The Rod of Light (Soul of the Robot)

‘I have tendered my report, based on my interview with you, and subsequently I spoke personally with Marshal Krugoff. My assessment was that you are in earnest and that matters are as you state. The Marshal decided that this is a perilous development and that prompt action is necessary. As you know, it has for some time been Borgor’s policy to wipe out all wild robot communities. Your news fully vindicates our campaign, which we now see should have been pressed more vigorously.

The Marshal has ordered that this research station be wiped out as soon as possible. There are problems in carrying out the task. We have no forces in the region at present, and quite apart from the difficulty of finding the station, from what you tell me it may quite possibly be well defended against air attack. We shall therefore require your cooperation.

‘The plan that has been devised is that you will return to the station. You will take with you a secret transmitter from which one of our satellite surveyors can take a location fix. The station will then be destroyed by long-range rocket barrage. Afterwards we can despatch airborne troops to mop up, and later we shall have to see to it that the Gargan Cult is so completely expunged that it is not even a memory.’

‘That accords completely with my desires,’ said Jasperodus, immensely relieved.

‘To lend all possible assistance in effecting the operation,’ Igor added, ‘I am instructed to accompany you.’

‘Is that because your masters don’t altogether trust me?’ Jasperodus asked.

Igor nodded. ‘You cannot expect otherwise.’

Not replying, Jasperodus allowed the luxury of success to flood through him. He scanned the titles of the books stacked against the wall. There were volumes on military strategy—Igor’s everyday subject, he reminded himself. But these were outnumbered by books on history—not factual histories only, but also historical polemics and philosophical interpretations. Some of them were very old, written pre-Dark Period.

‘I see we have a common interest. I also study history.’

‘Indeed? Oddly, not many humans are interested in it at all.’

‘Their memories are short,’ Jasperodus said sarcastically. ‘Igor, there is something I have been wanting to ask you. How do you get along with the humans you must mix with, here in Borgor?’

For a moment it appeared that Igor would not reply, and Jasperodus was left feeling that he had asked an impudent question by the mores of Borgor society, or else one that was hurtful to Igor. But then, after a pause, the robot’s matt bronze face moved very slightly. Perhaps he was reminding himself of the extent of Jasperodus’ ignorance.

‘I can count myself privileged,’ Igor said. ‘I have extensive acquaintances among the nobility, and am well received. I am, so to speak, the exception that proves the rule where the Borgor attitude to robots is concerned—mine is one of those cases where the ruling class takes pleasure in openly flouting the standards it imposes on society in general. Some of the more patriotic intellectuals, with whom I have had much fruitful discussion, practically count me as one of them. The military who are my workaday colleagues take a brusquer attitude.’

‘Do you never feel lonely? Specifically, how does it make you feel to serve a state whose aim is little less than the extermination of intelligent constructs?’

‘I experience no contradiction. When the Borgors design a robot, they make it especially good at some particular thing. That is why they construct it in the first place—unspecialised constructs are what they anathematise. My specialty is loyalty to Borgor, which in me is absolute and unconditional.’

‘And which involves you in being forced to act against your own kind.’

Igor was silent again, apparently puzzled. ‘I have no “kind” in the sense you seem to be implying. I am only a machine.’

‘But surely you feel a hint of sympathy for the Gargan Cult? You are a robot, like them. What they seek could be given to you, too, if they succeeded. Then you would be more than just a machine.’

‘That thought is treason to the state of Borgor,’ Igor said with finality.

‘Of course. Well, consider another aspect to the affair, namely our role in it,’ Jasperodus suggested. ‘I am a robot. Yet without my intervention the evils of the Gargan Cult would have remained unknown here in Borgor. Even then, I could never have brought it to the attention of the authorities without your help. And you are a robot too.’

‘Yes, you are right,’ Igor mused. ‘The Marshal was ready to dismiss your story as the ramblings of a foreign machine. I had to reason long and hard with him, to persuade him to take it seriously—though once he referred it to higher quarters there was instant alarm at the prospect of conscious constructs. How strange it is that robots must save mankind from robots!’