Robot Visions by Isaac Asimov

Author:Isaac Asimov
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
Tags: Robots, Robots - Fiction, General, Science fiction, American, Fiction, Short stories
Publisher: Penguin Books
Published: 1990-04-03T05:00:00+00:00

The Bicentennial Man

1.

Andrew Martin said, “Thank you,” and took the seat offered him. He didn’t look driven to the last resort, but he had been.

He didn’t, actually, look anything, for there was a smooth blankness, to his face, except for the sadness one imagined one saw in his eyes. His hair was smooth, light brown, rather fine; and he had no facial hair. He looked freshly and cleanly shaved. His clothes were distinctly old-fashioned, but neat, and predominantly a velvety red-purple in color.

Facing him from behind the desk was the surgeon. The nameplate on the desk included a fully identifying series of letters and numbers which Andrew didn’t bother with. To call him Doctor would be quite enough.

“When can the operation be carried through, Doctor?” he asked.

Softly, with that certain inalienable note of respect that a robot always used to a human being, the surgeon said, “I am not certain, sir, that I understand how or upon whom such an operation could be performed.”

There might have been a look of respectful intransigence on the surgeon’s face, if a robot of his sort, in lightly bronzed stainless steel, could have such an expression— or any expression.

Andrew Martin studied the robot’s right hand, his cutting hand, as it lay motionless on the desk. The fingers were long and were shaped into artistically metallic, looping curves so graceful and appropriate that one could imagine a scalpel fitting them and becoming, temporarily, one piece with them. There would be no hesitation in his work, no stumbling, no quivering, no mistakes. That confidence came with specialization, of course, a specialization so fiercely desired by humanity that few robots were, any longer, independently brained. A surgeon, of course, would have to be. But this one, though brained, was so limited in his capacity that he did not recognize Andrew, had probably never heard of him.

“Have you ever thought you would like to be a man?” Andrew asked.

The surgeon hesitated a moment, as though the question fitted nowhere in his allotted positronic pathways. “But I am a robot, sir.”

“Would it be better to be a man?”

“If would be better, sir, to be a better surgeon. I could not be so if I were a man, but only if I were a more advanced robot. I would be pleased to be a more advanced robot.”

“It does not offend you that I can order you about? That I can make you stand up, sit down, move right or left, by merely telling you to do so?”

“It is my pleasure to please you, sir. If your orders were to interfere with my functioning with respect to you or to any other human being, I would not obey you. The First Law, concerning my duty to human safety, would take precedence over the Second Law relating to obedience. Otherwise, obedience is my pleasure. Now, upon whom am I to perform this operation?”

“Upon me,” Andrew said.

“But that is impossible. It is patently a damaging operation.”

“That does not matter,” said Andrew, calmly. “I must not inflict damage,” said the surgeon.

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