last fifteen days, after having never seen a man in all my years of duty, I have now had the regrettable but interesting task of killing one hundred and eight of them, fifty-three by hand and the remainder through beaming devices that seared their weak flesh abominably. I can smell them yet.
I have had cause to wonder whether or not all these men or at least some proportion of them are hallucinative, figments of my unconsciousness, due to my increasing breakdown. I have been granted by Central (as have all of us) free will and much imagination, and certainly these thoughts would occur to any thinking being. There seem to be too many men after a period of there having been too little. Also, indiscriminate murder has disturbed me in a way which my programming had probably not provided; whether these remnants are real or not, I wonder about the "morality" of dispatching so many of them. What, after all, could these men do to Central? I know what they are supposed to have done in the dim and difficult past, but events which occurred before our own creation are merely rumor and I was activated by Central a long time after these alleged events.
Do we have the right to kill indiscriminately these men who, however brutalized, carry within themselves some aspect of our creators? I asked these questions of Central and the word came back. It was clear.
"Kill," Central said, "kill. Real or imagined, brutalized or elevated, benign or diseased, these remnants are your enemy and you must destroy them. Would you go against the intent of programming? Do you believe that you have the capacity to make judgments; you whose own damage and wear are so evident that you have been pleading like a fleshly thing for support and assistance? Until you can no longer activate yourself, you must kill."
It occurs to me that it would be a useful and gallant thing to build a replica of myself that would be able to carry on my own duties. Central’s position is clear, my own ambivalence has been resolved… but my sensors continue to fail dramatically; I am half blind, am unable to coordinate even gross motions, can barely lift my beam to chest height, can hardly sustain the current to go out on patrol. Nevertheless, I accept the reasons why the patrol must continue. If these men represent even the faintest threat to Central who will someday repair me, they must be exterminated.
Accordingly, I comport myself to the repair quarters which are at the base of the tunneled circuits in which I rest and there, finding an agglomeration of spare parts, go about the difficult business of constructing a functioning android. I am not interested now in creating free will and thought, of course—this is Central’s job anyway; it would be far beyond my meager abilities—but merely something with wheels and motor functions, dim, gross sensors that will pick up forms against the landscape and destroy them. Although I am quite weak and at best would not be constructed for such delicate manipulations, it is surprisingly easy to trace out the circuitry simply by duplicating my own patterns, and in less time than I would have predicted, a gross shell of a robot lays on the floor before me, needing only the final latch of activation.
At this point and for the first time, I am overcome by a certain feeling of reluctance. It certainly seems audacious for me to have constructed a crude replica of myself, a slash of arrogance and self-indulgence which does not befit a robot of my relatively humble position. Atavistic fears assault me like little clutches of ash in the darkness: the construction of forms, after all, is the business of Central and in appropriating this duty to myself, have I not in a sense blasphemed against that great agency?
But the reluctance is overcome. I realize that what I am doing is done more for Central than against it; I am increasingly incapable of carrying out my duties and for Central’s sake must do everything within my power to continue. Soon Central will repair me and then I will dispose of this crude replica and assume the role which has been ordained for me, but in the meantime, and in view of the great and increasing difficulties which Central faces, I can do no less than be ingenious and try to assist it in my own way. This quickly banishes my doubt and I activate the robot. It lies on the floor glowing slightly in the untubed wiring, regarding me with an expression which, frankly, is both stupid and hostile. Clumsy, hasty work of course but cosmetics are merely a state of mind.
"Kill men," I instruct the replica, handing over my beam to it. "They live in packs and in solitude in the open places, they skulk through the plains, they pose a great menace to our beloved Central which, as we know, is now involved in repairing us all, reconstituting our mission. Destroy them. Anything moving in the outer perimeters is to be destroyed at once by force or by high beam," and then, quite exhausted from my efforts, to say nothing of the rather frightening effect which the replica has had upon me, I turn away from it. Cued to a single program, it lumbers quickly away, seeking higher places, bent on assuming my duties.
It is comforting to know that my responsibilities will not be shirked and that by making my own adjustments I have saved Central a certain degree of trouble, but the efforts have really racked me; I try to deactivate but find instead that I am racked by hallucinations for a long period, hallucinations in which the men like beasts fall upon my stupid replica and eviscerate him, the poor beast’s circuitry being too clumsy and hastily assembled to allow him to raise quickly the saving beam. It is highly unpleasant and it is all that I can do not to share my distress with Central. Some ancient cunning, however, prevents me from so doing; I suspect that if Central knew the extent of my ingenious maneuvers—even though they were done for Central’s sake—it would be most displeased.