s human, then the robot is under no compulsion to refrain
from harming the child."

He began delving into his pockets for smoking materials as he went on.

"We took the easy way out. We solved that problem by keeping Snookums
isolated. He has never met any animal except adult human beings. It
would take an awful lot of explaining to make him understand the
difference between, say, a chimpanzee and a man. Why should a hairy pelt
and a relatively low intelligence make a chimp non-human? After all,
some men are pretty hairy, and some are moronic.

"Present company excepted."

More laughter. Mike's opinion of Fitzhugh was beginning to go up. The
man knew when to break pedantry with humor.

"Finally," Fitzhugh said, when the laughter had subsided, "we must ask
what is meant by 'protecting his own existence.' Frankly, we've been
driven frantic by that one. The little humanoid, caterpillar-track
mechanism that we all tend to think of as Snookums isn't really
Snookums, any more than a human being is a hand or an eye. Snookums
wouldn't actually be threatening his own existence unless his brain--now
in the hold of the _William Branchell_--is destroyed."

As Dr. Fitzhugh continued, Mike the Angel listened with about half an
ear. His attention--and the attention of every man in the place--had
been distracted by the entrance of Leda Crannon. She stepped in through
a side door, walked over to Dr. Fitzhugh, and whispered something in his
ear. He nodded, and she left again.

Fitzhugh, when he resumed his speech, was rather more hurried in his
delivery.

"The whole thing can be summed up rather quickly.

"Point One: Snookums' brain contains the information that eight years of
hard work have laboriously put into it. That information is more
valuable than the whole cost of the _William Branchell_; it's worth
billions. So the robot can't be disassembled, or the information would
be lost.

"Point Two: Snookums' mind is a strictly logical one, but it is
operating in a more than logical universe. Consequently, it is unstable.

"Point Three: Snookums was built to conduct his own experiments. To
forbid him to do that would be similar to beating a child for acting
like a child; it would do serious harm to the mind. In Snookums' case,
the randomity of the brain would exceed optimum, and the robot would
become insane.

"Point Four: Emotion is not logical. Snookums can't handle it, except in
a very limited way."

Fitzhugh had been