Roberts said, “What do you say I take the next turn at this?”
“Anything so I don’t have to watch any more of it. What are you going to try?”
Hammell said uneasily, “I know the last one didn’t turn out, but I’ve got another idea.”
Morrissey smiled. “Sure.”
Hammell thrust out his chin.
Roberts said, “Try it. If we’re going to get out of here, we’ve got to get some kind of improvement started. Just watch it.”
“I’ll watch it,” said Hammell grimly. “You go ahead.”
Morrissey said, “It’s all yours. I’m going on vacation, starting now.”
“Bring your knife with you,” said Roberts. “I hope it’s sharp.”
* * *
Roberts and Morrissey had been wrestling with the local variety of antelope for the better part of two hours, when a stream of incredible profanity burst out on them from the other section of the ship. They sprinted for the air lock.
” . . . Miserable, brainless, incorrigible cretins,” Hammell was snarling. He glanced around at Roberts. “Look at this. I set up ‘desire to work.'”
Standing out from the screen, in realistic three-dimensional solidity, was a small crowd with hammers, pipes, and crowbars. As they moved back, it was possible to see that they were crowded around a half-disassembled police robot. Proudly, they took out gears, shafts, and small electric motors, and divided them up amongst themselves.
” . . . sort of activity,” the communicator was saying, “will not be tolerated, nor will further removal of paving blocks, doors and window frames, or lengths of gas or water line. Your law-enforcement agency orders you to cease and desist from further demolition, remodeling, and private unauthorized construction. Strict penalties will be imposed . . .”
“That does it,” said Hammell.
“Well,” said Roberts, “we’ve only started—”
“O.K., you try it.” Hammell went out the air lock. Morrissey lost no time following him.
* * *
Roberts found himself alone, eyeing first the want-generator, and then the sight of a weird structure, built of torn-up paving blocks, that was rising in the middle of a street, blocking the two center lanes.
“Whew,” said Roberts. He went out into the control room, sat down in the control seat, tilted it back, and just let his mind drift. A few ideas came into his field of consciousness. How about ‘desire to do right’? But that depended on what anyone thought was right. How about ‘desire for progress’? Roberts didn’t think he and Morrissey and Hammell had hit on that setting yet, but even if they did, what would that produce? Whose idea of progress? How about ‘desire for religion’? His mind presented him with a picture of devotees hurling babies into the flaming idol.
Roberts groaned, lost the thread of his thoughts, fell into a kind of stupefied daze, and emerged thinking, “Obviously, one man can’t figure this out. It will take everyone to do it.”
He woke up abruptly to ask himself what this meant.
Then suddenly he sat up. He swung his legs over the edge of the tilted control seat, and balanced there, hanging tight to the idea.
Everyone has got to do it.
Do what?
Figure it out.
How can that be?
Everyone will have to want to think.
Without wanting to, they won’t do it, and every other desire will lead to a mess.
Roberts got up, frowning, and walked out to look at the list tacked by the want-generator. Halfway down was the notation: “Desire to meditate, consider, think things through.”
From the other part of the ship, he could hear heavy breathing as Hammell and Morrissey wrestled with the tough hide.
Roberts looked at the notation again, then studied the linked want-generators. Carefully, he disconnected one from the others, adjusted it to the proper setting, and turned it on, using low power.
At once, he had a strong insistent desire to think things over. What did life mean? Did what he was doing make sense? How—
Roberts carefully cut the power further.
“Hey,” came Morrissey’s voice. “What are we using knives for?”
“Agh!” said Hammell. “How could we be so stupid? What we need for this beast are hatchets. Wait a minute.”
There were rapid footsteps, then a moment later, there was a whack and a grunt. “Ah, that’s better. Now we’ve got a chance.”
Roberts connected the want-generator back into the larger circuit, and considered it carefully.
What was the chief difference between men, anyway, except that some men thought more and deeper than others, and put the thoughts into action?
Carefully, Roberts adjusted the want-generator.
One hand on the switch, he asked himself, “Is ‘desire to think’ the cure-all? Anyway, it’s one of the ingredients, and probably the one that’s missing. They’ve got plenty of experience. But is it all such one-sided experience that they’ll end up with the wrong conclusions? Then what?”
Exasperated, Roberts paused to set the power lower yet, and threw the switch.
Then he went out into the air lock, and called Morrissey.
Morrissey came over, entered the hatch, and followed Roberts through the air lock, to hastily glance at the 3-V. Nothing was visible save a few people wandering around with looks of vague disquiet, as if they had just remembered that they wanted to do something, but what was it?
Morrissey looked at the want-generator to see if it was on, blinked in surprise, and studied the setting.
” ‘Desire to meditate, consider, think things through.’ Why didn’t I think of that?”
Roberts shook his head. “It won’t work. Count on it. It looked great a minute ago. But it’s not enough.”
“At least, they aren’t tearing the place to pieces.”
“No, but we’ve got to work in some other wants and desires, or they aren’t going to accomplish anything, either. Let’s let ‘desire to think’ run for a while, then very carefully we can switch to another signal, maybe ‘desire to improve,’ and see what happens. If some kind of mess starts up, we can go back to ‘desire to think’ again.”
Morrissey began to look excited. “That might work, at that.”
“O.K., let’s give them a vacation for a few hours, then start hitting them with ‘desire for sleep.’ They’ll be in better shape to think straight tomorrow if they get plenty of sleep tonight.”
“Good idea. Swell, we’ll do that.”
* * *
That night, the roboid police patrolled in vain. Not one crime was committed, anywhere in the city. All the humans were asleep.
The next morning, around 6:15, the people of the city began to wake up. Everything went along normally until around 9:00 a.m., when an insistent urge to think things over began to seize hold of them. The roboid police were now unemployed till noon, when the inhabitants stopped frowning in thought long enough to eat. Activity picked up to normal until 1:00 in the afternoon, when gradually everyone began feeling a progressively stronger urge to think things over. This went on until 5:00 p.m., when the populace gradually began to lose interest, stretched, and felt a desire for physical exercise. The roboid police, who had wheeled vainly up and down the long empty streets all afternoon, now suddenly got their whole day’s workout in twenty minutes. The populace chose to take their exercise by bombarding the police with bottles, trash, and broken-up chunks of paving. When the furious twenty minutes came to an end, at precisely 5:20, the populace started to lose interest, and drifted back into the buildings, where they thought things over until around six-thirty. Then they began to want something to eat and things came back to comparative normal until around 9:00 p.m. when everyone began to yawn. By 9:30 the human part of the city was asleep.
All that night, the roboid police had nothing to do but travel up and down the empty streets.
“Now,” said Hammell, “this is more like it.”
Morrissey beamed. “We’re starting to get the hang of this thing.”
Roberts, conscious of having originated the idea, modestly said nothing.
The next day went along the same way, until 6:00 p.m., when Roberts shut down operations till 9:00.
“It’s working,” said Hammell. “You can see an improvement in their appearance.”
“That sleep helps,” said Morrissey.
“Not only that, they look thoughtful.”
“What we’re doing ought to really uplift this place,” Morrissey agreed.
Roberts basked, and remained silent.
There was a jarring buzz from the communicator.
Morrissey sat up. “Who might that be?”
“Probably the technicians,” said Hammell.
“Leave the visual transmission off,” said Roberts, sitting up. Morrissey nodded. “How about visual reception?”
“O.K. by me.”
Morrissey snapped on the communicator.
The three-dimensional image of Kelty, assistant-chief of the City’s law-enforcement department sprang into view. Kelty looked exhausted.
“O.K., you win, Roberts.”
Roberts looked blank.
“Roberts,” said Kelty. “Do you hear me?”
“I hear you.”
“I’m throwing in the sponge. You’ll have your repairs as soon as we can get the shop set up.”
“You said that couldn’t be done.”