Isaac Asimov's Worlds of Science Fiction. Book 9: Robots

The Problem Was Lubrication
by David R. Bunch

I guess it kept him hopping, there were so many holes. And I guess it was mostly hard work. But to me, as I watched this automation through the observation slit, it was somewhat diverting to see, among all the somber squatting machines with a fixed place in the line, one that could stand up tall. and take off all around the floor. He wasn't a robot really, and actually I guess he couldn't take off and run all around the floor just wherever he wanted. But the metal track he was on carried him to all parts of the work area in order for him to reach every one of the squatty fixed machines, and there were occasional side trips up to the reload place. In comparison with the fixed ones this fellow had it good, I thought.

His official name was Lubro. Or so it said in gay red letters on a shiny metal plate riveted to his rear. The day I watched Lubro they were turning out millions of little metal disks destined for some important places in some important engines, and the machines doing the work were running hot. And here would come Lubro, smooth and docile on his track, until he reached a machine that was running hot turning out the disks. The machines would flip little lids up at Lubro's approach and Lubro in response would whang jointed sections of tubing out of himself and the ends of those tubes would find their way into the holes where the lids had flipped up. And while the machines worked on as though nothing were happening Lubro would stand there vibrating on his track and eject oil into the holes according to some clocklike mechanism in him. And as the tempo of production increased, Lubro ran faster and faster on his track and whanged metal tubing out of himself oftener and oftener and came up to the reload place time and again. But it seemed to me he was happy at his work, although that could have been merely my imagining because of the great contrast between a Lubro and a machine that squatted on the floor hour by hour and turned out the quota time and again with, to console her, nothing but the small diversion of flipping her lids up for Lubro.

All in all, everything was going well here at automation it seemed to me, and Lubro was taking care of it, I thought, all right. But maybe he was running hot. At any rate, some Central Brain in the place made the decision and another upright thing with a clocklike mechanism in him and the power to eject flexible tubing out of himself came in to run on the tracks with Lubro. The Oiler, his name was. I guess the Central Brain thought The Oiler and Lubro could stay out of each other's way all right; one could be taking care of it in the south end, say, while the other was over north doing it; or one could be functioning on the west side while the other was shooting for lids in the east section of the work area maybe. But the truth is they didn't-they couldn't-stay out of each other's way for long. In the first place, I think Lubro was a little jealous, or maybe resentful is the better word, of The Oiler. For the very presence of The Oiler made it clear how the Central Brain felt. He felt that Lubro couldn't handle the job. Then too, no getting around it, The Oiler, big dark and cocky, was in Lubro's territory.

But as for production, there was an increase in it, no denying that. Especially was there more work done by certain of the newer machines in the central part of the work area. And it was one of these very machines that caused the flare-up. She was a new blonde machine without yet the grime of much servicing on her oil lids. And she squatted there, seemingly as innocent as a piece of the floor, and tooled her disks. But Lubro noticed it, and I noticed it too. Twice within the hour, when Lubro glided up, she kept her oil lids closed as though she were running cool as a bucket of grease. But when The Oiler came in at almost the same time from the opposite side of the work area her lids flew open as though she were filled with fire. And The Oiler ejected the tubes, according to the clocklike mechanism in him, and the tubes found the holes where the quivering lids hovered open, and he oiled the machines that indeed was not running cool; it was his job.

Lubro caught him at the top of the reload area. It was unethical. The Oiler was taking on oil, siphoning it from Central Supply into the can of his lower body. And Lubro should not have come in to the reload at the same time; there was but the one straight track in to the reload and no spur track for passing. But Lubro did come in. And the cocky Oiler stood nonchalantly siphoning oil until his can was full. Then he turned in that way he had, brazen, precise, sure, and he headed back for the work area as though it were understood that Lubro, being wrong, would retrace and let him through. Lubro would not! Lubro braced. Lubro hit him, hit him hard and middle-high and bounced him ten feet up the track. Lubro hit him again when The Oiler came within range. The Oiler closed and struck back; The Oiler hit twice in quick succession. The two oil cans stood toe-to-toe at the bottom of the reload area and exchanged blows. They rattled each other's skin sections and clobbered each other's joints. Rivets flew. Clocklike mechanisms were upset. They fought until it seemed in doubt that either one or the other would prove himself the better oil can.

Then the tide turned, as tides will, and Lubro got his chance. Because his clocklike mechanism was considerably upset by the hard blows he had taken, and possibly partly because he had just taken the reload, here at this strangest and most illogical of times one of The Oiler's tubelike sections popped out. Oil sprayed the area, and Lubro rammed in to wham the embarrassed oil can on the tube and spin him about until The Oiler was quite spun off the track. And there he lay, vanquished and bleeding oil, and presently all his other tubes flopped out and lay there limp and empty in plain sight, and The Oiler was a very sorry sight indeed. And because he had taken many hard blows himself, and partly, no doubt, in sheer exuberance over his victory, something got into Lubro's thinking and caused him to pull a very silly and shabby stunt. He ejected all his tubing sections to the very farthest limits they would go and sprayed The Oiler until he, Lubro, was quite empty of oil.

The Central Brain was jumping-mad in his clock, crazymad at Lubro and The Oiler. From these silly oil cans he had had quite enough, really he had. He immediately called a meeting of all the Junior Brains, and they all left their clocks and sat around a big polished disk of metal with a hole in the center of it and the Central Brain in the hole until they had all quite decided what to do. There was just one logical answer. Tear up the tracks, build a Lubro or an Oiler stationary for each squatty fixed machine and service these automatic tube ejectors from a Central Supply, using as many self-motion helicopters as would be required.

The Brains, having won again, having figured it out, resumed their clocklike places along the walls. And while they all agreed that automation had its bugs, yes it did, really it was quite the coming thing, yes it was.