The Bicentennial Man and Other Stories Part 23

"Isn't there? I said only the President could have arranged for a disintegrator to be obtained and used. But, considering the existence of a look-alike robot, which President did the arranging?"

Janek said harshly, "I don't think we can carry on this conversation. You are mad."

Edwards said, "Think it through. For G.o.d's sake, think it through. The President did not destroy the robot. Your arguments there are convincing. What happened was that the robot destroyed the President. President Winkler was killed in the crowd on July 4, 2076. A robot resembling President Winkler then gave the Tercentenary speech, ran for re-election, was re-elected, and still serves as President of the United States!"

"Madness!"

"I've come to you, to you you because because you you can prove this--and correct it, too." can prove this--and correct it, too."

"It is simply not so. The President is--the President." Janek made as though to rise and conclude the interview.

"You yourself say he's changed," said Edwards quickly and urgently. "The Tercentenary speech was beyond the powers of the old Winkler. Haven't you been yourself amazed at the accomplishments of the last two years? Truthfully--could the Winkler of the first term have done all this?"

"Yes, he could have, because the President of the second term is the President of the first term."

"Do you deny he's changed? I put it to you. You You decide and I'll abide by your decision." decide and I'll abide by your decision."

"He's risen to meet the challenge, that is all. It's happened before this in American history." But Janek sank back into his seat. He looked uneasy.

"He doesn't drink," said Edwards.

"He never did--very much."

"He no longer womanizes. Do you deny he did so in the past?"

"A President is a man. For the last two years, however, he's felt dedicated to the matter of the Federation."

"It's a change for the better, I admit," said Edwards, "but it's a change. Of course, if he had had a woman, the masquerade could not be carried on, could it?" a woman, the masquerade could not be carried on, could it?"

Janek said, "Too bad he doesn't have a wife." He p.r.o.nounced the archaic word a little self-consciously. "The whole matter wouldn't arise if he did."

"The fact that he doesn't made the plot more practical. Yet he has fathered two children. I don't believe they have been in the White House, either one of them, since the Tercentenary."

"Why should they be? They are grown, with lives of their own."

"Are they invited? Is the President interested in seeing them? You're his private secretary. You would know. Are they?"

Janek said, "You're wasting time. A robot can't kill a human being. You know that that is the First Law of Robotics."

"I know it. But no one is saying that the robot-Winkler killed the human-Winkler directly. When the human-Winkler was in the crowd, the robot-Winkler was on the stand and I doubt that a disintegrator could be aimed from that distance without doing more widespread damage. Maybe it could, but more likely the robot-Winkler had an accomplice--a hit man, if that is the correct Twentieth-Century jargon."

Janek frowned. His plump face puckered and looked pained. He said, "You know, madness must be catching. I'm actually beginning to consider the insane notion you've brought here. Fortunately, it doesn't hold water. After all, why would an a.s.sa.s.sination of the human-Winkler be arranged in public? All the arguments against destroying the robot in public hold against the killing of a human President in public. Don't you see that ruins the whole theory?"

"It does not--" began Edwards. "It does. does. No one except for a few officials knew that the mechanical device existed at all. If President Winkler were killed privately and his body disposed of, the robot could easily take over without suspicion--without having roused yours, for instance." No one except for a few officials knew that the mechanical device existed at all. If President Winkler were killed privately and his body disposed of, the robot could easily take over without suspicion--without having roused yours, for instance."

"There would always be a few officials who would know, Mr. Janek. The a.s.sa.s.sinations would have to broaden." Edwards leaned forward earnestly. "See here, ordinarily there couldn't have been any danger of confusing the human being and the machine. I imagine the robot wasn't in constant use, but was pulled out only for specific purposes, and there would always be key individuals, perhaps quite a number of them, who would know where the President was and what he was doing. If that were so, the a.s.sa.s.sination would have to be carried out at a time when those officials actually thought the President was really the robot."

"I don't follow you."

"See here. One of the robot's tasks was to shake hands with the crowd; press the flesh. When this was taking place, the officials in the know would be perfectly aware that the hand shaker was, in truth, the robot."

"Exactly. You're making sense now. It was was the robot." the robot."

"Except that it was the Tercentenary, and except that President Winkler could not resist. I suppose it would be more than human to expect a President--particularly an empty crowd pleaser and applause hunter like Winkler--to give up the adulation of the crowd on this day of all days, and let it go to a machine. And perhaps the robot carefully nurtured this impulse so that on this one Tercentenary day, the President would have ordered the robot to remain behind the podium, while he himself went out to shake hands and to be cheered."

"Secretly?"

"Of course secretly. If the President had told anyone in the Service, or any of his aides, or you, would he have been allowed to do it? The official att.i.tude concerning the possibility of a.s.sa.s.sination has been practically a disease since the events of the late Twentieth Century. So with the encouragement of an obviously clever robot--"

"You a.s.sume the robot to be clever because you a.s.sume he is now serving as President. That is circular reasoning. If he is not President, there is no reason to think he is clever, or that he were capable of working out this plot. Besides, what motive could possibly drive a robot to plot an a.s.sa.s.sination? Even if it didn't kill the President directly, the taking of a human life indirectly is also forbidden by the First Law, which states: 'A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.'"

Edwards said, "The First Law is not absolute. What if harming a human being saves the lives of two others, or three others, or even three billion others? The robot may have thought that saving the Federation took precedence over the saving of one life. It was no ordinary robot, after all. It was designed to duplicate the properties of the President closely enough to deceive anyone. Suppose it had the understanding of President Winkler, without his weaknesses, and suppose it knew that it could save the Federation where the President could not."

"You can reason so, but how do you know a mechanical device would?"

"It is the only way to explain what happened."

"I think it is a paranoid fantasy."

Edwards said, "Then tell me why the object that was destroyed was powdered into atoms. What else would make sense than to suppose that that was the only way to hide the fact that it was a human being and not a robot that was destroyed? Give me an alternate explanation."

Janek reddened. "I won't accept it."

"But you can prove the whole matter--or disprove it. It's why I have come to you--to you." you."

"How can I prove it? Or disprove it either?"

"No one sees the President at unguarded moments as you do. It is with you--in default of family--that he is most informal. Study him."

"I have. I tell you he isn't--"

"You haven't. You suspected nothing wrong--Little signs meant nothing to you. Study him now, being aware that he might might be a robot, and you will see." be a robot, and you will see."

Janek said sardonically, "I can knock him down and probe for metal with an ultrasonic detector. Even an android has a platinum-iridium brain."

"No drastic action will be necessary. Just observe him and you will see that he is so radically not the man he was that he cannot be a man."

Janek looked at the clock-calendar on the wall. He said, "We have been here over an hour."

"I'm sorry to have taken up so much of your time, but you see the importance of all this, I hope."

"Importance?" said Janek. Then he looked up and what had seemed a despondent air turned suddenly into something of hope. "But is it, in fact, important? Really, I mean?"

"How can it not be important? To have a robot as President of the United States? That's not important?"

"No, that's not what I mean. Forget what President Winkler might be. Just consider this. Someone serving as President of the United States has saved the Federation; he has held it together and, at the present moment, he runs the Council in the interests of peace and of constructive compromise. You'll admit all that?"

Edwards said, "Of course, I admit all that. But what of the precedent established? A robot in the White House for a very good reason now may lead to a robot in the White House twenty years from now for a very bad reason, and then to robots in the White House for no reason at all but only as a matter of course. Don't you see the importance of m.u.f.fling a possible trumpet call for the end of humanity at the time of its first uncertain note?"

Janek shrugged. "Suppose I find out he's a robot? Do we broadcast it to all the world? Do you know how that will affect the Federation? Do you know what it will do to the world's financial structure? Do you know--"

"I do know. That is why I have come to you privately, instead of trying to make it public. It is up to you to check out the matter and come to a definite conclusion. It is up to you, next, having found the supposed President to be a robot, which I am certain you will do, to persuade him to resign."

"And by your version of his reaction to the First Law, he will then have me killed since I will be threatening his expert handling of the greatest global crisis of the Twenty-first Century."

Edwards shook his head. "The robot acted in secret before, and no one tried to counter the arguments he used with himself. You will be able to reinforce a stricter interpretation of the First Law with your arguments. If necessary, we can get the aid of some official from U. S. Robots and Mechanical Men Corporation who constructed the robot in the first place. Once he resigns, the Vice-President will succeed. If the robot-Winkler has put the old world on the right track, good; it can now be kept on the right track by the Vice-President, who is a decent and honorable woman. But we can't have a robot ruler, and we mustn't ever again.

"What if the President is human?"

"I'll leave that to you. You will know."

Janek said, "I am not that confident of myself. What if I can't decide? If I can't bring myself to? If I don't dare to? What are your plans?"

Edwards looked tired. "I don't know. I may have to go to U. S. Robots. But I don't think it will come to that. I'm quite confident that now that I've laid the problem in your lap, you won't rest till it's settled. Do you you want to be ruled by a robot?" want to be ruled by a robot?"

He stood up, and Janek let him go. They did not shake hands.

Janek sat there in the gathering twilight in deep shock. A robot!

The man had walked in and had argued, in perfectly rational manner, that the President of the United States was a robot.

It should have been easy to fight that off. Yet though Janek had tried every argument he could think of, they had all been useless, and the man had not been shaken in the least.

A robot as President! Edwards had been certain certain of it, and he would of it, and he would stay stay certain of it. And if Janek insisted that the President was human, Edwards would go to U. S. Robots. He wouldn't rest. certain of it. And if Janek insisted that the President was human, Edwards would go to U. S. Robots. He wouldn't rest.

Janek frowned as he thought of the twenty-seven months since the Tercentenary and of how well all had gone in the face of the probabilities. And now?

He remained lost in somber thought.

He still had the disintegrator but surely it would not be necessary to use it on a human being, the nature of whose body was not in question. A silent laser stroke in some lonely spot would do.

It had been hard to maneuver the President into the earlier job, but in this present case, it wouldn't even have to know.

My first thought was to call the previous story "Death at the Tricentennial," but the dictionary a.s.sured me that "tercentenary" was a perfectly good way of referring to a three hundredth birthday, so I called it "Death at the Tercentenary."

Fred changed that name to THE TERCENTENARY INCIDENT, which was a great improvement in my opinion, and I adopted it with glad cries. I am not always pleased with his t.i.tle changes and generally say so, as in my collection of mystery short stories Tales of the Black Widowers. Tales of the Black Widowers. It is only fair now that I give him credit for a good change. It is only fair now that I give him credit for a good change.

--One more thing. Again, this story represents a return to a theme I handled in an earlier story .The earlier story in this case was EVIDENCE, first published in 1946, thirty years before this story was. There is, except for theme, no similarity between the two stories, and I leave it to the Gentle Reader, if he or she has read both, to decide whether I have improved or not in the interval. (Don't write, however, unless you think I have improved.) Time flies. I myself am ever-youthful, but everything else is getting older. Do you realize that with the April 1976 issue, Amazing Stories, Amazing Stories, the oldest of the science fiction magazines, celebrated its Semicentennial? the oldest of the science fiction magazines, celebrated its Semicentennial?

The April 1926 issue of Amazing Stories Amazing Stories was Volume I, Number 1. It was the very first issue of the first magazine ever to be devoted entirely to science fiction-and that was fifty years ago. was Volume I, Number 1. It was the very first issue of the first magazine ever to be devoted entirely to science fiction-and that was fifty years ago.

Hugo Gernsback had been born in Luxemburg in 1884 and had emigrated to the United States in 1904. He went on to write some excruciatingly bad science fiction with some excruciatingly good predictions in it, to edit a magazine, in which he included science fiction stories (or scientifiction, as be called it) , and to begin thinking of publis.h.i.+ng an all-science-fiction magazine for some time. A probing circular be sent out in 1924 brought in disappointing results, but then, in 1926, without any advance fanfare at all, he placed the new magazine on the stands.

Sol Cohen, the current publisher of the magazine, called me in the fall of 1975 to ask me if I could make some contribution in honor of the fiftieth anniversary of the magazine, and although, as usual, I was drowning in commitments, there was no way I could let that pa.s.s. On November 22, 1975, I sat down to write BIRTH OF A NOTION and so I was represented in the anniversary issue.

Birth of a Notion

That the first inventor of a workable time machine was a science fiction enthusiast is by no means a coincidence. It was inevitable. Why else should an otherwise sane physicist even dare track down the various out-of -the-way theories that seemed to point toward maneuverability in time in the very teeth of General Relativity?

It took energy, of course. Everything takes energy. But Simeon Weill was prepared to pay the price. Anything (well, almost anything) to make his hidden science-fictional dream come true.

The trouble was that there was no way of controlling either the direction or distance through which one was chronologically thrust. It was all the result of random temporal collisions of the harnessed tachyons. Weill could make mice and even rabbits disappear--but future or past, he couldn't say. One mouse reappeared, so he must have traveled but a short way into the past--and it seemed quite unharmed. The others? Who could tell?

He devised an automatic release for the machine. Theoretically, it would reverse the push (whatever the push might be) and bring back the object (from whichever direction and whatever distance it had gone). It didn't always work, but five rabbits were brought back unharmed.

If he could only make the release foolproof, Weill would have tried it himself. He was dying dying to try it--which was not the proper reaction of a theoretical physicist, but-was the absolute predictable emotion of a crazed s.f. fan who was particularly fond of the s.p.a.ce-operish productions of some decades before the present year of 1976. to try it--which was not the proper reaction of a theoretical physicist, but-was the absolute predictable emotion of a crazed s.f. fan who was particularly fond of the s.p.a.ce-operish productions of some decades before the present year of 1976.

It was inevitable, then, that the accident should happen. On no account would he have stepped between the tempodes with conscious determination. He knew the chances were about two in five he would not return. On the other hand, he was dying dying to try it, so he tripped over his own big feet and went staggering between those tempodes as a result of total accident. ...But are there really accidents? to try it, so he tripped over his own big feet and went staggering between those tempodes as a result of total accident. ...But are there really accidents?

He might have been hurled into the past or into the future. As 1t happened, he was ,hurled into the past.

He might have been hurled uncounted thousands of years into the past or one and a half days. As it happened, he was hurled fifty-one years into the past to a time when the Teapot Dome Scandal was burning brightly but the nation was keeping Cool with Coolidge and knew that n.o.body in the world could lick Jack Dempsey.

But there was something that his theories didn't tell Weill. He knew what could happen to the particles themselves, but there was no way of predicting what would happen to the relations.h.i.+ps between the various particles. And where are relations.h.i.+ps more complex than in the brain?

So what happened was that as Weill moved backward through time, his mind unreeled. Not all the way, fortunately, since Weill had not yet been conceived in the year before America's Sesquicentennial, and a brain with less than no development would have been a distinct handicap.

It unreeled haltingly, and partially, and clumsily, and when Weill found himself on a park bench not far from his 1976 home in lower Manhattan, where he experimented in dubious symbiosis with New York University, he found himself in the year 1925 with an abysmally aching head and no very clear idea as to what anything was all about.

He found himself staring at a man of about forty, hair slicked down, cheekbones prominent, beaky nose, who was sharing the same bench with him.

The man looked concerned. He said, "Where did you come from? You were not here a moment ago." He had a distinct Teutonic accent. .

Weill wasn't sure. He couldn't remember. But one phrase seemed to stick through the chaos within his skull even though he wasn't sure what it meant.

"Time machine," he gasped.

The other man stiffened. He said, "Do you read pseudoscientific romances?"

"What?" said Weill.

"Have you read H. G. Wells's The Time Machine?" The Time Machine?"

The repet.i.tion of the phrase seemed to soothe Weill a bit. The pain in his head lessened. The name Wells seemed familiar, or was that his own name? No. his own name was Weill.

"Wells?" he said. "I am Weill."

The other man thrust out a hand. "I am Hugo Gernsback. I write pseudo-scientific romances at times, but of course, it is not right to say 'pseudo.' That makes it seem there is something fake about it. That is not so. It should be properly written and then it will be scientific fiction. I like to shorten that"-his dark eyes gleamed--"to scientifiction. "

"Yes," said Weill, trying desperately to collect shattered memories and unwound experiences and getting only moods and impressions. "Scientifiction. Better than pseudo. Still not quite--"

"If done well. well. Have you read my 'Ralph 124C41 +'?" Have you read my 'Ralph 124C41 +'?"

"Hugo Gernsback," said Weill, frowning, "Famous--"