Young Star Travelers by Isaac Asimov

Author:Isaac Asimov
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-11-15T16:00:00+00:00

A Start in Life

by Arthur Sellings

Like Adam and Eve, these children tasted the apple of knowledge, and life was never quite the same.

* * *

“C-A-T spells Cat,” said Em.

“But what is a cat?” said Paul.

“Why, here’s a cat. Look at his big striped tail.”

But Paul only pushed the book away petulantly. “I want a cat. A real cat I can pull the tail of.”

“Cats aren’t made for you to pull their tails,” said Em. “Now, C-A-T spells—”

“Cat, cat, CAT!” he wailed, kicking his little heels on the floor.

Em hesitated, then returned to her task. “Very well. The cat sat on the mat. M-A-T, Mat. And here’s a mat.” She held it up. “A real mat.”

Paul sniffed contemptuously and, with a child’s unanswerable logic, said, “How can you say what a cat’s made for and what a cat’s not made for, if we haven’t got a cat?”

If Em had been human, she would have sighed. As it was, she wondered whether the child’s question was good or bad. It was good because it showed power of reasoning; bad because it might get in the way of his studies. Helen now was different. She just listened and repeated the words, but Em was never sure whether she really understood.

“Why can't I have a real cat, Em?” said Paul. “In the book, the boy’s got a cat. Why can’t I have a cat, a real alive cat, not one in a book? An alive cat, same as we’re alive.”

In the web of Em’s mind floated several thoughts. One was that she wasn’t really alive—not really. And that brought the feeling of something a human would have called pain. It wasn’t pain, though, but something worse, because a robot couldn’t feel pain. Another was that it was bad enough as it was, having to teach them from books showing children in circumstances that they themselves knew nothing of; having to avoid their questions, putting them off and off—

“In the story Jay was reading me the other bedtime, they buyed a cat in a shop. Why can’t we buy a cat in a shop!” He screwed up his face and added in a plaintive little voice, “And how do you buy?"

Really, thought Em, she would have to have a word with Jay and suggest that he be more careful about what he read to them. He was too good-natured, too easy-going.

“How do you buy*!” Paul said again, tugging at her metal knee-joint.

“Well, it’s giving something for something else. Like ...” She floundered. It did involve giving something for something else. She’d heard the grown-ups mention it—in the days when there had been grownups. They had joked about it the way humans did joke, because here buying and—what was it?—selling had no meaning.

“It isn’t important,” she said.

“What’s important?”

“That you learn your lessons.”

“No, I mean what does important mean?”

“If you learn your lessons, you’ll learn what important means.” As she said it she realized it couldn’t be very convincing, especially to a six-year-old. So she added hastily,

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