"okay. now, one leg has to be used for nothing but voice sounds. that leaves three legs for control of the movements of the robot body. in body movement there will be simultaneous movements and sequences. a simple sequence can be controlled by one leg. all movements of the robot will have to be reduced to not more than three concurrent sequences of movement of the animal's legs. our problem, then, is to make the unlearned and the most natural movements of the legs of the animal control the robot body's movements in a functional manner."
endless hours were consumed in this initial study and mapping. alice worked at it while her husband was at the university and paul was at school. dr. macnare rushed home each day to go over what she had done and continue the work himself.
he grew more and more grudging of the time his classes took. in december he finally wrote to the three technical journals that had been expecting papers from him for publication during the year that he would be too busy to do them.
by january the initial phase of research was well enough along so that dr. macnare could begin planning the robot. for this he set up a workshop in the garage.
in early february he finished what he called the "test frame." after paul had gone to bed, dr. macnare brought the test frame into the study from the garage. to alice it looked very much like the insides of a radio.
she watched while he placed a husky-looking male white rat in the body harness fastened to the framework of aluminum and tied its legs to small metal rods.
nothing happened except that the rat kept trying to get free, and the small metal rods tied to its feet kept moving in pivot sockets.
"now!" dr. macnare said excitedly, flicking a small toggle switch on the side of the assembly.
immediately a succession of vocal sounds erupted from the speaker. they followed one another, making no sensible word.
"he's doing that," dr. macnare said triumphantly.
"if we left him in that, do you think he'd eventually associate his movements with the sounds?"
"it's possible. but that would be more on the order of what we do when we drive a car. to some extent a car becomes an extension of the body, but you're always aware that your hands are on the steering wheel, your foot on the gas pedal or brake. you extend your awareness consciously. you interpret a slight tremble in the steering wheel as a shimmy in the front wheels. you're oriented primarily to your body and only secondarily to the car as an extension of you."
alice closed her eyes for a moment. "mm hm," she said.
"and that's the best we could get, using a rat that knows already it's a rat."
alice stared at the struggling rat, her eyes round with comprehension, while the loudspeaker in the test frame said, "ag-pr-ds-raf-os-dg...."
dr. macnare shut off the sound and began freeing the rat.
"by starting with a newborn animal and never letting it know what it is," he said, "we can get a complete extension of the animal into the machine, in its orientation. so complete that if you took it out of the machine after it grew up, it would have no more idea of what had happened than—than your brain if it were taken out of your head and put on a table!"
"now i'm getting that feeling again, joe," alice said, laughing nervously. "when you said that about my brain i thought, 'or my soul?'"
dr. macnare put the rat back in its cage.
"there might be a valid analogy there," he said slowly. "if we have a soul that survives after death, what is it like? it probably interprets its surroundings in terms of its former orientation in the body."
"that's a little of what i mean," alice said. "i can't help it, joe. sometimes i feel so sorry for whatever baby animal you'll eventually use, that i want to cry. i feel so sorry for it, because we will never dare let it know what it really is!"
"that's true. which brings up another line of research that should be the work of one expert on the team i ought to have for this. as it is, i'll turn it over to you to do while i build the robot."
"what's that?"
"opiates," dr. macnare said. "what we want is an opiate that can be used on a small animal every few days, so that we can take it out of the robot, bathe it, and put it back again without its knowing about it. there probably is no ideal drug. we'll have to test the more promising ones."
later that night, as they lay beside each other in the silence and darkness of their bedroom, dr. macnare sighed deeply.
"so many problems," he said. "i sometimes wonder if we can solve them all. see them all...."
to alice macnare, later, that night in early february marked the end of the first phase of research—the point where two alternative futures hung in the balance, and either could have been taken. that night she might have said, there in the darkness, "let's drop it," and her husband might have agreed.
she thought of saying it. she even opened her mouth to say it. but her husband's soft snores suddenly broke the silence of the night. the moment of return had passed.
month followed month. to alice it was a period of rushing from kitchen to hypodermic injections to vacuum cleaner to hypodermic injections, her key to the study in constant use.
paul, nine years old now, took to spring baseball and developed an indifference to tv, much to the relief of both his parents.
in the garage workshop dr. macnare made parts for the robot, and kept a couple of innocent projects going which he worked on when his son paul evinced his periodic curiosity about what was going on.
spring became summer. for six weeks paul went to scout camp, and during those six weeks dr. macnare reorganized the entire research project in line with what it would be in the fall. a decision was made to use only white rats from then on. the rest of the animals were sold to a pet store, and a system for automatically feeding, watering, and keeping the cages clean was installed in preparation for a much needed two weeks' vacation at the cabin.
when the time came to go, they had to tear themselves away from their work by an effort of will—aided by the realization that they could get little done with paul underfoot.
september came all too soon. by mid-september both dr. macnare and his wife felt they were on the home stretch. parts of the robot were going together and being tested, the female white rats were being bred at the rate of one a week so that when the robot was completed there would be a supply of newborn rats on hand.
october came, and passed. the robot was finished, but there were minor defects in it that had to be corrected.
"adam," dr. macnare said one day, "will have to wear this robot all his life. it has to be just right."
and with each litter of baby rats alice said, "i wonder which one is adam."
they talked of adam often now, speculating on what he would be like. it was almost, they decided, as though adam were their second child.
and finally, on november 2, 1956, everything was ready. adam would be born in the next litter, due in about three days.
the amount of work that had gone into preparation for the great moment is beyond conception. four file cabinet drawers were filled with notes. by actual measurement seventeen feet of shelf space was filled with hooks on the thousand and one subjects that had to be mastered. the robot itself was a masterpiece of engineering that would have done credit to the research staff of a watch manufacturer. the vernier adjustments alone, used to compensate daily for the rat's growth, had eight patentable features.
and the skills that had had to be acquired! alice, who had never before had a hypodermic syringe in her hand, could now inject a precisely measured amount of opiate into the tiny body of a baby rat with calm confidence in her skill.
after such monumental preparation, the great moment itself was anticlimactic. while the mother of adam was still preoccupied with the birth of the remainder of the brood, adam, a pink helpless thing about the size of a little finger, was picked up and transfered to the head of the robot.
his tiny feet, which he would never know existed, were fastened with gentle care to the four control rods. his tiny head was thrust into a helmet attached to a pivot-mounted optical system, ending in the lenses that served the robot for eyes. and finally a transparent plastic cover contoured to the shape of the back of a human head was fastened in place. through it his feeble attempts at movement could be easily observed.
thus, dr. macnare's adam was born into his body, and the time of the completion of his birth was one-thirty in the afternoon on the fifth day of november, 1956.
in the ensuing half hour all the cages of rats were removed from the study, the floor was scrubbed, and deodorizers were sprayed, so that no slightest trace of adam's lowly origins remained. when this was done, dr. macnare loaded the cages into his car and drove them to a pet store that had agreed to take them.
when he returned, he joined alice in the study, and at five minutes before four, with alice hovering anxiously beside him, he opened the cover on adam's chest and turned on the master switch that gave adam complete dominion over his robot body.
adam was beautiful—and monstrous. made of metal from the neck down, but shaped to be covered by padding and skin in human semblance. from the neck up the job was done. the face was human, masculine, handsome, much like that of a clothing store dummy except for its mobility of expression, and the incongruity of the rest of the body.
the voice-control lever and contacts had been designed so that the ability to produce most sounds would have to be discovered by adam as he gained control of his natural right front leg. now the only sounds being uttered were oh, ah, mm, and ll, in random order. similarly, the only movements of his arms and legs were feeble, like those of a human baby. the tremendous strength in his limbs was something he would be unable to tap fully until he had learned conscious co?rdination.
after a while adam became silent and without movement. alarmed, dr. macnare opened the instrument panel in the abdomen. the instruments showed that adam's pulse and respiration were normal. he had fallen asleep.
dr. macnare and his wife stole softly from the study, and locked the door.
after a few days, with the care and feeding of adam all that remained of the giant research project, the pace of the days shifted to that of long-range patience.
"it's just like having a baby," alice said.
"you know something?" dr. macnare asked. "i've had to resist passing out cigars. i hate to say it, but i'm prouder of adam than i was of paul when he was born."
"so am i, joe," alice said quietly. "but i'm getting a little of that scared feeling back again."
"in what way?"
"he watches me. oh, i know it's natural for him to, but i do wish you had made the eyes so that his own didn't show as little dark dots in the center of the iris."
"it couldn't be helped," dr. macnare said. "he has to be able to see, and i had to set up the system of mirrors so that the two axes of vision would be three inches apart as they are in the average human pair of eyes."
"oh, i know," said alice. "probably it's just something i've seized on. but when he watches me, i find myself holding my breath in fear that he can read in my expression the secret we have to keep from him, that he is a rat."
"forget it, alice. that's outside his experience and beyond his comprehension."
"i know," alice sighed. "when he begins to show some of the signs of intelligence a baby has, i'll be able to think of him as a human being."
"sure, darling," dr. macnare said.
"do you think he ever will?"
"that," dr. macnare said, "is the big question. i think he will. i think so now even more than i did at the start. aside from eating and sleeping, he has no avenue of expression except his robot body, and no source of reward except that of making sense—human sense."
the days passed, and became weeks, then months. during the daytime when her husband was at the university and her son was at school, alice would spend most of her hours with adam, forcing herself to smile at him and talk to him as she had to paul when he was a baby. but when she watched his motions through the transparent back of his head, his leg motions remained those of attempted walking and attempted running.
then, one day when adam was four months old, things changed—as abruptly as the turning on of a light.
the unrewarding walking and running movements of adam's little legs ceased. it was evening, and both dr. macnare and his wife were there.
for a few seconds there was no sound or movement from the robot body. then, quite deliberately, adam said, "ah."
"ah," dr. macnare echoed. "mm, mm, ah. ma-ma."
"mm," adam said.
the silence in the study became absolute. the seconds stretched into eternities. then—
"mm, ah," adam said. "mm, ah."
alice began crying with happiness.
"mm, ah," adam said. "mm, ah. ma-ma. mamamamama."
then, as though the effort had been too much for adam, he went to sleep.
having achieved the impossible, adam seemed to lose interest in it. for two days he uttered nothing more than an occasional involuntary syllable.
"i would call that as much of an achievement as speech itself," dr. macnare said to his wife. "his right front leg has asserted its independence. if each of his other three legs can do as well, he can control the robot body."
it became obvious that adam was trying. though the movements of his body remained non-purposive, the pauses in those movements became more and more pregnant with what was obviously mental effort.
during that period there was of course room for argument and speculation about it, and even a certain amount of humor. had adam's right front leg, at the moment of achieving meaningful speech, suffered a nervous breakdown? what would a psychiatrist have to say about a white rat that had a nervous breakdown in its right front leg?
"the worst part about it," dr. macnare said to his wife, "is that if he fails to make it he'll have to be killed. he can't have permanent frustration forced onto him, and, by now, returning him to his natural state would be even worse."
"and he has such a stout little heart," alice said. "sometimes when he looks at me i'm sure he knows what is happening and he wants me to know he's trying."
when they went to bed that night they were more discouraged than they had ever been.
eventually they slept. when the alarm went off, alice slipped into her robe and went into the study first, as she always did.
a moment later she was back in the bedroom, shaking her husband's shoulder.
"joe!" she whispered. "wake up! come into the study!"
he leaped out of bed and rushed past her. she caught up with him and pulled him to a stop.
"take it easy, joe," she said. "don't alarm him."
"oh." dr. macnare relaxed. "i thought something had happened."
"something has!"
they stopped in the doorway of the study. dr. macnare sucked in his breath sharply, but remained silent.
adam seemed oblivious of their presence. he was too interested in something else.
he was interested in his hands. he was holding his hands up where he could see them, and he was moving them independently, clenching and unclenching the metal fingers with slow deliberation.
suddenly the movement stopped. he had become aware of them. then, impossibly, unbelievably, he spoke.
"ma ma," adam said. then, "pa pa."
"adam!" alice sobbed, rushing across the study to him and sinking down beside him. her arms went around his metal body. "oh, adam," she cried happily.
it was the beginning. the date of that beginning is not known. alice macnare believes it was early in may, but more probably it was in april. there was no time to keep notes. in fact, there was no longer a research project nor any thought of one. instead, there was adam, the person. at least, to alice he became that, completely. perhaps, also, to dr. macnare.
dr. macnare quite often stood behind adam where he could watch the rat body through the transparent skull case while alice engaged adam's attention. alice did the same, at times, but she finally refused to do so any more. the sight of adam the rat, his body held in a net attached to the frame, his head covered by the helmet, his four legs moving independently of one another with little semblance of walking or running motion nor even of co?rdination, but with swift darting motions and pauses pregnant with meaning, brought back to alice the old feeling of vague fear, and a tremendous surge of pity for adam that made her want to cry.
slowly, subtly, adam's rat body became to alice a pure brain, and his legs four nerve ganglia. a brain covered with short white fur; and when she took him out of his harness under opiate to bathe him, she bathed him as gently and carefully as any brain surgeon sponging a cortical surface.
once started, adam's mental development progressed rapidly. dr. macnare began making notes again on june 2, 1957, just ten days before the end, and it is to these notes that we go for an insight into adam's mind.
on june 4th dr. macnare wrote, "i am of the opinion that adam will never develop beyond the level of a moron, in the scale of human standards. he would probably make a good factory worker or chauffeur, in a year or two. but he is consciously aware of himself as adam, he thinks in words and simple sentences with an accurate understanding of their meaning, and he is able to do new things from spoken instructions. there is no question, therefore, but that he has an integrated mind, entirely human in every respect."
