Unwise Child by Randall Garrett (early reader chapter books .TXT) 📖

he said.

“Oh, it isn’t important now. But I felt—I still feel—that everybody is born with a sort of Three Laws of Robotics in him. You know what I mean—that a person wouldn’t kill or harm anyone, or refuse to do what was right, in addition to trying to preserve his own life. I think babies are born that way. But I think that the information they’re given when they’re growing up can warp them. They still think they’re obeying the laws, but they’re obeying them wrongly, if you see what I mean.”

Mike nodded without saying anything. This was no time to interrupt her.

“For instance,” she went on, “if my theory’s right, then a child would never disobey his father—unless he was convinced that the man was not really his father, you see. For instance, if he learned, very early, that his father never spanks him, that becomes one of the identifying marks of ‘father.’ Fine. But the first time his father does spank him, doubt enters. If that sort of thing goes on, he becomes disobedient [158] because he doesn’t believe that the man is his father.

“I’m afraid I’m putting it a little crudely, but you get the idea.”

“Yeah,” said Mike. For all he knew, there might be some merit in the girl’s idea; he knew that philosophers had talked of the “basic goodness of mankind” for centuries. But he had a hunch that Leda was going about it wrong. Still, this was no time to argue with her. She seemed calmer now, and he didn’t want to upset her any more than he had to.

“That’s what you’ve been working on with Snookums?” he asked.

“That’s it.”

“For eight years?”

“For eight years.”

“Is that the information, the data, that makes Snookums so priceless, aside from his nucleonics work?”

She smiled a little then. “Oh no. Of course not, silly. He’s been fed data on everything—physics, subphysics, chemistry, mathematics—all kinds of things. Most of the major research laboratories on Earth have problems of one kind or another that Snookums has been working on. He hasn’t been given the problem I was working on at all; it would bias him.” Then the tears came back. “And now it doesn’t matter. He’s insane. He’s lying.”

“What’s he saying?”

“He insists that he’s never broken the First Law, that he has never hurt a human being. And he insists that he has followed the orders of human beings, according to the Second Law.”

“May I talk to him?” Mike asked.

[159] She shook her head. “Fitz is running him through an analysis. He even made me leave.” Then she looked at his face more closely. “You don’t just want to confront him and call him a liar, do you? No—that’s not like you. You know he’s just a machine—better than I do, I guess.... What is it, Mike?”

No, he thought, looking at her, she still thinks he’s human. Otherwise, she’d know that a computer can’t lie—not in the human sense of the word.

Most people, if told that a man had said one thing, and that a computer had given a different answer, would rely on the computer.

“What is it, Mike?” she repeated.

“Lew Mellon,” he said very quietly, “is dead.”

The blood drained from her face, leaving her skin stark against the bright red of her hair. For a moment he thought she was going to faint. Then a little of the color came back.

“Snookums.” Her voice was whispery.

He shook his head. “No. Apparently he tried to jump Vaneski and got hit with a stun beam. It shouldn’t have killed him—but apparently it did.”

“God, God, God,” she said softly. “Here I’ve been crying about a damned machine, and poor Lew has been lying up there dead.” She buried her face in her hands, and her voice was muffled when she spoke again. “And I’m all cried out, Mike. I can’t cry any more.”

Before Mike could make up his mind whether to say anything or not, the door of Snookums’ room opened and Dr. Fitzhugh came out, closing the door behind him. There was an odd, stricken look on his face. He looked at Leda and then at Mike, but the expression on his face showed that he really hadn’t seen them clearly.

[160] “Did you ever wonder if a robot had a soul, Mike?” he asked in a wondering tone.

“No,” Mike admitted.

Leda took her hands from her face and looked at him. Her expression was a bright blank stare.

“He won’t answer my questions,” Fitzhugh said in a hushed tone. “I can’t complete the analysis.”

“What’s that got to do with his soul?” Mike asked.

“He won’t answer my questions,” Fitzhugh repeated, looking earnestly at Mike. “He says God won’t allow him to.”

[161]

18

Captain Sir Henry Quill opened the door of the late Lieutenant Mellon’s quarters and went in, followed by Mike the Angel. The dead man’s gear had to be packed away so that it could be given to his nearest of kin when the officers and crew of the Brainchild returned to Earth. Regulations provided that two officers must inventory his personal effects and those belonging to the Space Service.

“Does Chief Pasteur know what killed him yet, Captain?” Mike asked.

Quill shook his head. “No. He wants my permission to perform an autopsy.”

“Are you going to let him?”

“I think not. We’ll put the body in the freezer and have the autopsy performed on Earth.” He looked around the room, seeing it for the first time.

“If you don’t,” said Mike, “you’ve got three suspected killers on your hands.”

Quill was unperturbed. “Don’t be ridiculous, Golden Wings.”

“I’m not,” Mike said. “I hit him in the pit of his stomach. Chief Pasteur filled him full of sedative. Mister Vaneski [162] shot him with a stun beam. He died. Which one of us did it?”

“Probably no single one of them, but a combination of all three,” said Captain Quill. “Each action was performed in the line of duty and without malice aforethought—without even intent to harm permanently, much less to kill. There will have to be a court-martial, of course—or, at the very least, a board of inquiry will be appointed. But I am certain you’ll all come through any such inquiry scatheless.” He picked up a book from Mellon’s desk. “Let’s get about our business, Mister Gabriel. Mark down: Bible, one.”

Mike put it down on the list.

“International Encyclopedia, English edition. Thirty volumes and index.”

Mike put it down.

“The Oxford-Webster Dictionary of the English Language—

“Hallbert’s Dictionary of Medical Terms—

“The Canterbury Theological Dictionary—

“The Christian Religion and Symbolic Logic, by Bishop K. F. Costin—

“The Handbook of Space Medicine—”

As Captain Quill called out the names of the books and put them into the packing case he’d brought, Mike marked them down—while something began ticking in the back of his mind.

“Item,” said Captain Quill, “one crucifix.” He paused. “Beautifully carved, too.” He put it into the packing case.

“Excuse me, Captain,” said Mike suddenly. “Let me take a look at something, will you?” Excitedly, he leaned over and took some of the books out, looking at the pages of each one.

[163] “I’ll be damned,” he said after a moment. “Or I should be—for being such a stupid idiot!”

Captain Quill narrowed his eyes. “What are you talking about, Mister Gabriel?”

“I’m not sure yet, Captain,” Mike hedged. “May I borrow these three books?” He held them up in his hands.

“May I be so bold as to ask why, Mister Gabriel?”

“I just want to look at them, sir,” Mike said. “I’ll return them within a few hours.”

“Mister Gabriel,” Captain Quill said, “after what happened last night, I am suspicious of everything that goes on aboard this ship. But—yes. You may take them. However, I want them returned before we land tomorrow morning.”

Mike blinked. Neither he nor anyone else—with the exception of Captain Quill and Lieutenant Commander von Liegnitz, the navigator, knew the destination of the ship. Mike hadn’t realized they were that close to their goal. “I’ll have them back by then,” he promised.

“Very well. Now let’s get on about our work.”

The job was completed within forty-five minutes. A man can’t carry a great deal with him on a spaceship. When they were through, Mike the Angel excused himself and went to his quarters. Two hours after that he went to the officers’ wardroom to look up Pete Jeffers. Pete hadn’t been in his quarters, and Mike knew he wasn’t on duty by that time. Sure enough, Jeffers was drinking coffee all by himself in the wardroom. He looked up when Mike came in.

“Hullo, Mike,” he said listlessly. “Come sit. Have some coffee.”

There was a faint aroma in the air which indicated that [164] there was more in the cup than just coffee. “No, thanks, Pete. I’ll sit this one out. I wanted to talk to you.”

“Sit. I am drinking a toast to Mister Lew Mellon.” He pointed at the coffee. “Sure you won’t have a mite? It’s sweetened from the grape.”

“No, thanks again.” Mike sat down. “It’s Mellon I wanted to talk about. Did you know him well, Pete?”

“Purty well,” Pete said, nodding. “Yeah, purty well. I always figured him for a great little bloke. Can’t figure what got into him.”

“Me either. Pete, you told me he was an Anglo-Catholic—a good one, you said.”

“’At’s right.”

“Well, how did you mean that?”

Pete frowned. “Just what I said. He studied his religion, he went to Mass regularly, said his prayers—that sort of thing. And he was, I will say, a Christian gentleman in every sense of the word.” There was irritation in his voice, as though Mike had impugned the memory of a friend.

“Don’t get huffy, Pete; he struck me as a pretty nice person, too—”

“Until he flipped his lid,” said Pete. “But that might happen to anybody.”

“Sure. But what I want to know—and don’t get sore—is, did he show any kind of—well, instability before this last outbreak?”

“Like what?”

“I mean, was he a religious nut? Did he act ‘holier than thou’ or—well, was he a fanatic, would you say?”

“No, I wouldn’t say so. He didn’t talk much about it. I guess you noticed that. I mean, he didn’t preach. He smoked some and had his glass of wine now and then—even had a [165] cocktail or two on occasion. His views on sex were orthodox, I reckon—I mean, as far as I know. He’d tell an off-color story, if it wasn’t too bad. But he’d get up and leave quietly if the boys started tellin’ about the women they’d made. Fornication and adultery just weren’t his meat, I’d say.”

“I know he wasn’t married,” Mike said. “Did he date much?”

“Some. He liked to dance. Women seemed to like him.”

“How about men?”

“Most of the boys liked him.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Oh. Was he queer?” Pete frowned. “I’d damn near stake my life that he wasn’t.”

“You mean he didn’t practice it?”

“I don’t believe he even thought about it,” Pete said. “Course, you can’t tell what’s really goin’ on in a man’s mind, but—” His frown became a scowl. “Damn it, Mike, just because a man isn’t married by the time he’s thirty-five and practices Christian chastity while he’s single don’t necessarily mean he’s a damn fairy!”

“I didn’t say it did. I just wondered if you’d heard anything.”

“No more’n I’ve heard about you—who are in exactly the same position!”

“Exactly,” Mike agreed. “That’s what I wanted to know. Pete, if you’ve got it to spare, I’ll join you in that toast.”

Pete Jeffers grinned. “Comin’ right up, buddy-boy.”

He poured two more cups of coffee, spiked them from a small flask of brandy, and handed one to Mike. They drank in silence.

Fifteen minutes later, Mike the Angel was in the little [166] office that Leda Crannon shared with Dr. Fitzhugh. She was alone.

“How’s the girl today?” he asked.

“Beat,” she said with a forced smile.

“You look beautiful,” he said. He wasn’t lying. She looked drawn and tired, but she still looked beautiful.

“Thanks, Mike. What can I do for you?”

Mike the Angel pulled up a chair and sat down. “Where’s Doc Fitz?”

“He’s still trying to get information out of Snookums. It’s a weird thing, Mike—a robot with a soul.”

“You don’t mind talking about it?”

“No; go ahead if you want.”

“All right, answer me a question,” he said. “Can Snookums read English?”

“Certainly. And Russian, and German, French, Chinese, and most of the other major languages of Earth.”

“He could read a book, then?”

“Yes. But not unless it was given to him and he was specifically told to use its contents as data.”

“Good,” said Mike. “Now, suppose Snookums was given complete data on a certain field of knowledge. Suppose further that this field is internally completely logical, completely coherent, completely self-consistent. Suppose it could even be reduced to a series of axioms and theorems in symbolic logic.”

“All right,” she said. “So?”

“Now, further suppose that this system, this field of knowledge is, right now, in constant use by millions of human beings, even though most of