Randall Garrett

“ I am. Ravenhurst is sore at you personally because you showed him that Jack was responsible for the McGuire sabotage. It's an irrational dislike, and I am not going to let it interfere with my job. I'm going to protect Ravenhurst's interests to the best of my ability, and that means that I'll use the best of other people's abilities if I can. ”

“ She grasped her book—"Some Applications of Discontinuity in Pattern Theory"—and threw it at the wall speaker from which McGuire's voice came. It bounced harmless off the protective grill and fell to the floor. Vivian Devereaux burst into tears.
I put my arm around her, gave Videnski and Felder the high sign to keep thinking, and led her to her room. As soon as I got her settled, I said: "Relax. No matter what happens, we'll get out of it alive. If we stretch our rations, we'll be able to make it to Titan without being more than underweight and hungry." ”

“ I went on. "Ravenhurst can still have his big splash on Earth."
We herded Brentwood into the lounge and bound him to a chair. Then I said: "McGuire?"
"Yes, sir?"
"We're changing course. Return to Ceres."
[61]
And McGuire said: "I'm sorry, sir; I cannot obey any orders except those of Mr. Daniel Oak."
I just stood there for a long minute. "I am Daniel Oak," I whispered. But I was fairly certain that the declaration would do me no good whatever.
I was right. "No, sir. You are not Mr. Oak." McGuire is always polite to anyone who speaks to him, even if he doesn't regard that person as human. ”

“ A crowd wearing skin-tight cover-alls might shock the gentle people of Midwich-on-the-Moor, England, but they are normal dress in the Belt. You can't climb into a vac suit with bulky clothing on, and, if you did, you'd hate yourself within an hour, with a curse for every wrinkle that chafed your skin. And, in the Belt, you never know when you might have to get into a vac suit fast. In a "safe" area like the tunnels inside Ceres, there isn't much chance of losing air, but there are places where no one but a fool would ever be more than ten seconds away from his vac suit. ”

“ A robot shall strive to protect its own existence, except when this conflicts with the First or Second Law.
Nobody has succeeded yet, because nobody has yet succeeded in defining the term "human being" in such a way that the logical mind of a robot can encompass the concept.
A traffic robot is useful only because the definition has been rigidly narrowed down. As far as a traffic robot is concerned, "human beings" are the automobiles on its highways. Woe betide any poor sap who tries, illegally, to cross a robot-controlled highway on foot. ”

“ A man is marooned on an asteroid [33] without food or water and only one day's supply of air in the tanks of his vac suit. If there is an emergency air tank on the asteroid, it contains enough air to last him for two weeks. If there is a flare bomb on the asteroid, then there is an air tank. There is either a dismantled communicator on the asteroid or an emergency water supply, but not both. There is either an emergency food package, or flare bomb, or a single hibernine injection; or there is both an emergency food package and a flare bomb, but no hibernine. ”

“ I lifted her gently, worked her around until I was stationary in relation to the spinning planetoid, oriented myself against the stellar background, and headed toward the first blinker beacon on my way to Ceres.
For obvious economical reasons, it it impracticable to use full-sized spaceships in the Belt. A flitterboat, with a single gravitoinertial engine and the few necessities of life—air, some water, and a very little food—still costs more than a Rolls-Royce [11] automobile does on Earth, but there has to be some sort of individual transportation in the Belt. ”

“ A man doesn't have time to run to a teletyper and type out orders when there's an emergency in space.
That meant that McGuire had to understand English, and, since there has to be feedback in communication, he had to be able to speak it as well.
And that made McGuire more than somewhat difficult to deal with.
For more than a century, robotocists have been trying to build Asimov's famous Three Laws of Robotics into a robot brain.
First Law: A robot shall not, either through action or inaction, allow harm to come to a human being. ”

“ Viking cannot stand any more of that kind of drain on its financial resources. I have been banking on the McGuire-type ships to put Viking Spacecraft ahead of every other spacecraft company in the System." He looked suddenly very grim and very determined. "Mr. Oak, I am certain that the robot ship is the answer to the transportation problems in the Solar System. For the sake of every human being in the Solar System, we must get the bugs out of McGuire!" ”

“ Keeping a few million cars moving and safe at the same time is actually pretty routine stuff for a robot. And a traffic robot isn't given orders verbally; it is given any orders that may be necessary via teletype by a trained programming technician. Those orders are usually in reference to a change of routing due to repair work on the highways or the like. The robot itself can take care of such emergencies as bad weather or even an accident caused by the malfunctioning of an individual automobile.
McGuire was different. In the first place, he was mobile. He was in command of a spacecraft. ”

“ With the first six models of the McGuire ships, the robotocists attempted to build in the Three Laws exactly as stated. And the first six went insane.
If one human being says "jump left," and another says "jump right," the robot is unable to evaluate which human being has given the more valid order. Feed enough confusing and conflicting data into a robot brain, and it can begin behaving in ways that, in a human being, would be called paranoia or schizophrenia or catatonia or what-have-you, depending [16] on the symptoms. ”

“ In the lounge, where we were, Brentwood had removed a panel that gave him access to the testing circuits. To actually get into McGuire's inner workings and tamper with him would be a lot tougher. McGuire wouldn't allow it unless I told him to, but even if he did, getting to the brain required three separate keys and the knowledge of the combination on the dial of the durasteel door to the tank that held his brain. Explosives would wreck the brain if they were powerful enough to open the door, and so would a torch. ”

“ I weigh just under six pounds on Ceres, and after I've been there a while, going back to Earth is a strain that takes a [18] week to get used to. Kids that are brought up in the Belt are forced to exercise in a room with a one-gee spin on it at least an hour a day. They don't like it at first, but it keeps them from growing up with the strength of mice. And an adult with any sense takes a spin now and then, too. Traveling in a flitterboat will give you a one-gee pull, all right, but you don't get much exercise. ”

“ Felder was ineffectually trying to pull Videnski away from Brentwood, but the big man didn't even seem to notice it. Vivian Devereaux was nowhere in sight.
Videnski's harsh baritone was filled with invective that should have made the air as glowingly blue as the inside of an old-fashioned rectifier tube.
I ran across the room, grabbed Videnski by the shoulder and said: [68] "Stop that!"
He stopped. When I throw out an emotional field like that, only a very exceptional man can disobey. ”

“ A man feels better if he has the comfortable notion that the position of the sun has something to do with the numbers on the clock. It gives him a sense of security. Only the fact that a man in the Belt—or anywhere else in the System, for that matter—is not dependent on Sol for lighting purposes makes it possible to establish a Standard Time for everyone. ”

“ There are a lot of places on Earth where a phone line can be tapped with fairly cheap equipment simply because, for economic reasons, the phone company hasn't installed new equipment. But on Ceres, everything goes through a synchronized random scrambler circuit, just as it does in the more modern cities on Earth. Nobody's been able to crack it yet without a good-sized computer and a lot of luck. ”

“ The vast majority of [13] the System's citizens don't even know the Government has a Secret Service. I happen to know only because I'm an agent of the Political Survey Division.
The PSD was vitally interested in the whole McGuire project. Robots of McGuire's complexity had been built before; the robot that runs the traffic patterns of the American Eastern Seaboard is just as capable as McGuire when it comes to handling a tremendous number of variables and making decisions on them. But that robot didn't have to be given orders except in extreme emergencies. ”

“ Sit around listening to that sort of stuff for very long, and you begin to wish you were out on an uninhabited asteroid somewhere. Problems like that are the sort of thing that any simple-minded computer can solve in a fraction of a second if they're reduced to binary notation first, but poor McGuire had to do his own mathematical interpretations from English, and the things got more complicated as they went along. ”

“ Unforeseen emergencies can happen at any time in space, most of them having to do with the lives of passengers. A cargo ship would be somewhat less susceptible to such emergencies if there were no humans aboard; it doesn't matter much to a robot if he has no air in his hull. ”

“ All over the Solar System, except on Earth itself, the clocks read the same as they do in Greenwich, England. Time zones don't mean anything anywhere except on Earth, where the natives feel that the sun should be at the zenith when the clock says twelve. ”

“ Ravenhurst, I will."
He kept his eyes focused on his work: It isn't easy to pour wine on a planetoid where the gee-pull is measured in fractions of a centimeter per second squared. It moves slowly, like ropy molasses, but you have to be careful not to be fooled by that. The viscosity is just as low as ever, and if you pour it from any great height, it will go scooting right out of the glass [4] again. The momentum it builds up is enough to make it splash right out again in a slow-motion gush which gets it all over the place. ”

“ Cronos is one of the companies that mines the rings of Saturn. A lot of the water here in the Belt comes from the ice they ship in. Why?"
"Not exactly," he said, ignoring my question. "They now have full control of their only rival, Titan Enterprises. I am a stockholder in Titan, and I am convinced that there was chicanery involved in the transfer of managership. The Cronos Corporation intends to raise the price of water in the Belt and make a lot of fast money." ”

“ I said, still playing ignorant, "I thought we'd pretty well established that the 'sabotage' of the McGuire series was Jack Ravenhurst's fault. She was the one who was driving them nuts, not Thurston's agents."
"Perfectly true," he said agreeably. "We managed to block any attempts of sabotage by other company agents, even though it looked as though we hadn't for a while." He chuckled wryly. "We went all out to keep the McGuires safe, and all the time the boss' daughter was giving them the works." ”

“ Felder didn't look any too happy; no one likes to have a point in his own field explained to him by a layman. But he couldn't argue with me.
"There's a great deal more to be done before McGuire can be put into practical service," he said heavily. "We may as well head back to Ceres."
"I don't think so," I said. "McGuire's in good enough shape to let [78] us make the big splash on Earth that Ravenhurst wants to make. He'll need it if Viking is to have enough financial leeway to go on with this project."
"What about ... what about Brentwood?" Vivian Devereaux asked. ”

“ Baedecker, on the other hand, [74] didn't give a care about Viking Spacecraft. They wanted to take over Ceres for their own firm. If that meant that getting rid of McGuire completely would give them what they wanted, then they'd get rid of McGuire.
"Why'd you take the job?" I asked.
"Money. I'm sick of the Belt. I want to go back home, to Earth." Her eyes were quite dry by now, and there was a choked sort of fear in them. "I hate it out here. There's death all around you all the time; sometimes it's just outside your skin, on the other side of the fabric of your vac suit. ”

“ They can't be used for any great distances because a man can't stay in a vac suit very long without getting uncomfortable. You have to hop from beacon to beacon, which means that your average velocity doesn't amount to much, since you spend too much time accelerating and decelerating. But a flitterboat is enough to get around the neighborhood in, and that's all that's needed.
I got the GM-187 blinker in my sights, eased the acceleration up to one gee, relaxed to watch the radar screen while I thought over my coming ordeal with McGuire. ”

“ Sometimes it's a pain to play ignorant.
"Thurston's outfit is trying to oust Ravenhurst from the managership of Viking and take over the job. Baedecker Metals & Mining Corporation, which is managed by Baedecker himself, wants to force Viking out of business so that BM&M can take over Ceres for large-scale processing of precious metals.
"Between the two of 'em, they're raising all sorts of minor hell around [21] here, and it's liable to become major hell at any time. And we can't stand any hell—or sabotage—around this planetoid just now!" ”

“ Venuccio.
The Seven Sisters is one of the most elaborate dining clubs on Ceres. [46] It caters strictly to the moneyed class, and is positively drenched in snob appeal. The food is good, the liquor is good, and the entertainment is adequate. Since all three have to be imported from Earth, the first two are expensive and the last one is the best they can get, because most of the top-flight entertainers of Earth don't feel that it's worth their while to go asteroid-hopping. ”

“ The robot's only concern would be with the safety of the automobiles, and if the only way to avoid destruction of an automobile were to be by nudging the pedestrian aside with a fender, that's what would happen. ”