"Asimov, Isaac - Wonderful Worlds of SciFi Vol 9 - Robots" - читать интересную книгу автора (Asimov Isaac)

"The designated oral witness engineer should spend his living moments performing his function," the director said coolly. "Recording his subjective impressions as long as he is able. It is the role you commanded we open up for an old style human, using your peremptory authority as a member of the council."
The other's humaniform face flexed in a traditional, pseudoorganic smile, archaic in its mimicry of the Old Race. And yet the director, schooled in Utilitarian belief, felt uneasy under the councilor's gaze.
"I had a peremptory commandment left to use up before the elections," the councilor said smoothly in old-fashioned, modulated tones. "I judged that this would be an appropriate way to use it."
He did not explain further. The director quashed an urge to push the question. What was the Ethicalist up to? Why waste a peremptory command on such a minor, futile thing as this? How could he gain anything by sending an old style human out to his certain death!
Was it to be some sort of gesture? Something aimed at getting out the biological vote for the upcoming elections?
If so, it was doomed to failure. In-depth psychological studies had indicated that the level of resignation and apathy among organic citizens was too high to ever be overcome by anything so simple.
Perhaps, though, it might be enough to save the seat of the one Ethicalist on the council...
The director felt warm. He knew that it was partly subjective--resentment of this invasion of his domain by a ridiculous sentimentalist. Most of all, the director resented the feelings he felt boiling within himself.
Why, why do we modern forms have to be cursed with this burden of emotionalism and uncertainty! I hate it!
Of course he knew the reasons. Back in ancient times, fictional "robots" had been depicted as caricatures of jerky motion and rigid, formal thinking. The writers of those precryo days had not realized that complexity commanded flexibility... even fallibility. The laws of physics were adamant on this. Uncertainty accompanied subtlety. An advanced mind had to have the ability to question itself, or creativity was lost.
The director loathed the fact, but he understood it.
Still, he suspected that the biologists had played a trick on his kind, long ago. He and other Utilitarians had an idea that there had been some deep programming, below anything nowadays accessed, to make mechano-people as much like the old style as possible.
If I ever had proof it was true... he thought, gloweringly, threateningly.
Ah, but it doesn't matter. The biologicals will be extinct in a few generations, anyway. They're dying of a sense of their own uselessness.
Good riddance!
"I will leave you now, Councilor. Unless you wish to accompany me to recharge on refrigerants?"
The Ethicalist bowed slightly, ironically, aware, of course, that the director could not return the gesture. "No, thank you, Director. I shall wait here and contemplate for a while.
"Before you go, however, please let me make one thing clear. It may seem, at times, as if I am not sympathetic with your work here. But that is not true. After all, we're all humans, all citizens. Everybody wants Project Lightprobe to succeed. The dream is one we inherit from our makers... to go out and live among the stars.
"I am only acting to help bring that about--for all of our people."
The director felt unaccountably warmer. He could not think of an answer. "I require helium," he said, curtly, and swiveled to leave. "Good bye, Councilor."
The director felt as if eyes were watching his armored back as he sped down the hallway.
Damn the biologicals and their allies! he cursed within. Damn them for making us so insidiously like them... emotional, fallible and, worst of all, uncertain!
Wishing the last of the old style were already dust on their dirty, wet little planet, the director hurried away to find himself a long, cold drink.

5.

"Six hours and ten minutes into the mission, four minutes since breakover into hyperspace..." Jason breathed into the microphone. "So far so good. I'm a little thirsty, but I believe it's just a typical adrenaline fear reaction. Allowing for expected tension, I feel fine."
Jason went on to describe everything he could see, the lights, the controls, the readings on the computer displays, his physical feelings... he went on until his throat felt dry and he found he was repeating himself.
"I'm getting up out of the observer's seat, now, to go get a drink." He slipped the recorder strap over his shoulder and unbuckled from the flight chair. There was a feeling of weight, as the techs had told him to expect. About a tenth of a g. It was enough to make walking possible. He flexed his legs and moved about the control room, describing every aspect of the experience. Then he went to the refrigerator and took out a squeeze-tube of lemonade.
Jason was frankly surprised to be alive. He knew the previous voyagers had lived several days before their unknown catastrophe struck. But they had been a lot tougher than he. Perhaps the mysterious lethal agency had taken nearly all the fifteen days of the minimum first leg of the round trip to do them in.
If so, he wondered, how long will it take to get me?

A few hours later, the failure of anything to happen was starting to make him nervous. He cut down the rate of his running commentary in order to save his voice. Besides, nothing much seemed to be changing. The ship was cruising, now. All the dials and indicators were green and steady.
During sleep period he tossed in the sleeping hammock, sharing it with disturbed dreams. He awakened several times impelled by a sense of duty and imminent danger, clutching his recorder tightly. But when he stared about the control room he could find nothing amiss.
By the third day he had had enough.
"I'm going to poke around in the instruments," he spoke into the microphone. "I know I was told not to. And I'll certainly not touch anything having to do with the functioning of the ship. But I figure I deserve a chance to see what I'm traveling through. Nobody's ever looked out on hyperspace. I'm going to take a look."
Jason set about the task with a feeling of exultation. What he was doing wouldn't hurt anything, just alter a few of the sensors.
Sure, it was against orders, but if he got back alive he would be famous, too important to bother with charges over such a minor infraction.
Not that he believed, for even a moment, that he was coming home alive.
It was a fairly intricate task, rearranging a few of the ship's programs so the external cameras--meant to be used at the destination star only--would work in hyperspace. He wondered if it had been some sort of Utilitarian gesture not to include viewing ports, or to do the small modifications of scanning electronics necessary to make the cameras work here. There was no obvious scientific reason to "look at" hyperspace, so perhaps the Utilitarian technicians rejected it as an atavistic desire.
Jason finished all but the last adjustments, then took a break to fix himself a meal before turning on the cameras. While he ate he made another recorder entry; there was little to report. A little trouble with the cryogen cooling units; they were laboring a bit. But the efficiency loss didn't seem to be anything critical, yet.
After dinner he sat cross-legged on the floor in front of the screen he had commandeered. "Well, now, let's see what this famous hyperspace looks like," he said. "At least the folks back home will know that it was an old style man who first looked out on..."
The screen rippled, then suddenly came alight.
Light! Jason had to shield his eyes. Hyperspace was ablaze with light!
His thoughts whirled. Could this have something to do with the threat? The unknown, malign force that had killed all the previous crews?
Jason cracked an eyelid and lowered his arm slightly. The screen was bright, but now that his eyes had adapted, it wasn't painful to look at. He gazed in fascination on a scene of whirling pink and white, as if the ship was hurtling through an endless sky of bright, pastel clouds.
It looked rather pleasant, in fact.
This is a threat? He wondered, dazedly. How could this soft brilliance kill?
Jason's jaw opened as a relay seemed to close in his mind. He stared at the screen for a long moment, wondering if his growing suspicion could be true.
He laughed out loud--a hard, ironic laugh, as yet more tense than hopeful. He set to work finding out if his suspicion was right, after all.