The Silver Eggheads

TWENTY-SEVEN

"At the robot servicing center of Dr. Willi von Wuppertal at Dortmund, Germany," Zane began, "that wise and empathetic old engineer was letting sick robots experiment in giving themselves electroshock, deciding for themselves on voltage, amperage, duration, and other conditions. Electroshock, you see, has the same benign effects on ailing electronic brains as it does on those of humans suffering from depression and melancholia; however, as with humans, electroshock is a two-edged therapeutic weapon and mustn't be overdone, as the horrid example of electro-addiction re minds us.

"Robots were rather asocial in those days, but two of them (one a newly developed, slimmed-down, ultrasensitive model) decided to take the jolt together, the same jolt, in fact, so that the electric current would enter the circuits of the one and surge through those of the other. To do this, it was necessary that they first plug in on each other's batteries and link wires between each other's motors and electronic brains. They were hooked up in series, you see, rather than parallel. As soon as this was accomplished and the final personal-batteries connections made, before they hooked up to the outside electricity source, they felt a wonderful exaltation and a tingling relief.

"Incidentally, Nurse, this roughly answers your question as to just how far robots go. One mutual plug-in gives a light thrill, but for deep delight as many as twenty-seven simultaneous male-female connections are made. In some of the newest models-which I consider a bit decadent- thirty-three."

Nurse Bishop looked suddenly startled. "So that's what those two robots were doing last week behind some bushes in a corner of the park," she murmured. "I thought they were repairing each other. Or trying to, at any rate, and getting their wires all crossed. But please go on, Zane."

Zane shook his head. "Some of our people haven't the best manners," he said. "A bit exhibitionistic, perhaps. However, sexual desire is an imperious, impetuous, impulsive thing. At any rate, from the Great Dortmund Discovery, which of course resulted in the informal canonization of Saint Wuppertal, there sprang the entire gamut of robot sexuality, becoming a vital factor in the construction or alternation of all robots. (There are still a few unaltered robots around, but they're a sad lot.) Of course much remained to be learned in the way of skills for prolonging delight and making it complete, how to hold back ones electrons until the crucial moment, and so on, but the main step had been taken.

"It was soon discovered that the sensations were strongest and most satisfying when the one robot was rugged-brunch or robost as we put it-and the other delicate and sensitive-silf or ixy we sometimes say. (Though too extreme a difference between the partners can make for danger, with the ixy one blowing out.) The two original Dortmund robots became the models for our male and female sexes, our robots and robixes, though the usual robot tendency to copy human biology and institutions was at work too. For instance, it's become traditional for a robot-a brunch robot, I mean now-to have connections that are all of the pattern you humans call male, or plug-ins, while a robix has only female connections, or sockets. This can result in bothersome contretemps, as when a robix has to plug into a wall socket in an emergency. For this she carries a double-male connection, though it's an embarrassment to her and she'd dread to be seen using it except in the completest privacy.

"You can understand now why Miss Blushes was troubled at the thought of being viewed with open sockets while being given emergency electricity.

"Copying human institutions has also played a great part, not always for the best perhaps, in patterning robot courtships, marriages, and other degrees of attachment and types of union. It has certainly also discouraged the development of additional sexes and wholly new sorts of sexual thrill. After all, you see, since we robots are an artificial, manufactured species, now as often manufactured by robots as by humans, we could in theory engineer sex exactly the way we want it; design wholly new sexes (roboids, robettes, robos, robucks and even robitches have been among the names suggested), devise new sexual organs and modes of intercourse not necessarily limited to two persons (that sort of experience-daisy circuits, as they're called- is occasionally available to robots today but it's not talked about) and in general look at sex with a fresh creative eye.

"So much for theory," Zane said with a little sigh. "In practice, we robots tend to copy human sex quite closely. After all, our lives are currently much mixed with those of flesh earthlings, and when on earth one acts earthy, especially in bed-or 'with hot cords out,' as we sometimes guttily put it.

"Moreover there surely is something a bit decadent, I must admit, about unlimited creative sex engineering; it might readily become a mania, absorbing all robot thought, perhaps especially because sex is a luxury with us, in the sense that although essential for electronic health it is not essential for reproduction, at least not yet.

"A final practical reason keeping us conventional in our sex is the fear that, if we developed a richly varied sexual life, fanciful and elegant, human beings with their biologically limited resources in this direction might become deeply jealous and resentful of us, and we certainly don't want that to happen!

"At all events, our robots and robixes are closely similar to your men and women. Our robixes are generally lighter in build, quicker in reactions, more sensitive, more adaptable, and on the whole a bit steadier, though with occasional hysterical tendencies. While our robots, again in the sense of robost robots, are built for heavier physical work and the more profound types of mental activity requiring extralarge electronic brains; they're apt to be a little on the single-minded compulsive side with some schizoid tendencies.

"Attachments between individual robots and robixes are generally of the monogamous sort, involving marriage or at least steady dating. Fortunately most jobs on which robots are employed require an equal number of brunch and ixy types. We seem to get the same satisfaction you humans do out of knowing there's one individual we can wholly depend on and monopolize with our griefs and joys, though we also seem to share your wistful desire for a wider circle of companionship, empathy, and shared delight.

"So there you have robot sexuality in a nutshell-well, some sort of shell at any rate," Zane concluded. "I hope, Nurse Bishop, that it gives you perspective for judging my own personal problem, which is, to repeat: how far should I go with a robix I find supremely beautiful and attractive, yet at the same time somewhat stupid and very puritanical?"

Nurse Bishop frowned. "Well, Zane, my first thought is: can't Miss Blushes' circuits be changed, so she's less puritanical at any rate? I should think you robots would be doing that sort of thing all the time."

"You jest," Zane said sharply. "Or by Saint Eando, do you not?" He took a quick step toward Nurse Bishop and raised his open pinchers to grip her throat.