The Robot Who Looked Like Me Read online

  The Robot Who Looked Like Me

  Robert Sheckley

  Contents

  The Robot Who Looked Like Me

  Slaves of Time

  Voices

  A Supplicant in Space

  Sneak Previews

  Zirn Left Unguarded, The Jenghik Palace in Flames, Jon Westerley Dead

  Welcome to the Standard Nightmare

  The Neverending Western Movie

  What is Life?

  I See a Man Sitting on a Chair, and the Chair is Biting His Leg

  Is That What People Do?

  Silversmith Wishes

  End City

  THE ROBOT WHO LOOKED LIKE ME

  Snaithe’s Robotorama is an unprepossessing shop on Boulevard KB22 near the Uhuru Cutoff in Greater New Newark. It is sandwiched between an oxygenator factory and a protein store. The storefront display is what you would expect—three full-size humanoid robots with frozen smiles, dressed occupationally—Model PB2, the French Chef, Model LR3, the British Nanny, Model JX5, the Italian Gardener. All of Them Ready to Serve You and Bring a Touch of Old-World Graciousness into Your Home.

  I entered and went through the dusty showroom into the workshop, which looked like an uneasy combination of slaughterhouse and giant’s workshop. Heads, arms, legs, torsos, were stacked on shelves or propped in corners. The parts looked uncannily human except for the dangling wires.

  Snaithe came out of the storeroom to greet me. He was a little gray worm of a man with a lantern jaw and large red dangling hands. He was some kind of a foreigner—they’re always the ones who make the best bootleg robots.

  He said, “It’s ready, Mr. Watson.” (My name is not Watson, Snaithe’s name is not Snaithe. All names have been changed here to protect the guilty.)

  Snaithe led me to a corner of the workshop and stopped in front of a robot whose head was draped in a sheet. He whisked off the sheet.

  It was not enough to say that the robot looked like me; physically, this robot was me, exactly and unmistakably, feature for feature, right down to the textures of skin and hair. I studied that face, seeing as if for the first time the hint of brutality in the firmly cut features, the glitter of impatience in the deep-set eyes. Yes, that was me. I didn’t bother with the voice and behavior tests at this time. I paid Snaithe and told him to deliver it to my apartment. So far, everything was going according to plan.

  I live in Manhattan’s Upper Fifth Vertical. It is an expensive position, but I don’t mind paying extra for a sky view. My home is also my office. I am an interplanetary broker specializing in certain classes of rare mineral speculations.

  Like any other man who wishes to maintain his position in this high-speed competitive world, I keep to a tight schedule. Work consumes most of my life, but everything else is allotted its proper time and place. For example, I give three hours a week to sexuality, using the Doris Jens Executive Sex Plan and paying well for it. I give two hours a week to friendship, and two more to leisure. I plug into the Sleep-inducer for my nightly quota of 6.8 hours, and also use that time to absorb the relevant literature in my field via hypno-paedics. And so on.

  Everything I do is scheduled. I worked out a comprehensive scheme years ago with the assistance of the Total Lifesplan people, punched it into my personal computer and have kept to it ever since.

  The plan is capable of modification, of course. Special provisions have been made for illness, war, and natural disasters. The plan also supplies two separate subprograms for incorporation into the main plan. Subprogram one posits a wife, and revises my schedule to allow four hours a week interaction time with her. Subprogram two assumes a wife and one child, and calls for an additional two hours a week. Through careful reprogramming, these subprograms will entail a loss of no more than 2.3% and 2.9% of my productivity respectively.

  I had decided to get married at age 32.5 and to obtain my wife from the Guarantee Trust Matrimonial Agency, an organization with impeccable credentials. But then something quite unexpected occurred.

  I was using one of my Leisure Hours to attend the wedding of one of my friends. His fiancée’s maid of honor was named Elaine. She was a slender, vivacious girl with sun-streaked blond hair and a delicious little figure. I found her charming, went home and thought no more about her. Or, I thought I would think no more about her. But in the following days and nights her image remained obsessively before my eyes. My appetite fell off and I began sleeping badly. My computer checked out the relevant data and told me that I might conceivably be having a nervous breakdown; but the strongest inference was that I was in love.

  I was not entirely displeased. Being in love with one’s future wife can be a positive factor in establishing a good relationship. I had Elaine checked out by Discretion, Inc., and found her to be eminently suitable. I hired Mr. Happiness, the well-known go-between, to propose for me and make the usual arrangements.

  Mr. Happiness—a tiny white-haired gentleman with a twinkling smile—came back with bad news. “The young lady seems to be a traditionalist,” he said. “She expects to be courted.”

  “What does that entail, specifically?” I asked.

  “It means that you must videophone her and set up an appointment, take her out to dinner, then to a place of public entertainment and so forth.”

  “My schedule doesn’t allow time for that sort of thing,” I said. “Still, if it’s absolutely necessary, I suppose I could wedge it in next Thursday between nine and twelve p.m.”

  “That would make an excellent beginning,” Mr. Happiness said.

  “Beginning? How many evenings am I supposed to spend like that5”

  Mr. Happiness figured that a proper courtship would require a minimum of three evenings a week and would continue for two months.

  “Ridiculous!” I said. “The young lady seems to have a great deal of idle time on her hands.”

  “Not at all,” Mr. Happiness assured me. “Elaine has a busy, completely scheduled life, just like any educated person in this day and age. Her time is completely taken up by her job, family, charities, artistic pursuits, politics, education, and so forth.”

  “Then why does she insist upon this time-consuming courtship?”

  “It seems to be a matter of principle. That is to say, she wants it.”

  “Is she given to other irrationalities?”

  Mr. Happiness sighed. “Well...She is a woman, you know.”

  I thought about it during my next Leisure Hour. There seemed to be no more than two alternatives. I could give up Elaine; or I could do as she desired, losing an estimated 17% of my income during the courtship period and spending my evenings in a manner I considered silly, boring, and unproductive.

  Both alternatives were unacceptable. I was at an impasse.

  I swore. I hit the desk with my fist, upsetting an antique ashtray. Gordon, one of my robot secretaries, heard the commotion and hurried into the room. “Is there anything the matter, sir?” he asked.

  Gordon is one of the Speny’s Deluxe Limited Personalized Series Androids, number twelve out of a production run of twenty-five. He is tall and thin and walks with a slight stoop and looks a little like Leslie Howard. You would not know he was artificial except for the government-required stamps on his forehead and hands. Looking at him, the solution to my problem came to me in a single flash of inspiration.

  “Gordon,” I said slowly, “would you happen to know who handcrafts the best one-shot individualized robots?”

  “Snaithe of Greater New Newark,” he replied without hesitation.

  I had a talk with Snaithe and found him normally larcenous. He agreed to build a robot without government markings, identical to me, and capable of duplicating my behavior patterns. 1 paid h
eavily for this, but I was content: I had plenty of money, but practically no time to spend. That was how it all began.

  The robot, sent via pneumo-express, was at my apartment when I arrived. I animated him and set to work at once. My computer transmitted the relevant data direct to the robot’s memory tapes. Then I punched in a courtship plan and ran the necessary tests. The results were even better than I had expected. Elated, I called Elaine and made a date with her for that evening.

  During the rest of the day I worked on the Spring market offers, which had begun to pile up. At 8:00 pm I dispatched Charles II, as I had come to call the robot. Then I took a brief nap and went back to work.

  Charles II returned promptly at midnight, as programmed. I did not have to question him: the events of the evening were recorded on the miniature concealed movie camera which Snaithe had built into his left eye. I watched and listened to the beginning of my courtship with mixed emotions.

  It went beyond impersonation; the robot was me, right down to the way I clear my throat before I speak and rub my forefinger against my thumb when I am thinking. I noticed for the first time that my laugh was unpleasantly close to a giggle; I decided to phase that and certain other annoying mannerisms out of me and Charles II.

  Still, taken all together, I thought that the experiment had come off extremely well. I was pleased. My work and my courtship were both proceeding with high efficiency. I had achieved an ancient dream; I was a single ego served by two bodies. Who could ask for more?

  What marvelous evenings we all had! My experiences were vicarious, of course, but genuinely moving all the same. I can still remember my first quarrel with Elaine, how beautiful and stubborn she was, and how deliciously we made up afterward.

  That “making up” raised certain problems, as a matter of fact. I had programmed Charles II to proceed to a certain discreet point of physical intimacy and no further. But now I learned that one person cannot plan out every move of a courtship involving two autonomous beings, especially if one of those beings is a woman. For the sake of verisimilitude I had to permit the robot more intimacies than I had previously thought advisable.

  After the first shock, I did not find this unpalatable. Quite the contrary—I might as well admit that I became deeply interested in the films of myself and Elaine. I suppose some stuffy psychiatrist would call this a case of voyeurism, or worse. But that would be to ignore the deeper philosophical implications. After all, what man has not dreamed of being able to view himself in action? It is a common fantasy to imagine one’s own hidden cameras recording one’s every move. Given the chance, who could resist the extraordinary privilege of being simultaneously actor and audience?

  My dramas with Elaine developed in a direction that surprised me. A quality of desperation began to show itself, a love-madness of which I would never have believed myself capable. Our evenings became imbued with a quality of delicious sadness, a sense of imminent loss. Sometimes we didn’t speak at all, just held hands and looked at each other. And once Elaine wept for no discernible reason, and I stroked her hair, and she said to me, “What can we do?” and I looked at her and did not reply.

  I am perfectly aware that these things happened to the robot, of course. But the robot was an aspect or attribute of me—my shadow, twin, double, animus, doppelganger. He was a projection of my personality into a particular situation; therefore whatever happened to him became my experience. Metaphysically there can be no doubt of this.

  It was all very interesting. But at last I had to bring the courtship to an end. It was time for Elaine and me to plan our marriage and to coordinate our schedules. Accordingly, exactly two months after its inception, I told the robot to propose a wedding date and to terminate the courtship as of that night.

  “You have done extremely well,” I told him. “When this is over, you will receive a new personality, plastic surgery and a respected place in my organization.”

  “Thank you, sir,” he said. His face was unreadable, as is my own. I heard no hint of anything in his voice except perfect obedience. He left carrying my latest gift to Elaine.

  Midnight came and Charles II didn’t return. An hour later I felt disturbed. By three a.m. I was in a state of agitation, experiencing erotic and masochistic fantasies, seeing him with her in every conceivable combination of mechano-physical lewdness. The minutes dragged by, Charles II still did not return, and my fantasies became sadistic. I imagined the slow and terrible ways in which I would take my revenge on both of them, the robot for his presumption and Elaine for her stupidity in being deceived by a mechanical substitute for a real man.

  The long night crept slowly by. At last I fell into a fitful sleep.

  I awoke early. Charles II still had not returned. I canceled my appointments for the entire morning and rushed over to Elaine’s apartment.

  “Charles!” she said. “What an unexpected pleasure!”

  I entered her apartment with an air of nonchalance. I was determined to remain calm until I had learned exactly what had happened last night. Beyond that, I didn’t know what I might do.

  “Unexpected?” I said. “Didn’t I mention last night that I might come by for breakfast?”

  “You may have,” Elaine said. “To tell the truth, I was much too emotional to remember everything you said.”

  “But you do remember what happened?”

  She blushed prettily. “Of course, Charles. I still have marks on my arm.”

  “Do you, indeed!”

  “And my mouth is bruised. Why do you grind your teeth that way?”

  “I haven’t had my coffee yet,” I told her.

  She led me into the breakfast nook and poured coffee. I drained mine in two gulps and asked, “Do I really seem to you like the man I was last night?”

  “Of course,” she said. “I’ve come to know your moods. Charles, what’s wrong? Did something upset you last night?”

  “Yes!” I cried wildly. “I was just remembering how you danced naked on the terrace.” I stared at her, waiting for her to deny it.

  “It was only for a moment,” Elaine said. “And I wasn’t really naked, you know, I had on my body stocking. Anyhow, you asked me to do it.”

  “Yes,” I said. “Yes, yes.” I was confused. I decided to continue probing. “But then when you drank champagne from my desert boot—”

  “I only took a sip,” she said. “Was I too daring?”

  “You were splendid,” I said, feeling chilled all over. “I suppose it’s unfair of me to remind you of these things now...”

  “Nonsense, I like to talk about it.”

  “What about that absurd moment when we exchanged clothing?”

  “That was wicked of us,” she said, laughing.

  I stood up. “Elaine,” I said, “just exactly what in hell were you doing last night?”

  “What a question,” she said. “I was with you.”

  “No, Elaine.”

  “But Charles—those things you just spoke about—”

  “I made them up.”

  “Then who were you with last night’“

  “I was home, alone.”

  Elaine thought about that for a few moments. Then she said, “I’m afraid I have a confession to make.”

  I folded my arms and waited.

  “I too was home alone last night.”

  I raised one eyebrow. “And the other nights?”

  She took a deep breath. “Charles, I can no longer deceive you. I really had wanted an old-fashioned courtship. But when the time came, I couldn’t seem to fit it into my schedule. You see, it was finals time in my Aztec pottery class, and I had just been elected chairwoman of the Aleutian Assistance League, and my new boutique needed special attention—”

  “So what did you do?”

  “Well—I simply couldn’t say to you, ‘Look, let’s drop the courtship and just get married.’ After all, I hardly knew you.”

  “What did you do?”

  She sighed. “I knew several girls who had gotte
n themselves into this kind of a spot. They went to this really clever robot-maker named Snaithe...Why are you laughing?”

  I said, “I too have a confession to make. I have used Mr. Snaithe, too.”

  “Charles! You actually sent a robot here to court me? How could you! Suppose I had really been me?”

  “I don’t think either of us is in a position to express much indignation. Did your robot come home last night?”

  “No. I thought that Elaine II and you—”

  I shook my head. “I have never met Elaine II, and you have never met Charles II. What happened, apparently, is that our robots met, courted and now have run away together.”

  “But robots can’t do that!”

  “Ours did. I suppose they managed to reprogram each other.”

  “Or maybe they just fell in love,” Elaine said wistfully.

  I said, “I will find out what happened. But now, Elaine, let us think of ourselves. I propose that at our earliest possible convenience we get married.”

  “Yes, Charles,” she murmured. We kissed. And then, gently, lovingly, we began to coordinate our schedules.

  I was able to trace the runaway robots to Kennedy Spaceport. They had taken the shuttle to Space Platform 5, and changed there for the Centauri Express. I didn’t bother trying to investigate any further. They could be on any one of a dozen worlds.

  Elaine and I were deeply affected by the experience. We realized that we had become overspecialized, too intent upon productivity, too neglectful of the simple, ancient pleasures. We acted upon this insight, taking an additional hour out of every day—seven hours a week—in which simply to be with each other. Our friends consider us romantic fools, but we don’t care. We know that Charles II and Elaine II, our alter egos, would approve.

  There is only this to add. One night Elaine woke up in a state of hysteria. She had had a nightmare. In it she had become aware that Charles II and Elaine II were the real people who had escaped the inhumanity of Earth to some simpler and more rewarding world. And we were the robots they had left in their places, programmed to believe that we were human.

  I told Elaine how ridiculous that was. It took me a long time to convince her, but at last I did. We are happy now and we lead good, productive, loving lives. Now I must stop writing this and get back to work.