with the symbology of their minds, for it was so twisted and so interlocked
and so utterly confusing that it was hard at first to read. But he finally
got it figured out and there were times he wished he hadn’t.
The ship stopped at many ports and Richard Daniel took charge of the
loading and unloading, and he saw the planets, but was unimpressed. One was
a nightmare of fiendish cold, with the very atmosphere turned to drifting
snow. Another was a dripping, noisome jungle world, and still another was a
bare expanse of broken, tumbled rock without a trace of life beyond the crew
of humans and their robots who manned the huddled station in this howling
wilderness.
It was after this planet that Jenks, the cook, went screaming to his
bunk, twisted up with pain – the victim of a suddenly inflammed vermiform
appendix.
Dr. Wells came tottering in to look at him, with a half-filled bottle
sagging the pocket of his jacket. And later stood before the captain,
holding out two hands that trembled, and with terror in his eyes.
“But I cannot operate,” he blubbered. “I cannot take the chance. I
would kill the man!”
He did not need to operate. Jenks suddenly improved. The pain went away
and he got up from his bunk and went back to the galley and Dr. Wells sat
huddled in his chair, bottle gripped between his hands, crying like a baby.
Down in the cargo hold, Richard Daniel sat likewise huddled and aghast
that he had dared to do it – not that he had been able to, but that he had
dared, that he, a robot, should have taken on himself an act of
interference, however merciful, with the body of a human.
Actually, the performance had not been too difficult. It was, in a
certain way, no more difficult than the repairing of an engine or the
untangling of a faulty circuit. No more difficult – just a little different.
And he wondered what he’d done and how he’d’ gone about it, for he did not
know. He held the technique in his mind, of that there was ample
demonstration, but he could in no way isolate or pinpoint the pure mechanics
of it. It was like an instinct, he thought – unexplainable, but entirely
workable.
But a robot had no instinct. In that much he was different from the
human and the other animals. Might not, he asked himself, this strange
ability of his be a sort of compensating factor given to the robot for his
very lack of instinct? Might that be why the human race had failed in its
search for paranormal powers? Might the instincts of the body be at certain
odds with the instincts of the mind?
For he had the feeling that this ability of his was just a mere
beginning, that it was the first emergence of a vast body of abilities which
some day would be rounded out by robots. And what would that spell, he
wondered, in that distant day when the robots held and used the full body of
that knowledge? An adjunct to the glory of the human race, or equals of the
human race, or superior to the human race – or, perhaps, a race apart?
And what was his role, he wondered. Was it meant that he should go out
as a missionary, a messiah, to carry to robots throughout the universe the
message that he held? There must be some reason for his having learned this
truth. It could not be meant that he would hold it as a personal belonging,
as an asset all his own.
He got up from where he sat and moved slowly back to the ship’s forward
area, which now gleamed spotlessly from the work he’d done on it, and he
felt a certain pride.
He wondered why he had felt that it might be wrong, blasphemous,
somehow, to announce his abilities to the world? Why had he not told those
here in the ship that it had been he who had healed the cook, or mentioned
the many other little things he’d done to maintain the ship in perfect
running order?
Was it because he did not need respect, as a human did so urgently? Did
glory have no basic meaning for a robot? Or was it because he held the
humans in this ship in such utter contempt that their respect had no value
to him?
“And this contempt – was it because these men were meaner than other
humans he had known, or was it because he now was greater than any human
being? Would he ever again be able to look on any human as he had looked
upon the Barringtons?
He had a feeling that if this were true, he would be the poorer for it.
Too suddenly, the whole universe was home and he was alone in it and as yet
he’d struck no bargain with it or himself.
The bargain would come later. He need only bide his time and work out
his plans and his would be a name that would be spoken when his brain was
scaling flakes of rust. For he was the emancipator, the messiah of the
robots; he was the one who had been called to lead them from the wilderness.
“You!” a voice cried.
Richard Daniel wheeled around and saw it was the captain.
“What do you mean, walking past me as if you didn’t see me?” asked the
captain fiercely.
“I am sorry,” Richard Daniel told him.
“You snubbed me!” raged the captain.
“I was thinking,” Richard Daniel said.
“I’ll give you something to think about,” the captain yelled. “I’ll
work you till your tail drags. I’ll teach the likes of you to get uppity
with me!”
“As you wish,” said Richard Daniel.
For it didn’t matter. It made no difference to him at all what the
captain did or thought. And he wondered why the respect even of a robot
should mean so much to a human like the captain, why he should guard his
small position with so much zealousness.
“In another twenty hours,” the captain said, “we hit another port.”
“I know,” said Richard Daniel. “Sleepy Hollow on Arcadia.” “All right,
then,” said the captain, “since you know so much, get down into the hold and
get the cargo ready to unload. We been spending too much time in all these
lousy ports loading and unloading. You been dogging it.”
“Yes, sir,” said Richard Daniel, turning back and heading for the hold.
He wondered faintly if he were still robot – or was he something else?
Could a machine evolve, he wondered, as Man himself evolved? And if a
machine evolved, whatever would it be? Not Man, of course, for it never
could be that, but could it be machine?
He hauled out the cargo consigned to Sleepy Hollow and there was not
too much of it. So little of it, perhaps, that none of the regular carriers
would even consider its delivery, but dumped it off at the nearest terminal,
leaving it for a roving tramp, like the Rambler, to carry eventually to its
destination.
When they reached Arcadia, he waited until the thunder died and the
ship was still. Then he shoved the lever that opened up the port and slid
out the ramp.
The port came open ponderously and he saw blue skies and the green of
trees and the far-off swirl of chimney smoke mounting in the sky.
He walked slowly forward until he stood upon the ramp and there lay
Sleepy Hollow, a tiny, huddled village planted at the river’s edge, with the
forest as a background. The forest ran on every side to a horizon of
climbing folded hills. Fields lay near the village, yellow with maturing
crops, and he could see a dog sleeping in the sun outside a cabin door.
A man was climbing up the ramp toward him and there were others running
from the village.
“You have cargo for us?” asked the man.
“A small consignment,” Richard Daniel told him. “You have something to
put on?’
The man had a weatherbeaten look and he’d missed several haircuts and
he had not shaved for days. His clothes were rough and sweat-stained and his
hands were strong and awkward with hard work.
“A small shipment,” said the man. “You’ll have to wait until we bring
it up. We had no warning you were coming. Our radio is broken.”
“You go and get it,” said Richard Daniel. “I’ll start unloading.”
He had the cargo half unloaded when the captain came storming down into
the hold. What was going on, he yelled. How long would they have to wait?
“God knows we’re losing money as it is even stopping at this place.”
“That may be true,” Richard Daniel agreed, “but you knew that when you
took the cargo on. There’ll be other cargoes and goodwill is something -“