"Clifford D.Simak. All the traps of Earth" - читать интересную книгу автора

"Thank you," said Richard Daniel. "How much do I owe you?"

"Not a thing," the lawyer told him. "I never make a charge to anyone who
is older than five hundred."

He had meant it as a joke, but Richard Daniel did not smile. He had not
felt like smiling.

At the door he turned around.

"Why?" he was going to ask. "Why this silly law."

But he did not have to ask - it was not hard to see.

Human vanity, he knew. No human being lived much longer than a hundred
years, so neither could a robot. But a robot, on the other hand, was too
valuable simply to be junked at the end of a hundred years of service, so
there was this law providing for the periodic breakup of the continuity of
each robot's life. And thus no human need undergo the psychological
indignity of knowing that his faithful serving man might manage to outlive
him by several thousand years.

It was illogical, but humans were illogical.

Illogical, but kind. Kind in many different ways.

Kind, sometimes, as the Barringtons had been kind, thought Richard
Daniel. Six hundred years of kindness. It was a prideful thing to think
about. They had even given him a double name. There weren't many robots
nowadays who had double names. It was a special mark of affection and
respect.

The lawyer having failed him, Richard Daniel had sought another source
of help. Now, thinking back on it, standing in the room where Hortense
Barrington had died, he was sorry that he'd done it. For he had embarrassed
the religico almost unendurably. It had been easy for the lawyer to tell him
what he had. Lawyers had the statutes to determine their behavior, and thus
suffered little from agonies of personal decision.

But a man of the cloth is kind if he is worth his salt. And this one had
been kind instinctively as well as professionally, and that had made it
worse.

"Under certain circumstances," he had said somewhat awkwardly, "I could
counsel patience and humility and prayer. Those are three great aids to
anyone who is willing to put them to his use. But with you I am not
certain."

"You mean," said Richard Daniel, "because I am a robot." "Well, now..."