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ALFRED LANNING LIT HIS CIGAR CAREFULLY, BUT the tips of his fingers were treray eyebrows hunched low as he spoke between puffs
"It reads ht-damn little doubt about that! But why?" He looked at Matheert flattened his black hair doith both hands, "That was the thirty-fourth RBAll the others were strictly orthodox"
The third est officer of U S Robot amp; Mechanical Men, Inc, and proud of his post
"Listen, Bogert There wasn&039;t a hitch in the asseert&039;s thick lips spread in a patronizing smile, "Do you? If you can answer for the entire assembly line, I recommend your promotion By exact count, there are seventy-five thousand, two hundred and thirtyfour operations necessary for the le positronic brain, each separate operation depending for successful completion upon any number of factors, frooes seriously wrong, the `brain&039; is ruined I quote our own information folder, Ashe"
Milton Ashe flushed, but a fourth voice cut off his reply
"If we&039;re going to start by trying to fix the bla" Susan Calvin&039;s hands were folded tightly in her lap, and the little lines about her thin, pale lips deepened, "We&039;ve got arobot on our hands and it strikes me as rather important that we find out just why it reads , `Your fault! My fault!&039; "
Her cold gray eyes fastened upon Ashe, and he grinned
Lanning grinned too, and, as always at such ti white hair and shrewd little eyes made him the picture of a biblical patriarch, "True for you, Dr Calvin"
His voice beca in pill-concentrate form We&039;ve produced a positronic brain of supposedly ordinary vintage that&039;s got the reht waves It would mark the most important advance in robotics in decades, if we kne it happened We don&039;t, and we have to find out Is that clear?"
"May I ert
"Go ahead!"
"I&039;d say that until we do figure out the mess -and as a mathematician I expect it to be a very devil of a mess- we keep the existence of RD-34 a secret I mean even from the other ht not to find it an insoluble probleht," said Dr Calvin "Ever since the Interplanetary Code was modified to allow robotshipped out to space, antirobot propaganda has increased If any word leaks out about a robot being able to read minds before we can announce complete control of the phenomenon, pretty effective capital could be ar and nodded gravely He turned to Ashe, "I think you said you were alone when you first stu business"
"I&039;ll say I was alone- I got the scare of my life RB-34 had just been taken off the assembly table and they sent him down to me Ober rooms myself- at least I started to take hied at his lips, "Say, did any of you ever carry on a thought conversation without knowing it?"
No one bothered to answer, and he continued, "You don&039;t realize it at first, you know He just spoke to ine - and it was only when I wasroo Sure, I thought lots, but that isn&039;t the sa Having it walking besideaine it would," said Susan Calvin thoughtfully Her eyes fixed themselves upon Ashe in an oddly intent hts private"
Lanning broke in iht! We&039;ve got to go about this systematically Ashe, I want you to check over the asse You&039;re to eliminate all operations in which there was no possible chance of an error, and list all those where there were, together with its nature and possible runted Ashe
"Naturally! Of course, you&039;re to put the le one if you have to, and I don&039;t care if we go behind schedule, either But they&039;re not to knohy, you understand"
"Hrinned wryly "It&039;s still a lulu of a job"
Lanning swiveled about in his chair and faced Calvin, "You&039;ll have to tackle the job froist of the plant, so you&039;re to study the robot itself and work backward Try to find out how he ticks See what else is tied up with his telepathic powers, how far they extend, how they warp his outlook, and just exactly what harot that?"
Lanning didn&039;t wait for Dr Calvin to answer
"I&039;ll co-ordinate the work and interpret the findings ar and ert will help ert polished the nails of one pudgy hand with the other and said blandly, "I dare say I know a little in the line"
"Well! I&039;ll get started" Ashe shoved his chair back and rose His pleasantly youthful face crinkled in a grin, "I&039;ve got the darnedest job of any of us, so I&039; out of here and to work"
He left with a slurred, "B&039; seein&039; ye!"
Susan Calvin answered with a barely perceptible nod, but her eyes followed hirunted and said, "Do you want to go up and see RB-34 now, Dr Calvin?"
RB-34&039;s photoelectric eyes lifted fro and he was upon his feet when Susan Calvin entered
She paused to readjust the huge "No Entrance" sign upon the door and then approached the robot
"I&039;ve brought you the texts upon hyperatomic motors, Herbie - a feay Would you care to look at them?"
RB-34 -otherwise known as Herbie- lifted the three heavy books froe of one:
"Hm-m-m! &039;Theory of Hyperatomics&039; " He es and then spoke with an abstracted air, "Sit down, Dr Calvin! This will take ist seated herself and watched Herbie narrowly as he took a chair at the other side of the table and went through the three books systematically
At the end of half an hour, he put theht these"
The corner of Dr Calvin&039;s lip twitched, "I was afraid you would It&039;s difficult to ith you, Herbie You&039;re always a step ahead of me"
"It&039;s the same with these books, you know, as with the others They just don&039;t interestto your textbooks Your science is just a ether by make-shift theory - and all so incredibly si about
"It&039;s your fiction that interests me Your studies of the interplay of huuely as he sought the proper words
Dr Calvin whispered, "I think I understand"
"I see into minds, you see," the robot continued, "and you have no idea how coin to understand everything because my own mind has so little in common with them - but I try, and your novels help"
"Yes, but I&039; emotional experiences of our present-day sentie of bitterness in her voice - "you find real minds like ours dull and colorless"
"But I don&039;t!"
The sudden energy in the response brought the other to her feet She felt herself reddening, and thought wildly, "He must know!"
Herbie subsided suddenly, and muttered in a low voice from which the metallic timbre departed almost entirely "But, of course, I know about it, Dr Calvin You think of it always, so how can I help but know?"
Her face was hard "Have you - told anyone?"
"Of course not!" This, with genuine surprise "No one has askedout, "I suppose you think I am a fool"
"No! It is a normal emotion"
"Perhaps that is why it is so foolish" The wistfulness in her voice drowned out everything else Soh the layer of doctorhood "I am not what you would call - attractive"
"If you are referring to e But I know, in any case, that there are other types of attraction"
"Nor young" Dr Calvin had scarcely heard the robot
"You are not yet forty" An anxious insistence had crept into Herbie&039;s voice
"Thirty-eight as you count the years; a shriveled sixty as far as ist for nothing?"
She drove on with bitter breathlessness, "And he&039;s barely thirty-five and looks and acts younger Do you suppose he ever seesbut but what I a!" Herbie&039;s steel fist struck the plastictopped table with a strident clang "Listen to me-"
But Susan Calvin whirled on him now and the hunted pain in her eyes became a blaze, "Why should I? What do you know about it all, anyway, you youwith a peculiar led for inspection It&039;s a wonderful exaood as your books" Her voice, e in dry sobs, choked into silence
The robot cowered at the outburst He shook his head pleadingly "Won&039;t you listen to me, please? I could help you if you would let ood advice?"
"No, not that It&039;s just that I knohat other people think - Milton Ashe, for instance"
There was a long silence, and Susan Calvin&039;s eyes dropped "I don&039;t want to knohat he thinks," she gasped "Keep quiet"
"I think you would want to knohat he thinks"
Her head remained bent, but her breath ca nonsense," she whispered
"Why should I? I ahts of you-" he paused
And then the psychologist raised her head, "Well?"
The robot said quietly, "He loves you"
For a full minute, Dr Calvin did not speak She merely stared Then, "You are mistaken! Youlike that cannot be hidden, not from me"
"But I am so so- "she stammered to a halt
"He looks deeper than the skin, and admires intellect in others Milton Ashe is not the type to marry a head of hair and a pair of eyes"
Susan Calvin found herself blinking rapidly and waited before speaking Even then her voice trembled, "Yet he certainly never in any way indicated-"
"Have you ever given hiht that-"
"Exactly!"
The psychologist paused in thought and then looked up suddenly "A girl visited hio She was pretty, I suppose - blond and slim And, of course, could scarcely add two and two He spent all day puffing out his chest, trying to explain how a robot was put together" The hardness had returned, "Not that she understood! Who was she?"
Herbie answered without hesitation, "I know the person you are referring to She is his first cousin, and there is no romantic interest there, I assure you"
Susan Calvin rose to her feet with a vivacity ale? That&039;s exactly what I used to pretend to ht so Then it all must be true"
She ran to Herbie and seized his cold, heavy hand in both hers "Thank you, Herbie" Her voice was an urgent, husky whisper "Don&039;t tell anyone about this Let it be our secret - and thank you again" With that, and a convulsive squeeze of Herbie&039;s unresponsive ers, she left
Herbie turned slowly to his neglected novel, but there was no one to read his thoughts
Milton Ashe stretched slowly andjoints and a chorus of grunts, and then glared at Peter Bogert, PhD
"Say," he said, "I&039;ve been at this for a week noith just about no sleep How long do I have to keep it up? I thought you said the positronic boert yawned delicately and regarded his white hands with interest "It is I&039;m on the track"
"I knohat that means when a mathematician says it How near the end are you?"
"It all depends"
"On what?" Ashe dropped into a chair and stretched his long legs out before hirees with hed, "A bit behind the tis to matrix mechanics as the all in all, and this problem calls for more powerful mathematical tools He&039;s so stubborn"
Ashe muttered sleepily, "Why not ask Herbie and settle the whole affair?"
"Ask the robot?" Bogert&039;s eyebrows cliirl tell you?"
"You mean Calvin?"
"Yeah! Susie herself That robot&039;s aplus a bit on the side He does triple integrals in his head and eats up tensor analysis for dessert"
The mathematician stared skeptically, "Are you serious?"
"So help me! The catch is that the dope doesn&039;t like math He would rather read slushy novels Honest! You should see the tripe Susie keeps feeding him: &039;Purple Passion&039; and &039;Love in Space&039; "
"Dr Calvin hasn&039;t said a word of this to us"
"Well, she hasn&039;t finished studying hi just so before letting out the big secret"
"She&039;s told you"
"We sort of got to talking I have been seeing a lot of her lately" He opened his eyes wide and frowned, "Say, Bogie, have you been noticing anything queer about the lady lately?"
Bogert relaxed into an undignified grin, "She&039;s using lipstick, if that&039;s what you e, powder and eye shadow, too She&039;s a sight But it&039;s not that I can&039;t put er on it It&039;s the way she talks - as if she were happy about soed
The other allowed himself a leer, which, for a scientist past fifty, was not a bad job, "Maybe she&039;s in love"
Ashe allowed his eyes to close again, "You&039;re nuts, Bogie You go speak to Herbie; I want to stay here and go to sleep"
"Right! Not that I particularly like having a robot tell me my job, nor that I think he can do it!"
A soft snore was his only answer
Herbie listened carefully as Peter Bogert, hands in pockets, spoke with elaborate indifference
"So there you are I&039;ve been told you understand these things, and I a else My line of reasoning, as I have outlined it, involves a few doubtful steps, I ad refuses to accept, and the picture is still rather incoert said, "Well?"
"I see no ures
"I don&039;t suppose you can go any further than that?"
"I daren&039;t try You are a better mathematician than I, and - well, I&039;d hate to commit ert&039;s sht that would be the case It is deep We&039;ll forget it" He crumpled the sheets, tossed theht better of it
"By the way-"
The robot waited
Bogert see -that is, perhaps you can-" He stopped
Herbie spoke quietly "Your thoughts are confused, but there is no doubt at all that they concern Dr Lanning It is silly to hesitate, for as soon as you compose yourself, I&039;ll knohat it is you want to ask"
The mathematician&039;s hand went to his sleek hair in the fa seventy," he said, as if that explained everything
"I know that"
"And he&039;s been director of the plant for almost thirty years" Herbie nodded
"Well, now," Bogert&039;s voice beca, "you would knohether whether he&039;s thinking of resigning Health, perhaps, or some other-"
"Quite," said Herbie, and that was all
"Well, do you know?"
"Certainly"
"Then-uh-could you tell me?"
"Since you ask, yes" The robot was quite ned!"
"What!" The exclamation was an explosive, ale head hunched forward, "Say that again!"
"He has already resigned," came the quiet repetition, "but it has not yet taken effect He is waiting, you see, to solve the problem of -er - myself That finished, he is quite ready to turn the office of director over to his successor"
Bogert expelled his breath sharply, "And this successor? Who is he?" He was quite close to Herbie now, eyes fixed fascinatedly on those unreadable dull-red photoelectric cells that were the robot&039;s eyes
Words caert relaxed into a tight s for this Thanks, Herbie"
Peter Bogert was at his desk until five thatand he was back at nine The shelf just over the desk emptied of its row of reference books and tables, as he referred to one after the other The pages of calculations before him increased microscopically and the crumpled sheets at his feet mounted into a hill of scribbled paper
At precisely noon, he stared at the final page, rubbed a blood-shot eye, yawned and shrugged "This is getting worse each minute Da door and nodded at Lanning, who entered, cracking the knuckles of one gnarled hand with the other
The director took in the disorder of the rooether