CATCH THAT RABBIT
The holiday was longer than two weeks, Mike Donovan admitted that. It was six months with pay. He admitted that, too. But now he and Powell were out on the asteroid and there were problems. The new robots, with its six subsidiary robots, was designed as a team for mining on asteroids. The team worked well as long as Donovan watched it. But when Donovan didn’t watch it, the robots didn’t work. They didn’t bring back any ore form the mines of the asteroid; they didn’t even come back punctually: Donovan had to fetch them.
Donovan explained this to Powell, and they discussed the problem again and again.
‘Well, let’s talk to the robot,’ Powell suggested finally. ‘If we can’t find out what’s wrong, US Robots loses a hundred million in cash ¬¬¬¬¬¬–¬¬ and we lose our jobs.’
Donovan fetched robot DV-5 and kicked the door shut.
‘Hi, Dave,’ Powell said. ‘How do you feel?’
‘Fine,’ said the robot. ‘OK if I sit down?’ He sat down on the specially strong chair which was kept for robots. DV-5 was not a huge robot, but he was two metres tall, and weighed five hundred kilograms.
‘Dave, you’re a good robot, a sensible mining robot,’ Powell began. ‘You have been designed to collect ore from the rocks of asteroids. And you control six subsidiary robots.’
The robot nodded. ‘That’s great. So what’s wrong, boss?’
‘Something’s wrong with your job. For example, this morning you didn’t produce any ore.’
‘I can’t explain that, boss,’ Dave said uncertainly. ‘My subsidiaries worked smoothly. I did, too. I remember that.’ His photoelectric eyes burned. ‘Then I don’t remember any more. The day ended, and there was Mike.’
Powell looked at Dave cautiously. ‘How about a test, Dave? It would be the sensible thing to do.’
‘If you say.so, boss.’
The test started simply and became more difficult. Robot DV-5 carried out mathematical problems, then mechanical problems and finally solved problems of judgement. The test lasted two hours.
‘How does it look?’ the robot asked.
‘I’ve got to study it, Dave.’ Powell pulled his moustache.
‘Go back to work, but take it easy.’
The robot left and Donovan looked at Powell.
‘His positronic brain is working perfectly,’ Powell said.
‘He goes wrong only when we’re not near,’ Donovan said urgently. ‘I feel uneasy about that. There’s something very, very peculiar about it and I don’t ¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬–’
Powell shook his head. ‘No, no. Just calm down. There must be a simple explanation for this. I’m going to watch him all the time. I’ll fix up a camera, with a screen, here in this office. There’s a problem, but we don’t know what the problem is. We must discover the problem before we can solve it. You must catch the rabbit before you can cook rabbit stew! Well, we’ve got to catch that rabbit!’