Backlash

* * * *

  A small, dignified riot almost broke up the meeting right there, andwhen they quieted down again I had orders for twenty-six Soths from theboard members and one from my own secretary.

  "How soon," I asked Ollie Johnson, "can you begin deliveries?"

  He dry-washed his hands and admitted it would be five months, and a sighof disappointment ran around the table. Then someone asked him how manyunits a month they could turn out.

  He stared at the carpet and held out his hands like a pawn-brokerdisparaging a diamond ring: "Our techniques are so slow. The firstmonth, maybe a hundred. Of course, once our cultures are all producingin harmony, almost any number. One thousand? Ten thousand? Whatever yourneeds suggest."

  One of the officers asked, "Is your process entirely biological? Youmentioned cultures."

  For a moment, I thought Ollie Johnson was going to break out in tears.His face twisted.

  "Abysmally so," he grieved. "Our synthetic models have never proveddurable. Upkeep and parts replacements are prohibitive. Our brain unitsare much similar to your own latest developments in positronics, but wehave had to resort to organic cellular structure in order to achieve themobility which Mr. Collins admired last Friday."

  The upshot of the meeting was a hearty endorsement over my signature onthe Ollies' contract, plus an offer of any help they might need to getproduction rolling.

  As the meeting broke up, they pumped my hand and stared enviously at mySoth. Several offered me large sums for him, up to fifteen thousanddollars, and for the moment I sweated out the rack of owning somethingmy bosses did not. Their understandable resentment, however, wastempered by their recognition of my genius in getting a signed contractbefore the Ollies went shopping to our competitors.

  What none of us understood right then was that the Ollies were hiringus, not the other way around.

  When I told Vicki about my hour of triumph and how the officers bid upour Soth, she glowed with the very feminine delight of exclusivepossession. She hugged me and gloated, "Old biddy Gulbrandson--won't shewrithe? And don't you dare take _any_ offer for our Soth. He's one ofthe family now, eh, Soth, old boy?"

  He was serving soup to her as she slapped him on the hip. Somehow hemanaged to retreat so fast she almost missed him, yet he didn't spill adrop of bouillon from the poised tureen.

  "Yes, Mrs. Collins," he said, not a trace more nor less aloof thanusual.

  "Oops, sorry!" Vicki apologized. "I forgot. The code."

  I had the feeling that warm-hearted Vicki would have had the Soth downon the bearskin rug in front of the big fireplace, scuffling him likeshe did Clumsy, if it hadn't been for the Soth's untouchable code--and Iwas thankful that it existed. Vicki had a way of putting her hand on youwhen she spoke, or hugging anyone in sight when she was especiallydelighted.

  And I knew something about Soth that she didn't. Something thatapparently hadn't bothered her mind since the day of her striptease.

  * * * * *

  Summer was gone and it was mid-fall before Ollie paid me another visit.When he showed up again, it was with an invoice for 86 Soths, listed byserial numbers and ready to ship. He had heard about sight drafts andwanted me to help him prepare one.

  "To hell with that noise," I told him. I wrote a note to purchasing andcountersigned the Ollie's invoice for some $103,000. I called mysecretary and told her to take Ollie and his bill down to disbursing andhave him paid off.

  I had to duck behind my desk before the Ollie dreamed up some newobscenity of gratitude to heap on me. Then I cleared shippinginstructions through sales for the Soths already on order and dictated amemo to our promotion department. I cautioned them to go slowly atfirst--the Soths would be on tight allotment for a while.

  One snarl developed. The Department of Internal Revenue landed on uswith the question: Were the Soths manufactured or grown? We beat themout of a manufacturer's excise tax, but it cost us plenty in legal fees.

  The heads of three labor unions called on me the same afternoon of thetax hearing. They got their assurances in the form of a clause in theindividual purchase contracts, to the effect that the "consumer" agreednot to employ a Soth for the purpose of evading labor costs in the arts,trades and professions as organized under the various unions, and at alltimes to be prepared to withdraw said Soth from any unlisted job inwhich the unions might choose to place a member human worker.

  Before they left, all three union men placed orders for household Soths.

  "Hell," said one, "that's less than the cost of a new car. Now maybe mywife will get off my back on this damfool business of organizing amaid's and butler's union. Takes members to run a union, and the onlyreal butler in our neighborhood makes more than I do."

  * * * * *

  That's the way it went. The only reason we spent a nickel on advertisingwas to brag up the name of W. W. M. and wave our coup in the faces ofour competitors. By Christmas, production was up to two thousand units amonth, and we were already six thousand orders behind.

  The following June, the Ollies moved into a good hunk of the oldabandoned Willow Run plant and got their production up to ten thousand amonth. Only then could we begin to think of sending out floor samples ofSoths to our distributors.

  It was fall before the distributors could place samples with the mostexclusive of their retail accounts. The interim was spent simplyrelaying frantic priority orders from high-ranking people all over theglobe directly to the plant, where the Ollies filled them right out ofthe vats.

  Twenty thousand a month was their limit, it turned out. Even when theyhad human crews completely trained in all production phases, thefifty-six Ollies could handle only that many units in their secretconditioning and training laboratories.

  For over two more years, business went on swimmingly. I got a fancybonus and a nice vacation in Paris, where I was the rage of thecontinent. I was plagued with requests for speaking engagements, whichinvariably turned out to be before select parties of V. I. P.s whosepurpose was to twist my arm for an early priority on a Soth delivery.

  When I returned home, it was just in time to have the first stink landin my lap.

  An old maid claimed her Soth had raped her.

  Before our investigators could reveal our doctors' findings that she wasa neurotic, dried up old virgin and lying in her teeth, a real crimeoccurred.

  A New Jersey Soth tossed a psychology instructor and his three studentsout of a third floor window of their university science building, andall four ended an attempted morbid investigation on the broad,unyielding cement of the concourse.

  My phone shrieked while they were still scraping the inquiring minds offthe pavement. The Soth was holed up in the lab, and would I come rightaway?

  * * * * *

  I picked up Ollie Johnson, who was now sort of a public relations manfor his tribe, and we arrived within an hour.

  The hallway was full of uniforms and weapons, but quite empty ofvolunteers to go in and capture the "berserk" robot.

  Ollie and I went in right away, and found him standing at the openwindow, staring down at the people with hoses washing off the stains forwhich he was responsible.

  Ollie just stood there, clenching and unclenching his hands and shakinghysterically. I had to do the questioning.

  I said sternly, "Soth, why did you harm those people?"

  He turned to me as calmly as my own servant. His neat denim jacket, nowstandard fatigue uniform for Soths, was unfastened. His muscular chestwas bare.

  "They were tormenting me with that." He pointed to a small electricgenerator from which ran thin cables ending in sharp test prods. "I toldProfessor Kahnovsky it was not allowed, but he stated I was hisproperty. The three boys tried to hold me with those straps while theprofessor touched me with the prods.

  "My conditioning forbade me from harming them, but there was a clearviolation of the terms of the covenant. I was in the proscribedcondition of immobilit
y when the generator was started. When the paingrew unbearable, the prime command of my conditioning was invoked. Imust survive. I threw them all out the window."

  The Soth went with us peacefully enough, and submitted to the lockupwithout demur. For a few days, before the state thought up a suitableindictment, the papers held a stunned silence. Virtually every editorand publisher had a Soth in his own home.

  Then the D.A., who also owned a Soth, decided to drop the potentiallysensational first degree murder charges that might be indicated, andcame out instead with a second degree indictment.

  * * * * *

  That cracked it. The press split down the middle on whether the chargeshould be changed to third degree murder or thrown out of court entirelyas justifiable homicide by a non-responsible creature.

  This was all very sympathetic to the Soth's cause, but it had a fataleffect. In bringing out