asimov, isaac - the bicentennial man (v1.0) Read online

  "I sympathize with your wish for full human rights," she said. "There have been times in history when segments of the human population fought for full human rights. What rights, however, can you possibly want that you do not have?"

  "As simple a thing as my right to life," Andrew stated. "A robot can be dismantled at any time."

  "A human being can be executed at any time."

  "Execution can only follow due process of law. There is no trial needed for my dismantling. Only the word of a human being in authority is needed to end me. Besides . . . besides . . ." Andrew tried desperately to allow no sign of pleading, but his carefully designed tricks of human expression and tone of voice betrayed him here. "The truth is I want to be a man. I have wanted it through six generations of human beings."

  Li-hsing looked up at him out of darkly sympathetic eyes. "The Legislature can pass a law declaring you one. They could pass a law declaring that a stone statue be defined as a man. Whether they will actually do so is, however, as likely in the first case as the second. Congress people are as human as the rest of the population and there is always that element of suspicion against robots."

  "Even now?"

  "Even now. We would all allow the fact that you have earned the prize of humanity, and yet there would remain the fear of setting an undesirable precedent."

  "What precedent? I am the only free robot, the only one of my type, and there will never be another. You may consult U.S. Robots."

  "`Never' is a long word, Andrew-or, if you prefer, Mr. Martin-since I will gladly give you my personal accolade as man. You will find that most congress people will not be so willing to set the precedent, no matter how meaningless such a precedent might be. Mr. Martin, you have my sympathy, but I cannot tell you to hope. Indeed . . ."

  She sat back and her forehead wrinkled. "Indeed, if the issue grows too heated, there might well arise a certain sentiment, both inside the Legislature and out

  side, for that dismantling you mentioned. Doing away, with you could turn out to be the easiest way of resolving the dilemma. Consider that before deciding to push matters."

  Andrew stood firm. "Will no one remember the technique of prosthetology, something that is almost entirely mine?"

  "It may seem cruel, but they won't. Or if they do, it will be remembered against you. People will say you did it only for yourself. It will be said it was part of a campaign to roboticize human beings, or to humanify robots; and in either case evil and vicious. You have never been part of a political hate campaign, Mr. Martin; but I tell you that you would be the object of vilification of a kind neither you nor I would credit, and there would be people to believe it all. Mr. Martin, let your life be."

  She rose, and next to Andrew's seated figure she seemed small and almost childlike.

  "If I decide to fight for my humanity, will you be on my side?"

  She thought, then replied, "I will be-insofar as I can be. If at any time such a stand would appear to threaten my political future, I might have to abandon you, since it is not an issue I feel to be at the very root of my beliefs. I am trying to be honest with you."

  "Thank you, and I will ask no more. I intend to fight this through, whatever the consequences, and I will ask you for your help only for as long as you can give it."

  19

  It was not a direct fight. Feingold and Martin counseled patience and Andrew muttered, grimly, that he.

  I had an endless supply of that. Feingold and Martin then entered on a campaign to narrow and restrict the . area of combat.

  They instituted a lawsuit denying the obligation to

  3

  pay debts to an individual with a prosthetic heart on the grounds that the possession of a robotic organ removed humanity, and with it the constitutional rights of human beings. They fought the matter skillfully and tenaciously, losing at every step but always in such a way that the decision was forced to be as broad as possible, and then carrying it by way of appeals to the World Court.

  It took years, and millions of dollars.

  When the final decision was handed down, DeLong held what amounted to a victory celebration over the legal loss. Andrew was, of course, present in the company offices on the occasion.

  "We've done two things, Andrew," said DeLong, "both of which are good. First of all, we have established the fact that no number of artificial parts in the human body causes it to cease being a human body. Secondly, we have engaged public opinion in the question in such a way as to put it fiercely on the side of a broad interpretation of humanity, since there is not a human being in existence who does not hope for prosthetics if they will keep him alive."

  "And do you think the Legislature will now grant me my humanity?" Andrew asked.

  DeLong looked faintly uncomfortable. "As to that, I cannot be optimistic. There remains the one organ which the World Court has used as the criterion of humanity. Human beings have an organic cellular brain and robots have a platinum iridium positronic brain if they have one at all-and you certainly have a positronic brain. No, Andrew, don't get that look in your eye. We lack the knowledge to duplicate the work of a cellular brain in artificial structures close enough to the organic type as to allow it to fall within the court's decision. Not even you could do it."

  "What should we do, then?"

  "Make the attempt, of course. Congresswoman Lihsing will be on our side and a growing number of other congress people. The President will undoubtedly

  go along with a majority of the Legislature in this matter."

  "Do we have a majority?"

  "No. Far from it. But we might get one if the public will allow its desire for a broad interpretation of humanity to extend to you. A small chance, I admit; but if you do not wish to give up, we must gamble for it."

  "I do not wish to give up."

  20

  Congresswoman Li-hsing was considerably older than she had been when Andrew had first met her. Her transparent garments were long gone. Her hair was now close-cropped and her coverings were tubular. Yet still Andrew clung, as closely as he could within the limits of reasonable taste, to the style of clothing that had prevailed when he had first adopted clothing more than a century before.

  "We've gone as far as we can, Andrew," Li-hsing admitted. "We'll try once more after recess, but, to be honest, defeat is certain and then the whole thing will have to be given up. All my most recent efforts have only earned me certain defeat in the coming congressional campaign."

  "I know," said Andrew, "and it distressed me. You said once you would abandon me if it came to that Why have you not done so?"

  "One can change one's mind, you know. Somehow, abandoning you became a higher price than I cared to pay for just one more term. As it is, I've been in the Legislature , for over a quarter of a century. It's enough."

  "Is there no way we can change minds, Chee?"

  "We've changed all that are amenable to reason. The rest-the majority-cannot be moved from their emotional antipathies."

  "Emotional antipathy is not a valid reason for voting one way or the other."

  "I know that, Andrew, but they don't advance emotional antipathy as their reason."

  "It all comes down to the brain, then," Andrew said cautiously. "But must we leave it at the level of cells versus positrons? Is there no way of forcing a functional definition? Must we say that a brain is made of this or that? May we not say that a brain is something anything-capable of a certain level of thought?"

  "Won't work," said Li-hsing. "Your brain is manmade, the human brain is not. Your brain is constructed, theirs developed. To any human being who is intent on keeping up the barrier between himself and a robot, those differences are a steel wall a mile high and a mile thick."

  "If we could get at the source of their antipathy, the very source-"

  "After all your years," Li-hsing said, sadly, "you are still trying to reason out the human being. Poor Andrew, don't be angry, but it's the robot in you that drives you in that direction."

  "I
don't know," said Andrew. "If I could bring myself . . . "

  I [Reprise

  If he could bring himself . . .

  He had known for a long time it might come to that, and in the end he was at the surgeon's. He had found one, skillful enough for the job at hand-which meant a surgeon-robot, for no human surgeon could be trusted in this connection, either in ability or in intention.

  The surgeon could not have performed the operation on a human being, so Andrew, after putting off the moment of decision with a sad line of questioning that reflected the turmoil within himself, had put First Law to one side by saying "I, too, am a robot."

  .

  He then said, as firmly as he had learned to form the words even at human beings over these past decades, "I order you to carry through the operation on me."

  In the absence of the First Law, an order so firmly given from one who looked so much like a man activated the Second Law sufficiently to carry the day.

  21

  Andrew's feeling of weakness was, he was sure, quite imaginary. He had recovered from the- operation. Nevertheless, he leaned, as unobtrusively as he could manage, against the wall. It would be entirely too revealing to sit.

  Li-hsing said, "The final vote will come this week, Andrew. I've been able to delay it no longer, and we must lose. And that will be it, Andrew:"

  "I am grateful for your skill at delay. It gave me the time I needed, and I took the gamble I had to."

  "What gamble is this?" Li-hsing asked with open concern.

  "I couldn't tell you, or even the people at Feingold and Martin. I was sure I would be stopped. See here, if it is the brain that is at issue, isn't the greatest difference of all the matter of immortality. Who really cares what a brain looks like or is built of or how it was formed. What matters is that human brain cells die, must die. Even if every other organ in the body is maintained or replaced, the brain cells, which cannot be replaced without changing and therefore killing the personality, must eventually die.

  "My own positronic pathways have lasted nearly two centuries without perceptible change, and can last for centuries more. Isn't that the fundamental barrier: human beings can tolerate an immortal robot, for it',' doesn't matter how long a machine lasts, but they cannot tolerate an immortal human being since their own mortality is endurable only so long as it is universal. And for that reason they won't make me a human being."

  "What is it you're leading up to, Andrew?" Li-hsing asked.

  "I have removed that problem. Decades ago, my positronic brain was connected to organic nerves. Now,

  one last operation has arranged that connection in such a way that slowly-quite slowly-the potential is being drained from my pathways."

  Li-hsing's finely. wrinkled face showed no expression for a moment. Then her lips tightened. "Do you mean you've arranged to die, Andrew? You can't have. That violates the Third Law."

  "No,", said Andrew, "I have chosen between the death of my body and the death of my aspirations and desires. To have let my body live at the cost of the greater death is what would have violated the Third Law."

  Li-hsing seized his arm as though she were about to shake him. She stopped herself. "Andrew, it won't work! Change it back."

  "It can't be done. Too much damage was done. I have a year to live more or less. I will last through the two-hundredth anniversary of my construction. I was weak enough to arrange that."

  "How can it be worth it? Andrew, you're a fool."

  "If it brings me humanity, that will be worth it. If it doesn't, it will bring an end to striving and that will be worth it, too."

  Then Li-hsing did something that astonished herself. Quietly, she began to weep.

  22

  It was odd how that last deed caught the imagination of the world. All that Andrew had done before had not swayed them. But he had finally accepted even death to be human, and the sacrifice was too great to be rejected.

  The final ceremony was timed, quite deliberately, for the two hundredth anniversary. The World President was to sign the act and make the people's will law. The ceremony would be visible on a global network and would be beamed to the Lunar state and even to the Martian colony.

  Andrew was in a wheelchair. He could still walk, but only shakily.

  With mankind watching, the World President said, "Fifty years ago, you were declared The Sesquicentennial Robot, Andrew." After a pause, and in a more solemn tone, he continued, "Today we declare you The Bicentennial Man, Mr. Martin."

  And Andrew, smiling, held out his hand to shake that of the President.

  23

  Andrew's thoughts were slowly fading as he lay in bed. Desperately he seized at them. Man! He was a man!

  He wanted that to be his last thought. He wanted to dissolve-die with that.

  He opened his eyes one more time and for one last time recognized Li-hsing, waiting solemnly. Others were there, but they were only shadows, unrecognizable shadows. Only Li-hsing stood out against the deepening gray.

  Slowly, inchingly, he held out his hand to her and

  very dimly and faintly felt her take it.

  She was fading in his eyes as the last of his thoughts trickled away. But before she faded completely, one final fugitive thought came to him and rested for a moment on his mind before everything stopped.

  "Little Miss," he whispered, too low to be heard.