Andrew recited the Omega codes, which governed the pathways dealing with the ability to process and correlate newly acquired data. That set took quite a while also. Throughout the long recitation Sir looked on in puzzlement. Elliott Smythe seemed scarcely to be listening.
Mansky said, 'He's in perfect working order. Every parameter is exactly as it should be.'
'As I told Mr. Smythe,' Sir began, 'the question isn't one of Andrew's failure to perform. It's that his performance is so far beyond expectation.'
'Beyond your expectation, perhaps,' said Mansky.
Sir swung around as though he had been stung. ' And what is that supposed to mean, may I ask?'
Mansky frowned all the way up to the top of his bare scalp. The heavy lines in his forehead were so pronounced that they might have been carved by Andrew. He had drawn features and deep-set weary eyes and pallid skin, and generally looked unhealthy. Andrew suspected that Mansky might actually be a good deal younger than he seemed.
He said, 'Robotics isn't an exact art, Mr. Martin. I can't explain it to you in detail, or, rather, I could, but it would take a great deal of time and I'm not certain you'd get much benefit from the explanation, but what I mean is that the mathematics governing the plotting of the positronic pathways is far too complicated to permit any but approximate solutions. So robots of Andrew's level of construction often turn out somewhat unexpectedly to have abilities somewhat beyond the basic design specifications. -I want to assure you, though, that simply because Andrew apparently is a master carpenter there's no reason whatever to fear any sort of unpredictable behavior that might jeopardize you or your family. Whatever else is variable about a robot's performance, the Three Laws are utterly incontrovertible and undefeatable. They are intrinsic to the positronic brain. Andrew would cease to function entirely before he committed any violation of the Laws.'
'He's more than simply a master carpenter, Dr. Mansky,' Sir said. 'We're not just talking about some nice tables and chairs here.'
'Yes. Yes, of course. I understand he does little trinkets and knickknacks too.'
Sir smiled, but it was a singularly icy smile. He opened the cabinet where Little Miss kept some of the treasures Andrew had created for her and took something out.
'See for yourself,' he said acidly to Mansky. 'Here's one of his trinkets. One of his knickknacks.'
Sir handed over a little sphere of shining ebony: a playground scene in which the boys and girls were almost too small to make out, yet they were in perfect proportion, and they blended so naturally with the grain that that, too, seemed to have been carved. The figures appeared on the verge of coming to life and moving about. The boys were about to have a fistfight; two girls were intently studying a necklace of almost microscopic size that a third girl was showing them; a teacher stood to one side, stooping a little to answer a question that a very short boy was asking her.
The robopsychologist stared at the tiny carving for an extraordinarily long while without saying anything.
'May I look at it, Dr. Mansky?' Elliott Smythe said.
'Yes. Yes, certainly.'
Mansky's hand trembled a little as he passed the little object across to the U. S. Robots executive.
Now it was Smythe's turn to stare in solemn silence. Andrew, watching him, experienced a new little burst of the sensation that he had come to identify as enjoyment. Plainly these two men were impressed with what he had carved. Indeed they appeared to be so impressed that they were unable to express their appreciation in words.
Mansky said, finally, 'He did that?'
Sir nodded. 'He's never seen a school playground. My daughter Amanda described this scene to him one afternoon when he asked her to tell him what one was like. He spoke with her for about five minutes. Then he went upstairs and made this.'
'Remarkable,' Smythe said. 'Phenomenal.'
'Phenomenal, yes,' said Sir. 'Now do you see why I thought I ought to bring this to your attention? This kind of work goes well beyond the standard hardwired capacity of your NOR series, does it not? I hate to use a clichй, gentlemen, but what we have here is a bit of a genius robot, wouldn't you say? Something that might be considered to verge almost on the human?'
'There is nothing human whatsoever about NDR-113,' said Mansky with a kind of prissy firmness. 'Please don't confuse the issue, Mr. Martin. What we have here is a machine, and you must never forget that A machine with some degree of intelligence, yes, and evidently possessing something simulating creativity as well. But a machine all the same. I've spent my entire career dealing with robot personalities-yes, they do have personalities, after their fashion-and if anyone were to be tempted to believe that robots partake of humanity, it would be me, Mr. Martin. But I don't believe it and neither should you.'
'I didn't mean it seriously. But how can you account for this kind of artistic ability, then?'
'The luck of the draw,' Mansky said. 'Something in the pathways. A fluke. We've been attempting to design generalized pathways for the last couple of years-robots, I mean, who are not simply limited to the job they're designed for, but are capable of expanding their own scope by a process that can be compared to inductive reasoning-and it's not entirely surprising that something like this, this sort of simulated creativity, should turn up in one of them. As I said a few moments ago, robotics is not an exact art. Sometimes unusual things happen.'
'Could you make it happen again? Could you build another robot who duplicates Andrew's special abilities? A whole series of them, perhaps?'
'Probably not. We're talking about a stochastic event here, Mr. Martin. Do you follow me? We don't know in any precise and quantifiable fashion how we managed to get those abilities into Andrew in the first place, so there's no way as of now that we could set out to reproduce whatever deviant pathway it is that allows him to create work of this sort. What I mean,' Mansky said, 'is that Andrew must have been something of an accident, and very likely he is unique.'
'Good! I don't in the least mind Andrew's being the only one of his kind.'
Smythe, who had been at the window for some time now, looking out over the fog-shrouded ocean, turned abruptly and said, 'Mr. Martin, what I'd like to do is take Andrew back to our headquarters for extensive study. Naturally, we'll supply you with an equivalent NDR robot by way of a replacement, and we'll see to it that he is programmed with full knowledge of whatever domestic assignments you may already have given Andrew, so that-'
'No,' Sir said, with sudden grimness.
Smythe delicately flicked one eyebrow upward. 'Since you came to us with this situation in the first place, you must surely recognize the importance of our making a detailed examination of Andrew, so that we can begin to understand how-'
'Dr. Mansky has just said that Andrew's a pure fluke, that you don't have any idea how he got to be able to do the things with wood that he can do, that you couldn't replicate him even if you tried. So I fail to see what purpose would be served by your taking him back and giving me some other robot in his place.'
'Dr. Mansky may be too pessimistic. Once we begin to trace the actual course of Andrew's neural pathways-'
'Once you do,' said Sir, 'there may not be very much left of Andrew afterward, isn't that correct?'
'The pathways are fragile. Analysis often involves a certain degree of destruction, yes,' Smythe conceded.
'My girls are extremely fond of Andrew,' Sir said. 'Especially the younger one, Amanda. I'd venture to say that Andrew is Amanda's best friend, in fact: that she loves Andrew as much as she loves anyone or anything on this planet. And Andrew appears to be equally fond of her. I called Andrew's capabilities to your attention because I thought it might be useful for you to become aware of what you had produced here-and because even as a layman I suspected that Andrew's skills might have been something that was inadvertently built into him, and I was curious about whether that was the case, which it appears now to be. But if you think there's even the slightest chance that I'm going to let you take Andrew apart, when we both know that you're not confident of putting him back together exactly as he was, forget it. Just forget it.'
'I can quite appreciate the nature of the bond that can form between a young girl and her household robot. Nonetheless, for you to obstruct the ongoing course of our research in this way, Mr. Martin-'
'I can obstruct a lot more than that,' said Sir. 'Or have you forgotten who it is that has been pushing all sorts of pro-robot legislature through my Committee the past three years? I suggest that we go upstairs so that you can examine some of Andrew's other work, which I think you'll find of very great interest. And then you and Dr. Mansky
