Free The Star Diaries by Stanislaw Lem

And so all the negotiations which we had attempted to conduct on behalf of the SECOS organization, in the spirit of mutual respect and understanding, came to naught, since even our most modest demands—namely, that the Computer turn itself and its robots over to the insurance company—were rewarded with an insulting silence.
    “Gentlemen,” the speaker said, raising his voice, “events did not, unfortunately, proceed as we had anticipated. After a few radio reports we lost all contact with our people on Cercia. We sent replacements, with analogous results. After the first coded communication informing us that they had landed without incident, they gave no further sign of life. Since that time, over a period of nine years, we have sent a total of two thousand seven hundred and eighty-six agents to Cercia, and not one has returned, not one has responded! This evidence of the perfection of the robots’ counterespionage is accompanied by other, perhaps even more alarming facts. Note that the Cercian press is attacking us more violently than ever in its editorials. The robots’ printing houses are turning out, on a mass basis, leaflets and fliers addressed to the robots of Earth and in which men, portrayed as grasping voltsuckers and villains, are called injurious names—thus, for example, in the official pronouncements we are referred to as mucilids, and the whole human race—as gook. Once more we appealed, in an aide memoire, to the government of Procyon, but it repeated its previous declaration of nonintervention and all our efforts to point out the dangers inherent in that neutralist position (which is in reality the most craven isolationism) were to no avail. We were given to understand that the robots were our product, ergo we were responsible for all their acts. On the other hand Procyon was categorically opposed to any sort of punitive expedition, including the forced expropriation of the Computer and its subjects. That, gentlemen, is how the situation stands today, and the reason for the calling of this meeting. To give you some idea of how volatile the situation is, I shall only add that last month the Electron Courier, the official organ of the Computer, ran an article in which it cast mud upon the entire evolutionary tree of man and called for the annexation of Earth to Cercia, on the grounds that robots—according to all the best authorities—were a more advanced form than living creatures. On which note I conclude, and yield the floor to Professor Gargarragh.”
    Bent beneath the weight of many years, the famed specialist in mechanical psychiatry ascended, not without difficulty, to the lectern.
    “Gentlemen!” he said in a quavering yet still resonant voice. “For some time now it has been known that electronic brains must be not only constructed, but educated as well. The lot of an electronic brain is hard. Constant, unremitting labor, complex calculations, the abuse and rough humor of attendants—this is what an apparatus, by its nature extremely delicate, must endure. Little wonder then, that there are breakdowns, and short circuits, which not infrequently represent attempts at suicide. Not long ago I had, in my clinic, such a case. A split personality —dichotomia profunda psychogenes electrocutiva alternans. This particular brain addressed love letters to itself, employing such endearing terms as ‘relay baby,’ ‘spoolie,’ ‘little digit drum-dump’—clear proof of how badly the thing needed affection, a kind word, some warm and tender relationship. A series of electroshock treatments and a long rest restored it to health. Or take, for example, tremor electricus frigoris oscillativus. An electronic brain, gentlemen, is not a sewing machine, not something one can use to drive nails into a wall. It is a conscious being, aware of everything that takes place around it, and this is why in moments of cosmic danger it may begin to quake, setting the entire ship atremble, so that those on board