"Because there aren’t any," Heywood said disgustedly. "Any other modification, when worked out to its inherent limits, is worse than useless. You’ve run enough tests to find out."
"All right!" Ligget’s voice was high. "Why didn’t you report failure, then, instead of keeping on with this shillyshallying?"
"Because I haven’t failed, you moron!" Heywood exploded. "I’ve got the answer. I’ve got Pimmy. There’s nothing wrong with him—the defect’s in the way people are thinking. And I’ve been going crazy, trying to think of a way to change the people. To hell with modifying the robot! He’s as perfect as you’ll get within the next five years. It’s the people who’ll have to change!"
"Uh-huh." Ligget’s voice was careful. "I see. You’ve gone as far as you can within the limits of your orders—and you were trying to find a way to exceed them, in order to force the armed services to accept robots like Pimmy." He pulled out his wallet, and flipped it open. There was a piece of metal fastened to one flap.
"Recognize this, Heywood?"
Heywood nodded.
"All right, then, let’s go and talk to a few people."
Heywood’s eyes were cold and brooding again. He shrugged.
The lab door opened, and there was another one of the lab technicians there. "Go easy, Ligget," he said. He walked across the lab in rapid strides. His wallet had a different badge in it. "Listening from next door," he explained. "All right, Heywood," he said, "I’m taking you in." He shouldered Ligget out of the way. "Why don’t you guys learn to stay in your own jurisdiction," he told him.
Ligget’s face turned red, and his fists clenched, but the other man must have had more weight behind him, because he didn’t say anything.
Heywood looked over at me, and raised a hand. "So long, Pimmy," he said. He and the other man walked out of the lab, with Ligget trailing along behind them. As they got the door open, I saw some other men standing out in the hall. The man who had come into the lab cursed. "You guys!" he said savagely. "This is my prisoner, see, and if you think—"
The door closed, and I couldn’t hear the rest of what they said, but there was a lot of arguing before I heard the sound of all their footsteps going down the hall in a body.
Well, that’s about all, I guess. Except for this other thing. It’s about Ligget, and I hear he’s not around any more. But you might be interested.
September 4, 1974
I haven’t seen Heywood, and I’ve been alone in the lab all day. But Ligget came in last night. I don’t think I’ll see Heywood again.
Ligget came in late at night. He looked as though he hadn’t slept, and he was very nervous. But he was drunk, too—I don’t know where he got the liquor.
He came across the lab floor, his footsteps very loud on the cement, and he put his hands on his hips and looked up at me.
"Well, superman," he said in a tight, edgy voice, "you’ve lost your buddy for good, the dirty traitor. And now you’re next. You know what they’re going to do to you?" He laughed. "You’ll have lots of time to think it over."
He paced back and forth in front of me. Then he spun around suddenly and pointed his finger at me. "Thought you could beat the race of men, huh? Figured you were smarter than we were, didn’t you? But we’ve got you now! You’re going to learn that you can’t try to fool around with the human animal, because he’ll pull you down. He’ll claw and kick you until you collapse. That’s the way men are, robot. Not steel and circuits—flesh and blood and muscles. Flesh that fought its way out of the sea and out of the jungle, muscle that crushed everything that ever stood in his way, and blood that’s spilled for a million years to keep the human race on top. That’s the kind of an organism we are, robot."
He paced some more and spun again. "You never had a chance."
Well, I guess that is all. The rest of it, you know about. You can pull the transcriber plug out of here now, I guess. Would somebody say good-by to Heywood for me—and Russell, too, if that’s possible?
COVERING MEMORANDUM,
Blalock, Project Engineer,
to Hall, Director,
820TH TDRC, COMASAMPS
September 21, 1974
Enclosed are the transcriptions of the robot’s readings from his memorybank "diary," as recorded this morning. The robot is now en route to the Patuxent River, the casting of the concrete block having been completed with the filling of the opening through which the transcription line was run.
As Victor Heywood’s successor to the post of Project Engineer, I’d like to point out that the robot was incapable of deceit, and that this transcription, if read at Heywood’s trial, will prove that his intentions were definitely not treasonous, and certainly motivated on an honest belief that he was acting in the best interests of the original directive for the project’s initiation.
In regard to your Memorandum 8-4792-H of yesterday, a damage report is in process of preparation and will be forwarded to you immediately on its completion.
I fully understand that Heywood’s line of research is to be considered closed. Investigations into what Heywood termed the "zombie" and "slave" type of robot organization have already begun in an improvised laboratory, and I expect preliminary results within the next ten days.
Preliminary results on the general investigation of other possible types of robot orientation and organization are in, copies attached. I’d like to point out that they are extremely discouraging.
(Signed,)
H. E. Blalock, Project Engineer,
820TH TDRC, COMASAMPS
September 25, 1974
PERSONAL LETTER
FROM HALL, DIRECTOR,
820TH TDRC, COMASAMPS,
to
SECRETARY OF DEFENSE
Dear Vinnie,
Well, things are finally starting to settle down out here. You were right, all this place needed was a housecleaning from top to bottom.
I think we’re going to let this Heywood fellow go. We can’t prove anything on him—frankly, I don’t think there was anything to prove. Russell, of course, is a closed issue. His chance of ever getting out of the hospital is rated as ten percent.
You know, considering the mess that robot made of the lab, I’d almost be inclined to think that Heywood was right. Can you imagine what a fighter that fellow would have been, if his loyalty had been channeled to some abstract like Freedom, instead of to Heywood? But we can’t take the chance. Look at the way the robot’s gone amnesic about killing Ligget while he was wrecking the lab. It was something that happened accidentally. It wasn’t supposed to happen, so the robot forgot it. Might present difficulties in a war.
So, we’ve got this Blalock fellow down from M.I.T. He spends too much time talking about Weiner, but he’s all right, otherwise.
I’ll be down in a couple of days. Appropriations committee meeting. You know how it is. Everybody knows we need the money, but they want to argue about it, first.
Well, that’s human nature, I guess.
See you,
Ralph
SUPPLEMENT TO CHARTS:
Menace to Navigation.
Patuxent River, at a point forty-eight miles below Folsom, bearings as below.
Midchannel. Concrete block, 15x15x15. Not dangerous except at extreme low tide.
(1954)
MALAK
Peter Watts
Peter Watts (born 1958) is a biologist specialising in ecophysiology of marine mammals. Throughout the 1990s he was (according to a note on his website) "paid by the animal welfare movement to defend marine mammals; by the US fishing industry to sell them out; and by the Canadian government to ignore them." He retains the academic habit of appending extensive technical bibliographies to his novels, both to confer a veneer of credibility and to cover his ass against nitpickers. Watts’s first book Starfish (1999) was a New York Times Notable Book, while his sixth, Blindsight (2006) – which recruits space vampires to its quite brilliant rumination on the nature of consciousness – was nominated for several awards including the Hugo, though it won none of them. When not writing (his latest, Echopraxia, was published in 2014), Watts documents his battles with hostile forces (goonish US border guards in 2009; a flesh-eating disease in 2011) – heroic struggles that have entered fan folklore.