The Complete Roderick by John Sladek Page B

isn’t enough that you’re the big star, you want something else? More power? No? Well then mind letting me in on the secret? What makes you want to walk out on four years of your life? Not to mention my lifeand Lee here, you plan to just waste four years of his life?
Mind telling me why?’
    ‘Lots of reasons.’ Ben stared at the t-shirt (BE SPONTANEOUS!) waiting for him to go on. ‘For one thing it’s all wrong. Nothing turned out like I thought. See, when I joined the project I was still a kid, nineteen, how did I know what I was getting into? I thought, Wow, the first robot, the first alien intelligence on this planet, I couldn’t think of anything better, anything – specialler.
    ‘Only when it gets down to it maybe it’s not so special. It’s more like being wrong all the time, you know? And that’s just the work. See, I thought it would be like being part of a family, only just look at us: look at you, all you do is bitch and moan and worry about who’s got a better job, who’s the star player or something.’
    ‘I –’
    ‘See, you’re like a baby, Ben, you can’t read the books but you still want to chew on them.’
    Franklin turned his blush away. ‘So it’s going to be personalities, is it? Because I’ve got a thing or two to say –’
    ‘Wait. Look, I’m, all I’m saying is this isn’t working out for you or for me or for anybody. And you, Lee, your stomach’s so bad you’ll have to retire early, just like Leo Bunsky – only he didn’t retire early enough. And when he died I just started wondering what this is, is it special after all? Is it special enough to die for?
    ‘And then Mary Mendez, was it special for her? Wandering around in that damned looney bin over there, asking everybody to please wind her up, is it worth that?’
    Franklin lit a cigarette and held it ready to drop ash on the floor. ‘Doesn’t seem to have touched you, though, does it? I mean you’re still healthy. Still the same nasty little snotty-nose –’
    ‘Well I had scurvy last year but sure I’m okay physically. That’s not the point. The point is Roderick, is he okay? Is he, is he special? See, when people around me were dying or going nuts or getting bitchy or having ulcers I could always say, “All right, but it’s worth it, it’s special. It must be special because look, NASA, the United States government, is putting cash into this. They’re backing us a hundred per cent.” Only they weren’t.’
    ‘Now let me get this straight. You’re tired of the project firstbecause you find out that people wear out, have accidents and break down – just like in any other job – and second because NASA doesn’t love us any more? Is that about it? Why, you pathetic little creep, is your ego so –’
    ‘Let me finish. It’s not just that they don’t love us, they hate us. Not just NASA but everybody. As soon as they find out what we’re doing, soon as they really understand what we’re doing, they’re out to get us.’
    ‘Let’s not get all paran –’
    ‘Look, when NASA pulled out on us I started thinking. Haven’t you ever wondered why nobody else is running a project like this? I mean
nobody.
Oh I know there’s a few dozen AI projects in different places, but they kinda stand still, don’t they? They work on a pattern-recognizer or a language analyser; they keep on working on it and they keep on keeping on. I checked a few places. No significant advances in the past ten years.’
    ‘Where is this leading?’
    ‘Let him go on,’ said Fong. ‘This is where it gets sinister.’
    ‘So I started checking on private robot projects – you know, the kind of crank stuff or maybe not so crank, stuff you see in articles in
Micro-Ham, CPU Digest,
you know.’
    ‘I never read the amateur journals.’
    ‘You should. Because you find funny things. Like this commune in Oregon, all the neat things they were doing with something they called a
“Gestalt
guesser”, really it was just – but