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working on the Ward Sister. Several of its panels had been detached, revealing a considerable amount of
internal circuitry, and the overall effect seemed vaguely indecent to Ross. The Sister spoke first:
"The data which you required could have been obtained by a verbal request," it said in the brisk,
pleasant voice it always used no matter what the circumstances, "so that your experiment, which has
caused me a temporary loss of efficiency, was unnecessary. I do not feel pain, or pleasure, in the manner
of a human being although I am trained to observe and treat its symptoms in patients. Primarily I have
been built to serve Man and anything which hinders my doing so causes me a robot equivalent of pain
and anything which aids me toward that end is a form of pleasure. To expand that, pleasure lies in
working as hard as possible at the direction of human beings, maintaining myself at peak efficiency to
further that end, and avoiding all situations likely to bring about a loss of efficiency when such avoidance
will not endanger a human."
"So you got a kick out of knocking me over just now?" Ross said woozily. "An anesthetic gas, wasn't
it."
"Yes, sir."
Ross shook his head. He was beginning to feel ashamed of his recent berserker rage  especially as
it had been such a dishonest, camouflaged sort of rage  against this machine, which had, after all, been
doing its best. He felt that he should apologize to the Sister, except that apologizing to a machine struck
him as being ridiculous.
Awkwardly, he said, "Then I hurt you by causing a temporary loss of efficiency, and by defending
yourself against a possible permanent loss of efficiency you gained pleasure. That makes us even."
"We are not competing, sir," the robot said. "You do not fully understand the position. All the robots
here are your servants, because obeying you and protecting you gives us the only pleasure we are
capable of experiencing. It is a matter of basic programming. If you should ever die that would hurt all of
us very much."
Ross felt a prickling among the short hairs of his neck. If you should ever die& The robot must
surely know that all human beings died in time, so why should it use that particular form of wording? This
posed an interesting psychological point, he thought, and one which he must go into thoroughly at some
later date. An electronic brain which made Freudian slips was something to think about.
He climbed slowly to his feet and stood for a few minutes until a slight dizziness had passed, then
walked across to Sister and the repair robot.
"I shall be finished in twenty minutes," said the repair robot in a deep, masculine voice which matched
its functional but unbeautiful body. "The damage is superficial."
Ross nodded. He said, "Most of the books down here are medical texts, and medicine looks like
becoming somewhat of a dead science at the moment. But there used to be a good patients' library on
the second level and it may still be there. I'm going up there to start learning something useful& "
As he left the maintenance storeroom a Cleaner fell in behind him to escort him to the second level
and to guard him against any dangers that might threaten, the most likely danger being a sudden suicidal
urge on the part of himself, apparently. Ross smiled sardonically and began to question the Cleaner about
its duties. Keep the servants happy, he thought.
7
During the month which followed Ross kept the robots very happy indeed. Most of the cleaning and
repair robots were engaged in rebuilding the first level and he found jobs of some kind for the others. He
was so busy making work for the robots and advancing his grandiose  and essentially hopeless 
long-term plans toward completion that he hadn't time to think about himself, which was exactly how he
wanted it.
Gradually the reports he had asked for came in. He found that mechanically the hospital was in
perfect working order, but that the contents of the blood bank and other medical supplies which had
been in common use had deteriorated. The power supply was atomic and therefore no problem, there
were food stores on every level, and although the water supply was low at the moment, more could be
processed from the ocean now that it was no longer radioactive. Under its thin coating of ash the soil was
rich, but dead.
A diary found in the debris of the first level gave him the explanation.
During the first three days of war more nuclear weapons were exploded on the Earth's surface than
had been believed to be in possession of the combined armories of the world, and during the first month
there was little slackening off. By that time nothing lived on the surface. Animal life perished first, then
insects and finally the plants. Despite their high radiation tolerance, the bombs were too many and too
dirty and the fallout claimed them. The fantastic number and frequency of the explosions made it plain that
the bombs were being manufactured and launched from hour to hour, that the work was being performed
by servomechanisms and that the bombardment would continue until those servos were knocked out or
their available sources of raw material ran out. And so the radiation pushed deeper, sterilizing all life from
the soil  the earthworms, the larger microorganisms, the deepest, most tenacious roots, all perished.
Outwardly there was very little change in the areas not directly affected by the explosions. The long
grass waved in the wind and trees still stood proudly against the sky, but the greenery had taken on a
September hue and it was only mid-April. And at sea the war was less spectacular even though as many
nuclear devices were exploded underwater as had been loosed on the surface  many of the launching
bases were on the sea bed and the oceans teemed with unmanned submarines. A lot of dead fish were
washed up and lay on the beaches for a long time, not rotting exactly, because the organisms responsible
for the process of putrefaction were dead also, but simply drying up or falling apart until they were
washed or blown away.
The sea was dying of radioactive poisoning, the land was dead already and at night the air glowed.
There were too few survivors underground to check what happened next, even had they been willing to
sacrifice their lives in trying.
The fires started by lightning or still-smoldering debris took hold and spread, everywhere. Dead [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]