Asimov’s Future History Volume 10

by Isaac Asimov

  Daneel said, “Excuse me, Madam Gladia, for interrupting. May I have your permission to attempt an explanation of the overseer’s behavior?”

  D.G. said sardonically, “It comes to that, I suppose. Only a robot can explain a robot.”

  “Sir,” said Daneel, “unless we understand the overseer, we might not be able to take effective measures in the future against the Solarian danger. I believe I have a way of accounting for her behavior.”

  “Go ahead,” said D.G.

  “The overseer,” said Daneel, “did not take instant measures against us. She stood and watched us for a while, apparently uncertain as to how to proceed. When you, Captain, approached and addressed her, she announced that you were not human and attacked you instantly. When I intervened and cried out that she was a robot, she announced that I was not human and attacked me at once, too. When Lady Gladia came forward, however, shouting at her, the overseer recognized her as human and, for a while, allowed herself to be dominated.”

  “Yes, I remember all that, Daneel. But what does it mean?”

  “It seems to me, Captain, that it is possible to alter a robot’s behavior fundamentally without ever touching the Three Laws, provided, for instance, that you alter the definition of a human being. A human being, after all, is only what it is defined to be.”

  “Is that so? What do you consider a human being to be?”

  Daneel was not concerned with the presence or absence of sarcasm. He said, “I was constructed with a detailed description of the appearance and behavior of human beings, Captain. Anything that fits that description is a human being to me. Thus, you have the appearance and the behavior, while the overseer had the appearance but not the behavior.

  “To the overseer, on the other hand, the key property of a human being was speech, Captain. The Solarian accent is a distinctive one and to the overseer something that looked like a human being was defined as a human being only if it spoke like a Solarian. Apparently, anything that looked like a human being but did not speak with a Solarian accent was to be destroyed without hesitation, as was any ship carrying such beings.”

  D.G. said thoughtfully, “You may be right.”

  “You have a Settler accent, Captain, as distinctive in its way as the Solarian accent is, but the two are widely different. As soon as you spoke, you defined yourself as nonhuman to the overseer, who announced that and attacked.”

  “And you speak with an Auroran accent and were likewise attacked.”

  “Yes, Captain, but Lady Gladia spoke with an authentic Solarian accent and so she was recognized as human.”

  D.G. considered the matter silently for a while, then said, “That’s a dangerous arrangement, even for those who would make use of it. If a Solarian, for any reason, at any time addressed such a robot in a way that the robot did not consider an authentic Solarian accent, that Solarian would be attacked at once. If I were a Solarian, I would be afraid to approach such a robot. My very effort to speak pure Solarian might very likely throw me off and get me killed.”

  “I agree, Captain: said Daneel, “and I would imagine that that is why those who manufacture robots do – not ordinarily limit the definition of a human being, but leave it as broad as possible. The Solarians, however, have left the planet. One might suppose that the fact that overseer robots have this dangerous programming is the best indication that the Solarians have really left and are not here to encounter the danger. The Solarians, it appears, are at this moment concerned only that no one who is not a Solarian be allowed to set foot on the planet.”

  “Not even other Spacers?”

  “I would expect, Captain, that it would be difficult to define a human being in such a way as to include the dozen of different Spacer accents and yet exclude the scores of different Settler accents. Keying the definition to the distinctive Solarian accent alone would be difficult enough.”

  D.G. said, “You are very intelligent, Daneel. I disapprove of robots, of course, not in themselves but as an unsettling influence on society. And yet, with a robot such as yourself at my side, as you were once at the Ancestor’s –”

  Gladia interrupted. “I’m afraid not, D.G. Daneel will never be a gift, nor will he ever be sold, nor can he be easily taken by force.”

  D.G. lifted his hand in a smiling negative. “I was merely dreaming, Lady Gladia. I assure you that the laws of Baleyworld would make my possession of a robot unthinkable.”

  Giskard said suddenly, “May I have your permission, Captain, to add a few words?”

  D.G. said, “Ah, the robot who managed to avoid the action and who returned when all was safely over.”

  “I regret that matters appear to be as you have stated. May I have your permission, Captain, to add a few words, notwithstanding?”

  “Well, go on.”

  “It would seem, Captain, that your decision to bring the Lady Gladia with you on this expedition has worked out very well. Had she been absent and had you ventured on your exploratory mission with only members of the ship’s crew as companions, you would all have been quickly killed and the ship destroyed. It was only Lady Gladia’s ability to speak like a Solarian and her courage in facing the overseer that changed the outcome.”

  “Not so,” said D.G., “for we would all have been destroyed, possibly even Lady Gladia, but for the fortuitous event that the overseer spontaneously inactivated.”

  “It was not fortuitous, Captain,” said Giskard, “and it is extremely unlikely that any robot will inactivate spontaneously. There has to be a reason for inactivation and I can suggest one possibility. Lady Gladia ordered the robot to stop on several occasions, as friend Daneel has told me, but the instructions under which the overseer worked were more forceful.

  “Nevertheless, Lady Gladia’s actions served to blunt the overseer’s resolution, Captain. The fact that Lady Gladia was an undoubted human being, even by the overseer’s definition, and that she was acting in such a way as to make it necessary, perhaps, for the overseer to harm her – or even kill her – blunted it even farther. Thus, at the crucial moment, the two contrary requirements – having to destroy nonhuman beings and having to refrain from harming human beings – balanced and the robot froze, unable to do anything. Its circuits burned out.”

  Gladia’s brows drew together in a puzzled frown. “But –” she began and then subsided.

  Giskard went on, “It strikes me that it might be well for you to inform the crew of this. It might well ease their distrust of Lady Gladia if you stress what her initiative and courage have meant to every man in the crew, since it has kept them alive. It might also give them an excellent opinion of your own foresight in insisting on having her on board on this occasion, perhaps even against the advice of your own officers.”

  D.G. let loose a great shout of laughter. “Lady Gladia, I see now why you will not be separated from these robots. They are not only as intelligent as human beings, they are every bit as devious. I congratulate you on your having them. – and now, if you don’t mind, I must hurry the crew. I don’t want to stay on Solaria for one moment more than necessary. And I promise you that you won’t be disturbed for hours. I know you can use freshening and rest as much as I can.”

  After he was gone, Gladia remained for a while in deep thought, then turned to Giskard and said in Auroran Common, a patter version of Galactic Standard that was widespread on Aurora and difficult for any non-Auroran to understand, “Giskard, what is all this nonsense about the burning out of circuits?”

  “My lady,” said Giskard, “I advanced it only as a possibility and nothing more. I thought it well to emphasize your role in putting an end to the overseer.”

  “But how could you think he would believe that a robot could burn out that easily?”

  “He knows very little about robots, madam. He may traffic in them, but he is from a world that doesn’t make use of them.”

  “Yet I know a great deal about them and so do you. The overseer showed no signs whatever of balancing circuits; no stuttering, n
o trembling, no behavior difficulty of any kind. It just – stopped.”

  Giskard said, “Madam since we do not know the precise specifications to which the overseer was designed, we may have to be content with ignorance as to the rationale behind the freeze.”

  Gladia shook her head. “Just the same, it’s puzzling.”

  Part III-Baleyworld

  8. The Settler World

  29.

  D.G.’S SHIP WAS in space again, surrounded by the everlasting changelessness of the endless vacuum.

  It had not come too soon for Gladia, who had but imperfectly suppressed the tension that arose from the possibility that a second overseer – with a second intensifier – might arrive without warning. The fact that it would be a quick death if it happened, an unexperienced death, was not quite satisfying. The tension had spoiled what would have otherwise been a luxuriant shower, along with various other forms of renewal of comfort.

  It was not till after actual takeoff, after the coming of the soft, distant buzz of the protonic jets, that she could compose herself to sleep. Odd, she thought as consciousness began to slip away, that space should feel safer than the world of her youth, that she should leave Solaria with even greater relief the second time than she had the first.

  But Solaria was no longer the world of her youth. It was a world without humanity, guarded over by distorted parodies of humanity; humanoid robots that made a mockery of the gentle Daneel and the thought-filled Giskard.

  She slept at last – and while she slept, Daneel and Giskard, standing guard, could once more speak to each other.

  Daneel said, “Friend Giskard, I am quite certain that it was you who destroyed the overseer.”

  ‘There was clearly no choice, friend Daneel. It was purely an accident that I arrived in time, for my senses were entirely occupied with searching out human beings and I found none. Nor would I have grasped the significance of events if it were not for Lady Gladia’s rage and despair. It was that which I sensed at a distance and which caused me to race to the scene – barely in time. In that respect, Lady Gladia did save the situation, at least as far as the captain’s existence and yours were concerned. I would still have saved the ship, I believe, even if I had arrived too late to save you.” He paused a moment and added, “I would have found it most unsatisfactory, friend Daneel, to arrive too late to save you.”

  Daneel said, with a grave and formal tone of voice, “I thank you, friend Giskard. I am pleased that you were not inhibited by the human appearance of the overseer. That had slowed my reactions, as my appearance had slowed hers.”

  “Friend Daneel, her physical appearance meant nothing to me because I was aware of the pattern of her thoughts. That pattern was so limited and so entirely different from the full range of human patterns that there was no need for me to make any effort to identify her in a positive manner. The negative identification as nonhuman was so clear I acted at once. I was not aware of my action, in fact, until after it had taken place.”

  “I had thought this, friend Giskard, but I wished confirmation lest I misunderstand. May I assume, then, that you feel no discomfort over having killed what was, in appearance, a human being?”

  “None, since it was a robot.”

  “It seems to me that, had I succeeded in destroying her, I would have suffered some obstruction to the free positronic flow, no matter how thoroughly I understood her to be a robot.”

  “The humanoid appearance, friend Daneel, cannot be fought off when that is all one can directly judge by. Seeing is so much more immediate than deducing. It was only because I could observe her mental structure and concentrate on that, that I could ignore her physical structure.”

  “How do you suppose the overseer would have felt if she had destroyed us, judging from her mental structure?”

  “She was given exceedingly firm instructions and there was no doubt in her circuits that you and the captain were nonhuman by her definition.”

  “But she might have destroyed Madam Gladia as well.”

  “Of that we cannot be certain, friend Daneel.”

  “Had she done so, friend Giskard, would she have survived? Have you any way of telling?”

  Giskard was silent for a considerable period. “I had insufficient time to study the mental pattern. I cannot say what her reaction might have been had she killed Madam Gladia.”

  “If I imagine myself in the place of the overseer” – Daneel’s voice trembled and grew slightly lower in pitch –” it seems to me that I might kill a human being in order to save the life of another human being, whom, there might be some reason to think, it was more necessary to save. The action would, however, be difficult and damaging. To kill a human being merely in order to destroy something I considered nonhuman would be inconceivable.”

  “She merely threatened. She did not carry through the threat.”

  “Might she have, friend Giskard?”

  “How can we say, since we don’t know the nature of her instructions?”

  “Could the instructions have so completely negated the First Law?”

  Giskard said, “Your whole purpose in this discussion, I see, has been to raise this question. I advise you to go no further.”

  Daneel said stubbornly, “I will put it in the conditional, friend Giskard. Surely what may not be expressed as fact can be advanced as fantasy. If instructions could be hedged about with definitions and conditions, if the instructions could be made sufficiently detailed in a sufficiently forceful manner, might it be possible to kill a human being for a purpose less overwhelming than the saving of the life of another human being?”

  Giskard said tonelessly, “I do not know, but I suspect that this might be possible.”

  “But, then, if your suspicion should be correct, that would imply that it was possible to neutralize the First Law under specialized conditions. The First Law, in that case, and, therefore, certainly the other Laws might be modified into almost nonexistence. The Laws, even the First Law, might not be an absolute then, but might be whatever those who design robots defined it to be.”

  Giskard said, “It is enough, friend Daneel. Go no further.”

  Daneel said, “There is one more step, friend Giskard. Partner Elijah would have taken that additional step.”

  “He was a human being. He could.”

  “I must try. If the Laws of Robotics – even the First Law – are not absolutes and if human beings can modify them, might it not be that perhaps, under proper conditions, we ourselves might mod –”

  He stopped.

  Giskard said faintly, “Go no further.”

  Daneel said, a slight hum obscuring his voice, “I go no further.”

  There was a silence for a long time. It was with difficulty that the positronic circuitry in each ceased undergoing discords.

  Finally, Daneel said, “Another thought arises. The overseer was dangerous not only because of the set of her instructions but because of her appearance. It inhibited me and probably the captain and could mislead and deceive human beings generally, as I deceived, without meaning to, First-Class Shipper Niss. He clearly was not aware, at first, that I was a robot.”

  “And what follows from that, friend Daneel?”

  “On Aurora, a number of humanoid robots were constructed at the Robotics Institute, under the leadership of Dr. Amadiro, after the designs of Dr. Fastolfe had been obtained.”

  “This is well known.”

  “What happened to those humanoid robots?”

  “The project failed.”

  In his turn, Daneel said, “This is well known. But it does not answer the question. What happened to those humanoid robots?”

  “One can assume they were destroyed.”

  “Such an assumption need not necessarily be correct. Were they, in actual fact, destroyed?”

  “That would have been the sensible thing to do. What else with a failure?”

  “How do we know the humanoid robots were a failure, except in that they were removed from sight?
”

  “Isn’t that sufficient, if they were removed from sight and destroyed?”

  “I did not say ‘and destroyed,’ friend Giskard. That is more than we know. We know only that they were removed from sight.”

  “Why should that be so, unless they were failures?”

  “And if they were not failures, might there be no reason for their being removed from sight?”

  “I can think of none, friend Daneel.”

  “Think again, friend Giskard. Remember, we are talking now of humanoid robots who, we now think, might from the mere fact of their humanoid nature be dangerous. It has seemed to us in our previous discussion that there was a plan on foot on Aurora to defeat the Settlers – drastically, surely, and at a blow. We decided that these plans must be centered on the planet Earth. Am I correct so far?”

  “Yes, friend Daneel.”

  “Then might it not be that Dr. Amadiro is at the focus and center of this plan? His antipathy to Earth has been made plain these twenty decades. And if Dr. Amadiro has constructed a number of humanoid robots, where might these have been sent if they have disappeared from view? Remember that if Solarian roboticists can distort the Three Laws, Auroran roboticists can do the same.”

  “Are you suggesting, friend Daneel, that the humanoid robots have been sent to Earth?”

  “Exactly. There to deceive the Earthpeople through their human appearance and to make possible whatever it is that Dr. Amadiro intends as his blow against Earth.”

  “You have no evidence for this.”