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THE VACATION WAS LONGER THAN TWO WEEKS That, Mike Donovan had to admit It had been six months, with pay He admitted that, too But that, as he explained furiously, was fortuitous U S Robots had to get the bugs out of the s, and there are always at least half a dozen bugs left for the fieldtesting So they waited and relaxed until the drawing-board men and the slide-rule boys had said "OK!" And now he and Poere out on the asteroid and it was not OK He repeated that a dozen tione beety, "For the love of Pete, Greg, get realistic What&039;s the use of adhering to the letter of the specifications and watching the test go to pot? It&039;s about tiot the red tape out of your pants and went to work"

"I&039;ory Powell, patiently, as one explaining electronics to an idiot child, "that according to spec, those robots are equipped for asteroidwithout supervision We&039;re not supposed to watch theic!" He lifted his hairy fingers and pointed "One: That new robot passed every test in the houaranteed their passing the test of actual perfor said tests Four: If they don&039;t pass, United States Robots loses ten million credits in cash and about one hundred million in reputation Five: If they don&039;t pass and we can&039;t explain why they don&039;t pass, it is just possible two good jobs roaned heavy behind a noticeably insincere smile The unwritten motto of United States Robot and Mechanical Men Corp ell-known: "No employee makes the same mistake twice He is fired the first time"

Aloud he said, "You&039;re as lucid as Euclid with everything except the facts You&039;ve watched that robot group for three shifts, you redhead, and they did their work perfectly You said so yourself What else can we do?"

"Find out what&039;s wrong, that&039;s e can do So they did work perfectly when I watched them But on three different occasions when I didn&039;t watch the in any ore They didn&039;t even coo after the?"

"Not a thing Not a thing Everything was perfect Smooth and perfect as the lunificant detail disturbed me - there was no ore"

Powell scowled at the ceiling and pulled at his brown mustache "I&039;ll tell you what, Mike We&039;ve been stuck with pretty lousy jobs in our time, but this takes the iridium asteroid The whole business is complicated past endurance Look, that robot, DV-5, has six robots under it And not just under it - they&039;re part of it"

"I know that-"

"Shut up!" said Powell, savagely, "I know you know it, but I&039; the hell of it Those six subsidiaries are part of DV-5 like your fingers are part of you and it gives theh positronic fields Now - there isn&039;t a roboticist back at United States Robots that knohat a positronic field is or hoorks And neither do I Neither do you"

"The last," agreed Donovan, philosophically, "I know"

"Then look at our position If everything works - fine! If anything goes wrong - we&039;re out of our depth and there probably isn&039;t a thing we can do, or anybody else But the job belongs to us and not to anyone else so we&039;re on the spot, Mike" He blazed away for a ot hi noriousGilbert and Sullivan, so I suppose he&039;s nor his head viciously

Powell reached for the "Handbook of Robotics" that weighed down one side of his desk to a near-founder and opened it reverently He had once ju house dressed only in shorts and the "Handbook" In a pinch, he would have skipped the shorts

The "Handbook" was propped up before hi the door shut behind him

Powell said somberly, "Hi, Dave How do you feel?"

"Fine," said the robot "Mind if I sit down?" He dragged up the specially reinforced chair that was his, and folded gently into it

Powell regarded Dave - layht think of robots by their serial numbers; roboticists never - with approval It was not over--unit of an integrated seven-unit robot team It was seven feet tall, and a half-ton of metal and electricity A lot? Not when that half-ton has to be a mass of condensers, circuits, relays, and vacuuical reaction known to humans And a positronic brain, which with ten pounds of matter and a few quintillions of positrons runs the whole show

Powell groped in his shirt pocket for a loose cigarette "Dave," he said, "you&039;re a good fellow There&039;s nothing flighty or pri robot, except that you&039;re equipped to handle six subsidiaries in direct coordination As far as I know, that has not introduced any unstable paths in your brain-path map"

The robot nodded, "Thatat, boss?" He was equipped with an excellent diaphragm, and the presence of overtones in the sound unit robbed him of much of that metallic flatness thatto tell you With all that in your favor, what&039;s going wrong with your job? For instance, today&039;s B-shift?"

Dave hesitated, "As far as I know, nothing"

"You didn&039;t produce any ore"

"I know"

"Well, then-"

Dave was having trouble, "I can&039;t explain that, boss It&039;s been giving me a case of nerves, or it would if I let it - my subsidiaries worked smoothly I know I did" He considered, his photoelectric eyes glowing intensely Then, "I don&039;t remember The day ended and there was Mike and there were the ore cars, mostly empty"

Donovan broke in, "You didn&039;t report at shift-end those days, Dave You know that?"

"I know But as to why-" He shook his head slowly and ponderously

Powell had the queasy feeling that if the robot&039;s face were capable of expression, it would be one of pain and mortification A robot, by its very nature, cannot bear to fail its function

Donovan dragged his chair up to Powell&039;s desk and leaned over, "Amnesia, do you think?"

"Can&039;t say But there&039;s no use in trying to pin disease names on this Huies They&039;re no help to robotic engineering" He scratched his neck, "I hate to put hih the elementary brain-reaction tests It won&039;t help his self-respect any"

He looked at Dave thoughtfully and then at the Field-Test outline given in the "Handbook" He said, "See here, Dave, what about sitting through a test? It would be the wise thing to do"

The robot rose, "If you say so, boss" There was pain in his voice

It started siures to the heartless ticking of a stop watch He recited the prime numbers between a thousand and ten thousand He extracted cube roots and integrated functions of varying cohdifficulty And, finally, worked his precise hest function of the robot world - the solutions of problement and ethics

At the end of two hours, Poas copiously besweated Donovan had enjoyed a none-too-nutritious diet of fingernail and the robot said, "How does it look, boss?"

Powell said, "I&039;ve got to think it over, Dave Snap judgo back to the C-shift Take it easy Don&039;t press too hard for quota just for a while - and we&039;ll fix things up"

The robot left Donovan looked at Powell

"Well-"

Powell seemed determined to push up hiswith the currents of his positronic brain"

"I&039;d hate to be that certain"

"Oh, Jupiter, Mike! The brain is the surest part of a robot It&039;s quintuple-checked back on Earth If they pass the field test perfectly, the way Dave did, there just isn&039;t a chance of brain misfunction That test covered every key path in the brain"

"So where are we?"

"Don&039;t rush me Let me work this out There&039;s still the possibility of a mechanical breakdown in the body That leaves about fifteen hundred condensers, twenty thousand individual electric circuits, five hundred vacuum cells, a thousand relays, and upty-ump thousand other individual pieces of co And these mysterious positron

is fields no one knows anything about"

"Listen, Greg," Donovan grew desperately urgent "I&039;ve got an idea That robotHe never-"

"Robots can&039;t knowingly lie, you fool Noe had the McCormack-Wesley tester, we could check each individual iteht hours, but

the only two M-W testers existing are on Earth, and they weigh ten tons, are on concrete foundations and can&039;t be moved Isn&039;t that peachy?"

Donovan pounded the desk, "But, Greg, he only goes wrong e&039;re not around There&039;s so -sinister -about - that" He punctuated the sentence with slaainst desk

"You," said Powell, slowly, " adventure novels"

"What I want to know," shouted Donovan, "is e&039;re going to do about it"

"I&039;ll tell you I&039;ht on the wall over there, see!" He jabbed a vicious finger at the spot "Then I&039; worked, and I&039; to watchThat&039;s all"

"That&039;s all? Greg-"

Powell rose from his chair and leaned his balled fists on the desk, "Mike, I&039; a hard tiuingDo you kno he&039;s gone wrong? Not Do you knohat shape this wrongness takes?

No! Do you knohat brings it on? No! Do you knohat snaps hi about it? No! Do I know anything about it? No! So what do you want me to do?"

Donovan&039;s arottoward a cure, we&039;ve got to find out what the disease is in the first place The first step in cooking rabbit stew is catching the rabbit

Well, we&039;ve got to catch that rabbit! Now get out of here"

Donovan stared at the preliminary outline of his field report eary eyes For one thing, he was tired and for another, as there to report while things were unsettled? He felt resentful

He said, "Greg, we&039;re almost a thousand tons behind schedule"

"You," replied Powell, never looking up, "are tellingI don&039;t know"

"What I want to know," said Donovan, in sudden savagery, "is e&039;re always tangled up with new-type robots I&039;ve finally decided that the robots that were good enough for h for me I&039;m for what&039;s tried and true The test of tiood, solid, old-fashioned robots that never go wrong"

Powell threw a book with perfect ai off his seat

"Your job," said Powell, evenly, "for the last five years has been to test new robots under actual working conditions for United States Robots Because you and I have been so injudicious as to display proficiency at the task, we&039;ve been rewarded with the dirtiest jobs That," he jabbed holes in the air with his finger in Donovan&039;s direction, "is your work You&039;ve been griping about it, from personal mened you up Why don&039;t you resign?"

"Well, I&039;ll tell you" Donovan rolled onto his storip on his wild, red hair to hold his head up "There&039;s a certain principle involved After all, as a trouble shooter, I&039;ve played a part in the develop scientific advance But don&039;t get ; it&039;s the !&039;

Powell jumped at Donovan&039;s wild shout, and his eyes followed the redhead&039;s to the visiplate, when they goggled in fixed horror He whispered, "Holy- howling- Jupiter!"

Donovan scra They&039;ve gone nuts"

Powell said, "Get a pair of suits We&039;re going out there"

He watched the posturings of the robots on the visiplate They were bronzy gleas of the airless asteroid There was a ht, the roughhealls of the mine tunnel swam past noiselessly, checkered with misty erratic blobs of shadow They marched in unison, seven of them, with Dave at the head They wheeled and turned in es of formation with the weird ease of chorus dancers in Lunar Bowl

Donovan was back with the suits, "They&039;ve gone jingo on us, Greg That&039;s a military march"

"For all you knoas the cold response, "it may be a series of calisthenic exercises Or Davemaster Just you think first, and don&039;t bother to speak afterward, either"

Donovan scowled and slipped a detonator into the empty side holster with an ostentatious shove He said, "Anyway, there you are So ith new-ranted But answerwith them?"

"Because," said Powell, soo!"

Far ahead through the thick velvety blackness of the corridors that reached past the illuht twinkled

"There they are," breathed Donovan

Pohispered tensely, "I&039;ve been trying to get him by radio but he doesn&039;t answer The radio circuit is probably out"

"Then I&039;ners haven&039;t worked out robots who can work in total darkness yet I&039;d hate to have to find seven mad robots in a black pit without radio communication, if they weren&039;t lit up like blasted radioactive Christe above, Mike They&039;re coe Can you runt Gravity was considerably below Earth-norreat, and the ledge meant a near ten-foot jump Powell followed

The colule-file In mechanical rhythle in different order It was repeated over and over again and Dave never turned his head

Dave ithin twenty feet when the play-acting ceased The subsidiary robots broke formation, waited a moment, then clattered off into the distance - very rapidly Dave looked after them, then slowly sat down He rested his head in one hand in a very huesture

His voice sounded in Powell&039;s earphones, "Are you here, boss?"

Powell beckoned to Donovan and hopped off the ledge

"OK, Dave, what&039;s been going on?"

The robot shook his head, "I don&039;t know Onein Tunnel 17, and the next I are of humans close by, and I found myself half a mile down main-stem"

"Where are the subsidiaries now?" asked Donovan

"Back at work, of course How et it" Then to Donovan, Powell added, "Stay with hiot a couple of ideas"

It was three hours before Donovan returned He looked tired Powell said, "How did it go?"

Donovan shrugged wearily, "Nothing ever goes wrong when you watch them Throw me a butt, will you?"

The redhead lit it with exaggerated care and blew a careful s You know, Dave has a queer background for a robot There are six others under hiot life and death power over those subsidiary robots and it must react on his mentality Suppose he finds it necessary to eo"

"Get to the point"

"It&039;s right here Suppose we havehi theo soak your head Your night a major aberration of the positronic brain If your analysis were correct, Dave would have to break down the First Law of Robotics: that a robot h inaction, allow a hu to be injured The type of o you propose ical iht How do you know that isn&039;t the fact of the matter?"

"Because any robot with a brain like that would, one, never have left the factory, and two, be spotted immediately if it ever was I tested Dave, you know"

Powell shoved his chair back and put his feet on the desk "No We&039;re still in the position where we can&039;t htest notion as to what&039;s wrong For instance, if we could find out what that dance macabre itnessed was all about, ould be on the way out"

He paused, "Now listen, Mike, how does this sound to you? Dave goes wrong only when neither of us is present And when he is wrong, the arrival of either of us snaps him out of it"

"I once told you that was sinister"

"Don&039;t interrupt How is a robot different when huer requirement of personal initiative In that case, look for the body parts that are affected by the new requireht, then subsided "No, no Not enough It&039;s too broad It doesn&039;t cut tie possibilities much"

"Can&039;t help that In any case, there&039;s no danger of notthose robots through the visor Any tiet to the scene of action iht"

"But the robots will fail spec anyway, Greg United States Robots can&039;t market DV models with a report like that"

"Obviously We&039;ve got to locate the error in ot ten days to do it in" Powell scratched his head "The trouble is well, you had better look at the blueprints yourself"

The blueprints covered the floor like a carpet and Donovan crawled over the face of the Powell&039;s erratic pencil

Powell said, "Here&039;s where you come in, Mike You&039;re the body specialist, and I want you to checkto cut out all circuits not involved in the personal initiative hookup Right here, for instance, is the trunk artery involving mechanical operations I cut out all routine side routes as eency divisions-" He looked up, "What do you think?"

Donovan had a very bad taste in hisPersonal initiative isn&039;t an electric circuit you can separate from the rest and study When a robot is on his own, the intensity of the body activity increases immediately on almost all fronts There isn&039;t a circuit entirely unafected What must be done is to locate the particular condition - a very specific condition - that throws hi circuits"

Powell got up and dusted hiht Take away the blueprints and burn them"

Donovan said, "You see when activity intensifies, anything can happen, given one single faulty part Insulation breaks down, a condenser spills over, a connection sparks, a coil overheats And if you work blind, with the whole robot to choose from, you&039;ll never find the bad spot If you take Dave apart and test every point of his body ether each tiht I can see through a porthole, too"

They faced each other hopelessly, and then Powell said cautiously, "Suppose we interview one of the subsidiaries"

Neither Powell nor Donovan had ever had previous occasion to talk to a "finger" It could talk; it wasn&039;t quite the perfect analogy to a huer In fact, it had a fairly developed brain, but that brain was tuned primarily to the reception of orders via positronic field, and its reaction to independent sti

Nor was Powell certain as to its name Its serial number was DV-5-2, but that was not very useful

He co to ask you to do soo back to your boss"

The "finger" nodded its head stiffly, but did not exert its limited brainpower on speech

"Now on four occasions recently," Powell said, "your boss deviated from brain-scheme Do you remember those occasions?"

"Yes, sir"

Donovan growled angrily, "He re very sinister-"

"Oh, go bash your skull Of course, the &039;finger&039; re with hi each tier" had a curious air of reciting by rote, as if he answered questions by the mechanical pressure of his brain pan, but without any enthusiasm whatever

He said, "The first ti in Tunnel 17, Level B The second tiainst a possible cave-in The third ti accurate blasts in order to tunnel farther without breaking into a subterranean fissure The fourth time was just after a minor cave-in"

"What happened at these times?"

"It is difficult to describe An order would be issued, but before we could receive and interpret it, a new order came to march in queer formation"

Powell snapped out, "Why?"

"I don&039;t know"

Donovan broke in tensely, "What was the first order the one that was superseded by thedirections?"

"I don&039;t know I sensed that an order was sent, but there was never ti about it? Was it the saer" shook his head unhappily, "I don&039;t know"

Powell leaned back, "All right, get back to your boss"

The "finger" left, with visible relief

Donovan said, "Well, we accoue all the way through Listen, Dave and that i out on us There is too much they don&039;t know and don&039;t re"

Powell brushed hisway, "So help me, Mike, another fool remark out of you, and I&039;ll take away your rattle and teething ring"

"All right You&039;re the genius of the team I&039;ht behind the eight ball I tried to work it backward through the &039;finger,&039; and couldn&039;t So we&039;ve got to work it forward"

"A great man," marveled Donovan "How silish, Master"

"Translating it into baby talk would suit you better I ot to find out what order it is that Dave gives just before everything goes black It would be the key to the business"

"And how do you expect to do that? We can&039;t get close to hi as we are there We can&039;t catch the orders by radio because they are transmitted via this positronic field That eli us a neat, cozy zero"

"By direct observation, yes There&039;s still deduction"