"Executed Is a Better Word"

"Punishment Fit the Crime."

By Lyn Venable (?-?; ISFDb HERE; IMDb HERE).

First appearance: Other Worlds, July 1953.

Reprints page (ISFDb HERE).

Short short story (6 pages).

Online at SFFAudio (HERE).

   "He thought for himself."

Dirty Harry said a man's gotta know his limitations. Finding out those limitations can take a lifetime for a human being, but what about a robot? "I am capable only of performing those acts having a direct bearing on the care and welfare of my charge," says xx343 reassuringly. For a robot, programming is another way of saying "limitations," and if there's one thing xx343 can be relied on to do, it's to follow his programming. The question is, how far?

Principal characters:

~ Nona Noldis ("The idea of leaving him with a . . ."), Clemm Noldis ("you don't want to hurt its feelings, do you?"), xx343 ("I trust my services will be satisfactory"), Bobo ("gasped and cried fitfully in the other room"), and J. H. Versinger ("It means, Mr. Noldis, precisely the end").

References and resources:

- "I am a baby sitting robot":

  The notion of a robot nursemaid seems to have originated with Isaac Asimov's "Robbie" (1940), his first positronic robots story:

  "Asimov has consistently held the belief that the Frankenstein complex was a misplaced fear. The majority of Asimov's works concerning robots attempted to provide examples of the help that they could render for humanity." (WARNING! SPOILERS! Wikipedia HERE.)

Artwork by James Mravec

- "Punishment Fit the Crime":

  It's obvious that the author intended the story's title to be ironic:

  "In all ancient legal systems, retribution for wrongdoing took precedence over the enforcement of rights. A sense of natural law demanded that a criminal should be punished with similar loss and pain as they inflicted on their victim. Therefore, the concept of lex talionis (an eye for an eye) was common in ancient law. The Hebrew Bible includes the oldest extent example of lex talionis: middah ke-neged middah (law of 'measure for measure'). The Roman lawyer and philosopher Cicero proposed 'let the punishment fit the offence' (Latin: noxiae poena par esto) . . ." (Wikipedia HERE.)

- Lyn Venable's main claim to fame is her story "Time Enough at Last" (IF, January 1953; online at Archive.org HERE and Project Gutenberg HERE), which was filmed for the Twilight Zone TV series in 1959 (WARNING! SPOILERS! Wikipedia HERE). Nearly four dozen television conventions have been unearthed in "Time Enough at Last" by TV Tropes (WARNING! SPOIL-ERS! HERE).

- We last encountered robots, these being decidedly unfriendly, in John Jakes's "Night of the Robots" (HERE). By the way, it seems our first posting about those cybernetic critters was well over ten years ago and featured—who else?—Isaac Asimov's creations (HERE).

Ralph McQuarrie's illustration for 'Robot Visions' (1990)

Unless otherwise noted, all bibliographical data are derived from The FictionMags Index created by William G. Contento & edited by Phil Stephensen-Payne.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~