Astounding Science Fiction (British Edition) — page 23: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE GULF BETWEEN at it, a ridiculously tiny thing beside its own ponderous bulk. “So that’s George?” The general shook his head in amazement. ‘This is your new type robot, then? You’ve not only given it a manlike body, you’ve even given it almost-human features. In an alien sort of a way the thing is handsome.” ‘“The almost-human face was purely by coincidence,” Clarke explained “Its D-Twenty-three brain is in its chest, of course, and it so happened that installing the eyes, ears and mouth gave it a head of normal size—that is, a head of a size normal for the size of its body.” The robot stopped a few feet in front of them and inclined its head down- ward so that its eyes were on theirs; eyes that were large and dark, giving it an appearance of thoughtful, patient waiting. “Two eyes were necessary for it to properly estimate distances,” Clarke explained. “The rather humanlike ears are acoustically efficient and their location, together with locating the speaker grill as its mouth, was to enable it to do such things as use a phone.” “It phones?” “Oh, yes. George can do anything. He checks data with the Master Com- puter at times—there’s a line for that purpose—checks blueprints and in- Stalled circuits, assembles parts. He is very useful and, since he never gets tired or needs sleep, he works twenty- four hours a day.” ““Hm-m-m.”’ General Gordon stud- ied the robot thoughtfully. “‘Ap- parently we'll have no trouble train- ing the D-Twenty-three’s for duty in the Air Corps.”’ “Well, they will have to be trained, and under the supervision of Center technicians. Mr. Miles’ account of what happened last night will show you why.” “Oh, yes—the trouble with the robot. Please go on, Mr. Miles, and tell us what happened.” June looked inquiringly at Clarke. He nodded and she said to the robot, ““They’re through with you, George— get on back to work.” It turned with- out a word and walked across the room and through the door of ASSEMBLY 1. “It started just as Vickson here went off-shift,” Miles began. “Vick- son was working on the final assembly of the drive and came to the K-Seven reflector at the end of his shift. It’s a very essential little item, though its installation is simple. But it had to be coated with the Reuther Alloy, first. This reflector is a circular plate of platinum, eight inches in diameter, and we were to do the alloy plating here—they sent us a special machine for that yesterday. The alloy has to be of a certain thickness—sixty-five one-thousandths of an inch. So, as Vickson went off-shift, he gave George the plate and told him to metal-spray it to a thickness of sixty-five one- thousandths of an inch. “This alloy is so hard to. produce and so expensive that we had orders to waste none of it, if possible. Vickson ordered George to use the only method possible whereby the proper thickness would be put on the plate in one operation, with no guesswork and no surplus to machine off; he told George to determine the surface area of the plate then weigh out the proper amount of alloy to coat it the required thickness. This should have been a simple job, quickly done, and George was to then install the plate—a job even simpler. The entire thing shouldn’t have taken George over twenty minutes. “When I came to work an hour later I took it for granted everything had been done. I had the workmen Comichooksnco im