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"SF looks towards an imaginary future, while fantasy, by and large, looks towards an imaginary past."
- Frederik Pohl
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| Emdee Doctor Robot | ||
| An autonomous physician robot with many arms and built-in features. |
| They brought Gardaza out last, and that was too late...
Emdee listened without a stethescope. He had been built for just such work, and due consideration had been given to all the details of his construction. His face was grave, as it always was He bent over the man lying on the floor of the shaft opening, peering at and through him, and, at the same time, administering a plasma injection from the supplies stored within his barrel-like body. Simultaneously he bound external wounds and applied local anesthetics. The blood flow staunched, he set the most dangerous broken bones in unbelievable time, two or three at once. His multiplicity of arms flashed with a speed and precision several human doctors working together could not match.
 (Emdee robot from 'Seasoned Traveler' by F.L. Wallace) He straightened up and retracted the specialized extensions into bis body, leaving only the normal number of arms visible. “Internal injuries in the thoracic region; a punctured lung, but that won't kill him.” Emdee summed it up professionally. "Worse are the skull fractures. They may have damaged optic nerves. My Xray equipment is not good enough to determine that. Later I can give you more information..." Emdee didn't wait. He located a spare hotsuit somewhere in the mine and deftly pulled it on the unconscious man. Then, extending all bis arms, specialized or not, he slid them gently under Gardaza. He lifted him without effort and trotted swiftly across the wastelandtoward the settlement. Doctor, a rudimentary hospital, portable pharmacy, and if necessary, an ambulance. |
| Technovelgy from Seasoned Traveler,
by F.L. Wallace. Published by Universe in 1953 Additional resources -
|
This story also has a darker note about robots:
Nearly immune to extremes of temperature. and radiation proof, if robots ever decided they'd do better on their own. it would be hard to get them back. Mars wasn't the size of earth. but the land mass was larger and there were enough places for determined robots to hide out.
It would be a hundred years before Mars was settled, even at optimum development. With robots to offer an effective opposition, maybe it never would be...
Emdee. True, he had been given extra intelligence; as a doctor he'd be worthless without it. And a slip of the process had made his mind better than anyone on earth knew.
But intelligence didn’t signify he was dangerous, and every aspect of his personality that Berin had experienced argued the other way.
Compare to the emergency treatment tank from Agent of Vega (1949) by James Schmitz, the shipboard medical treatment from Contagion (1950) by Katherine MacLean, the
Gobathian from Time is the Simplest Thing (1961) by Clifford Simak, the surgical homeostatic unit from Now Wait For Last Year (1966) by Philip K. Dick, the diagnostat from The Man in the Maze (1969) by Robert Silverberg, electronic body analyzer from The Andromeda Strain (1969) by Michael Crichton, the crechepod from The Godmakers (1972) by Frank Herbert and the autosurgeon from Altered Carbon (2003) by Richard Morgan.
See also the phymech robot doctor from Wanted in Surgery (1957) by Harlan Ellison.
“Emdee is a robot, and no robot has ever been allowed to repair another or learn the details of construction. The reason for that rule is obvious and I don't intend to violate it...”
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