STATE YOUR PROBLEM PLEASE THINK CLEARLY
Ignoring the implied insult, Alvin began his story. Though he had communicated with robots by speech or thought on countless occasions, he felt now that he was addressing something more than a machine. Lifeless though this creature was, it possessed an intelligence that might be greater than his own. It was a strange thought, but it did not depress him unduly-for of what use was intelligence alone?
His words died away and the silence of that overpowering place crowded back upon them. For a moment the screen was filled with swirling mist: then the haze cleared and the machine replied:
REPAIR IMPOSSIBLE ROBOT UNKNOWN TYPE
Alvin turned to his friend with a gesture of disappointment, but even as he did so the lettering changed and a second message appeared:
DUPLICATION COMPLETED PLEASE CHECK AND SIGN
Simultaneously a red light began to flash above a horizontal panel Alvin had not noticed before, and was certain he must have seen had it been there earlier. Puzzled, he bent towards it, but a shout from Rorden made him look round in surprise. The other was pointing towards the great Master Robot, where Alvin had left his own machine a few minutes before.
It had not moved, but it had multiplied. Hanging in the air beside it was a duplicate so exact that Alvin could not tell which was the original and which the copy.
“I was watching when it happened,” said Rorden excitedly. “It suddenly seemed to extend, as if millions of replicas had come into existence on either side of it. Then all the images except these two disappeared. The one on the right is the original.”