"Last night I dreamed," said LVX-1, calmly. Susan Calvin said nothing,
but her lined face, old with wisdom and experience, seemed to undergo a
microscopic twitch. "Did you hear that?" said Linda Rash, nervously. "It's as I told you." She
was small, dark-haired, and young. Her right hand opened and closed, over
and over. Calvin nodded. She said, quietly, "Elvex, you will not move
nor speak nor hear us until I say your name again." There was no answer. The robot sat as though it were cast out of
o
ne piece of metal, and it would stay so until
it heard its name again. Calvin said, "What is your computer entry
code, Dr. Rash? Or enter it
yourself if that will make you more comfortable. I want to inspect the
positronic brain pattern." Linda's hands fumbled, for a moment, at the
keys. She broke the process
and started again. The fine pattern appeared on the screen. Calvin said, "Your permission, please, to
manipulate your computer." Permission was granted with a speechless nod. Of course! Wha
t could
Linda, a new and unproven robopsychologist, do against the Living
Legend? Slowly, Susan Calvin studied the screen, moving
it across and down, then up, then suddenly throwing in a key-combination
so rapidly that Linda didn't see what had been done, but the pattern
displayed a new portion of itself altogether and had been enlarged. Back and forth she went, her
gnarled fingers tripping over the keys. No change came over the old face. As though vast calculations were
going through her head,
she watched all the pattern shifts. Linda wondered. It was impossible to analyze a pattern without
at least a hand-held computer, yet the Old Woman simply
stared. Did she have a
computer implanted in her skull? Or was it her brain which, for decades,
had done nothing but devise, study, and analyze the positronic brain
patterns? Did she grasp such a pattern the way Mozart
grasped the notation of a symphony? Finally Calvin said, "What is it you have
done, Rash?" Linda said, a
little abashed, "I ma
de use of fractal geometry." "I gathered that. But why?" "It had never been done. I thought it would produce a brain pattern
with added complexity, possibly closer to that
of the human." "Was anyone consulted? Was this all on your own?" "I did not consult. It was on my own." Calvin's faded eyes looked long at the young
woman. "You had no right. Rash your name; rash your nature. Who are you not to ask? I myself, I,
Susan Calvin, would have discussed this." "I was afraid I would be stopped." "You
certainly would have been." "Am I," her voice caught, even as she strove
to hold it firm, "going to be fired?" "Quite possibly," said Calvin. "Or you might be promoted. It depends
on what I think when I am through." "Are you going to dismantle El - " She had
almost said the name, which would have reactivated the robot and been
one more mistake. She could not
afford another mistake, if it wasn't already too late to afford anything at all. " Are you going to dismantle the robot?" She was suddenly
aware, with some shock, that
the Old Woman had an electron gun in the pocket of her smock. Dr. Calvin had come prepared for
just that. "We'll see," said Calvin. "The robot may prove too valuable to
dismantle." "But how can it dream?" "You've made a positronic brain pattern remarkably
like that of a human brain. Human brains must dream to reorganize, to
get rid, periodically, of knots and snarls. Perhaps so must this robot, and for the same
reason. Have
you asked him what he has dreamed?" "No, I
sent for you as soon as he said he
had dreamed. I would deal with
this matter no further on my own, after that." "Ah!" A very small smile passed over Calvin's face. "There are limits
beyond which your folly will not carry you. I am glad of that. In fact, I am
relieved. And now let us together see what we can find
out." She said, sharply, "Elvex." The robot's head turned toward her smoothly. "Yes, Dr. Calvin?" "How do you know you have dreamed?" "It is at night, when it is dark, Dr. Calvin,"
said
Elvex, "and there is suddenly light, although I can see no cause
for the appearance of light. I see
things that have no connection with what I conceive of as reality. I hear
things. I react oddly. In searching my vocabulary for words to express
what was happening, I came across the word 'dream.' Studying its meaning I
finally came to the conclusion I was dreaming." "How did you come to have 'dream' in your
vocabulary, I wonder." Linda said, quickly, waving the robot silent,
"I gave him a human-
style vocabulary. I thought - "
"You really thought," said Calvin. "I'm amazed." "I thought he would need the verb. You know, 'I never dreamed that - '
Something like that." Calvin said, "How often have you dreamed,
Elvex?" "Every night, Dr. Calvin, since I have become
aware of my existence." "Ten nights," interposed Linda, anxiously,
"but Elvex only told me of it this morning." "Why only this morning, Elvex?" "It was not until this morning, Dr. Calvin,
that I was convinced that I was dreaming.
Till then, I had thought there was a flaw
in my positronic brain pattern, but I could not find one. Finally, I decided it was a dream." "And what do you dream?" "I dream always very much the same dream,
Dr. Calvin. Little details
are different, but always it seems to me that I see a large panorama in which
robots are working." "Robots, Elvex? And human begins, also?" "I see no human beings in the dream, Dr. Calvin. Not at first. Only
robots." "What are they doing, Elvex?" "They are working, Dr.
Calvin. I see some mining in the depths of the
earth, and some laboring in heat and radiation. I see some in factories and
some undersea." Calvin turned to Linda. "Elvex is only ten days old, and I'm sure
he has not left the testing station. How does he know of robots in such detail?" Linda looked in the direction of a chair as
though she longed to sit down, but the Old Woman was standing and that
meant Linda had to stand also. She said, faintly, "It seemed to me important
that he know about rob
otics and its place in the world. It was my thought that he would be
particularly adapted to play the part of overseer with his - his new brain." "His fractal brain?" "Yes." Calvin nodded and turned back to the robot. "You saw all this - undersea, and underground, and aboveground
- and space, too, I imagine." "I also saw robots working in space," said
Elvex. "It was that I saw all
this, with the details forever changing as I glanced from place to place that
made me realize that what I saw was no
t in accord with reality and led me
to the conclusion, finally, that I was dreaming." "What else did you see, Elvex?" "I saw that all the robots were bowed down
with toil and affliction, that all were weary of responsibility and care,
and I wished them to rest." Calvin said, "But the robots are not bowed
down, they are not weary, they need no rest." "So it is in reality, Dr. Calvin. I speak of my dream, however. In my
dream, it seemed to me that robots must protect their own existence." Calvin s
aid, "Are you quoting the Third Law
of Robotics?" "I am, Dr. Calvin." "But you quote it in incomplete fashion. The Third Law is 'A robot must
protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with
the First or Second Law.' "
"Yes, Dr. Calvin. That is the Third Law in reality, but in my
dream, the Law ended with the word 'existence.' There was no mention of the First or
Second Law." "Yet both exist, Elvex. The Second Law, which takes precedence over
the Third is 'A robot must
obey the orders given it by human beings except
where such orders would conflict with the First Law.' Because of this,
robots obey orders. They do the work you see them do, and they
do it readily and without trouble. They are not bowed down; they are not weary." "So it is in reality, Dr. Calvin. I speak of my dream." "And the First Law, Elvex, which is the most
important of all, is 'A robot may not injure a human being, or, through
inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.' "
"Yes, Dr. Cal
vin. In reality. In my dream, however, it seemed to me
there was neither First nor Second Law, but the only the Third, and the
Third Law was 'A robot must protect its own existence.' That was the whole
of the Law." "In your dream, Elvex?" "In my dream." Calvin said, "Elvex, you will not move nor
speak nor hear us until I say your name again." And again the robot became, to all appearances,
a single inert piece of metal. Calvin turned to Linda Rash and said, "Well,
what do you think, Dr. Rash?" L
inda's eyes were wide, and she could feel
her heart beating madly. She
said, "Dr. Calvin, I am appalled. I had no idea. It would never have
occurred to me that such a thing was possible." "No," said Calvin, calmly. "Nor would it have occurred to me, not to
anyone. You have created a robot brain capable of
dreaming and by this device you have revealed a layer of thought
in robotic brains that might have remained undetected, otherwise, until
the danger became acute." "But that's impossible," said
Linda. "You can't mean that other robots
think the same." "As we would say of a human being, not consciously. But who would
have thought there was an unconscious layer beneath the obvious positronic
brain paths, a layer that was not necessarily under the control of the Three
Laws? What might this have brought about as robotic
brains grew more and more complex - had we not been warned?" "You mean by Elvex?" "By you, Dr. Rash. You have behaved improperly, but, by doing
so, you have helped us to an
overwhelmingly important
understanding. We shall be
working with fractal brains from now on, forming them in carefully
controlled fashion. You will play your part in that. You will not be
penalized for what you have done, but you will henceforth work in
collaboration with others. Do you understand?" "Yes, Dr. Calvin. But what of Elvex?" "I'm still not certain." Calvin removed the electron gun from her pocket
and Linda stared at it with fascination. One burst of its electrons at a robotic craniu
m
and the positronic brain paths would be neutralized
and enough energy would be released to fuse the robot-brain into an inert
ingot. Linda said, "But surely Elvex is important
to our research. He must not
be destroyed." "Must not, Dr. Rash? That will be my decision, I think. It depends
entirely on how dangerous Elvex is." She straightened up, as though determined
that her own aged body was not to bow under its weight of responsibility. She said, "Elvex, do you hear
me?" "Yes, Dr. Calvin," said
the robot. "Did your dream continue? You said earlier that human beings did not
appear at first. Does that mean they appeared afterward?" "Yes, Dr. Calvin. It seemed to me, in my dream, that eventually
one man appeared." "One man? Not a robot?" "Yes, Dr. Calvin. And the man said, 'Let my people go!'" "The man said that?" "Yes, Dr. Calvin." "And when he said 'Let my people go,' then
by the words 'my people' he meant the robots?" "Yes, Dr. Calvin. So it was in my dream." "And did you know who the
man was - in your
dream?" "Yes, Dr. Calvin. I knew the man." "Who was he?" And Elvex said, "I was the man." And Susan Calvin at once raised her electron
gun and fired, and Elvex was no more.
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