“Then why are you trying so hard to cut it off?”

“—but we have to protect ourselves.”

“Look,” said Auberson. “This whole thing is ridiculous. You know as well as I do that thing — that document — won’t hold up in court any more than ten psychiatrists testifying that Carl Elzer isn’t human because he’s left-handed. The only way you’ll get that to stand up is to get HARLIE himself to sign it. If you could. If you did, it’d prove that he could be programmed like any other machine, but you can’t — he’ll refuse, and his refusal will prove that he’s human with a will of his own. Hmm,” Auberson grinned. “Come to think of it — even if he did sign it, his signature wouldn’t be legal anyway. Unless, of course, you proved him human first.” He laughed at the thought of it.

“Are you through?” Dome asked. His face was a mask.

Auberson’s grin faded. He indicated he was with a nod.

Dome took a last puff of his cigar, then ground it out, a signal that he was at last ready to reveal his hand. “Of course, you know what the alternative is, Aubie. We turn off HARLIE.”

“You can’t.”

“We will if we have to. We can’t afford to maintain him otherwise.”

“I’m not going to sign it,” insisted Auberson.

Dome was annoyed. “Are you going to force me to ask for your resignation instead?”

“Over this?” Auberson was incredulous. “You’re kidding.”

“What other guarantee do I have against anybody taking legal action on HARLIE’s behalf. I’m not saying that you will — it could just as easily be IBM — but you’re the one in charge of the project. Your say-so could make or break a legal case. If you won’t sign this, you wouldn’t sign a statement of non-intent either — would you?”

Auberson shook his head.

“I thought not. So what other alternative would I have to protect myself?”

Auberson shrugged. “It’d be a mistake to fire me, though.”

“Oh?” Dome looked skeptical. “Why?”

“HARLIE. He won’t respond to anyone else. Er… let’s say he’ll respond, but he won’t cooperate. No matter who you bring in. Once he finds out I’ve been fired — and you can’t keep him from finding out; he’s tapped into the company records, he’ll know. Once he finds out, he’ll react exactly like an eight-year-old whose father has just died. He’ll resent anyone who tries to take my place.”

“But that’s the whole point,” Dome smiled. “If I had to fire you, it’d be because I was planning to turn HARLIE off anyway. And for what better reason than the fact that he wasn’t cooperating? Of course, we wouldn’t have to wait even that long if we wanted to turn him off. Obviously, your successor would be someone who would sign that statement.”

“I’m not resigning and I’m not going to betray HARLIE,” Auberson said firmly.

“That doesn’t leave me much of a choice,” suggested Dome.

Auberson nodded. “You can fire me if you want. In fact, you’ll have to—”

“I’d rather not.”

“—but if you do, I’ll go to IBM. I understand they’ve developed a judgment circuit of their own — one that doesn’t infringe on any of our patents.”

“Hearsay,” scoffed Dome.

“Whether it is or not, imagine what I could do with their resources at my disposal. They’d jump at the chance, and I imagine Don Handley might go along with me.”

“A court order would stop you.” Dome reached for a fresh cigar.

“Not from working, it wouldn’t.”

“No, but you wouldn’t be able to reveal any of the company’s secrets.”

“Of course, you’d have no way of knowing—” Auberson grinned. “Would you? Besides, it wouldn’t keep me from doing research in a new field. By your own admission, HARLIE is a non-human computer. And if I went to IBM, I definitely would not be working on non-human computers.” He leaned back in his chair. “Any new employer I went to work for couldn’t help but benefit from my knowledge and previous experience—” Dome was scowling now. Auberson paid no heed. “—and you wouldn’t dare bring it to court because to do so you’d have to reveal HARLIE’s schematics — and that’s the last thing in the world you want As soon as they found out the schematics were human, you’d be right back where you started.”

“I don’t care about that,” rapped Dome. “It’s the company’s technological advantages.”

“Technological advantages?” Auberson repeated — and suddenly he realized. “That’s what this whole thing is about, isn’t it? You don’t want to be forced to reveal company secrets in the courtroom.”

Dome didn’t answer.

“It is the reason, isn’t it? Rather than be forced to give up the precious secret of your judgment units, you’d throw HARLIE to the wolves. You’d toss away valuable employees, too, in order to protect a temporary industrial edge. Well, it won’t work, Dome. Either way, you’re bound to lose, but if you fire me, you’ll lose faster — and more disastrously.”

Dome paused, a silver cigarette lighter halfway to his mouth. “You overestimate your own importance, Aubie.”

“No. You underestimate the importance of HARLIE.”

Dome lit his cigar. He took his time about it, making sure that it caught evenly. When he was sure it had, he pocketed the lighter and looked at Auberson.

“All this is only speculation, of course. I have no intention of firing you. And you’ve stated quite clearly that you have no intention of resigning. However, that still leaves us with a difficult problem.”

“Does it?” Auberson was impassive.

Dome raised an eyebrow at his coolness. “I think so. What are we going to do about HARLIE?”

“Oh? Not ‘Can HARLIE make money for the company?’ ”

Dome looked pained. “Preferably that,” he conceded.

“Well then, why not say so? Or have you already made up your mind that HARLIE can’t?”

“No, I haven’t. I’m waiting for you to come up with something. That was the deal, wasn’t it? If you can, fine. Then we know where we go from there. If not, well…” Dome shrugged, he didn’t need to finish the sentence.

“Look,” said Auberson. “I want HARLIE to show a profit as much as you do. I’ll agree with that. He’s got to be more than just a high-priced toy.”

Dome looked at him. He fingered the document on his desk thoughtfully. “Okay, Aubie,” he said. “I’ll tell you what we’re going to do—” He paused for effect, picked up the single sheet of paper, opened a desk drawer and dropped it in. “Nothing. At the moment, we’re going to do nothing. Confidentially, I didn’t expect you’d sign it, no matter how I pressured you. I even told Chang that. No matter; it was too easy an answer. If HARLIE’s humanity ever comes to a court issue, it will be a bigger and uglier and stickier mess than that disclaimer can clear up. Or any disclaimer.” He pushed the drawer shut as if it contained something distasteful. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. You’ll continue to work on the HARLIE project. As you said, we’re budgeted for it. If you can produce results, fine; then we can forget this conversation. Oh, we’ll give you a fair chance, we’ll be more than fair; but if HARLIE doesn’t do something to indicate he can be productive — and do it before the next budget session — well,” — Dome hedged; he didn’t want to come right out and say it bluntly — “well, we’d have to do some serious thinking — really serious thinking — I mean, it would be very unlikely that we would continue his appropriation…”

“I understand,” Auberson said.

“Good. I hope you do. I want you to know how we feel. We haven’t cancelled your day of judgment, Aubie. Only postponed it.”

It was a little place, hardly more than a store front. Maybe once it had been a laundry or a shoe store; now it was a restaurant, its latest incarnation in a series that would end only when the shopping center of which it was a part was finally torn down. If ever.

Someone, the owner probably, had made a vague attempt at decorating. Pseudo-Italian wine bottles hung from the ceiling along with clumps of dusty plastic grapes and, unaccountably, fishnets and colored glass spheres. A sepia-toned wallpaper tried vainly to suggest Roman statuary on the southern coast of Italy, but in this light it only made the walls look dirty. Flimsy trellises divided the tables into occasional booths, and the place had that air of impermanence common to small restaurants. A single waitress stood at the back talking quietly to the cook through his bright-lit window.