Isaac Asimov - Caliban

“What is the purpose of masking the test unit and the experiment’s goal from the experiment operator?” Donald asked.

“To avoid bias. Usually the test is of something that might be skewed by the experimenter’s own reactions, or by an interaction between the experimenter’s emotional response and the robot’s desire to please the experimenter. All of us at the lab have used each other to run that sort of test from time to time.”

“On this particular test, what were you asked to do?”

“Oh, nothing very much. I was told to discuss the Three Laws with the two robots and then record their basal reactions to simulated situations that would test their reactions. The two sessile robots were delivered toward the end of the day, and I got to work on them the next morning, explaining the Three Laws in detail, using a set series of procedures. Then I put them through the simulation drill and they both did fine.”

“What became of them?”

“Well, this was some time ago. The usual procedure would be to destroy the test unit and complete assembly of the control and place it in service. Let me think. The test unit, the experimental unit, was definitely destroyed. Standard safety procedure. As for the control—” Gubber thought for a moment. “You know, I can tell you about the control unit, come to think of it.

“As I mentioned, Tonya Welton was in the lab that day and struck up a conversation with the control unit. Of course, it being a double-blind test, I didn’t know it was the control at the time, but later Tonya said she had taken a liking to the sessile robot that had spoken with her. Tonya wasn’t very happy with the robot she had been issued, and asked if I could arrange for her to exchange it for the one she had met in the lab.

“If the one she had liked had turned out to be the experimental model, she would have been out of luck, of course. But as it turned out, Ariel was the control, and was working in the lab. Fredda authorized the swap, and so Tonya ended up with her robot.”

Plainly, Gubber was puzzled by the question, but he wasn’t going to get any explanation for it.

“Very good. It is always wise to confirm details wherever possible. That dovetails with our previous information.”

And allows us to confirm that Jomaine Terach was telling the truth at least part of the time, Kresh thought. But maybe it was time to come back to the main point. When I found the body, Gubber had said, letting it drop very casually, as if he assumed that Kresh already knew that. That was the way to play it. Donald had been smart, giving Anshaw the idea that all they were doing was confirming information. Robots were incapable of lying, of course, except under the strongest of orders to do so, and even then they were never very good at it. But sophisticated units like Donald could allow a true statement to provide a false impression now and again.

“Let’s go back to something else, Anshaw. Back to the moment when you discovered the body, all right?”

Anshaw nodded calmly, clearly unperturbed by any thought than he had let something slip.

“Good,” Kresh said, giving his voice the tone of a man going through the motions, clearing up routine details. “Now, you’ve already been extremely helpful today, but as you can imagine, the actual crime scene is important. The last thing we want to do is color your recollections of it. It’s the same as with your blind robotics tests, really. We don’t want to introduce a bias accidentally with a lot of leading questions that might end up with you subconsciously skewing your answers, giving us what we want. That make sense to you?”

“Oh, yes, very much so. I know how those subtle errors can slip in and cause no end of confusion.”

“Good, good.” Kresh was pleased with the analogy, and wondered if Donald had meant him to pick up on his line of questioning and use it. He could be a subtle one, that Donald. He went on with the delicate job of leading Gubber Anshaw down the garden path. “So, what I want you to do is simply tell exactly what happened, in your own words, without our drawing out your story question by question. Maybe I’ll ask a question or two if we don’t understand a detail, but in the main we’ll wait until you’re done. That will be time enough for us to go back and tidy up any discrepancies with the information we have already.” Which is close to bloody-helled nothing, Kresh thought.

Gubber looked nervously at Kresh, but still he did not speak. Kresh realized he needed to press harder. But not too hard, or else there was an excellent chance Gubber would clam up altogether. “Talk to us, Gubber,” Kresh said. “You have no idea the damage silence has done already. That silence is a vacuum, and it’s sucking people in. A few words from you, the casual mention of some tiny detail you don’t even know you know, could be the thing we need to cut the last weak threads of suspicion tying you and Lady Welton to this case. The two of you were both suspects when you walked in here. You could both be scratched right off our list here and now if you tell us the truth,” Alvar lied.

“Honestly?” Gubber asked, and it was clear how desperately he wanted to believe.

“Honestly,” Kresh lied again, glancing involuntarily at Donald. This was one of those moments when it was downright dangerous to have a robot in on the game. If the complex admixture of First Law potentials broke the wrong way, there was nothing in the world—least of all Donald’s own will—to prevent the robot piping up to contradict Kresh.

Donald knew Kresh was lying, making promises he had no intention of keeping. But how would Donald balance the First Law admonition to prevent harm from being done through inaction? Certainly Gubber could come to harm by believing Kresh. But if Donald spoke up, that could produce harm to Kresh and to the Sheriff’s Department. If speaking up, calling Kresh on the lie, wrecked the investigation, that could even cause harm to the population in general, by leaving Fredda’s attacker at large, free to strike again.

Kresh had a pretty fair instinct for estimating the First Law situation in such cases, and he was reasonably sure that Donald would not speak up. But there was always the chance that he would jump in at exactly the wrong moment. Kresh sometimes thought that all the problems of lost energy and low morale in Spacer society could be eliminated in a stroke if some way could be found to eliminate all such dithering over robotic behavior.

“All right, then,” Gubber Anshaw said at last, rubbing his chin with his palm and staring out into space. “I suppose you are right. Neither Tonya nor I had anything to do with it. I know that. In fact, I think I can provide an alibi for her, if that is the right term. I can tell you where she was, show she had no chance to commit the crime. But that might require me to speak of certain—ah— personal things.”

“Indeed,” Alvar said, trying to keep the amusement out of his voice.

Gubber Anshaw sat up a little straighter and folded his hands tightly together. “Nothing criminal, or immoral, or—or anything like that,” he said, blurting the last words out in a rush, staring carefully at the tabletop. “But still they will be— difficult —to talk about,” Gubber said. He raised his eyes from the tabletop and fixed his gaze on a blank piece of wall over Kresh’s left shoulder. “It was a most difficult evening,” he began, “most difficult. As I expect you know, Fredda and Tonya had been fighting almost every time they met. About what didn’t really matter. The details of shipping the robots to Limbo, the timing of the announcement, policy for recruiting Settlers and Spacers to the project. Whatever it was, they would have a battle over it. The issue itself was never really the point.