Barrington Bayley SF Gateway Omnibus: The Soul of the Robot, The Knights of the Limits, The Fall of Chronopolis

Jasperodus’ voice became hollow and moody. ‘Ever since my activation everyone I meet looks upon me as a thing, not as a person. Your legal proceedings are based upon a mistaken premiss, namely that I am an object. On the contrary, I am a sentient being.’

The lawyer looked at him blankly. ‘I beg your pardon?’

‘I am an authentic person, independent and aware.’

The other essayed a fey laugh. ‘Very droll! To be sure, one sometimes encounters robots so clever that one could swear they had real consciousness! However, as is well known …’

Jasperodus interrupted him stubbornly. ‘I wish to fight my case in person. Is it permitted for a construct to speak on his own behalf?’

The lawyer nodded bemusedly. ‘Certainly. A construct may lay before the court any facts having a bearing on his case – or, I should say on its case. I will make a note of it.’ He scribbled briefly. ‘But if I were you I wouldn’t try to tell the magistrate what you just said to me. It wouldn’t …’

‘When the time comes, I will speak as I choose.’

With a sigh the lawyer gave up. ‘Oh, well, as you say. Time is pressing. Have you a number, name or identifying mark?’

‘My name is Jasperodus.’

‘And you say there is no owner?’

‘Correct.’

‘Unusual. Can you give me details of your manufacture?’

Jasperodus laughed mockingly. ‘Can you of yours?’

With a mystified air the lawyer left. Jasperodus waited impatiently until at length the robot guards returned and removed the manacles. This time he made no attempt at resistance. He was conducted up staircases, along corridors and into the courtroom, which as near as he could judge was lodged in one of the poorer adjacent buildings.

Jasperodus surveyed the courtroom with interest. At one end a man of mature years sat on a raised dais: the magistrate. In his foreground, to right and left of him, were arrayed in sectioned compartments of panelled wood the functionaries of the court: clerks and recorders, as well as places for lawyers and other representing parties. At the other end were tiered benches, now empty, for a public audience.

Still accompanied by his guards Jasperodus was ushered to the dock, a box-like cubicle with walls reaching to his waist. Meanwhile the dapper lawyer described fairly accurately the circumstances of his arrest.

The magistrate nodded curtly. ‘Anything else?’

The lawyer waved his hands in a vague gesture of embarrassment. ‘The construct has expressed an intention to speak on its own behalf, Your Honour.’ Glancing at Jasperodus, he raised his eyebrows as a signal for him to go ahead.

Jasperodus’ argument was simplicity itself. ‘I am informed that in law no sentient being can be made a slave,’ he declared. ‘I claim to be such a sentient being and therefore not a subject for construct bondage.’

A frown of annoyance crossed the magistrate’s face. ‘Really, Paff,’ he admonished the lawyer, ‘do you have to plague me with pantomimes? What nonsense!’

Paff shrugged a disclaimer.

Doggedly Jasperodus continued: ‘I know I have self-awareness in the same way that you know you have it. I do not speak for other robots. But give me any test that will prove my self-awareness or lack of it, and you will see for yourself.’

‘Test? I know of no test. What nonsense is this?’ Irritable and nonplussed, the magistrate looked for advice towards the functionaries who sat below him.

The technical adviser, a suave young man in a tunic brocaded in crimson, rose to his feet. ‘By your leave, Your Honour, there is no such test. Any faculty possessed by sentient beings can be simulated by an appropriate machine, and therefore the fact of consciousness itself is beyond examination.’

The magistrate nodded in satisfaction and turned to Jasperodus. ‘Quite so. Have you anything germane to say?’

Jasperodus refused to let it go. ‘Then how does the law define what is sentient and what is not?’

‘That is simple,’ replied the magistrate with the air of one explaining something to a child. ‘A sentient being is a human being or a kuron. But not a construct.’

‘Only natural, biologically evolved creatures can have consciousness,’ interpolated the adviser, receiving a frown of reproof from the magistrate for his impudence. ‘Any robotician will tell you that machine consciousness is a technical impossibility ipso facto.’

Jasperodus recalled that kurons had originally been extraterrestrials, who migrated to Earth centuries ago and had since lost contact with their home star. Now they lived in small communities scattered throughout various parts of the world. He seized on the magistrate’s mention of them to pursue the question further.

‘Suppose there was brought before you a being from another star who was neither human nor kuron,’ he suggested. ‘Suppose furthermore that you could not ascertain whether the being was a naturally evolved creature or a construct. How then would you settle the matter of its mental status?’

The magistrate sputtered in annoyance, waving his hands in agitation.