already a sophisticated reasoner. This must have shaken Adam. A Soldier would have only come into contact with the most primitive android forms. It is easy to forget what a profound challenge this was to the thinking of a man like Adam, back then. I think Adam is frightened. I have tried to show this.
EXAMINER: Frightened of Art?
ANAXIMANDER: I think he understands how hard it will be for him, to treat him only as a machine.
EXAMINER: Thank you. We will watch the next section.
Adam sat, his hands still locked in place behind his back, his face to the wall. His expression had darkened. He rocked slowly back and forth.
In the center of the room, Art stood motionless, only the sac- cading of his eyes betraying his wakefulness.
The action came suddenly. Adam spun and stood in a single motion. They had allowed him to wear boots, a strange mistake to have made. The kick was vicious and well aimed.
Art s head flew free from its metal torso. His eyes rolled back in his head. Wires sparked from the ragged tear at the neck.
Guards poured into the room. Adam was flung face first to the ground. A knee landed heavily between his shoulder blades. He grunted in pain.
Then, the most gruesome touch of all. The android’s body began to systematically search the room, feeling about for its head. Having located it, it popped the dislodged unit under an arm and whirred out of the room. Adam watched the surreal scene unfold. He was shaking.
EXAMINER: This is surprising.
ANAXIMANDER: In what way?
EXAMINER: Your instructions were to represent the written record. You have added many embellishments.
ANAXIMANDER: There are references to this episode throughout the transcript.
EXAMINER: Not the guards’ reaction. Nor the locating of the head. Do you aspire to a career in the entertainment industry?
ANAXIMANDER: For those of us who know the story well, I think it is easy to forget how strange all of this must have seemed to Adam. I am trying to portray the strangeness.
EXAMINER: And these flourishes? We can expect more?
ANAXIMANDER: You might characterize them that way. I wouldn’t.
The surprise on the Examiners’ faces was nothing compared to what Anax herself felt. She had contradicted the panel. She had no idea where the words had come from or what this strange feeling of satisfaction spoke of. The panel were waiting for an apology. She offered nothing.
ANAXIMANDER: The next section occurs the next morning. Would you like to see it?
The Head Examiner nodded; still, it seemed, speechless.
Adam had cuffs at his hands and feet now. There was a dark bruise across the bridge of his swollen nose. Blood spattered the front of his uniform. A door opened, and Art whirred back into place. Adam avoided his eyes.
“Did you miss me?” Art asked, his voice tinged with amusement.
“I thought I killed you,” Adam replied. “It takes more than that.” “I’ve got plenty of time.”
“You don’t look like you’ll be doing much to me in a hurry. Does it hurt?” “No.”
“Good. I didn’t want them to hurt you. Do you believe me?”
Adam said nothing.
“This game again,” Art sighed.
“It’s not a game.”
“So what is it?” Art asked. The android’s voice betrayed no ill feeling toward Adam.
“I don’t talk to walls or tables or fences, and I don’t talk to machines.”
“Not even when they talk back?” “I don’t call what you do talking.”
“What’s wrong with how I talk?”
“You know.”
“I don’t.”
“No, you’re right. You don’t. That’s the point. You don’t understand anything.” Adam spoke with too much force, as if it wasn’t just the android he was trying to convince.
“Yes I do. Test me.”
“Perhaps I can’t find you out. Perhaps your program is too good.”
“If my program’s too good,” Art reasoned, “then what’s to find out?”
“I knew a girl, when I was young,” Adam said, “who had a talking doll. She took it everywhere with her. It had a simple program. When she picked it up it said hello. When she rubbed its back it said thank you. It had a couple of other phrases, I don’t remember what. ‘I’m tired’ perhaps. And some questions. If you asked it a question, it would detect the change in your voice, and answer yes or no, quite randomly. My friend loved the doll. She talked to it endlessly. She asked it questions that made no sense, and rejoiced in every answer. She cried if she was made to go anywhere without it.”
“Did you cry?” Art said. “Did you cry when they took me away? Is that what you’re trying to tell me?”
“I tried to kill you,” Adam reminded him.
“Perhaps you were softened by feelings of guilt. It’s not unheard of.”
“The girl was young, that’s my point. She grew up. She stopped believing in the doll.”
“And when she stopped believing, did that make the doll go away?”
“She gave it to me,” Adam told him.
“So I’m not your first?”
“Another friend and I caught a rabbit and stuffed its guts inside the doll. Then we tied it to a train track. We waited for a train, and filmed it. It was very funny.”
“You’re making that up.”
“That’s right. I would never do anything to hurt a doll.”
“Aren’t you afraid?”
“Of what?”
“Of a doll doing something to hurt you. You tried to destroy me. Why shouldn’t I have revenge on my mind?”
“You don’t have a mind. Is that reason enough for you?”
“Perhaps I mean to wait until you are sleeping, and then split you open with an ice pick. I don’t sleep, you see. I’m always ready.”
“If they meant to kill me they would have done it long ago.”
“But if I do it, it will look like an accident. It might be a neat solution to their little problem.”
Adam shrugged. “If you kill me, you kill me. I’m not worrying about it. Take my life if you must, just don’t think you’re getting my mind.”
Adam wriggled to the far side of the room, a slow and apparently painful process. Art waited a moment and then followed him over. Adam sighed.
“I hope you don’t mind me saying this,” Art began, “but you smell bad.”
“You don’t have a sense of smell.”
“I’m not going to hurt you. I can’t hurt you. Would you like to know why?”
“No.”
“Think of this as a sort of punishment then.”
“How can you punish me if you can’t hurt me?” Adam asked.
“Sometimes punishments are for your own good,” Art replied. “At the design stage there were many arguments, about the sort of behavior-repressing circuits I should be fitted with. The naive approach was to cut out all the negative behaviors humans display, but that’s not as easy as it sounds.
“Program in the ability to think through the consequences of your actions, and you are left with an android paralyzed by indecision. Too little concern for others and you have an android that will activate early from its recharging session and dismantle the competing prototypes. That actually happened. Too much regard for others of course, and the android soon wears itself out in its efforts to serve.
