The Bicentennial Man p2

the first part


The meeting was not easy to arrange, even with Paul's supposedly
weighted name. But it finally came about. When it did, Harley
Smythe-Robertson, who, on his mother's side, was descended from the
original founder of the corporation and who had adopted the hyphenation to
indicate it, looked remarkably unhappy. He was approaching retirement age
and his entire tenure as president had been devoted to the matter of robot
rights. His gray hair was plastered thinly over the top of his scalp; his
face was not made up, and he eyed Andrew with brief hostility from time to
time.

Andrew began the conversation. "Sir, nearly a century ago, I was told by a
Merton Manskyk of this corporation that the mathematics governing the
plotting
of the positronic pathways was far too complicated to permit of any but
approximate solutions and that, therefore, my own capacities were not fully
predictable."

"That was a century ago." Smythe-Robertson hesitated, then said
icily, "Sir. It is true no longer. Our robots are made with precision now
and are trained precisely to their jobs."

"Yes," said Paul, who had come along, as he said, to make sure
that the corporation played fair, "with the result that my receptionist
must be guided at every point once events depart from the conventional,
however slightly."

"You would be much more displeased if it were to improvise,"
Smythe-Robertson said.

"Then you no longer manufacture robots like myself which are
flexible and adaptable."

"No longer."

"The research I have done in connection with my book," said
Andrew, "indicates that I am the oldest robot presently in active
operation."

"The oldest presently," said Smythe-Robertson, "and the oldest
ever. The oldest that will ever be. No robot is useful after the
twenty-fifth year. They are called in and replaced with newer models."

"No robot as presently manufactured is useful after the twentieth
year," said Paul, with a note of sarcasm creeping into his voice. "Andrew
is quite exceptional in this respect."

Andrew, adhering to the path he had marked out for himself,
continued, "As the oldest robot in the world and the most flexible, am I
not unusual enough to merit special treatment from the company?"

"Not at all," Smythe-Robertson said, freezing up. "Your
unusualness is an embarrassment to the company. If you were on lease,
instead of having been an outright sale through some mischance, you would
long since have been replaced."

"But that is exactly the point," said Andrew. "I am .. a free
robot and I own myself. Therefore I come to you and ask you to replace me.
You cannot do this without the owner's consent. Nowadays, that consent is
extorted as a condition of the lease, but in my time this did not happen."

Smythe-Robertson was looking both startled and puzzled, and for a
moment there was silence. Andrew found himself staring at the hologram on
the wall. It was a death mask of Susan Calvin, patron saint of all
roboticists. She had been dead for nearly two centuries now, but as a
result of writing his book Andrew knew her so well he could half persuade
himself that he had met her in life.

Finally Smythe-Robertson asked, "How can I replace you for you? If
I replace you, as robot, how can I donate the new robot to you as owner
since in the very act of replacement you cease to exist" He smiled.

"Not at all difficult," Paul interposed. "The seat of Andrew's
personality is his positronic brain and it is the one part that cannot be
replaced without creating a new robot. The positronic brain, therefore, is
Andrew the owner. Every other part of the robotic body can be replaced
without affecting the robot's personality, and those other parts are the
brain's possessions. Andrew, I should say, wants to supply his brain with
a new robotic body."

"That's right," said Andrew, calmly. He turned to
Smythe=Robertson. "You have manufactured androids, haven't you? Robots
that have the outward appearance of humans, complete to the texture of the
skin?"

"Yes, we have. They worked perfectly well, with their synthetic
fibrous skins and tendons.. There was virtually no metal anywhere except
for the brain, yet they were nearly as tough as metal robots. They were
tougher, weight for weight."

Paul looked interested. "I didn't know that. How many are on the
market?"

"None," said Smythe-Robertson. "They were much more expensive than
metal models and a market survey showed they would not be accepted. They
looked too human."

Andrew was impressed. `But the corporation retains its expertise,
I assume. Since it does, I wish to request that I be replaced by an
organic robot, an android."

Paul looked surprised. "Good Lord!" he said.

Smythe-Robertson stiffened. "Quite impossible!"

"Why is it impossible?" Andrew asked. "I will pay any reasonable
fee, of course."

"We do not manufacture androids."

"You do not choose to manufacture androids," Paul interjected
quickly. "That is not the same as being unable to manufacture them."

"Nevertheless," Smythe-Robertson responded, "the manufacture of
androids is against public policy."

"There is no law against it," said Paul.

"Nevertheless, we do not manufacture them - and we will not." 

Paul cleared his throat. "Mr. Smythe-Robertson," he said, "Andrew
is a free robot who comes under the purview of the law guaranteeing robot
rights. You are aware of this, I take it?"

"Only too well." 

"This robot, as a free robot, chooses to wear clothes This results
in his being frequently humiliated by thoughtless human beings despite the
law against the humiliation of robots. It is difficult to prosecute vague
offenses that don't meet with the general disapproval of those who must
decide on guilt and innocence."

"U.S. Robots understood that from the start. Your father's firm
unfortunately did not."

"My father is dead now, but what I see is that we have here a
clear offense with a clear target."

"What are you talking about?" said Smythe-Robertson.

"My client, Andrew Martin - he has just become my client - is a
free robot who is entitled to ask U.S. Robots and Mechanical Men
Corporation for the rights of replacement, which the corporation supplies
to anyone who owns a robot for more than twenty-five years. In fact, the
corporation insists on such replacement."

Paul was smiling and thoroughly at ease. "The positronic brain of
my client," he went on, "is the owner of the body of my client which is
certainly more than twenty-five years old. The positronic brain demands
the replacement of the body and offers to pay any reason able fee for an
android body as that replacement. If you refuse the request, my client
undergoes humiliation and we will sue." While public opinion would not
ordinarily support the claim of a robot in such a case, may I remind you
that U.S. Robots is not popular with the public generally. Even those who
most use and profit from robots are suspicious of the corporation. This
may be a hangover from the days when robots were widely feared. It may be
resentment against the power and wealth of U.S. Robots, which has a
worldwide monopoly. Whatever the cause may be, the resentment eats. I
think you will find that you would prefer not to be faced with a lawsuit,
particularly since my client is wealthy and will live for many more
centuries and will have no reason to refrain from fighting the battle
forever."

Smythe-Robertson had slowly reddened. "You are trying to force-"

"I force you to do nothing," said Paul. "If you wish to refuse to
accede to my client's reasonable request, you may by all means do so and
we will leave without another word. But we will sue, as is certainly our
right, and you will find that you will eventually lose."

"Well."

"I see that you are going to accede," said Paul. "You may hesitate
but you will come to it in the end. Let me assure you, then, of one
further point: If, in the process of transferring my client's positronic
brain from his present body to an organic one, there is any damage,
however slight, then I will never rest until I've nailed the corporation
to the ground. I will, if necessary, take every possible step to mobilize
public opinion against the corporation if one brain path of my client's
platinum-iridium essence is scrambled."

He turned to Andrew and asked, "Do you agree to all this, Andrew?"

Andrew hesitated a full minute. It amounted to the approval of
lying, of blackmail, of the badgering and humiliation of a human being.
But not physical harm, he told himself, not physical harm.

He managed at last to come out with a rather faint "Yes."

14

He felt as though he were being constructed again. For days, then
for weeks, finally for months, Andrew found himself not himself somehow,
and the simplest actions kept giving rise to hesitation.

Paul was frantic. "They've damaged you, Andrew. We'll have to
institute suit!"

Andrew spoke very slowly. "You . . . mustn't. You'll never be able
to prove . . . something . . . like m-m-m-m-

"Malice?"

"Malice. Besides, I grow . . . stronger, better. It's the
tr-tr-tr-"

"Tremble?" 

"Trauma. After all, there's never been such an opop-op- . . .
before."

Andrew could feel his brain from the inside. No one else could. He
knew he was well, and during the months that it took him to learn full
coordination and full positronic interplay he spent hours before the
mirror. Not quite human! The face was stiff - too stiff and the motions
were too deliberate. They lacked the careless, free flow of the human
being, but perhaps that might come with time. At least now he could wear
clothes without the ridiculous anomaly of a metal face going along with
it.

Eventually, he said, "I will be going back to work."

Paul laughed. "That means you are well. What will you be doing?
Another book?"

"No," said Andrew, seriously. "I live too long for any one career
to seize me by the throat and never let me go. There was a time when I was
primarily an artist, and I can still turn to that. And there was a time
when I was a historian, and I can still turn to that. But now I wish to be
a robobiologist "

"A robopsychologist, you mean."

"No. That would imply the study of positronic brains, and at the
moment I lack the desire to do that. A robobiologist, it seems to me,
would be concerned with the working of the body attached to that brain."

"Wouldn't that be a roboticist?"

"A roboticist works with a metal body. I would be studying an
organic humanoid body, of which I have the only one, as far as I know."

"You narrow your field," said Paul, thoughtfully. "As an artist,
all conception is yours; as a historian you deal chiefly with robots; as a
robobiologist, you will deal with yourself."

Andrew nodded. "It would seem so." Andrew had to start from the
very beginning, for he knew nothing of ordinary biology and almost nothing
of science. He became a familiar sight in the libraries, where he sat at
the electronic indices for hours at a time, looking perfectly normal in
clothes. Those few who knew he was a robot in no way interfered with him.
He built a laboratory in a room which he added to his house; and his
library grew, too.

Years passed, and Paul came to him one day and said, "It's a pity
you're no longer working on the history of robots. I understand U.S.
Robots is adopting a radically new policy."

Paul had aged, and his deteriorating eyes had been replaced with
photoptic cells. In that respect, he had drawn closer to Andrew.

"What have they done?" Andrew asked.

"They are manufacturing central computers, gigantic positronic
brains, really, which communicate with anywhere from a dozen to a thousand
robots by microwave. The robots themselves have no brains at all. They are
the limbs of the gigantic brain, and the two are physically separate."

"Is that more efficient?"

"U.S. Robots claims it is. Smythe-Robertson established the new
direction before he died, however, and it's my notion that it's a backlash
at you. U.S. Robots is determined that they will make no robots that will
give them the type of trouble you have, and for that reason they separate
brain and body. The brain will have no body to wish changed; the body will
have no brain to wish anything."

"It's amazing, Andrew," Paul went on, "the influence you have had
on the history of. robots. It was your artistry that encouraged U.S.
Robots to make robots more precise and specialized; it was your freedom
that resulted in the establishment of the principle of robotic rights; it
was your insistence on an android body that made U.S. Robots switch to
brain-body separation"

Andrew grew thoughtful. "I suppose in the end the corporation will
produce one vast brain controlling several billion robotic bodies. All the
eggs will be in one basket. Dangerous. Not proper at all."

"I think you're right," said Paul, "but I don't suspect it will
come to pass for a century at least and I won't live to see it. In fact, I
may not live to see next year."

"Paul!" cried Andrew, in concern.

Paul shrugged. "Men are mortal, Andrew. We're not like you. It
doesn't matter too much, but it does make it important to assure you on
one point. I'm the last of the human Martins. The money I control
personally will be left to the trust in your name, and as far as anyone
can foresee the future, you will be economically secure."

"Unnecessary," Andrew said, with difficulty. In all this time, he
could not get used to the deaths of the Martins.

"Let's not argue. That's the way it's going to be. Now, what are
you working on?"

"I am designing a system for allowing androids - myself - to gain
energy from the combustion of hydrocarbons, rather than from atomic
cells."

Paul raised his eyebrows. "So that they will breathe and eat?"
"Yes." "How long have you been pushing in that direction?" "For a long
time now, but I think I have finally designed an adequate combustion
chamber for catalyzed controlled breakdown." "Hut why, Andrew? The atomic
cell is surely in finitely better." "In some ways, perhaps. But the atomic
cell is not human." 

15

It took time, but Andrew had time. In the first place, he did not
wish to do anything till Paul had died in peace. With the death of the
great-grandson of Sir, Andrew felt more nearly exposed to a hostile world
and for that reason was all the more determined along the path he had
chosen. Yet he was not really alone. If a man had died, the firm of
Feingold and Martin lived, for a corporation does not die any more than a
robot does. The firm had its directions and it followed them soullessly.
By way of the trust and through the law firm, Andrew continued to be
wealthy. In return for their own large annual retainer, Feingold and
Martin involved themselves in the legal aspects of the new combustion
chamber. But when the time came for Andrew to visit U.S. Robots and
Mechanical Men Corporation, he did it alone. Once he had gone with Sir and
once with Paul. This time, the third time, he was alone and manlike.

U.S. Robots had changed. The actual production plant had been
shifted to a large space station, as had grown to be the case with more
and more industries. With them had gone many robots. The Earth itself was
becoming park like, with its one-billion-person population stabilized and
perhaps not more than thirty percent of its at-least-equally-large robot
population independently brained. The Director of Research was Alvin
Magdescu, dark of complexion and hair, with a little pointed beard and
wearing nothing above the waist but the breast band that fashion dictated.
Andrew himself was well covered in the older fashion of several decades
back.

Magdescu offered his hand to his visitor. "I know you, of course,
and I'm rather pleased to see you. You're our most notorious product and
it's a pity old Smyth Robertson was so set against you. We could have done
a great deal with you."

"You still can," said Andrew.

"No, I don't think so. We're past the time. We've had robots on
Earth for over a century, but that's changing. It will be back to space
with them, and those that stay here won't be brained."

"But there remains myself, and I stay on Earth."

"True, but there doesn't seem to be much of the robot about you.
What new request have you?" 

"To be still less a robot. Since I am so far organic, I wish an
organic source of energy. I have here the plans.."

Magdescu did not hasten through them. He might have intended to at
first, but he stiffened and grew intent. At one point, he said, "This is
remarkably ingenious. Who thought of all this?"

"I did," Andrew replied.

Magdescu looked up at him sharply, then said, "It would amount to
a major overhaul of your body, and an experimental one, since such a thing
has never been attempted before. I advise against it. Remain as you are."

Andrew's face had limited means of expression, but impatience
showed plainly in his voice. "Dr. Magdescu, you miss the entire point: You
have no choice but to accede to my request. If such devices can be built
into my body, they can be built into human bodies as well. The tendency to
lengthen human life by prosthetic devices has already been remarked on.
There are no devices better than the ones I have designed or am de
signing. As it happens, I control the patents by way of the firm of
Feingold and Martin. We are quite capable of going into business for
ourselves and of developing the kind of prosthetic devices that may end by
producing human beings with many of the properties of robots. Your own
business will then suffer."

"If, however, you operate on me now and agree to do so under
similar circumstances in the future, you will receive permission to make
use of the patents and control the technology of both robots and of the
prosthetization of human beings. The initial leasing will not be granted,
of course, until after the first operation is completed successfully, and
after enough time has passed to demonstrate that it is indeed successful."

Andrew felt scarcely any First Law inhibition to the stern
conditions he was setting a human being. He was learning to reason that
what seemed like cruelty might, in the long run, be kindness.

Magdescu was stunned. "I'm not the one to decide something like
this. That's a corporate decision that would take time."

"I can wait a reasonable time," said Andrew, "but only a
reasonable time." And he thought with satisfaction that Paul himself could
not have done it better.

16

It took only a reasonable time, and the operation was a success.

"I was very much against the operation, Andrew," Magdescu said,
"but not for the reasons you might think. I was not in the least against
the experiment, if it had been on someone else. I hated risking your
positronic brain. Now that you have the positronic pathways interacting
with simulated nerve pathways, it might have been difficult to rescue the
brain intact if the body had gone bad" 

"I had every faith in the skill of the staff at U.S. Robots," said
Andrew. "And I can eat now."

"Well, you can sip olive oil. It will mean occasional cleanings of
the combustion chamber, as we have explained to you. Rather an
uncomfortable touch, I should think."

"Perhaps, if I did not expect to go further. Self cleaning is not
impossible. In fact, I am working on a device that will deal with solid
food that may be expected to contain incombustible fractions-indigestible
matter, so to speak, that will have to be discarded."

"You would then have to develop an anus."

"Or the equivalent."

"What else, Andrew. . . ?"

"Everything else." 

"Genitalia, too?" 

"Insofar as they will fit my plans. My body is a canvas on which I
intend to draw . . ."

Magdescu waited for the sentence to he completed, and when it
seemed that it would not be, he completed it himself. "A man?"

"We shall see," Andrew said.

"That's a puny ambition, Andrew. You're better than a man. You've
gone downhill from the moment you opted to become organic."

"My brain has not suffered."

"No, it hasn't. I'll grant you that. But, Andrew, the whole new
breakthrough in prosthetic devices made possible by your patents is being
marketed under your name. You're recognized as the inventor and you're
being honored for it - as you should be. Why play further games with your
body?"

Andrew did not answer.

The honors came. He accepted membership in several learned
societies, including one that was devoted to the new science he had
established - the one he had called robobiology but which had come to be
termed prosthetology. On the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of his
construction, a testimonial dinner was given in his honor at U.S. Robots.
If Andrew saw an irony in this, he kept it to himself.

Alvin Magdescu came out of retirement to chair the dinner. He was
himself ninety-four years old and was alive because he, too, had
prosthetized devices that, among other things, fulfilled the function of
liver and, kidneys. The dinner reached its climax when Magdescu, after a
short and emotional talk, raised his glass to . toast The Sesquicentennial
Robot. Andrew had had the sinews of his face redesigned to the point where
he could show a human range of emotions, but he sat through all the
ceremonies solemnly passive. He did not like to be a Sesquicentennial
Robot.

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 flat 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."

Li-hsing looked up at him out of darkly sympathetic eyes. "The
Legislature can pass a law declaring you one. They could pass a law
declaring that a stone statue be defined as a man. Whether they will
actually do so is, however, as likely in the first case as the second.
Congress people are as human as the rest of the population and there is
always that element of suspicion against robots."

"Even now?"

"Even now. We would all allow the fact that you have earned the
prize of humanity, and yet there would remain the fear of setting an
undesirable precedent."

"What precedent? I am the only free robot, the only one of my
type, and there will never be another. You may consult U.S. Robots."

"`Never' is a long word, Andrew - or, if you prefer, Mr. Martin -
since I will gladly give you my personal accolade as man. You will find
that most congress people will not be so willing to set the precedent, no
matter how meaningless such a precedent might be. Mr. Martin, you have my
sympathy, but I cannot tell you to hope. Indeed . . ."

She sat back and her forehead wrinkled. "Indeed, if the issue
grows too heated, there might well arise a certain sentiment, both inside
the Legislature and out side, for that dismantling you mentioned. Doing
away with you could turn out to be the easiest way of resolving the
dilemma. Consider that before deciding to push matters."

Andrew stood firm. "Will no one remember the technique of prosthetology,
something that is almost entirely mine?"

"It may seem cruel, but they won't. Or if they do, it will be
remembered against you. People will say you did it only for yourself. It
will be said it was part of a campaign to roboticize human beings, or to
humanify robots; and in either case evil and vicious. You have never been
part of a political hate campaign, Mr. Martin; but I tell you that you
would be the object of vilification of a kind neither you nor I would
credit, and there would be people to believe it all. Mr. Martin, let your
life be."

She rose, and next to Andrew's seated figure she seemed small and
almost childlike. "If I decide to fight for my humanity, will you be on my
side?" She thought, then replied, "I will be - insofar as I can be. If at
any time such a stand would appear to threaten my political future, I
might have to abandon you, since it is not an issue I feel to be at the
very root of my beliefs. I am trying to be honest with you."

"Thank you, and I will ask no more. I intend to fight this
through, whatever the consequences, and I will ask you for your help only
for as long as you can give it."

19

It was not a direct fight. Feingold and Martin counseled patience
and Andrew muttered, grimly, that he had an endless supply of that.
Feingold and Martin then entered on a campaign to narrow and restrict the
area of combat. They instituted a lawsuit denying the obligation to pay
debts to an individual with a prosthetic heart on the grounds that the
possession of a robotic organ removed humanity, and with it the
constitutional rights of human beings. They fought the matter skillfully
and tenaciously, losing at every step but always in such a way that the
decision was forced to be as broad as possible, and then carrying it by
way of appeals to the World Court.

It took years, and millions of dollars. When the final decision
was handed down, DeLong held what amounted to a victory celebration over
the legal loss. Andrew was, of course, present in the company offices on
the occasion.

"We've done two things, Andrew," said DeLong, "both of which are
good. First of all, we have established the fact that no number of
artificial parts in the human body causes it to cease being a human body.
Secondly, we have engaged public opinion in the question in such a way as
to put it fiercely on the side of a broad interpretation of humanity,
since there is not a human being in existence who does not hope for
prosthetics if they will keep him alive."

"And do you think the Legislature will now grant me my humanity?"
Andrew asked.

DeLong looked faintly uncomfortable. "As to that, I cannot be
optimistic. There remains the one organ which the World Court has used as
the criterion of humanity. Human beings have an organic cellular brain and
robots have a platinum iridium positronic brain if they have one at
all-and you certainly have a positronic brain. No, Andrew, don't get that
look in your eye. We lack the knowledge to duplicate the work of a
cellular brain in artificial structures close enough to the organic type
as to allow it to fall within the court's decision. Not even you could do
it."

"What should we do, then?"

"Make the attempt, of course. Congresswoman Li-hsing will be on
our side and a growing number of other congress people. The President will
undoubtedly go along with a majority of the Legislature in this matter."

"Do we have a majority?"

"No. Far from it. But we might get one if the public will allow
its desire for a broad interpretation of humanity to extend to you. A
small chance, I admit; but if you do not wish to give up, we must gamble
for it."

"I do not wish to give up."

20

Congresswoman Li-hsing was considerably older than she had been
when Andrew had first met her. Her transparent garments were long gone.
Her hair was now close-cropped and her coverings were tubular. Yet still
Andrew clung, as closely as he could within the limits of reasonable
taste, to the style of clothing that had prevailed when he had first
adopted clothing more than a century before.

"We've gone as far as we can, Andrew," Li-hsing admitted. "We'll
try once more after recess, but, to be honest, defeat is certain and then
the whole thing will have to be given up. All my most recent efforts have
only earned me certain defeat in the coming congressional campaign."

"I know," said Andrew, "and it distressed me. You said once you
would abandon me if it came to that Why have you not done so?"

"One can change one's mind, you know. Somehow, abandoning you
became a higher price than I cared to pay for just one more term. As it
is, I've been in the Legislature , for over a quarter of a century. It's
enough."

"Is there no way we can change minds, Chee?"

"We've changed all that are amenable to reason. The rest - the majority -
cannot be moved from their emotional antipathies."

"Emotional antipathy is not a valid reason for voting one way or
the other."

"I know that, Andrew, but they don't advance emotional antipathy
as their reason."

"It all comes down to the brain, then," Andrew said cautiously.
"But must we leave it at the level of cells versus positrons? Is there no
way of forcing a functional definition? Must we say that a brain is made
of this or that? May we not say that a brain is something - anything -
capable of a certain level of thought?"

"Won't work," said Li-hsing. "Your brain is manmade, the human
brain is not. Your brain is constructed, theirs developed. To any human
being who is intent on keeping up the barrier between himself and a robot,
those differences are a steel wall a mile high and a mile thick."

"If we could get at the source of their antipathy, the very
source-"

"After all your years," Li-hsing said, sadly, "you are still
trying to reason out the human being. Poor Andrew, don't be angry, but
it's the robot in you that drives you in that direction."


"I don't know," said Andrew. "If I could bring myself . . . "

                           [Reprise]

If he could bring himself . . .

He had known for a long time it might come to that, and in the end
he was at the surgeon's. He had found one, skillful enough for the job at
hand-which meant a surgeon-robot, for no human surgeon could be trusted in
this connection, either in ability or in intention. The surgeon could not
have performed the operation on a human being, so Andrew, after putting
off the moment of decision with a sad line of questioning that reflected
the turmoil within himself, had put First Law to one side by saying "I,
too, am a robot."

He then said, as firmly as he had learned to form the words even
at human beings over these past decades, "I order you to carry through the
operation on me."

In the absence of the First Law, an order so firmly given from one
who looked so much like a man activated the Second Law sufficiently to
carry the day.

21

Andrew's feeling of weakness was, he was sure, quite imaginary. He
had recovered from the operation. Nevertheless, he leaned, as
unobtrusively as he could manage, against the wall. It would be entirely
too revealing to sit.

Li-hsing said, "The final vote will come this week, Andrew. I've
been able to delay it no longer, and we must lose. And that will be it,
Andrew."

"I am grateful for your skill at delay. It gave me the time I needed, and I
took
the gamble I had to."

"What gamble is this?" Li-hsing asked with open concern.

"I couldn't tell you, or even the people at Feingold and Martin. I
was sure I would be stopped. See here, if it is the brain that is at
issue, isn't the greatest difference of all the matter of immortality. Who
really cares what a brain looks like or is built of or how it was formed.
What matters is that human brain cells die, must die. Even if every other
organ in the body is maintained or replaced, the brain cells, which cannot
be replaced without changing and therefore killing the personality, must
eventually die.

"My own positronic pathways have lasted nearly two centuries
without perceptible change, and can last for centuries more. Isn't that
the fundamental barrier: human beings can tolerate an immortal robot, for
it doesn't matter how long a machine lasts, but they cannot tolerate an
immortal human being since their own mortality is endurable only so long
as it is universal. And for that reason they won't make me a human being."

"What is it you're leading up to, Andrew?" Li-hsing asked.

"I have removed that problem. Decades ago, my positronic brain was
connected to organic nerves. Now, one last operation has arranged that
connection in such a way that slowly-quite slowly-the potential is being
drained from my pathways."

Li-hsing's finely. wrinkled face showed no expression for a
moment. Then her lips tightened. "Do you mean you've arranged to die,
Andrew? You can't have. That violates the Third Law."

"No,", said Andrew, "I have chosen between the death of my body
and the death of my aspirations and desires. To have let my body live at
the cost of the greater death is what would have violated the Third Law."

Li-hsing seized his arm as though she were about to shake him. She stopped
herself. "Andrew, it won't work! Change it back."

"It can't be done. Too much damage was done. I have a year to live
more or less. I will last through the two-hundredth anniversary of my
construction. I was weak enough to arrange that."

"How can it be worth it? Andrew, you're a fool."

"If it brings me humanity, that will be worth it. If it doesn't,
it will bring an end to striving and that will be worth it, too."

Then Li-hsing did something that astonished herself. Quietly, she
began to weep.

22

It was odd how that last deed caught the imagination of the world.
All that Andrew had done before had not swayed them. But he had finally
accepted even death to be human, and the sacrifice was too great to be
rejected.

The final ceremony was timed, quite deliberately, for the two
hundredth anniversary. The World President was to sign the act and make
the people's will law. The ceremony would be visible on a global network
and would be beamed to the Lunar state and even to the Martian colony.

Andrew was in a wheelchair. He could still walk, but only shakily.
With mankind watching, the World President said, "Fifty years ago, you
were declared The Sesquicentennial Robot, Andrew." After a pause, and in a
more solemn tone, he continued, "Today we declare you The Bicentennial
Man, Mr. Martin." 

And Andrew, smiling, held out his hand to shake that of the
President.

23

Andrew's thoughts were slowly fading as he lay in bed. Desperately
he seized at them. Man! He was a man!

He wanted that to be his last thought. He wanted to dissolve-die
with that.

He opened his eyes one more time and for one last time recognized
Li-hsing, waiting solemnly. Others were there, but they were only shadows,
unrecognizable shadows. Only Li-hsing stood out against the deepening
gray. Slowly, inchingly, he held out his hand to her and very dimly and
faintly felt her take it.

She was fading in his eyes as the last of his thoughts trickled
away. But before she faded completely, one final fugitive thought came to
him and rested for a moment on his mind before everything stopped.

"Little Miss," he whispered, too low to be heard.


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