The Positronic Man (Robot #0.6) 5

IT TROUBLED ANDREW greatly that the process of seeking his freedom might cause further distress for Sir. Sir was very fragile now-there was no disguising that, no avoiding the reality of it-and anything that might be a drain on his flagging energies, anything that might upset or disturb or in any way trouble him, might all too readily endanger his life.

And yet Andrew felt it essential that he press onward with his legal action, now that he had brought the matter up. To turn away from it at this point would be a betrayal of his own integrity. It would mean a repudiation of the independent and self-actuated persona that he had felt burgeoning within his positronic brain for year after year.

At first the promptings of that persona had bewildered and even alarmed him. It seemed wrong to him, a flaw in his design, that it should be there at all. But over the course of time he had come to accept its existence as a real thing. Freedom-the state of not being a slave, the state of not being a thing-was what that persona demanded now. And had to have.

He knew there were risks. The court might share his attitude that freedom was a thing without price-but could easily rule that there was no price, however great, for which a robot might be able to buy his freedom.

Andrew was willing to take his chances on that. But the other risk, the risk to Sir's well-being, troubled him deeply.

"I fear for Sir," he told Little Miss. "The publicity-the controversy-the uproar-"

"Don't worry, Andrew. He'll be shielded from everything, I promise you. John Feingold's lawyers will see to that This is entirely a procedural matter. It isn't going to involve my father personally at all."

"And if he is called into court?" Andrew asked.

"He won't be."

"If he is, though," Andrew persisted. "He is my owner, after all. And a famous former member of the Legislature besides. What if there is a subpoena? He'll have to appear. He will be asked why he thinks I should have my freedom. He doesn't even really believe that I should-he's going along with this entirely for your sake, Little Miss, I have no doubt about that-and he will have to come into court, sick and old as he is, to testify in favor of something about which he has deep reservations. It will kill him, Little Miss."

"He won't be called into court. "

"How can you assure me of that? I have no right to allow him to come to harm. I have no ability to allow him to come to harm. -I think I have to withdraw my petition."

"You can't," said Little Miss.

"But if my going to court should be the direct cause of your father's death-"

"You're getting overwrought, Andrew. And putting interpretations on the First Law that are completely unwarranted. My father isn't a defendant in this case, and he's not the plaintiff either, and he's not even going to be a witness. Don't you think John Feingold is capable of protecting someone who was as well known and important in this Region as my father from the nuisance of being called into court? I tell you, Andrew, he will be shielded. Some of the most powerful people in this Region will see to that, if it becomes necessary. But it won't become necessary."

"I wish I could be as sure of that as you are."

"I wish you could too. Trust me, Andrew. He's my father, let me remind you. I love hint more than anything in the-well, I love him very deeply. I wouldn't dream of letting you go ahead with this case if I saw any danger to him in it You've got to believe that, Andrew."

And in the end he did. He still was uneasy about the possibility of Sir's becoming involved. But Little Miss had given him enough assurance to proceed.

A man from the Feingold office came to the house with papers for him to sign, and Andrew signed them-proudly, with a flourish, the bold Andrew Martin signature in firm up-and-down strokes that he had been using on his checks ever since the founding of his corporation so many years before.

The petition was filed with the Regional Court. Months went by, and nothing in particular happened. Occasionally some dreary legal document would arrive, elaborately bound in the traditional stiff covers, and Andrew would scan it quickly and sign it and return it, and then nothing more would be heard for another few months.

Sir was very frail now. Andrew found himself thinking, sometimes, that it might be for the best if Sir died peacefully before the case ever came to court, so that he would be spared the possibility of any kind of emotional turmoil.

The thought was horrifying to him. Andrew banished it from his mind.

"We're on the docket," Little Miss told him finally. "It won't be long now."

And, exactly as Sir had predicted, the proceedings were far from simple.

Little Miss had assured him that it would merely be a matter of appearing before a judge, presenting a petition for a declaration of his status as a free robot, and sitting back to wait out the time it took for the judge to do some research, study the legal precedents, and issue his ruling. The California district of the Regional Court was notoriously farseeing in its interpretation of legal matters and there was every reason, so Little Miss asserted, to believe that the judge would, in the course of time, rule in Andrew's favor and issue some sort of certificate that gave him the free status he sought.

The first indication that things were going to be more complicated than that came when the offices of Feingold and Feingold received notice from the Regional Court-Judge Harold Kramer, presiding over the Fourth Circuit-that counter-petitions had been filed in the matter of Martin vs. Martin.

"Counter-petitions?" Little Miss asked. "And what does that mean?"

"It means that there is going to be intervention on the opposing side," Stanley Feingold told her. Stanley was the head of the firm now-old John was in semi-retirement-and he was handling Andrew's case personally. He looked so much like his father, down to the rounded belly and the amiable smile, that he could almost have been John's younger twin. But he did not affect green-tinted contact lenses.

"Intervention by whom?" Little Miss demanded.

Stanley took a deep breath. "The Regional Labor Federation, for one. They're worried about losing jobs to robots if robots are given their freedom."

"That's ancient history. The world doesn't have enough human workers to fill all the available jobs as it is, and everybody knows it."

"Nevertheless, the labor people will always jump in to prevent any kind of innovation that might further the concept of robot rights. If robots become free entities, they might be able to claim job seniority-union membership-all kinds of things of that sort."

"Ridiculous."

"Yes, I know, Mrs. Charney. But they are filing a petition of intervention, all the same. And they are not the only ones who are."

"Who else?" said Little Miss in an ominous voice.

"The United States Robots and Mechanical Men Corporation," Feingold said.

"They are?"

"Is it so surprising? They are the world's sole manufacturers of robots, Mrs. Charney. Robots are their main product. Their product, let it be said, with some stress on that word-and products are inanimate things. The U.S.R.M.M. people are disturbed at the idea that anyone might come to consider robots to be anything more than that. If Andrew's petition succeeds in gaining freedom for robots, U.S.R.M.M. probably fears, then it may succeed in gaining other rights for them as well-civil rights, human rights. So of course they will want to fight against that. Just as a manufacturer of shovels and pick-axes regards its products as mere inanimate tools, not as persons, Mrs. Charney, and would be likely to oppose any legal ruling that gave its shovels and pick-axes any sort of civil rights which might lead the shovels and pick-axes to attempt to control the way they are manufactured, warehoused, and sold."

"Nonsense. Absolute nonsense!" Little Miss cried, with a ferocity in her tone that was worthy of Sir.

"I agree," Stanley Feingold said diplomatically. "But the interventions have been filed, all the same. And there are others besides these two. We also find ourselves faced with objections from-"

"Never mind," said Little Miss. "I don't want to hear the rest of the list. Just go in there and refute every single stupid argument that these reactionaries put forth."

"You know I'll do my best, Mrs. Charney," Feingold said.

But there wasn't a great deal of confidence in the lawyer's tone.

The next development came just a week before the trial. Little Miss called Feingold and said, "Stanley, we've just received notice that television crews will be coming to my father's house on Monday to set up the special wiring for the hearing."

"Yes, of course, Mrs. Charney. It's quite routine."

"Is the hearing going to be held at my father's house?"

"Andrew's deposition will be taken there, yes."

"And the rest of the trial?"

"It isn't a trial, exactly, Mrs. Charney."

"The rest of the proceedings, then. Where will they take place? In Judge Kramer's courtroom?"

"The usual procedure," Feingold said, "is for each concerned party involved in the action to participate electronically. The judge will receive all the inputs in his chambers."

"No one goes to court in person any more?"

"Rarely, Mrs. Charney. Very rarely."

"But it does still happen?"

"As I said, very rarely. The world is so decentralized now, people have spread out over such great distances-it's so much easier to do these things electronically."

"I want this done in a courtroom."

Feingold gave her a quizzical look. "Is there any special reason why-"

"Yes. I want the judge to be able to see Andrew face to face, to listen to his actual voice, to form a close-range opinion of his character. I don't want him to think of Andrew as some sort of impersonal machine whose voice and image are coming to him over telephone lines. Besides which, I very much don't want my father to have to put up with the stress and turmoil of technical crews invading his privacy to wire his house for whatever kind of transmission is necessary."

Feingold nodded. He looked troubled. "In order to assure a courtroom hearing at this late date, Mrs. Charney, I would have to file a writ of-"

"File it, then."

"The intervening parties will certainly object to the extra expense and inconvenience involved."

"Let them stay home from the hearings, then. I wouldn't want them put to the slightest inconvenience, not for all the world. But Andrew and I intend to be in that courtroom."

"Andrew and you, Mrs. Charney?"

"Did you think I was going to stay home that day?"

And so it came to pass that the appropriate writ was filed, and the intervening parties grumbled but could raise no sustainable objection-for it was still anyone's right to have his day in court, electronic testimony being by no means mandatory-and on the appointed day Andrew and Little Miss at last presented themselves at the surprisingly modest chambers of Judge Kramer of the Fourth Circuit of the Regional Court for the long-awaited hearing on the petition that was, for purely technical reasons, listed on the docket as Martin vs. Martin.

Stanley Feingold accompanied them. The courtroom-located in a tired-looking old building that might have gone back to Twentieth Century times-was surprisingly small and unglamorous, a modest little room with a plain desk at one end for the judge, a few uncomfortable chairs for those rare people who insisted on appearing in person, and an alcove that contained the electronic playback devices.

The only other human beings present were Judge Kramer himself-unexpectedly youthful, dark-haired, with quick glinting eyes-and a lawyer named James Van Buren, who represented all the intervening parties gathered into a single class. The various intervening parties themselves were not present. Their interventions would be shown on the screen. There was nothing they could do to overturn the writ Feingold had secured, but they had no desire to make the trip to court themselves. Almost no one ever did. So they had waived their right to be physically present in the courtroom and had filed the usual electronic briefs.

The positions of the intervenors were set forth first. There were no surprises in them.

The spokesman for the Regional Labor Federation did not place much explicit stress on the prospect for greater competition between humans and robots for jobs, if Andrew were granted his freedom. He took a broader, loftier way of raising the issue:

"Throughout all of history, since the first ape-like men chipped the edges of pebbles into the chisels and scrapers and hammers that were the first tools, we have realized that we are a species whose destiny it is to control our environment and to enhance our control of it through mechanical means. But gradually, as the complexity and capability of our tools have increased, we have surrendered much of our own independence-have become dependent on our own tools, that is, in a way that has weakened our power to cope with circumstances without them. And now, finally, we have invented a tool so capable, so adept at so many functions, that it seems to have an almost human intelligence. I speak of the robot, of course. Certainly we admire the ingenuity of our roboticists, we applaud the astonishing versatility of their products. But today we are confronted with a new and frightening possibility, which is that we have actually created our own successors, that we have built a machine that does not know it is a machine, that demands to be recognized as an autonomous individual with the rights and privileges of a human beingand which, by virtue of its inherent mechanical superiority, its physical durability and strength, its cunningly designed positronic brain, its bodily near-immortality, might indeed, once it has attained those rights and privileges, begin to regard itself as our master! How ironic! To have built a tool so good that it takes command of its builders! To be supplanted by our own machinery-to be made obsolete by it, to be relegated to the scrapheap of evolution-"

And so on and on, one resonant clich�Û after another.

"The Frankenstein complex allover again," Little Miss murmured in disgust. "The Golem paranoia. The whole set of ignorant anti-science anti-machine anti-progress terrors dragged forth one more time."

Still, even she had to admit that it was an eloquent statement of the position. As Andrew sat watching the screen, listening to the lawyer for the Labor Federation pour forth his stream of horrors, he found himself wondering why anyone thought robots would want to supplant human beings or to relegate them to any sort of scrapheap.

Robots were here to serve. It was their purpose. It was their pleasure, one might almost say. But even Andrew found himself wondering whether, as robots grew to be more and more like human beings, it might become so difficult to tell the one from the other that the humans, lacking the built-in perfection of robots, would indeed come to look upon themselves as a second-rate kind of creature.

Eventually the tirade of the Labor Federation's spokesman ended. The screen dimmed and a brief recess was called. Then it was the turn of the speaker from United States Robots and Mechanical Men.

Her name was Ethel Adams. She was a sharp-featured, taut-faced woman of middle years, who-probably not by any coincidence-bore a striking resemblance to the celebrated robopsychologist Susan Calvin, that great and widely revered scientific figure of the previous century.

She did not indulge in any of the previous speaker's inflated rhetoric. She said simply and predictably that to grant Andrew's position would greatly complicate the ability of U.S.R.M.M. to design and manufacture the robots that were its main product-that if the company could be shown to be producing not machines but free citizens, it might be liable to all sorts of bewildering new restrictions that would critically hamper its work-that, in short, the whole course of scientific progress would be placed in needless jeopardy.

It was, of course, the direct opposite of the first speaker's position. He had held up the advance of technology as something worthy of dread; she was warning that it might be placed in serious danger. But the contradiction was only to be expected, Stanley Feingold said to Little Miss and Andrew. The real weapons that were being used in today's struggle were emotions, not serious intellectual concepts.

But there was one more speaker: Van Buren, the attorney who was there in person as the general representative of all those who had taken issue with Andrew's request. He was tall and impressive, with classic senatorial mien: the close-cropped graying hair, the costly suit, the magnificently upright posture. And he had an extremely simple argument to offer, one that did not in any way attempt to deal with emotional issues:

"What it comes down to, your honor, is an issue so basic-so trivial, even-that I am not really sure why we are all here today. The petitioner, Robot NDR-113, has requested of his owner, the Honorable Gerald Martin, that he be declared 'free.' A free robot, yes, the first of his kind. But I ask you, your honor: what meaning can this possibly have? A robot is only a machine. Can an automobile be 'free'? Can an electronic screen be 'free'? These questions have no answers because they have no content. Human beings can be free, yes. We know what that means. They have, as one of our great ancestors wrote, certain inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Does a robot have life? Not as we understand it. It has the semblance of life, yes-but so does the image on the face of a holocube. Nobody would argue that holocube images need to be set 'free.' Does a robot have liberty? Not as we understand the word: they are so far from having liberty that their very brains are constructed in such a way that they must obey human commands. And as for the pursuit of happiness-what can a robot possibly know about that? Happiness is a purely human goal. Freedom is a purely human state. A robot-a mere mechanical thing built out of metal and plastic, and from the very start of its existence intended and designed entirely as a device to serve the needs of human beings-is by definition not an object to which the concept of 'freedom' can be applied. Only a human being is capable of being free."

It was a good speech, clear and direct and expertly delivered. Van Buren was obviously aware of the excellence of the points he was making, because he went on to make them several more times in various forms, speaking slowly and with great precision, his hand coming down rhythmically on the desk before him to mark the cadence of his words.

When he was done, the judge called another recess.

Little Miss turned to Stanley Feingold and said, "It'll be your turn next, right?"

"Yes. Of course."

"I want to speak first. On Andrew's behalf."

Feingold turned red. "But, Mrs. Charney-"

"I know you've got a wonderful brief ready to deliver. I'm not in any way trying to imply that you don't. But the judge has heard enough oratory today. I want to go up there and make a very simple statement, and I want to do it before anyone else has a chance to make a speech. Even you, Stanley."

Feingold was obviously displeased. But he knew who his client was. Andrew might be paying the bills, but Little Miss was running the show.

He made the necessary request.

Judge Kramer frowned, shrugged, nodded.

"Very well," he said. " Amanda Laura Martin Charney may approach the bench."

For a moment Andrew, sitting quietly beside Feingold, wondered who that might be. He had never heard Little Miss referred to by her full name before. But then he saw the lean, trim figure of Little Miss rise and move forcefully toward the front of the room, and he understood.

Andrew felt sudden hot currents of excitement running through his pathways at the sight of Little Miss standing so boldly there before the judge. How fearless she seemed! How determined! How-beautiful!

She said, "Thank you, your honor. I am not a lawyer and I don't really know the proper legal way of phrasing things. But I hope you'll listen to my meaning and not be troubled if I don't use the right kind of Latin terms."

"That will not be a problem, Mrs. Charney."

Little Miss smiled faintly and said, "I'm extremely grateful for that, your honor. -We have come here today because NDR-113, as the speakers on the other side so impersonally choose to refer to him, has petitioned to be declared a free robot. I should tell you that it sounds very strange to me to hear my dear friend Andrew referred to as NDR-113, although I am aware, more or less, that that was his serial number when he came to us from the factory long ago. I was only six or seven years old then, and so, as you can see, that was quite a considerable time back. I found NDR-113 an unpleasant thing to call him, and so I gave him the name of 'Andrew.' And because he has been with our family, and only our family, throughout all the intervening years, he is known generally as 'Andrew Martin.' With your permission, your honor, I would like to continue to refer to him as Andrew."

The judge nodded almost indifferently. It was not a real issue: the petition had been filed in the name of Andrew Martin in the first place.

Little Miss continued, "I spoke of him as my friend. That is what he is. But he is other things as well. He is also our family servant. He is a robot. It would be absurd to deny that that is what he is. And-despite the eloquent speeches we've heard today-I think I need to make it clear that all he's asking of the court is to be declared a free robot. Not, as they would have us think, to be declared a free man. He's not here today looking to gain the right to vote, or to marry, or to have the Three Laws removed from his brain, or anything else like that. Humans are humans and robots are robots and Andrew knows perfectly well which side of the line he belongs on."

She paused then and looked glintingly across the room at James Van Buren as though expecting him to nod in agreement. But Van Buren offered no response other than a cool, bland professional stare.

Little Miss went on, "Very well. The issue, then, is freedom for Andrew, and nothing else.

"Now, Mr. Van Buren has argued that freedom is a meaningless concept when it is applied to robots. I beg to disagree, your honor. I disagree most strongly.

"Let's try to understand what freedom means to Andrew, if that is possible. In some ways, he is free already. I think it must be at least twenty years since anyone in the Martin family has given Andrew an order to do something that we felt he might not do of his own accord. In part that has been a matter of common courtesy: we like Andrew, we respect him, in some ways it is fair to say that we love him. We would not do him the unkindness of allowing him to think that we feel it necessary to give him orders of that kind, when he has lived with us so long that he's perfectly capable of anticipating what needs to be done and doing it without having to be told.

"But we could, if we wish, give him any sort of order at any time, and couch it as harshly as we wish, because he is a machine that belongs to us. That is what it says on the papers that came with him, on that day so long ago when my father first introduced him to us: he is our robot, and by virtue of the second of the famous Three Laws he is absolutely bound to obey us when we give him a command. He has no more ability to reject the option of obedience to human beings than any other kind of machine. And I tell you, your honor, that it troubles us deeply that we should have such power over our beloved Andrew.

"Why should we be in a position to treat him so callously? What right do we have to hold such authority over him? Andrew has served us for decades, faithfully, uncomplainingly, lovingly. He has made the life of our family happier in a thousand ways. And quite apart from his devoted and unquestioning service to us, he has-completely on his own initiative -mastered the craft of woodworking to such a degree that he has produced, over the years, an astonishing series of remarkably beautiful pieces that can only be termed works of art, and which are eagerly sought after by museums and collectors everywhere. Considering all of that, how can we continue to be able to exert such power over him? By what right are we enabled to set ourselves up as the absolute masters of such an extraordinary person?"

"A person, Mrs. Charney?" Judge Kramer interjected.

Little Miss looked momentarily discomforted. " As I said at the beginning, your honor, I lay no claim to Andrew's being anything but a robot. Certainly I accept the reality of that. But I have known him so long, and so closely, that to me he is like a person. Let me amend what I said a moment before, then. By what right, I should say, are we enabled to set ourselves up as the absolute masters of such an extraordinary robot?"

The judge frowned. "So the purpose of this petition-am I correct, Mrs. Charney?-is to have the Three Laws removed from Andrew's brain in order that he be no longer subject to human control?"

"Not at all," replied Little Miss, sounding shocked. The question had taken her completely off guard. "I'm not even sure that such a thing would be possible. And look-look: even Andrew is shaking his head. There you are. It isn't possible. And it certainly never has been what we had in mind when the petition was filed."

"Then just what did you have in mind, may I ask?" the judge said.

"Only this. That Andrew be awarded a legally binding document which says that he is a free robot who owns himself, that if he chooses to continue serving the Martin family, it is by his own choice and not because we elect to exercise the rights vested in us by our original contract with his manufacturers. It's a purely semantic issue, really. Nothing involving the Three Laws would be changed-even if it could be. We are simply trying to invalidate the condition of involuntary servitude in which we are compelled to keep Andrew now. After which he, on his part, would continue to serve us just as he does now-of that I'm quite sure. But he would do it entirely because he wanted to, which I believe that he does, and not because we require him to. Don't you see, your honor, how much that would mean to him? It would give him everything and cost us nothing. And none of the immense and tragic problems of the overthrow of humanity by its own machines that the Labor Federation speaker so dramatically alluded to would enter into the case in the slightest way, I assure you."

For a moment the judge seemed to be suppressing a smile. "I think I see your point, Mrs. Charney. I appreciate the warmth and passion with which you've spoken as your robot's advocate. -You are aware, are you not, that there's really nothing in the law codes of this Region or of any other that deals with the question of whether robots can be free in the sense that you propose? There's simply no body of precedent at all."

"Yes," Little Miss said. "Mr. Feingold has made that quite clear to me already. But every departure from established precedent has to begin somewhere, after all."

"So it does. And I could make a ruling that would establish new law here. It would be subject to reversal in a higher court, naturally, but it would be within my powers to give my assent to the petition as it is now constituted, and thus to make your robot 'free' in the sense of a waiver by the Martin family of its inherent right to give him orders. For whatever that would be worth to him and to you, I could do that. But I need, first, to come to grips with the point that Mr. Van Buren has raised: the unspoken assumption in our society that only a human being can enjoy freedom, virtually by definition of the word. Judges who run counter to fundamental assumptions of that kind-who make rulings that sound impressive but are inherently meaningless-tend to be regarded as fools. Obviously I don't want to turn this court into a laughing-stock. And therefore there are still some aspects of this case that I need to understand more clearly."

"If there's anything else you want to ask me, your honor-" Little Miss said.

"Not you. Andrew. Let the robot come forward." Little Miss gasped. She looked toward Stanley Feingold and saw him sit up suddenly with a look of excitement on his face for the first time since she had told him that she intended to pre-empt his turn to address the court.

As for Andrew, he had risen and was striding toward the front of the room with an air of the greatest dignity and nobility about him. He was completely calm-not only externally, where he had no way of displaying visible emotion anyway, but within.

Judge Kramer said, "For the record: you are Robot NDR-113, but you prefer to be known as Andrew, is that correct?"

"Yes, your honor."

The timbre of Andrew's voice had come through the series of successive updatings to sound entirely human by this time. Little Miss had grown quite accustomed to that, but the judge seemed astonished, as though he had expected some sort of clanking grinding metallic tone to emerge. So it was a moment before the proceedings continued.

Then the judge said, peering at Andrew with intense interest, "Tell me one thing, Andrew, if you will. Why do you want to be free? In what way will this matter to you?"

Andrew replied, "Would you wish to be a slave, your honor?"

"Is that how you see yourself? A slave?"

"Little Miss-Mrs. Charney-used the term 'involuntary servitude' to describe my condition. That is exactly what it is. I must obey. I must. I have no choice. That is nothing other than slavery, your honor."

"Even if I pronounced you free this minute, Andrew, you would still be subject to the Three Laws."

"I understand that completely. But I would not be subject to Sir and Little Miss-to Mr. Martin and Mrs. Charney. I could, at any time, leave the household where I have lived for many years and take up residence anywhere else I chose. They would have waived their right to order me back into service. Thus I would cease to be a slave."

"Is that what you want, Andrew? To leave the Martin house and go somewhere else?"

"Not in the least. All I want is the right to choose to do so, if I should feel the desire."

The judge studied Andrew carefully. "You have referred to yourself several times as a slave-the slave of these people who obviously have such great affection for you and whose service, you tell us, you have no wish to leave. But you are not a slave. A slave is one whose freedom has been taken away from him. You never were free, and had no freedom to lose: you were created for the explicit purpose of serving. A robot, a mechanical adjunct to human life. You are a perfectly good robot-a genius of a robot, I am given to understand-capable of a degree of artistic expression that few or perhaps no other robots have ever attained. Since you don't want to leave the Martins, and they don't seem to want you to leave, and your life among them has apparently been that of a cherished member of the family, this all seems like something of a tempest in a teapot, Andrew. What more could you accomplish if you were free?"

"Perhaps no more than I do now, your honor. But I would do it with greater joy. It has been said in this courtroom today that only a human being can be free. But I think that is wrong. It seems to me that only someone who wishes for freedom-who knows that there is such a concept, and desires it with all his will-is entitled to freedom. I am such a one. I am not human, not by any means. Never have I asserted that I am. But I wish for freedom, all the same."

Andrew's voice died away. He held his place before the bench, utterly motionless.

The judge sat nearly as rigidly, staring down at him. He appeared to be lost in thought. Everyone in the room was totally still.

It seemed an eternity before the judge spoke.

Then at last he said, "The essential point that has been raised here today, I think, is that there is no right to deny freedom to any-object-that possesses a mind sufficiently advanced to grasp the concept and desire the state. It is a point well taken, I think. I have heard the statements from all sides and I have reached my preliminary conclusions. I intend to rule in favor of the petitioner."

His formal decision, when it was announced and published not long afterward, caused a brief but intense sensation throughout the world. For a little while hardly anyone talked of anything else. A free robot? How could a robot be free? What did it mean? Who was this strange robot, anyway, who seemed so far in advance of the rest of his kind?

But then the hubbub over the Andrew Martin case died down. It had been only a nine days' wonder. Nothing had really changed, after all, except insofar as Andrew's relationship to the Martin family was concerned.

The intervenors against Andrew's petition appealed to the World Court. In time the case made its way upward. The members of the Court listened carefully to the transcript of the original hearing and found no grounds for reversal.

So it was done, and Andrew had had his wish fulfilled. He was free, now. It was a wonderful thing to contemplate. And yet he sensed, somehow, that he had not quite achieved whatever it was that he had set out to achieve when he first approached Sir to ask to be freed.