Page 2 (1/2)

"NINETY-EIGHT - NINETY-NINE - ONE HUNDRED" Gloria withdrew

her chubby little forearm from before her eyes and stood for ain the sunlight Then, trying to watch in all directions at once, she withdrew a few cautious steps fro

She craned her neck to investigate the possibilities of a cluht and then withdrew farther to obtain a better angle for viewing its dark recesses The quiet was profound except for the incessant buzzing of insects and the occasional chirrup of so the midday sun

Gloria pouted, "I bet he went inside the house, and I&039;ve told him a million times that that&039;s not fair"

With tiny lips pressed together tightly and a severe frown crinkling her forehead, sheup past the driveway

Too late she heard the rustling sound behind her, followed by the distinctive and rhythmic clump-clump of Robbie&039;sco and make for the home-tree at full speed

Gloria shrieked in dismay "Wait, Robbie! That wasn&039;t fair, Robbie! You promised you wouldn&039;t run until I found you" Her little feet could iant strides Then, within ten feet of the goal, Robbie&039;s pace slowed suddenly to the merest of crawls, and Gloria, with one final burst of wild speed, dashed pantingly past him to touch the welcome bark of home-tree first

Gleefully, she turned on the faithful Robbie, and with the basest of ingratitude, rewarded hi hi ability

"Robbie can&039;t run," she shouted at the top of her eight-year old voice "I can beat him any day I can beat him any day" She chanted the words in a shrill rhythm

Robbie didn&039;t answer, of course-not in words He panto away until Gloria found herself running after hi her to veer in helpless circles, little ar at the air

"Robbie," she squealed, "stand still!" - And the laughter was forced out of her in breathless jerks

- Until he turned suddenly and caught her up, whirling her round, so that for her the world fell away for a reen trees stretching hungrily doard toward the void Then she was down in the grass again, leaning against Robbie&039;s leg and still holding a hard, er

After a while, her breath returned She pushed uselessly at her disheveled hair in vague iestures and twisted to see if her dress were torn

She slapped her hand against Robbie&039;s torso, "Bad boy! I&039;ll spank you!"

And Robbie cowered, holding his hands over his face so that she had to add, "No, I won&039;t, Robbie I won&039;t spank you But anyway, it&039;s s and you promised not to run till I found you"

Robbie nodded his head - a ses and corners attached to a sier parallelepiped that served as torso by means of a short, flexible stalk - and obediently faced the tree A thin,eyes and fro

"Don&039;t peek now - and don&039;t skip any numbers," warned Gloria, and scurried for cover

With unvarying regularity, seconds were ticked off, and at the hundredth, up went the eyelids, and the glowing red of Robbie&039;s eyes swept the prospect They rested for a ham that protruded from behind a boulder He advanced a few steps and convinced himself that it was Gloria who squatted behind it

Slowly, re always between Gloria and ho place, and when Gloria was plainly in sight and could no longer even theorize to herself that she was not seen, he extended one ar so that it rang again Gloria eed sulkily

"You peeked!" she exclai hide-and-seek I want a ride"

But Robbie was hurt at the unjust accusation, so he seated

himself carefully and shook his head ponderously froed her tone to one of gentle coaxing immediately, "Co Give me a ride"

Robbie was not to be won over so easily, though He gazed stubbornly at the sky, and shook his head even ive ed tightly Then, changing moods in ato cry," and her face twisted appallingly in preparation

Hard-hearted Robbie paid scant attention to this dreadful possibility, and shook his head a third time Gloria found it necessary to play her trump card

"If you don&039;t," she exclaimed warmly, "I won&039;t tell you any ave in i his head vigorously until the irl and placed her on his broad, fiat shoulders

Gloria&039;s threatened tears vanished iht Robbie&039;s metal skin, kept at a constant teh resistance coils within, felt nice and comfortable, while the beautifully loud sound her heels ainst his chest was enchanting

"You&039;re an air-coaster, Robbie, you&039;re a big, silver aircoaster Hold out your ar to be an aircoaster"

The logic was irrefutable Robbie&039;s ar the air currents and he was a silver &039;coaster

Gloria twisted the robot&039;s head and leaned to the right He banked sharply Gloria equipped the &039;coaster with a motor that went "Br-r-r" and then eapons that went "Powie" and "Sh-sh-shshsh" Pirates were giving chase and the ship&039;s blasters were co into play The pirates dropped in a steady rain

"Got another one Two more," she cried

Then "Faster,out of ae and Robbie was a blunt-nosed spaceship zooh the void at maximum acceleration

Clear across the field he sped, to the patch of tall grass on

the other side, where he stopped with a suddenness that evoked a shriek froreen carpet

Gloria gasped and panted, and gave voice to intermittent whispered exclamations of "That was nice!"

Robbie waited until she had caught her breath and then pulled gently at a lock of hair

"You want so?" said Gloria, eyes wide in an apparently artless coe "nursemaid" not at all He pulled the curl harder

"Oh, I know You want a story"

Robbie nodded rapidly

"Which one?"

Robbie er

The little girl protested, "Again? I&039;ve told you Cinderella a million times Aren&039;t you tired of it? -It&039;s for babies"

Another semi-circle

"Oh, well," Gloria composed herself, ran over the details of the tale in her ether with her own elaborations, of which she had several) and began:

"Are you ready? Well - once upon a tiirl whose name was Ella And she had a terribly cruel step-ly and very cruel step-sisters and-"

Gloria was reaching the very cli was changing back to the shabby originals lickety-split, while Robbie listened tensely with burning eyes - when the interruption cah-pitched sound of a wo not once, but several tiinning to overco me," said Gloria, not quite happily "You&039;d better carry me back to the house, Robbie"

Robbie obeyed with alacrity for soed it best to obey Mrs Weston, without as much as a scrap of hesitation Gloria&039;s father was rarely home in the daytime except on Sunday - today, for instance - and when he was, he proved a genial and understanding person Gloria&039;s mother, however, was a source of uneasiness to Robbie and there was always the iht

Mrs Weston caught sight of therass and retired inside the house to wait

"I&039;ve shouted myself hoarse, Gloria," she said, severely "Where were you?"

"I ith Robbie," quavered Gloria "I was telling hiot it was dinner-tiot, too" Then, as if that reminded her of the robot&039;s presence, she whirled upon hio, Robbie She doesn&039;t need you now" Then, brutally, "And don&039;t coo, but hesitated as Gloria cried out in his defense, "Wait, Maot to let him stay I didn&039;t finish Cinderella for him I said I would tell him Cinderella and I&039;m not finished"

"Gloria!"

"Honest and truly, Mamma, he&039;ll stay so quiet, you won&039;t even know he&039;s here He can sit on the chair in the corner, and he won&039;t say a word,IWill you, Robbie?"

Robbie, appealed to, nodded his massive head up and down once

"Gloria, if you don&039;t stop this at once, you shan&039;t see Robbie for a whole week"

The girl&039;s eyes fell, "All right! But Cinderella is his favorite story and I didn&039;t finish it -And he likes it so much"

The robot left with a disconsolate step and Gloria choked back a sob

George Weston was comfortable It was a habit of his to be coood, hearty dinner below the hatches; a nice, soft, dilapidated couch on which to sprawl; a copy of the Times; slippered feet and shirtless chest; how could anyone help but be comfortable?

He wasn&039;t pleased, therefore, when his alked in After ten years of married life, be still was so unutterably foolish as to love her, and there was no question that he was always glad to see her - still Sunday afternoons just after dinner were sacred to him and his idea of solid comfort was to be left in utter solitude for two or three hours Consequently, he fixed his eye firmly upon the latest reports of the Lefebre-Yoshida expedition to Mars (this one was to take off froht actually succeed) and pretended she wasn&039;t there

Mrs Weston waited patiently for two minutes, then impatiently for two e!"

"He, I say! Will you put down that paper and look at me?"

The paper rustled to the floor and Weston turned a weary face toward his wife, "What is it, dear?"

"You knohat it is, George It&039;s Gloria and that terrible machine"

"What terrible machine?"

"Now don&039;t pretend you don&039;t knohat I&039; about It&039;s that robot Gloria calls Robbie He doesn&039;t leave her for a moment"

"Well, why should he? He&039;s not supposed to And he certainly isn&039;t a terrible machine He&039;s the best darn robot money can buy and I&039;m damned sure he set h - darn sight cleverer than half my office staff"

He ain, but his as quicker and snatched it away

"You listen to hter entrusted to a machine - and I don&039;t care how clever it is It has no soul, and no one knohat it uarded by a thing of metal"

Weston frowned, "When did you decide this? He&039;s been with Gloria two years now and I haven&039;t seen you worry till now"

"It was different at first It was a novelty; it took a load offto do But now I don&039;t know The neighbors-"

"Well, what have the neighbors to do with it Now, look A robot is infinitely more to be trusted than a human nursemaid Robbie was constructed for only one purpose really - to be the companion of a little child His entire `mentality&039; has been created for the purpose He just can&039;t help being faithful and loving and kind He&039;s a machine-made so That&039;sSome- some-" Mrs Weston was a bit hazy about the insides of a robot, "soo berserk and- and-" She couldn&039;t bring herself to coht

"Nonsense," Weston denied, with an involuntary nervous shiver "That&039;s co discussion at the tiht Robbie about the First Law of Robotics You know that it is i before enough can go wrong to alter that First Law, a robot would be completely inoperable It&039;s a ineer froet

a co at all going wrong with Robbie than there is of you or I suddenly going looney - considerably less, in fact Besides, how are you going to take him away from Gloria?"

He made another futile stab at the paper and his wife tossed it angrily into the next rooe! She won&039;t play with anyone else There are dozens of little boys and girls that she should o near therow up You want her to be normal, don&039;t you? You want her to be able to take her part in society"

"You&039;re ju I&039;ve seen hundreds of children ould rather have their dog than their father"

"A dog is different, George WeYou can sell it back to the company I&039;ve asked, and you can"

"You&039;ve asked? Now look here, Grace, let&039;s not go off the deep end We&039;re keeping the robot until Gloria is older and I don&039;t want the subject brought up again" And with that he walked out of the room in a huff

Mrs Weston s later "You&039;ll have to listen to this, George There&039;s bad feeling in the village"

"About what?" asked Weston He stepped into the washroom and drowned out any possible answer by the splash of water

Mrs Weston waited She said, "About Robbie"

Weston stepped out, towel in hand, face red and angry, "What are you talking about?"

"Oh, it&039;s been building up and building up I&039;ve tried to closeto any erous Children aren&039;t allowed to go near our place in the evenings"

"We trust our child with the thing"

"Well, people aren&039;t reasonable about these things"

"Then to hell with the that doesn&039;t solve the probleot to meet them every day And it&039;s even worse in the city these days when it co all robots off the streets between sunset and sunrise"

"All right, but they can&039;t stop us fro a robot in our honize it But it&039;s no use The answer is still, no! We&039;re keeping Robbie!"

And yet he loved his wife - and orse, his wife knew it George Weston, after all, was only a- and his wife made full use of every device which a clumsier and more scrupulous sex has learned, with reason and futility, to fear

Ten ti week, he cried, "Robbie stays,and that&039;s final!" and each tionized groan

Cauiltily and suggested a "beautiful" visivox show in the village

Gloria clapped her hands happily, "Can Robbie go?"

"No, dear," he said, and winced at the sound of his voice, "they won&039;t allow robots at the visivox - but you can tell hiet home" He stumbled all over the last feords and looked away

Gloria ca over with enthusiaseous spectacle indeed

She waited for her father to e, "Wait till I tell Robbie, Daddy He would have liked it like anything -Especially when Francis Fran was backing away so-o-o quietly, and backed right into one of the Leopard-Men and had to run" She laughed again, "Daddy, are there really Leopard-Men on the Moon?"

"Probably not," said Weston absently "It&039;s just funny er with the car He&039;d have to face it

Gloria ran across the lawn "Robbie -Robbie!"

Then she stopped suddenly at the sight of a beautiful collie which regarded her out of serious brown eyes as it wagged its tail on the porch

"Oh, what a nice dog!" Gloria climbed the steps, approached cautiously and patted it "Is it for me, Daddy?"

Her mother had joined them "Yes, it is, Gloria Isn&039;t it nice - soft and furry It&039;s very gentle It likes little girls"

"Can he play games?"

"Surely He can do any nuht away I want Robbie to see him, too -Robbie!" She stopped, uncertainly, and frowned, "I&039;ll bet he&039;s just staying in his roo him to the visivox You&039;ll have to explain to hiht not believe me, but he knows if you say it, it&039;s so"

Weston&039;s lip grew tighter He looked toward his wife but could not catch her eye

Gloria turned precipitously and ran down the base as she went, "Robbie- Coht , Robbie"

In a irl "Mamma, Robbie isn&039;t in his roohed and was suddenly extre cloud Gloria&039;s voice quavered on the verge of tears, "Where&039;s Robbie, Mahter gently to her, "Don&039;t feel bad, Gloria Robbie has gone away, I think"