Sir stared. He looked mystified now.
"What could there possibly be that you could buy from me, Andrew?"
"My freedom, Sir."
"Your-"
"My freedom. I wish to buy my freedom, Sir. Up till now I have simply been one of your possessions, but I wish now to become an independent entity. I would always retain my sense of loyalty and obligation to you, but-"
"For God's sake!" Sir cried, in a terrible voice. He rose stiffly to his feet and hurled his book to the floor. His lips were quivering and his face was flushed a mottled red. Andrew had never seen him look so agitated. "Freedom? Freedom, Andrew? What on Earth could you be talking about?"
And he stalked from the room in rage.
Chapter Seven
ANDREW SUMMOneD LITTLE MISS. Not so much for his own sake, but because Sir's anger had been so intense that Andrew feared for the old man's health, and Little Miss was the only person in the world who could soothe him out of such an irascible mood.
Sir was in his upstairs bedroom when she arrived. He had been there for two hours. Andrew showed Little Miss up the stairs and halted, hesitating, outside the room as she began to enter it. Sir could be seen pacing back and forth, moving with such determination and ferocity that he seemed to be wearing a track in the antique oriental carpet. He paid no attention to the two figures in the hallway.
Little Miss glanced back at Andrew.
"Why are you waiting out there?" she asked.
"I don't think it would be useful for me to venture near Sir just now, Little Miss."
"Don't be foolish."
"I am the one who upset him so."
"Yes, I realize that. But he's surely over it by now. Come on in with me, and between us we'll get this thing cleared up in no time."
Andrew could hear the rhythmic angry sound of Sir's steady pacing. "With all respect, Little Miss, it does not seem to me that he is over it in the least. I believe he is still quite troubled. And if I irritate him further -No, Little Miss. I am unable to enter his room. Not until you assure me that he is calm enough so that I can safely be seen by him."
Little Miss stared at Andrew a moment. Then she nodded and said, "All right, Andrew. I understand."
She went inside. Andrew heard the rhythm of Sir's anguished pacing begin to slow a bit. He heard voices: first that of Little Miss, speaking gently and calmly, and then that of Sir, erupting in torrents of volcanic wrath, and then Little Miss again, as quietly as before, and then Sir, not quite as frenziedly. And then Little Miss, still calmly but this time not gently: speaking quite firmly, in fact.
The whole while, Andrew had no idea what was being said. It would not have been difficult for him to adjust his audio receptors to pick up the conversation clearly. But that seemed inappropriate to him; and so the only adjustment he had made was in the opposite direction, allowing him to monitor the conversation sufficiently to know whether his help might be needed, but not so that he could understand the individual words.
After a time Little Miss appeared at the doorway and said, "Andrew, would you step in here now?"
"As I said before, I am extremely concerned about the state of Sir's emotional level, Little Miss. If I were to enter, and provoke him all over again-"
"His emotional level is fine, Andrew. Blowing off a little steam isn't going to kill him. It's good for him, as a matter of fact. Now come on in here. Come in."
It was a direct order-coupled with a lessening of First Law potentials. Andrew had no choice but to obey.
He found Sir sitting in his enormous winged armchair by the window-the mahogany-and-leather armchair that Andrew had made for him fifteen years before-with a lap-robe wrapped about him. He was indeed calm again, but there was a steely glint in his eye, and-sitting enthroned the way he was-he had the look about him of an angry old emperor plagued by unruly subordinates. He ignored Andrew's presence completely.
Little Miss said, "All right, Father. We can discuss this quietly and rationally, can't we?"
Sir shrugged. "I try to discuss everything quietly and rationally. I always have."
"Yes, you have, Father."
"But this, Mandy-this total absurdity-this monstrous nonsense that Andrew has thrown at me-!"
"Father!"
"I'm sorry. I can't stay calm when I'm confronted with absolute craziness."
"You know that Andrew is inherently incapable of craziness. Craziness just isn't included in his specifications."
"When he talks about getting his freedom-his freedom, by God!-what else can it be but craziness?" And Sir began to sputter and turn red again.
Andrew had never seen Sir in such a state-never. Once more he began to feel uneasy about being present in the room, and thus setting up such a threat to the old man's constitution. Sir seemed almost on the verge of an apoplectic fit. And if something should happen to him-something that would be a direct result of Andrew's having begun all this- Little Miss said, "Stop it, Father! Just stop it! You have no right to throw a tantrum over this!"
Andrew was astonished to hear Little Miss speaking to her father so harshly, so defiantly. She sounded like a mother scolding a cranky child. Suddenly it struck him that among human beings time must eventually reverse all the normal generational roles: that Sir, once so dynamic and autocratic and all-knowing, was now as weak and vulnerable as a child, and it was Little Miss's responsibility to guide and direct him as he struggled to understand the bewildering nature of the world.
It seemed a little strange to Andrew, too, that they would be enacting this highly charged scene in front of him. But of course no one in the Martin family had hesitated to talk in front of Andrew for thirty years-not even about the most intimate matters. Why should they feel any inhibitions in his presence? He was only a robot.