by Isaac Asimov
“No, madam. It is why I, rather than another, am speaking.”
“How many robots are employed on this estate?”
“I do not have that figure, madam.”
“Roughly.”
“Perhaps ten thousand, madam.”
“Have any been operational for longer than twenty decades?”
“The agricultural robots some who may, madam.”
“And the household robots?”
“They have not been operational long, madam—The masters prefer new-model robots.”
Gladia nodded, turned to Daneel, and said, “That makes sense. It was so in my day, too.”
She turned back to the robot. “To whom does this estate belong?”
“It is the Zoberlon Estate, madam.”
“How long has it belonged to the Zoberlon family?”
“Longer, madam, than I have been operational. I do not know how much longer, but the information can be obtained.”
“To whom did it belong before the Zoberlons took possession?”
“I do not know, madam, but the information can be obtained.”
“Have you ever heard of the Delmarre family?”
“No, madam.”
Gladia turned to Daneel and said, rather ruefully, “I’m trying to lead the robot, little by little, as Elijah might once have done, but I don’t think I know how to do it properly.”
“On the contrary, Lady Gladia,” said Daneel gravely, “it seems to me you have established much. It is not likely that any robot on this estate, except perhaps for a few of the agriculturals, would have any memory of you. Would you have encountered any of the agriculturals in your time?”
Gladia shook her head. “Never! I don’t recall seeing any of them even in the distance.”
“It is clear, then, that you are not known on this estate.”
“Exactly. And poor D.G. has brought us along for nothing. If he expected any good of me, he has failed.”
“To know the truth is always useful, madam. Not to be known is, in this case, less useful than to be known, but not to know whether one is known or not would be less useful still. Are there not, perhaps, other points on which you might elicit information?”
“Yes, let’s see—” For a few seconds, she was lost in thought, then she said softly, “It’s odd. When I speak to robots, I speak with a pronounced Solarian accent, yet I do not speak so to you.”
Daneel said, “It is not surprising, Lady Gladia. The robots speak with such an accent, for they are Solarian. That brings back the days of your youth and you speak, automatically, as you spoke then. You are at once yourself, however, when you turn to me because I am part of your present world.”
A slow smile appeared on Gladia’s face and she said, “You reason more and more like a human being, Daneel.”
She turned back to the robots and was keenly aware of the peacefulness of the surroundings. The sky was an almost unmarked blue, except for a thin line of clouds on the western horizon (indicating that it might turn cloudy in the afternoon). There was the sound of rustling leaves in a light wind, the whirring of insects, a lonely birdcall. No sound of human beings. There might be many robots about, but they worked silently. There weren’t the exuberant sounds of human beings that she had grown accustomed to (painfully, at first) on Aurora.
But now back on Solaria, she found the peace wonderful. It had not been all bad on Solaria. She had to admit it.
She said to the robot quickly, with a note of compulsion, edging her voice, “Where are your masters?”
It was useless, however, to try to hurry or alarm a robot or to catch it off-guard. It said, without any sign of perturbation. “They are gone, madam.”
“Where have they gone?”
“I don’t know, madam. I was not told.”
“Which of you knows?”
There was a complete silence.
Gladia said, “Is there any robot on the estate who would know?”
The robot said, “I do not know of any, madam.”
“Did the masters take robots with them?”
“Yes, madam.”
“Yet they didn’t take you. Why do you remain behind?”
“To do our work, madam.”
“Yet you stand here and do nothing. Is that work?”
“We guard the estate from those from outside, madam.”
“Such as we?”
“Yes, madam.”
“But here we are and yet you still do nothing. Why is that?”
“We observe, madam. We have no further orders.”
“Have you reported your observations?”
“Yes, madam.”
“To whom?”
“To the overseer, madam.”
“Where is the overseer?”
“In the mansion, madam.”
“Ah.” Gladia turned and walked briskly back to D.G. Daneel followed.
“Well?” said D.G. He was holding both weapons at the ready, but put them back in their holsters as they returned. Gladia shook her head. “Nothing. No robot knows me. No robot, I’m sure, knows where the Solarians have gone. But they report to an overseer.”
“An overseer?”
“On Aurora and the other Spacer worlds, the overseer on large estates with numerous robots is some human whose profession it is to organize and direct groups of working robots in the fields, mines, and industrial establishments.”
“Then there are Solarians left behind?”
Gladia shook her head. “Solaria is an exception. The ratio of robots to human beings has always been so high that it has not been the custom to assign a man or woman to oversee the robots. That job has been done by another robot, one that is specially programmed.”
“Then there is a robot in that mansion”—D.G. nodded with his head—“who is more advanced than these and who might profitably be questioned.”
“Perhaps, but I am not certain it is safe to attempt to go into the mansion.”
D.G. said sardoncially, “It is only an—other robot.”
“The mansion may be booby-trapped.”
“This field may be booby-trapped.”
Gladia said, “It would be better to send one of the robots to the mansion to tell the overseer that human beings wish to speak to him.”
D.G. said, “That will not be necessary. That job has apparently been done already. The overseer is emerging and is neither a robot nor a ‘him.’ What I see is a human female.”
Gladia looked up in astonishment. Advancing rapidly toward them was a tall, well-formed, and exceedingly attractive woman. Even at a distance, there was no doubt whatever as to her sex.
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D.G. smiled broadly. He seemed to be straightening himself a bit, squaring his shoulders, throwing them back. One hand went lightly to his beard, as though to make sure it was sleek and smooth.
Gladia looked at him with disfavor. She said, “That is not a Solarian woman.”
“How can you tell?” said D.G.
“No Solarian woman would allow herself to be seen so freely by other human beings. Seen, not viewed.”
“I know the distinction, my lady. Yet you allow me to see you.”
“I have lived over twenty decades on Aurora. Even so I have enough Solarian left in me still not to appear to others like that.”
“She has a great deal to display, madam. I would say she is taller than I am and as beautiful as a sunset.”
The overseer had stopped twenty meters short of their position and the robots had moved aside so that none of them remained between the woman on one side and the three from the ship on the other.
D.G. said, “Customs can change in twenty decades.”
“Not something as basic as the Solarian dislike of human contact,” said Gladia sharply. “Not in two hundred decades.” She had slipped into her Solarian twang again.
“I think you underestimate social plasticity. Still, Solarian or not, I presume she’s a Spacer—and if there are other Spacers like that, I’m all for
peaceful coexistence.”
Gladia’s look of disapproval deepened. “Well, do you intend to stand and gaze in that fashion for the next hour or two? Don’t you want me to question the woman?”
D.G. started and turned to look at Gladia with distinct annoyance. “You question the robots, as you’ve done. I question the human beings.”
“Especially the females, I suppose.”
“I wouldn’t like to boast, but—”
“It is a subject on which I have never known a man who didn’t.”
Daneel interposed, “I do not think the woman will wait longer. If you wish to retain the initiative, Captain, approach her now. I will follow, as I did with Madam Gladia.”
“I scarcely need the protection,” said D.G. brusquely.
“You are a human being and I must not, through inaction, allow harm to come to you.”
D.G. walked forward briskly, Daneel following. Gladia, reluctant to remain behind alone, advanced a bit tentatively.
The overseer watched quietly. She wore a smooth white robe that reached down to mid-thigh and was belted at the waist. It showed a deep and inviting cleavage and her nipples were clearly visible against the thin material of the robe. There was no indication that she was wearing anything else but a pair of shoes.
When D.G. stopped, a meter of space separated them. Her skin, he could see, was flawless, her cheekbones were high, her eyes wide-set and somewhat slanted, her expression serene.
“Madam,” said D.G., speaking as close an approximation to Auroran patrician as he could manage, “have I the pleasure of speaking to the overseer of this estate?”
The woman listened for a moment and then said, in an accent so thickly Solarian as to seem almost comic when coming from her perfectly shaped mouth, “You are not a human being.”
She then flashed into action so quickly that Gladia, still some ten meters off, could not see in detail what had happened. She saw only a blur of motion and then D.G. lying on his back motionless and the woman standing there with his weapons, one in each hand.
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What stupefied Gladia most in that one dizzying moment was that Daneel had not moved in either prevention or reprisal.
But even as the thought struck her, it was out of date, for Daneel had already caught the woman’s left wrist and twisted it, saying, “Drop those weapons at once,” in a harsh peremptory voice she had never heard him use before. It was inconceivable that he should so address a human being.
The woman said, just as harshly in her higher register, “You are not a human being.” Her right arm came up and she fired the weapon it held. For a moment, a faint glow flickered over Daneel’s body and Gladia, unable to make a sound in her state, of shock, felt her sight dim. She had never in her life fainted, but this seemed a prelude.
Daneel did not dissolve, nor was there an explosive report. Daneel, Gladia realized, had prudently seized the arm that held the blaster. The other held the neuronic whip and it was that which had been discharged in full—and at close range—upon Daneel. Had he been human, the massive stimulation of his sensory nerves might well have killed him or left him permanently disabled. Yet he was, after all, however human in appearance, a robot and his equivalent of a nervous system did not react to the whip.
Daneel seized the other arm now, forcing it up. He said again, “Drop those weapons or I will tear each arm from its socket.”
“Will you?” said the woman. Her arms contracted and, for a moment, Daneel was lifted off the ground. Daneel’s legs swung backward, then forward, pendulum like, using the points where the arms joined as a pivot. His feet struck the woman with force and both fell heavily to the ground.
Gladia, without putting the thought into words, realized that although the woman looked as human as Daneel did, she was just as nonhuman. A sense of instant outrage flooded Gladia, who was suddenly Solarian to the core—outrage that a robot should use force on a human being. Granted that she might somehow have recognized Daneel for what he was, but how dare she strike D.G.?
Gladia was running forward, screaming. It never occurred to her to fear a robot simply because it had knocked down a strong man with a blow and was battling an even stronger robot to a draw.
“How dare you?” she screamed in a Solarian accent so thick that it grated on her own ear—but how else does one speak to a Solarian robot? “How dare you, girl? Stop all resistance immediately!”
The woman’s muscles seemed to relax totally and simultaneously, as though an electric current had suddenly been shut off. Her beautiful eyes looked at Gladia without enough humanity to seem startled. She said in an indistinct, hesitating voice, “My regrets, madam.”
Daneel was on his feet, staring down watchfully at the woman who lay on the grass. D.G., suppressing a groan, was struggling upright.
Daneel bent for the weapons, but Gladia waved him away furiously.
“Give me those weapons, girl,” she said.
The woman said, “Yes, madam.”
Gladia snatched at them, chose the blaster swiftly, and handed it to Daneel. “Destroy her when that seems best, Daneel. That’s an order.” She handed the neuronic whip to D.G. and said, “This is useless here, except against me and yourself. Are you all right?”
“No, I’m not all right,” muttered D.G., rubbing one hip. “Do you mean she’s a robot?”
“Would a woman have thrown you like that?”
“Not any whom I have ever met before. I said there might be special robots on Solaria who were programmed to be dangerous.”
“Of course,” said Gladia unkindly, “but when you saw something that looked like your idea of a beautiful woman, you forgot.”
“Yes, it is easy to be wise after the fact.”
Gladia sniffed and turned again to the robot, “What is your name, girl?”
“I am called Landaree, madam.”
“Get up, Landaree.”
Landaree rose much as Daneel had—as though she were on springs. Her struggle with Daneel seemed to have left her, totally unharmed.
Gladia said, “Why, against the First Law, have you attacked these human beings?”
“Madam,” said Landaree firmly, “these are not human beings.”
“And do you say that I am not a human being?”
“No, madam, you a human being.”
“Then, as a human being, I am defining these two men as human beings.—Do you hear me?”
“Madam,” said Landaree a little more softly, “these are not human beings.”
“They are indeed human beings because I tell you they are. You are forbidden to attack them or harm them in any way.”
Landaree stood mute.
“Do you understand what I have said?” Gladia’s voice grew more Solarian still as she reached for greater intensity.
“Madam,” said Landaree, “these are not human beings.”
Daneel said to Gladia softly, “Madam, she has been given orders of such firmness that you cannot easily countervail them.”
“We’ll see about that,” said Gladia, breathing quickly.
Landaree looked about. The group of robots, during the few minutes of conflict, had come closer to Gladia and her two companions. In the background were two robots who, Gladia decided, were not members of the original group and they were carrying between them, with some difficulty, a large and very massive device of some sort. Landaree gestured to them and they moved forward a bit more quickly.
Gladia cried out, “Robots, stop!”
They stopped.
Landaree said, “Madam, I am fulfilling my duties. I am following my instructions.”
Gladia said, “Your duty, girl, is to obey my orders!”
Landaree said, “I cannot be ordered to disobey my instructions!”
Gladia said, “Daneel, blast her!”
Afterward, Gladia was able to reason out what had happened. Daneel’s reaction time was much faster than a human being’s would have been and he knew that he was facing a robot against which the Th
ree Laws did not inhibit violence. However, she looked so human that even the precise knowledge that she was a robot did not totally overcome his inhibition. He followed the order more slowly than he should have.
Landaree, whose definition of “human being” was clearly not the one Daneel used, was not inhibited by his appearance and she stuck the more quickly. She had her grip on the blaster and again the two struggled.
D.G. turned his neuronic whip butt-first and came in at a half-run to strike. He hit her head squarely, but it had no effect on the robot and her leg sent him flailing backward.
Gladia said, “Robot! Stop!” Her clenched hands were raised.
Landaree shouted in a stentorian contralto, “All of you. Join me! The two apparent males are not human beings. Destroy them without harming the female in any way.”
If Daneel could be inhibited by a human appearance, the same was true in considerably greater intensity for the simple Solarian robots, who inched forward slowly and intermittently.
“Stop!” shrieked Gladia. The robots stopped, but the order had no effect on Landaree.
Daneel held fast to the blaster, but was bending backward under the—force of Landaree’s apparently greater strength.
Gladia, in distraction, looked about as though hoping to find some weapon somewhere.
D.G. was attempting to manipulate his radio transmitter. He said, grunting, “It’s been damaged. I think I fell on it.”
“What do we do?”
“We have to make it back to the ship. Quickly.”
Gladia said, “Then run. I can’t abandon Daneel.” She faced the battling robots, crying out wildly, “Landaree, stop! Landaree, stop!”
“I must not stop, madam,” said Landaree. “My instructions are precise.”
Daneel’s fingers were forced open, and Landaree had the blaster again.
Gladia threw herself before Daneel. “You must not harm this human being.”
“Madam,” said Landaree, her blaster pointed at Gladia, unwavering. “You are standing in front of something that looks like a human being but is not a human being. My instructions are to destroy such on sight.” Then, in a louder, voice, “You two porters—to the ship.”
