The Robots of Dawn

84

If Giskard had been human, he might have simply stared, silent and stu

Baley said, “I am quite certain, Giskard, that you know exactly how I have come to this conclusion, but you will do me a favor if you allow me, in this quiet place and in this bit of time before I must leave, to explain the matter for my own benefit. I would like to hear myself talk about it. And I would like you to correct me where I am wrong.”

“By all means, sir.”

“I suppose my initial mistake was to suppose that you are a less complicated and more primitive robot than Daneel is, simply because you look less human. A human being will always suppose that, the more human a robot is, the more advanced, complicated, and intelligent he will be. To be sure, a robot like you is easily designed and one like Daneel is a great problem for men like Amadiro and can be handled only by a robotics genius such as Fastolfe. However, the difficulty in designing Daneel lies, I suspect, in reproducing all the human aspects such as facial expression, intonation of voice, gestures and movements that are extraordinarily intricate but have nothing really to do with complexity of mind. Am I right?”

“Quite right, sir.”

“So I automatically underestimated you, as does everyone. Yet you gave yourself away even before we landed on Aurora. You remember, perhaps, that during the landing, I was overcome by an agoraphobic spasm and was, for a moment, even more helpless than I was last night in the storm.”

“I do, sir.”

“At the time, Daneel was in the cabin with me, while you were outside the door. I was falling into a kind of catatonic state, noiselessly, and he was, perhaps, not looking at me and so knew nothing of it. You were outside the cabin and yet it was you who dashed in and turned off the viewer I was holding. You got there first, ahead of Daneel, though his reflexes are as fast as yours, I’m sure—as he demonstrated when he prevented Dr. Fastolfe from striking me.”

“Surely it ca

“He wasn’t. He was merely demonstrating Daneel’s reflexes.—And yet, as I say, in the cabin you got there first. I was scarcely in condition to observe that fact, but I have been trained to observe and I am not put entirely out of action even by agoraphobic terror, as I showed last night. I did notice you were there first though. I tended to forget the fact. There is, of course, only one logical solution.”

Baley paused, as though expecting Giskard to agree, but the robot said nothing.

(In later years, this was what Baley pictured first when thinking of his stay on Aurora. Not the storm. Not even Gladia. It was, rather, the quiet time under the tree, with the green leaves against the blue sky, the mild breeze, the soft sound of animals, and Giskard opposite him with faintly glowing eyes.)

Baley said, “It would seem that you could somehow detect my state of mind and, even through the closed door, tell that I was having a seizure of some sort. Or, to put it briefly and perhaps simplistically, you can read minds.”

“Yes, sir,” said Giskard quietly.

“And you can somehow influence minds, too. I believe you noted that I had detected this and you obscured it in my mind, so that I somehow did not remember or did not see the significance—if I did casually recall the situation. Yet you did not do that entirely efficiently, perhaps because your powers are limited—”

Giskard said, “Sir, the First Law is paramount. I had to come to your rescue, although I quite realized that would give me away. And I had to obscure your mind minimally, in order not to damage it in any way.”

Baley nodded. “You have your difficulties, I see. Obscured minimally—so I did remember it when my mind was sufficiently relaxed and could think by free association. Just before I lost consciousness in the storm, I knew you would find me first, as you had on the ship. You may have found me by infrared radiation, but every mammal and bird was radiating as well and that might be confusing—but you could also detect mental activity, even if I were unconscious, and that would help you to find me.”

“It certainly helped,” said Giskard.

“When I did remember close to sleep or unconsciousness, I would forget again when fully conscious. Last night, however, I remembered for the third time and I was not alone. Gladia was with me and could repeat what I had said, which was ‘He was there first.’ And even then I could not remember the meaning, until a chance remark of Dr. Fastolfe’s led to a thought that worked its way past the obscuration. Then, once it dawned on me, I remembered other things. Thus, when I was wondering if I were really landing on Aurora, you assured me that our destination was Aurora before I actually asked.—I presume you allow no one to know of your mind-reading ability.”

“That is true, sir.”

“Why is that?”

“My mind reading gives me a unique ability to obey the First Law, sir, so I value its existence. I can prevent harm to human beings far more efficiently. It seemed to me, however, that neither Dr. Fastolfe—nor any other human being—would long tolerate a mind-reading robot, so I keep the ability secret. Dr. Fastolfe loves to tell the legend of the mind-reading robot who was destroyed by Susan Calvin and I would not want him to duplicate Dr. Calvin’s feat.”

“Yes, he told the legend to me. I suspect that he knows, subliminally, that you read minds or he wouldn’t harp on the legend so. And it is dangerous for him to do so, as, far as you are concerned, I should think. Certainly, it helped put the matter in my mind.”

“I do what I can to neutralize the danger without unduly tampering with Dr. Fastolfe’s mind. Dr. Fastolfe invariably stresses the legendary and impossible nature of the story when he tells it.”

“Yes, I remember that, too. But if Fastolfe does not know you can read minds, it must be that you were not designed originally with these powers. How, then, do you come to have them?—No, don’t tell me, Giskard. Let me suggest something. Miss Vasilia was particularly fascinated with you when she was a young woman first becoming interested in robotics. She told me that she had experimented by programming you under Fastolfe’s distant supervision. Could it be that, at one time, quite by accident, she did something that gave you the power? Is that correct?”

“That is correct, sir.”

“And do you know what that something is?”

“Yes, sir.

“Are you the only mind-reading robot that exists?”

“So far, yes, sir. There will be others.”

“If I asked you what it was that Dr. Vasilia did to you to give you such powers—or if Dr. Fastolfe did—would you tell us by virtue of the Second Law?”

“No, sir, for it is my judgment that it would do you harm to know and my refusal to tell you under the First Law would take precedence—The problem would not arise, however, for I would know that someone was going to ask the question and give the order and I would remove the impulse to do so from the mind before it could be done.”

“Yes,” said Baley. “Evening before last, as we were walking from Gladia’s to Fastolfe’s I asked Daneel if he had had any contact with Jander during the latter’s stay with Gladia and he answered quite simply that he had not. I then turned to ask you the same question and, somehow, I never did. You quashed the impulse for me to do so, I take it.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Because if I had asked, you would have had to say that you knew him well at that time and you were not prepared to have me know that.”

“I was not, sir.”

“But during this period of contact with Jander, you knew he was being tested by Amadiro, because, I presume, you could read Jander’s mind or detect his positronic potentials—”