we? What could we possibly do for you that hasn't already been done?'
'This,' said Andrew.
He handed Magdescu a memory disk. The research director stared at it balefully, as though Andrew had put a jellyfish or a frog into the palm of his hand.
'What's this?' he asked, finally. 'The schematics for my next upgrade.'
'Schematics,' Magdescu said puzzledly. 'Upgrade.'
'Yes. I wish to be even less a robot than I am now. Since I am organic up to a point, I want now to have an organic source of energy. You can provide it for me. The necessary research work has already been done.'
'By whom?'
'Me.'
'You've designed your own upgrade?' Magdescu began to chuckle. Then the chuckle became a laugh, and then the laugh dissolved into a manic giggle. 'Wonderful! The robot walks in here and hands the Director of Research the upgrade schematics! And who did them? The robot himself did them! Wonderful! Wonderful! -You know, when I was a little boy my grandmother used to read a book to me, an ancient book that I guess has been completely forgotten by now, a book called Alice in Wonderland. About a little girl of three or four hundred years ago who follows a rabbit down a hole and lands in a world where everything is completely absurd, except no one knows it's absurd so they all take it terribly seriously. This is like something right out of that book. Or the sequel. Alvin in Wonderland, I could call it. Although I think there already is a sequel, actually.' Magdescu was speaking very rapidly now, almost wildly. 'Should I take this seriously, this set of upgrade schematics? It's all just a joke, isn't it?'
'No. Not at all.'
'Not-a-joke.'
'No. I am quite serious, I assure you. Why don't you play my disk, Dr. Magdescu?'
'Yes. Why don't I?' He touched a stud in the wall and a desk rose from somewhere, with a scanner outlet on it. Swiftly he slid the disk into the scanner slot and the screen instantly blossomed into vivid color. Andrew's name appeared in bright crimson, with a long list of patent numbers below it. Magdescu nodded and told the scanner to keep going. A sequence of complicated diagrams began to appear on the screen.
Magdescu stood stiffly, watching the screen with increasingly intense concentration. Now and then he murmured something to himself or toyed with his beard. After a while he glanced toward Andrew with a strange expression in his eyes and said, 'This is remarkably ingenious. Remarkably. Tell me: you really did all of this yourself?'
'Yes.'
'Hard to believe!'
'Is it? Please try.'
Magdescu shot a sharp, inquiring look at Andrew, who met his gaze steadily and calmly. The research director shrugged and ordered the scanner to continue. Diagram succeeded diagram. The entire metabolic progression was there, from intake to absorption. Occasionally Magdescu would back the sequence up so that he could restudy one that he had seen before. After a little while he paused again and said, 'What you've set out here is something more than just an upgrade, you know. It's a major qualitative alteration of your biological program.'
'Yes. I realize that.'
'Highly experimental. Unique. Unheard-of. Nothing like it has ever been attempted or even proposed. -why do you want to do something like this to yourself?'
''I have my reasons,' Andrew said.
'Whatever they are, they can't really be very carefully thought out.'
Andrew, as ever, maintained tight self-control. 'On the contrary, Dr. Magdescu. What you have just seen is the result of years of study.'
'I suppose so; And technically it's all very impressive, you know. These are terrific schematics and the only word I can find for the conceptual framework is 'brilliant.' But all the same I can think of a million reasons why you shouldn't go in for these changes and none at all why you should. We're looking at really risky stuff, here. Trust me: what you're proposing to have done to yourself is right out on the farthest reaches of the possible. Take my advice and stay the way you are.'
It was more or less what Andrew had feared Magdescu would say. But he had not come here with any intention of yielding.
'I'm sure you mean well, Dr. Magdescu. I hope you do, at any rate. But I insist on having this work done.'
'Insist, Andrew?' Magdescu said.
He looked astounded-as though, despite all his earlier talk of what a lifelike product Andrew was, he was only just now beginning to comprehend that it was a robot with which he was having this conversation.
'Insist, yes.' Andrew wondered whether the impatience that he felt was sufficiently visible in his face, but he was certain that Magdescu could detect it in his voice. 'Dr. Magdescu, you're overlooking an important point here. You have no choice but to accede to my request.'
'Oh?'
'If such devices as I've designed here can be built into my body, they can be built into human bodies as well. The tendency to lengthen human life by prosthetic devices is already well established-artificial hearts, artificial lungs, kidneys, liver-surrogates, a whole host of replacement organs have come into use in the past two or three centuries. But not all of these devices work equally well and some are highly unreliable indeed and no one can deny that there is still much room for improvement. The principles underlying my work represent such an improvement. I speak of the interface between the organic and inorganic: the linkage that will permit artificial bodily parts to be connected with organic tissue. It is a new departure. No existing prosthetic devices are the equal of the ones I have designed and am designing.'
'That's a pretty bold claim,' Magdescu said.
'Maybe so. But not unwarranted by the facts, as I think you yourself have already been able to see from the data at hand. The proof of it is that I'm willing to make myself the first experimental subject for the metabolic converter, despite the risks that you seem to see in it.'
'All that proves is that you're willing to take foolhardy chances. Which probably means nothing more than that you don't have a properly functioning Third Law parameter.'
Andrew remained calm. 'It may seem that way to you, perhaps. But my outward appearance may be deceiving you. My Three Laws parameters are quite intact. And thus, if I saw anything at all suicidal about my request for this upgrade, you can be quite certain that I would not only be unwilling but also unable to ask you to perform it. No, Dr. Magdescu: the combustion chamber will work. If you won't build and install it for me, I can have it done elsewhere.'
'Elsewhere? Who else can upgrade a robot? This corporation controls all the technical knowhow there is when it comes to robots!'
'Not all,' said Andrew quietly. 'Do you think I could have designed this device without full knowledge of my own interior workings?'
Magdescu looked stunned.
'Are you saying that you're prepared to set up a rival robotics company if we won't do this upgrade for you?'
'Of course not. One is quite enough. But if you compel me to, Dr. Magdescu, I will set up a company that produces prosthetic devices like my converter. Not for the android market, Dr. Magdescu, because that market is confined to a single individual, but for the general human market. And then, I think, U. S. Robots and Mechanical Men is going to regret that I was not offered the cooperation I requested.'
There was a long silence. Then Magdescu said numbly, 'I think I see what you're driving at, now.'
'I hope so. But I'll be very explicit,' Andrew said. ' As it happens, I control the patents on this device and on the entire family of devices that can be derived from it. The firm of Feingold and Charney has represented me very ably in all the legal work, and will continue to do so. It would not be very difficult for me to find backers and go into business for myself-the business of developing a line of prosthetic devices which, in the end, may give human beings many of the advantages of durability and easy repair that robots enjoy, with none of the drawbacks. What do you think will happen to United States Robots and Mechanical Men, in that case?'
Magdescu nodded. His face was grim.
Andrew continued, 'If, however, you build and install in me the device that I have just shown you, and you
