The Positronic Man (23 page)

IT WAS NOT A DIRECT FIGHT. Andrew had given Simon DeLong the clue to the right strategy to use, and Andrew agreed with the tactic; but it was DeLong's considered professional opinion that the campaign was going to be roundabout and slow. DeLong counseled patience.

"I have an endless supply of that, I suppose," Andrew muttered grimly.

Feingold and Charney then entered into a campaign to narrow and restrict the area of combat.

A certain Roger Hennessey of San Francisco, who had been the recipient of a Martin prosthetic heart seven years before, had supplied robot janitorial services to the Feingold and Charney offices under a contract that had been in effect since the days of Paul Charney. Abruptly Feingold and Charney stopped paying Hennessey's bills. The account was a good one and it went back many years, so for a time Hennessey said nothing about it. But when five months of unpaid bills had piled up, Hennessey found an occasion to stop by at Feingold and Charney to have a chat with Simon DeLong.

"I'm sure you're not aware of it, Simon, but something seems to have gone wrong with your accounting procedures lately. What I mean is, my invoices have been sitting here open since December, and it's coming up on June now, and-"

"Yes. I know."

"-it really isn't at all like Feingold and Charney to let an account run 80-" Hennessey paused and blinked. "What did you say? You know, Simon?"

"Yes. The account has gone unpaid on my direct instructions, as a matter of fact."

Still blinking in astonishment, Hennessey said, "I must be losing my hearing. Or else you're starting to lose your mind, Simon. Did you actually say you're deliberately withholding payment?"

"That's right."

"For God's sake, why?"

"Because we don't want to pay you."

"What do you mean, you don't want to pay me? Do you know how many years my robots have been cleaning these offices, Simon? Have you ever had the slightest reason in all that time to complain about the quality of the work?"

"Never. And we intend to retain your services just as before. But we're not going to pay you any more, Roger."

Hennessey scratched his head and stared. "You've gone completely around the bend, haven't you? To sit there with a straight face and tell me a crazy thing like that? You know that what you're saying is absolute malarkey, so why are you saying it? What's the matter with you, man? How in the name of God's green Earth can you speak such insane drivel?"

DeLong smiled. "There's quite a good reason for it."

"And what may that be, can I dare to ask?"

DeLong said, "We aren't going to pay you because we don't have to. We've decided that your contract with us is invalid, and from now on your robots are going to work for us for nothing if they go on working here at all. That's the story, Roger. If you don't like it, sue us."

"What? What?" Hennessey cried, sputtering. "This gets crazier and crazier. Work for nothing? Back pay withheld? You people are lawyers! How can you let yourself spout such cockeyed nonsense? Contract invalid? For heaven's sake, why?"

"Because you're a robot, Roger. There's only one robot in the world who has the right to enter into binding contracts, and his name is Andrew Martin. The rest of you, because you are not free robots, have no legal right to enforce"

Hennessey turned bright scarlet and rose from his chair. "Hold it just a moment, you damned lunatic! Hold it right there! What are you saying? A robot? Me? Now I know you're out of your mind!" Hennessey ripped open the ornate body-cummerbund he was wearing to reveal his pink, hairy chest. "Does this look to you like a robot's chest, man? Does it? Does it?" Hennessey pinched his own abundant flesh. "Is this robot meat, Simon? Damn it, I can't even begin to understand any of this, but I tell you, if you think you can sit there like that and make a figure of fun out of me for your own perverse pleasure, I'll sue you people, all right, I'll sue you black and blue from here to Mars and back, by God, and I'll see to it that you-"

DeLong was laughing.

Hennessey halted in mid-flow and said icily, "What's so damned amusing, Simon?"

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't be laughing. I owe you a tremendous apology for letting this go on so long."

"I think you do. I don't expect lawyers to have much of a sense of humor, but a dumb joke like this-"

"It isn't a joke, though. We really are going to withhold your fees, Roger. We really do want you to take us to court. Our argument indeed is going to be that you are a robot, and that therefore it is quite within the law for us to thumb our collective nose at our contract with you. And we will defend our position with all the skill at our disposal."

"Will you, now?"

"But it is our profound hope, and our intention as well," DeLong went on, "to lose the suit. And when we do, you'll not only be paid the back fees that we owe you, which will be placed in escrow for you accruing interest, but we will pay all your legal fees as well, and I can tell you, strictly off the record, that there'll be a considerable bonus payment for you besides to compensate you for any incidental difficulties that this case may cause you. A very considerable bonus payment."

Hennessey adjusted his cummerbund and took his seat again. He blinked a few more times and shook his head. He peered at DeLong for a time in silence.

Then he said quietly, "I'm truly sorry for your troubles, Simon. You really have gone completely out of your mind, then. What a great pity that is."

"Not at all. I'm as sane as I ever was."

"Ah. Are you, do you think?"

"Absolutely."

"In that case, do you have any objection to telling me what this is all about?"

"I'm afraid it would be improper for us to disclose that to you in advance of the litigation. But I will say, Roger, that we have an excellent reason for it all, which will make sense to you in the fullness of time, and I hope that you'll cooperate with us even in the dark, so to speak, out of consideration for your long relationship with us. We need you to play along with us, Roger, and we'll take care of you properly afterward."

Hennessey nodded. He looked a little relieved.

"So it's all a maneuver of some sort, then?"

"You could call it that, I suppose."

"But you won't tell me what's going on?"

"No. Not now. That would be too much like entering into a conspiracy with you."

"But you are entering into a conspiracy with me!"

DeLong grinned. " Are we? All we're doing is refusing to pay your bill. Bear with us, Roger. You won't regret it. You have my promise."

"Well-" said Hennessey, grudgingly.

Hennessey's bill continued to go unpaid. After three months more Hennessey duly notified Feingold and Charney that he could no longer carry their account. He canceled their service contract and filed suit for back charges. Feingold and Charney arranged for a temporary janitorial service to clean the office, and let the Court know that it was ready to defend its position.

When the case of Hennessey vs. Feingold and Charney came to trial, it was one of the junior partners who made the argument in court. He said, simply, that inasmuch as Roger Hennessey could be shown to be a robot rather than a human being Feingold and Charney felt under no obligation to go on honoring its service contract, and had unilaterally abrogated it.

The robot Hennessey, the lawyer continued, had gone on sending in his robot janitorial crews for another few months even so, but Feingold and Charney had not asked him to do so and did not believe that payment was necessary, or that Hennessey, as a robot, had any legal right to force them to pay. Robots, the junior partner pointed out, had none of the constitutional protections that human beings enjoyed. In disputes over contracts involving robots, only their owners could sue, not the robots themselves.

"But my client is not a robot!" Hennessey's lawyer thundered. "It's as plain as the nose on my client's face that he's as human as any of us here!"

"Your client," the Feingold and Charney man replied, "was equipped some years ago with a robotic prosthetic heart, is that not the case?"

"Why-possibly he was. I'd need to check with him on that. But what possible relevance can this-"

"It is quite relevant, I assure you. And I respectfully request the Court to obtain a determination on this point."

The judge looked toward Hennessey. "Well, Mr. Hennessey?"

"I've got a prosthetic ticker, sure. But what-"

The Feingold and Charney man said, "Our position, your honor, is that the presence of a life-sustaining mechanical artifact of that kind in Mr. Hennessey's body changes his entire legal status. It is reasonable to argue that he would not be alive today but for the robotic component of his body. We proceed to assert, therefore, that the partly prosthetic Mr. Hennessey is in fact a robot and has been for some years now, and therefore that all contracts into which he may have entered as a human being became null and void when he attained the status of a robot."

"So that's it!" Hennessey muttered. "Well, may I be dipped! The heart makes me a robot, they say? Do they, now? Do they?" And he threw back his head and began to laugh.

The uproar in the courtroom was tremendous. The judge pounded his gavel and shouted, but he could scarcely be heard for minutes. Then at last what he was saying came through the furor. The case was dismissed, with a directed verdict in favor of the plaintiff. Mr. Roger Hennesseywhom the Court found to be undeniably human-was entitled to his janitorial fees plus interest plus additional compensation.

Feingold and Charney appealed.

The case had a more elaborate debate at the appellate level, with expert witnesses called in to discuss definitions of humanity. The issue was approached from every angle-scientific, theological, semantic, philosophic.

The verdict in favor of Hennessey was affirmed.

Feingold and Charney appealed again.

They fought the matter skillfully and tenaciously, losing at every step but always in such a way that the issue widened steadily, from a simple Shall Hennessey's bill be paid? to, ultimately, What is a human being? At each level they forced the decision to be as broad as possible.

It took years, and millions of dollars. Eventually the case reached the jurisdiction of the World Court.

Which affirmed the original Hennessey ruling and upheld all the accreted rulings having to do with the valid human status of individuals in whom robotic prostheses had been installed. It is the brain, the World Court declared, that is the highest determinant of humanity. The use of auxiliary devices to sustain the life of the brain can in no way invalidate the fundamental and inalienable humanity of that brain. It is unacceptable, the Court said, to argue that the presence of robotic prostheses within a human being's body gives that person the status of a robot.

When the final decision was handed down, Simon DeLong held what amounted to a victory celebration over the definitive legal defeat. Andrew was, of course, present in the company offices for the great occasion.

"Well, Andrew, we can feel completely satisfied. We've accomplished the two things we set out to do. First of all, we have managed to establish the legal point that no number of prosthetic artifacts 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 and loose interpretation of who is human-since there isn't a human being in existence, on this world or any other, who doesn't expect to enjoy a greatly extended life-span as a result of the availability of a wide array of prosthetic devices."

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

DeLong looked a little uneasy.

"Perhaps. Perhaps not."

"Is that the best you can offer, after all these years of legal struggle?"

DeLong said, "I wish that I could be as optimistic as you'd like me to be. But the real battle isn't won yet. There remains the one organ which the World Court has used as the criterion of humanity."

"The mind."

"The brain, Andrew. That's what the Court singled out, not the mind. The mind is an abstract concept; the brain is a bodily organ. And human beings have organic cellular brains whereas 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. I know what you're thinking. But I've been assured that we lack the knowledge to duplicate the functions of a cellular brain in an artificial structure that would be close enough to the organic type to allow it to fall within the Court decision. Not even you could do it."

"What should we do, then?"

"Make the attempt, of course. Congresswoman Chee will be on our side and so will a growing number of other Legislators. The World Coordinator will undoubtedly go along with whatever a majority of the Legislature decides."

"Do we have a majority?"

"No," DeLong said. "Far from it. But we might manage to put one together if the public will allow its desire for a broad interpretation of humanity to extend to you. A small chance, I admit. But you are, after all, the man who gave them the prosthetics on which their lives now depend."

Andrew smiled. "The man, is that what you said?"

"That's what I said, yes. Isn't that what we've been fighting for, Andrew?"

"Of course."

"Then we might as well begin thinking that way here. And carry our thinking onward and outward to the rest of the world until everyone else agrees. It won't be easy, Andrew. None of this has been, and there's no reason to think it will get any better. The odds are very much against us, I warn you. But unless you want to give up, we have to take the gamble."

"I don't want to give up," Andrew said.

CONGRESSWOMAN CHEE LI-HSING was considerably older now than she had been when Andrew first met her. No longer did she indulge in the coquettishness of shimmering transparent garments. She was dressed in somewhat more chaste tubular coverings, now. Her once lustrous black hair was streaked with gray, and she wore it cut much shorter.

Andrew, though, had of course not changed at all. His face was as unlined as ever; his soft, fine hair was still brown. And he clung, as closely as he could within the limits of reasonable taste, to the loose style of clothing that had prevailed when he first adopted clothing over a century before.

It was late in the year. The harsh chill winds of winter were blowing through the ancient canyons of New York and faint wisps of snow were swirling through the air above the giant gleaming tower that housed the World Legislature. The Legislature's wordy struggles were over for the season.

But for Andrew the struggle never seemed to reach its end. The debate had gone on and on-the angry, baffled Legislators had tried to take all possible sides of the issue-the voting public, unable to come to any clear philosophical position, had fallen back on emotion, on primordial fear, on the deepest-rooted of uncertainties and prejudices

Congresswoman Chee had withdrawn her bill, had modified it substantially to take into account the stubborn opposition that it had run into. But she had not yet offered it again to the Legislature.

"What do you think?" Andrew asked. "Will you introduce the revised bill in the new session or not?"

"What do you want me to do?"

"You know what I want you to do."

Li-hsing nodded, a little wearily. "I told you once, Andrew, that your cause was not really my cause, and that I might have to abandon it if I felt my career was at stake. Well, my career is at stake. And I still haven't abandoned you."

"And do you still feel that my cause isn't your cause?"

"No. It has become my cause. I have no doubt that you are human, Andrew-perhaps made so by your own hand, but human all the same. And I understand that to deny the humanity of a single member of our kind is to raise the renewed possibility of denying humanity to whole multitudes, as was done all too often in our ugly past. We must never permit that to happen again. But even so-even so, Andrew-"

She faltered for a moment.

"Go on," Andrew said. "Now comes the point where you tell me that you have to abandon me despite everything, isn't that right, Li-hsing?"

"I didn't say that. But we have to be realistic. I think we've gone as far as we can go."

"So you won't introduce the revised bill."

"I didn't say that, either. I intend to give it one more try after recess. But to be honest, Andrew, we can't win. Look at the numbers." She touched a button and a screen came to life on the wall of her office. "The group on the left side of the chart, the section in green-those are the members who are unalterably opposed to any kind of loosening of the definitions. That's just about 40% of the Legislature: immovable, permanently committed to opposing you. The segment marked in red: there are your supporters. 28%. The rest are the undecided ones."

"In two different colors? Why is that?"

"Yellow is the group that's undecided but leaning in your direction. That's a 12.5% slice. Blue is undecided against you. That's 19.5%."

"I see."

"In order to get a majority, we need to keep every single one of the undecideds in the yellow slice of the chart, and win over more than half of those who are still on the fence but currently thinking of voting against you. Plus, of course, retaining the solid support of your basic 28% group. Even if we can manage to win over a few of your diehard opponents, I don't think we can put together the vote, Andrew."

Andrew said, "Then why bother even bringing the bill up for debate?"

"Because I owe you that much. As you can see, it isn't going to work, and I'm afraid this is going to be my last try. Not because I'm walking away from the fight-not at all-but because I'm not going to be in a position any longer where I can stay in it. Everything that I've been doing on your behalf is going to be wrapped around my neck at the next election and it's going to pull me down to defeat. I have no doubt of that. I'm going to lose my seat."

"I know," said Andrew, "and it distresses me. For your sake, not for mine. You saw it coming long ago, didn't you, Li-hsing? And yet you stayed with me. Why? Why, after telling me at the start that you'd drop me if you found that I was endangering your career? Why didn't you?"

"One can change one's mind, you know. Somehow, Andrew, abandoning you involved paying a higher price than I was willing to pay for the sake of winning just one more term. As it is, I've been in the Legislature for over a quarter of a century. That's long enough, I think."

"But if your mind could change, why not the minds of the others?"

"We've changed all that are amenable to reason. The rest-and it's a majority of them, I'm sorry to say-simply can't be moved. It's a matter of deep-rooted emotional antipathy."

"Theirs, or the people who voted for them?"

"Some of each. Even those members of the Legislature who are more or less rational themselves tend now and then to assume that their constituents aren't. But I'm afraid that plenty of them have powerful antipathies of their own, when it comes to anything robotic."

"And is relying on emotional antipathy a valid way for a Legislator to decide how to vote?"

"Oh, Andrew-"

"Yes. How terribly naive of me to say a thing like that."

"Naive isn't the right word. But you know that they'd never admit they were voting their emotions. They'd offer this or that carefully reasoned-out explanation for their decision-something about the economy, or an analogy from Roman history, or some antiquated religious argument-anything but the truth. But what does it matter? It's how they'll vote that counts, not why they do it."

"It all comes down to the question of the structure of the brain, then-isn't that so?"

"That's the problem, yes."

Andrew said cautiously, "I don't see why that should be such a sticking point for them. What a brain is made of isn't the essential thing: it's how the brain functions. Its thought patterns, its reaction time, its ability to reason and to generalize from experience. Why does the whole issue have to be drawn down to the level of organic cells versus positrons? Is there no way of pushing through a functional definition?"

"Functional?"

"My brain does everything that an officially legal human brain can do -does it better, in many ways, faster, more directly, more logically. Perhaps that's what bothers them. Well, it's too late for me to start hiding my intelligence, if that's the problem. But must we go on insisting that a human brain has to be made of some officially approved cellular substance in order to be legally human? Can't we simply stipulate that a human brain is something-anything, organic or not-that is capable of attaining a certain complex level of thought?"

"It won't work," said Li-hsing.

"Because if we defined humanity by brain function alone, too many humans would fall below the stipulated level of intellectual ability?" Andrew asked bitterly. "Is that it?"

"Andrew, Andrew, Andrew! Listen to me: there are those who are determined to keep a barrier up between themselves and robots at any cost. For the sake of their own self-esteem, if nothing else, they want to believe that they belong to the only true and lawful human race and that robots are some sort of inferior creatures. You've spent the past hundred years beating those people back, and you've won your way through to a status that would have been utterly inconceivable in the early years of robotics. But now they've got you on an issue where you can't win. You've put yourself inside a body that for all intents and purposes is close enough to being human as makes no real difference. You eat, you breathe, you sweat. You go to fine restaurants and order splendid meals and drink the best wines, I've noticed, though I can't imagine what value that can have for you other than for appearance's sake."

"That is value enough for me," said Andrew.

"All right. Plenty of humans probably can't appreciate the expensive wines they drink either, but they drink them all the same, and for the same reason you do. Your organs are all artificial, but by now so are many of theirs. Quite possibly there are people out there living in bodies that are virtually identical to yours, wholesale artificial replacements for the ones they were born with. But they aren't complete replacements, Andrew. Nobody has a prosthetic brain. No one can. And so you differ from everyone else in one fundamental respect. Your brain is man-made, the human brain is not. Your brain was constructed, theirs was naturally developed. They were born, you were assembled. To any human being who is intent on keeping up the barrier between himself and robots, those differences are like a steel wall five kilometers high and five kilometers thick."

"You aren't telling me anything I don't know. My brain is different in composition from theirs, certainly. But not in its function, not really. Quantitatively different, maybe, but not qualitatively. It's just a brain-a very good brain. They're merely using the positronic-vs. cellular issue as a pretext to keep from admitting that what I am is a human being of a kind somewhat different from them. -No, Li-hsing, if we could somehow get at their antipathy toward me because of my robotic origins-the very source of all their hostility-this mysterious need they have to proclaim themselves superior to someone who is by every reasonable definition superior to them-"

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

"You know that there's very little left of the robot in me by this time."

"But there's some."

"Some, yes. And if I were to get rid of that-"

Chee Li-hsing shot him a look of alarm. "What are you saying, Andrew?"

"I don't know," he said. "But I have an idea. The problem is, Li-hsing, that I have human feelings trapped within a robot mind. But that doesn't make me human, only an unhappy robot. Even after all that has been done to improve my robot body, I'm still not human. But there's one more step that can be taken. If I could bring myself-if I could only bring myself-"