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"There'll be a backup android body sitting on the table right next to it."
"And if we can't make the transfer in time? If your positronic brain suffers
irreversible decay while we're trying to untangle it from the million and one
linkages that were set up in Smythe-Robertson's time and lift it over to the
backup body? Your positronic brain is you, Andrew. There's no way to back up a
brain, positronic or otherwise. If it's damaged it's damaged for good. If it's
damaged beyond a certain point you'll be dead."
"And this is why you're hesitant about the operation?"
"You're the only one of you that there is. I'd hate to lose you."
"I'd hate to lose me too, Alvin. But I don't think it's going to happen."
Magdescu looked bleak. "You insist on going through with it, then."
"I insist. I have every faith in the skill of the staff at U. S.
Robots."
And that was where the matter rested. Magdescu was unable to budge him;
and once more Andrew made the journey eastward to the U. S. Robots research
center, where an entire building had been reconfigured to serve as the
operating theater.
Before he went, he took a long solitary stroll one afternoon along the beach,
under the steep rugged cliffs, past the swarming tide pools where Miss and
Little Miss had liked to play in their childhood of a century and more ago,
and stood for a long while looking out at the dark turbulent sea, the vast
arch of the sky, the white flecks of cloud in the west.
The sun was beginning to set. It cast a golden track of light across the
water. How beautiful it all was! The world was really an extraordinarily
splendid place, Andrew told himself. The sea--the sky--a sunset--a glossy leaf
shining with the morning dew--everything. Everything!
And, he thought, perhaps he was the only robot who had ever been able to
respond to the beauty of the world in this way. Robots were a dull plodding
bunch, in the main. They did their jobs and that was that. It was the way they
were supposed to be. It was the way everyone wanted them to be.
"You're the only one of you that there is," Magdescu had said.
Yes. It was true. He had a capacity for aesthetic response that went far
beyond the emotive range of any other robot that had ever been.
Beauty meant something to him. He appreciated it when he saw it; he had
created beauty himself.
And if he never saw any of this again, how very sad that would be.
And then Andrew smiled at his own foolishness. Sad? For whom? He would never
know it, if the operation should fail. The world and all its beauty would be
lost to him, but what would that matter? He would have ceased to function. He
would be permanently out of order. He would be dead, and after that it would
make no difference to him at all that he could no longer perceive the beauties
of the world. That was what death meant: a total cessation of function, an end
to all processing of data.
There were risks, yes. But they were risks he had to take, because otherwise--
Otherwise--
He simply had to. There was no otherwise. He could not go on as he was,
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outwardly human in form, more or less, but incapable of the most basic human
biological functions--breathing, eating, digesting, excreting--
An hour later Andrew was on his way east. Alvin Magdescu met him in person at
the U. S. Robots airstrip.
"Are you ready?" Magdescu asked him.
"Totally."
"Well, then, Andrew, so am I."
Obviously they intended to take no chances. They had constructed a wondrous
operating theater for him, far more advanced in capability than the earlier
room in which they had carried out his transformation from the metallic to the
androidal form.
It was a magnificent tetrahedral enclosure illuminated by a cross-shaped
cluster of chromed fixtures at its summit that flooded the room with brilliant
but not glaring light. A platform midway between floor and ceiling jutted from
one wall, dividing the great room almost in half, and atop this platform
rested a dazzling transparent aseptic bubble within which the surgery would be
performed. Beneath the platform that supported the bubble was the surgical
stage's environmental-support apparatus: an immense cube of dull green metal,
housing an intricate tangle of pumps, filters, heating ducts, reservoirs of
sterilizing chemicals, humidifiers, and other equipment. On the other side of
the room was a great array of supplementary machinery covering an entire wall:
an autoclave, a laser bank, a host of metering devices, a camera boom and
associated playback screens that would allow consulting surgeons outside the
operating area to monitor the events.
"What do you think?" Magdescu asked proudly.
"Very impressive. I find it most reassuring. And highly flattering as well."
"You know that we don't want to lose you, Andrew. You're a very
important--individual."
Andrew did not fail to notice the slight hesitation in Magdescu's voice before
that last word. As though Magdescu had been about to say man, and had checked
himself just barely in time. Andrew smiled thinly but said nothing.
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