17
It was prosthetology that finally took Andrew off the Earth.
In the decades that followed the celebration of his sesquicentennial, the Moon had come to be a world more Earthlike than Earth in every respect but its gravitational pull; and in its underground cities there was a fairly dense population. Prosthetized devices there had to take the lesser gravity into account. Andrew spent five years on the Moon working with local prosthetologists to make the necessary adaptations. When not at his work, he wandered among the robot population, every one of which treated him with the robotic obsequiousness due a man.
He came back to an Earth that was humdrum and quiet in comparison, and visited the offices of Feingold and Martin to announce his return.
The current head of the firm, Simon DeLong, was surprised. “We had been told you were returning, Andrew”-he had almost said Mr. Martin-“but we were not expecting you till next week.”
“I grew impatient,” said Andrew briskly. He was anxious to get to the point. “On the Moon, Simon, I was in charge of a research team of twenty human scientists. I gave orders that no one questioned. The Lunar robots deferred to me as they would to a human being. Why, then, am I not a human being?”
A wary look entered DeLong’s eyes. “My dear Andrew, as you have just explained, you are treated as a human being by both robots and human beings. You are, therefore, a human being de facto.”
“To be a human being de facto is not enough. I want not only to be treated as one, but to be legally identified as one. I want to be a human being de jure.”
“Now, that is another matter,” DeLong said. “There
we would run into human prejudice and into the undoubted fact that, however much you may be like a human being, you are not a human being.”
“In what way not?” Andrew asked. “I have the shape of a human being and organs equivalent to those of a human being. My organs, in fact, are identical to some of those in a prosthetized human being. I have contributed artistically, literally, and scientifically to human culture as much as any human being now alive. What more can one ask?”
“I myself would ask nothing more. The trouble is that it would take an act of the World Legislature to define you as a human being. Frankly, I wouldn’t expect that to happen.”
“To whom on the Legislature could I speak?”
“To the Chairman of the Science and Technology Committee, perhaps.”
“Can you arrange a meeting?”
“But you scarcely need an intermediary. In your position, you can-”
“No. You arrange it.” It didn’t even occur to Andrew that he was giving a fiat order to a human being. He had grown so accustomed to that on the Moon. “I want him to know that the firm of Feingold and Martin is backing me in this to the hilt.”
“Well, now-”
“To the hilt, Simon. In one hundred and seventy-three years I have in one fashion or another contributed greatly to this firm. I have been under obligation to individual members of the firm in times past. I am not, now. It is rather the other way around now and I am calling in my debts.”
“I will-do what I can,” DeLong said.
18
The Chairman of the Science and Technology Committee was from the East Asian region and was a woman. Her name was Chee Li-hsing and her transparent garments-obscuring what she wanted obscured only by their dazzle-made her look plastic-wrapped. “I sympathize with your wish for full human rights,” she said. “There have been times in history when segments of the human population fought for full human rights. What rights, however, can you possibly want that you do not have?”
“As simple a thing as my right to life,” Andrew stated. “A robot can be dismantled at any time.”
“A human being can be executed at any time.”
“Execution can only follow due process of law. There is no trial needed for my dismantling. Only the word of a human being in authority is needed to end me. Besides . . . besides . . .” Andrew tried desperately to allow no sign of pleading, but his carefully designed tricks of human expression and tone of voice betrayed him here. “The truth is I want to be a man. I have wanted it through six generations of human beings.”