"They Are Subject to a Higher Law, and You Have Forced Them to Break It"

"The Helpful Robots."
By Robert J. Shea (1933-94).
First appearance: Fantastic Universe, September 1957.
Reprints info (HERE).
Short short short story (3 pages).
Online at Project Gutenberg (HERE) and Archive.org (HERE).

"They had come to pass judgement on him. He had violated their law—wilfully, ignorantly, and very deliberately."

Rankin knew how to handle robots—but they also knew how to handle him . . .

Resources:
- Our author, Robert Shea, struck gold when he and Robert Anton Wilson "exposed" the insidious machinations of the Illuminati (the secret rulers of the world, according to some)
in their Illuminatus! trilogy (HERE); for more about Shea see Wikipedia (HERE), the SFE (HERE), and the ISFDb (HERE).

The bottom line: "Whether we are based on carbon or on silicon makes no fundamental difference; we should each be treated with appropriate respect."
   — 2010: Odyssey Two