"No," Andrew said. "Why should it? The First Law simply says I mustn't injure any human being or allow one to come to harm through my inaction. Aren't you bound by the same restriction? Isn't every civilized person? The only difference is that I have no choice but to be law-abiding, whereas other human beings can opt to behave in an uncivilized way if they're willing to take their chances with the police. And then the Second Law: it requires me to obey humans, yes. But they aren't required to give me orders, and if I have full human status it might well be deemed a breach of civility for anyone to put me in a position where through my own innate makeup I would be obliged to do something against my will. That would be taking advantage of my handicap, so to speak. The fact that I have the handicap doesn't matter. There are plenty of handicapped human beings and nobody would say that they aren't human. And as for the Third Law, which prevents me from acting self-destructively, I would hardly say that that is much of a burden for a sane person to bear. And so you see, Simon-"
"Yes. Yes, Andrew, I do see." DeLong was chuckling now. "All right. You've beaten me down and I give in. You're as human as anyone needs to be: you deserve to have that confirmed in some legal way."
"Well, then, if Feingold and Charney will set about the process of-"
"Not so fast, please, Andrew. You've handed me a very tall order. Human prejudice hasn't vanished overnight, you know. There'll be tremendous opposition to any attempt we might make to get you declared human."
"I would expect so. But we've defeated tremendous opposition before, going back to the time when George Charney and his son Paul went out and won me my freedom."
"Yes. The trouble is that this time we'd have to go before the World Legislature, not the Regional one, and get a law passed that will define you as a human being. Frankly, I wouldn't be very optimistic about that."
"I'm paying you to be optimistic."
"Yes. Yes, of course, Andrew."
"Good. We're agreed, then, that this can be accomplished. The only question is how. Where do you think we ought to begin?"
DeLong said, after only the briefest of hesitations, "One good starting point would be for you to have a conversation with some influential member of the Legislature."
"Any particular one?"
"The Chairman of the Science and Technology Committee, perhaps."
"An excellent idea. Can you arrange a meeting for me right away, Simon?"
"If you'd like. But you scarcely need me to serve as your intermediary, Andrew. Someone as widely known and honored as you can easily-"
"No. You arrange it." (It didn't even occur to Andrew that he was giving a flat order to a human being. He had grown accustomed to that on the Moon.) "I want him to know that the firm of Feingold and Charney is backing me in this to the hilt."
"Well, now-"
"To the hilt, Simon. In one hundred and seventy-three years I have in one fashion or another contributed greatly to this firm. I might almost say that the firm in its present form would not exist but for the work that I have provided for it to do. I brought that work here because in times past I have been very well served by certain members of this firm, and I have felt myself under an obligation to reciprocate. I am under no obligation to Feingold and Charney now. It is rather the other way around, now, and I am calling in my debts."
DeLong said, "I'll do whatever I can."
Chapter Nineteen
THE CHAIRMAN of the Science and Technology Committee of the World Legislature came from the East Asian Region and she was a woman: a small, delicately built, almost elfin woman who very likely was not nearly as fragile as she appeared. Her name was Chee Li-hsing and her transparent garments (which obscured what she wanted obscured by sheer dazzle alone) gave her the look of being nothing more than an elegant little trinket wrapped in plastic. In the splendor of her huge high-ceilinged office on the eighty-fourth floor of the magnificent green-glass tower that was the New York headquarters of the World Legislature she appeared tiny, almost insignificant. Yet she radiated a look of great competence, efficiency, forcefulness.
She said, "I sympathize with your wish to have full human rights. As perhaps you know, there have been times in history when great segments of the human population have been deprived of their own human rights, and have fought furiously-and ultimately successfully-to regain them. But those people suffered greatly under tyrannies of one kind or another before they won their freedom. You, on the other hand, have enjoyed a successful and rewarding life of unending achievement and reward. I imagine you are a widely envied person. So tell me, please: what rights can you possibly want that you do not already have?"
"As simple a thing as my right to life," Andrew replied. " A robot can be dismantled at any time."
"A human being can be executed at any time."
"And when, I ask you, was the last time that such an execution took place?"
"Why-" Li-hsing shrugged. "Of course, the death penalty is not currently employed in our civilization, and it hasn't been for a long time. But certainly it's been imposed to an enormous extent throughout history. And there's no fundamental reason why it couldn't be reinstated next year, if the citizens and the Legislature saw fit to do so."
"All right. You can all go back to cutting each other's heads off, or giving each other lethal jolts of electricity, or whatever, at a moment's notice, if you like. But the fact remains that no human being has been put to death by legal execution in so many years that nobody can remember the last time, and there's absolutely no agitation that I've ever heard of to start performing such executions again. Whereas even now-right now, here, today-I could be ended merely by the word of a human being in authority. No trial. No appeals procedure. You yourself could ring a bell and call your security guards in and say, 'This robot has displeased me. Take him out and dismantle him.' And they would take me out and dismantle me, just like that."