"Isaac Asimov - Gold - 01 - " - читать интересную книгу автора (Asimov Isaac)

"I wanted some connection, sir."
"You've got a tremendous ego, Cal."
I hesitated. "What does that mean, sir?"
"Never mind. It doesn't matter."
He put the manuscript down and I was troubled. I said, "But what did you think of the mystery?"
"It's an improvement, but it's still not a good mystery. Do you realize that?"
"In what way is it disappointing, sir?"
"Well you don't understand modern business practices or computerized financing for one thing. And no one would take a quarter from the table with four other men present, even if they weren't looking. It would have been seen. Then, even if that happened, Mr. Wassell's taking it isn't _proof_ he was the thief. Anyone could pocket a quarter automatically, without thinking. It's an interesting indication, but it's not _proof_./ And the title of the story tends to give it away, too."
"I see."
"And, in addition, the Three Laws of Robotics are still getting in your way. You keep worrying about punishment."
"I must, sir."
"I know you must. That's why I think you shouldn't try to write crime stories."
"What else should I write, sir?"
"Let me think about it."

* * *

Mr Northrop called in the technician again. This time, I think, he wasn't very eager to have me overhead what he was saying, but even from where I was standing, I could hear the conversation. Sometimes human beings forget how sharp the senses of robots can be.
After all, I was very upset. I wanted to be a writer and I didn't want Mr. Northrop telling me what I could write and couldn't write. Of course, he was a human being and I had to obey him, but I didn't like it.
"What's the matter now, Mr. Northrop?" asked the technician in a voice that sounded sardonic to my ears. "Has this robot of yours been writing a story again?"
"Yes, he has," said Mr. Northrop, trying to sound indifferent. "He's written another mystery story and I don't want him writing mysteries."
"Too much competition, eh, Mr. Northrop?"
"No. Don't be a jackass. There's just no point in two people in the same household writing mysteries. Besides, the Three Laws of Robotics get in the way. You can easily imagine how."
"Well, what do you want me to do?"
"I'm not sure. Suppose he writes satire. That's one thing I don't write, so we won't be competing, and the Three Laws of Robotics won't get in his way. I want you to give this robot a sense of the ridiculous."
"A sense of the what?" said the technician, angrily. "How do I do that? Look, Mr. Northrop, be reasonable. I can put in instructions on how to run a Writer, I can put in a dictionary and grammar. But how can I possibly put in a sense of the ridiculous?"
"Well, thing about it. You know the workings of a robot's brain patterns. Isn't there some way of readjusting him so that he can see what's funny, or silly, or just plain ridiculous about human beings?"
"I can fool around, but it's not safe."
"Why isn't it safe?"
"Because, look, Mr. Northrop, you started off with a pretty cheap robot, but I've been making it more elaborate. You admit that it's unique and that you never heard of one that wants to write stories, so now it's a pretty expensive robot. You may even have a Classic model here that should be given to the Robotic Institute. If you want me to fool around, I might spoil the whole thing. Do you realize that?"
"I'm willing to take the chance. If the whole thing is spoiled, it will be spoiled, but why should it be? I'm not asking you to work in a hurry. Take the time to analyze it carefully. I have lots of time and lots of money, and I want my robot to write satire."
"Why satire?"
"Because then his lack of worldly knowledge may not matter so much and the Three Laws won't be so important and in time, some day, he may possibly turn out something interesting, though I doubt it."
"And he won't be treading on your turf."
"All right, then. He won't be treading on my turf. Satisfied?"
I still didn't know enough about the language to know what 'treading on my turf' meant, but I gathered that Mr. Northrop was annoyed by my mystery stories. I didn't know why.
There was nothing I could do, of course. Every day, the technician studied me and analyzed me and finally, he said, "all right, Mr. Northrop, I'm going to take a chance, but I'm going to ask you to sign a paper absolving me and my company of all responsibility if anything goes wrong."
"You just prepare the paper. I'll sign it," said Mr. Northrop.
It was very chilling to think that something might go wrong, but that's how things are. A robot must accept all that human beings decide to do.

This time, after I became aware of everything again, I was quite weak for a long time. I had difficulty standing, and my speech was slurred.
I thought that Mr. Northrop looked at me with a worried expression. Perhaps he felt guilty at how he had treated me--he _should_ feel guilty--or perhaps he was just worried at the possibility of having lost a great deal of money.
As my sense of balance returned and my speech became clear, an odd thing happened. I suddenly understood how _silly_ human beings were. They had no laws governing their actions. They had to make up their own, and even when they did, nothing forced them to obey.
Human beings were simply _confused;_ one had to laugh at them. I understood laughter now and could even make the sound, but naturally I didn't laugh out loud. That would have been impolite and offensive. I laughed inside myself, and I began to think of a story in which human beings _did_ have laws governing their actions but they hated them and couldn't stick to them.
I also thought of the technician and decided to put him into the story, too. Mr. Northrop kept going to the technician and asking him to do things to me, harder and harder things. Now he had given me a sense of the ridiculous.
So suppose I wrote a story about ridiculous human beings, with no robots present, because, of course, robots aren't ridiculous and their presence would simply spoil the humour. And suppose I put in a person who was a technician of human beings. It might be some creature with strange powers who could alter _human_ behavior as my technician could alter robot behavior. What would happen in that case?
It might show clearly how human beings were not sensible.
I spent days thinking about the story and getting happier and happier about it. I would start with two men having dinner, and one of them would own a technician--well, _have_ a technician of some sort--and I would place the setting in the twentieth century so as not to offend Mr. Northrop and the other people of the twenty-first.
I read books to learn about human beings. Mr. Northrop let me do this and he hardly ever gave me any tasks to do. Nor did he try to hurry me to write. Maybe he still felt guilty about the risk he had taken doing me hard.
I finally started the story, and here it is: