R. Sammy is a character in Isaac Asimov's Robot series.
About Sammy[]
R. Sammy is a primitive robot employed as a messenger and general factotum at the New York City Police Department. R. Sammy is an early, non-humanoid robot model, clearly identifiable as a machine. His design includes a fixed, "idiotic" smile and a "vacuous" expression, common features in terrestrial robots designed to appear non-threatening to a public deeply distrustful of robotics. He is equipped with a robust "friendship circuit," a specialized programming mandated for Earth robots to make them seem more congenial and less intimidating to the human population. This circuit leads him to address detectives by the familiar nickname "Lije," a habit Detective Elijah Baley finds intensely irritating.
R. Sammy's presence at the Police Department is a direct result of the slow but steady infiltration of robots into Earth's Cities, a process encouraged by the Spacers. He replaced a young human clerk named Vincent Barrett, a fact that causes lingering resentment and serves as a constant reminder of the threat of robotic replacement and human "declassification." Barrett's desperate situation and the departmental gossip about R. Sammy highlight the social and economic tensions caused by automation.
His primary function is to run errands and deliver messages within the department. His routine existence is shattered when he is discovered deactivated in a photographic storage room, his positronic brain completely randomized by an alpha-emitter held against his skull. Commissioner Julius Enderby initially treats the incident as a case of deliberate sabotage—the "murder" of government property—and a major scandal within the department.
The investigation into R. Sammy's destruction becomes a critical turning point in the primary murder case of Dr. Sarton. Commissioner Enderby, who is secretly a medievalist and the accidental killer of Sarton, frames Elijah Baley for the robot's destruction. He plants evidence suggesting Baley procured the alpha-emitter from the Williamsburg Power Station (which Baley had visited) and killed R. Sammy to prevent him from revealing that Baley's wife, Jessie, was a member of a medievalist organization—information R. Sammy had witnessed Jessie anxiously revealing earlier that day.
However, Baley deduces the truth: Enderby himself destroyed R. Sammy. The robot was a loose end, having been Enderby's unwitting accomplice in the Sarton murder. Enderby had used R. Sammy to carry the blaster into and out of the Spacer Sector, making the murder possible without a human having to cross the open country. Fearing R. Sammy could be interrogated and could reveal this fact, Enderby eliminated him and used the incident to sideline Baley, whom he feared was getting too close to the truth. R. Sammy's "murder" thus serves as the key catalyst that allows Baley to finally uncover Enderby's guilt and the accidental nature of Sarton's death.
Appearances[]