Isaac Asimov: Robots and Empire

Daneel said in an all but unhearable whisper, “Clouds. Unseen.”

Had Daneel been speaking for human ears, he would have said, “As you see, friend Giskard, the sky has clouded up. Had Madam Gladia waited her chance to see Solaria, she would not, in any case, have succeeded.”

And Giskard’s reply of “Predicted. Interview, rather,” was the equivalent of “So much was predicted in the weather forecast, friend Daneel, and might have been used as an excuse to get Madam Gladia to bed early. It seemed to me to be more important, however, to meet the problem squarely and to persuade her to permit this interview I have already told you about.”

“It seems to me, friend Giskard,” said Daneel, “that the chief reason you may have found persuasion difficult is that she has been upset by the abandonment of Solaria. I was there once with Partner Elijah when Madam Gladia was still a Solarian and was living there.”

“It has always been my understanding,” said Giskard, “that Madam Gladia had not been happy on her home planet; that she left her world gladly and had, at no time, any intention of returning. Yet I agree with you that she seems to have been unsettled by the fact of Solaria’s history having come to an end.”

“I do not understand this reaction of Madam Gladia,” said Daneel, “but there are many times that human reactions do not seem to follow logically from events.”

“It is what makes it difficult to decide, sometimes, what will do a human being harm and what will not.” Giskard might have said it with a sigh, even a petulant sigh, had he been human. As it was, he stated it merely as an unemotional assessment of a difficult situation. “It is one of the reasons, why it seems to me that the Three Laws of Robotics are incomplete or insufficient.”

“You have said this before, friend Giskard, and I have tried to believe so and failed,” said Daneel.

Giskard said nothing for a while, then, “Intellectually, I think they must be incomplete or insufficient, but when I try to believe that, I too fail, for I am bound by them. Yet if I were not bound by them, I am sure I would believe in their insufficiency.”

“That is a paradox that I cannot understand.”

“Nor can I. And yet I find myself forced to express this paradox. On occasion, I feel that I am on the verge of discovering what the incompleteness or insufficiency of the Three Laws might be, as in my conversation with Madam Gladia this evening. She asked me how failure to keep the appointment might harm her personally, rather than simply cause harm in the abstract, and there was an answer I could not give because it was not within the compass of the Three Laws.”

“You gave a perfect answer, friend Giskard. The harm done to Partner Elijah’s memory would have affected Madam Gladia deeply.”

“It was the best answer within the compass of the Three Laws. It was not the best answer possible.”

“What was the best answer possible?”

“I do not know, since I cannot put it into words or even concepts as long as I am bound by the Laws.”

“There is nothing beyond the Laws,” said Daneel.

“If I were human,” said Giskard, “I could see beyond the Laws and I think, friend Daneel, that you might be able to see beyond them sooner than I would.

“Yes, friend Daneel, I have long thought that, although a robot, you think remarkably like a human being.”

“It is not proper to think that,” said Daneel slowly, almost as though he were in pain. “You think such things because you can look into human minds. It distorts you and it may in the end destroy you. That thought is to me an unhappy one. If you can prevent yourself from seeing into minds more than you must, prevent it.”

Giskard turned away. “I cannot prevent it, friend Daneel, I would not prevent it. I regret that I can do so little with it because of the Three Laws. I cannot probe deeply enough because of the fear that I may do harm. I cannot influence directly enough—because of the fear I may do harm.”

“Yet you influenced Madam Gladia very neatly, friend Giskard.”

“Not truly. I might have modified her thinking and made her accept the interview without question, but the human mind is so riddled with complexities that I dare do very little. Almost any twist I apply will produce subsidiary twists of whose nature I cannot be certain and which may do harm.”

“Yet you did something to Madam Gladia.”

“I did not have to. The word ‘trust’ affects her and makes her more amenable. I have noted that fact in the past, but I use the word with the greatest caution, since overuse will surely weaken it. I puzzle over this, but I cannot simply burrow for a solution.”

“Because the Three Laws will not permit it?”

Giskard’s eyes seemed to intensify their dim glow. “Yes. At every stage, the Three Laws stand in my way. Yet I cannot modify them—because they stand in my way. Yet I feel I must modify them, for I sense the oncoming of catastrophe. “

“You have said so before, friend Giskard, but you have not explained the nature of the catastrophe.”

“Because I do not know the nature. It involves the increasing hostility between Aurora and Earth, but how this will evolve into actual catastrophe, I cannot say.”

“Is it possible that there might, after all, be no catastrophe?”

“I do not think so. I have sensed, among certain Auroran officials I have encountered an aura of catastrophe—of waiting for triumph. I cannot describe this more exactly and I cannot probe deeply for a better description because the Three Laws will not allow me to. It is another reason why the interview with Mandamus must take place tomorrow. It will give me a chance to study his mind.”

“But if you cannot study it effectively?”

Although Giskard’s voice was incapable of showing emotion in the human sense, there was no missing the despair in his words, He said, “Then that will leave me helpless. I can only follow the Laws. What else can I do?”

And Daneel said softly and dispiritedly, “Nothing else.”

Gladia entered her living room at 08:15, having purposely—and with a touch of spite—determined to allow Mandamus (she had now reluctantly memorized his name) to wait for her. She had also taken particular pains with her appearance and (for the first time in years) had agonized over the gray in her hair and had fleetingly wished she had followed the almost universal Auroran practice of shade control. After all, to look as young and attractive as possible would put this minion of Amadiro’s at a further disadvantage.

She was thoroughly prepared to dislike him at sight was depressingly aware that he might prove, young and attractive, that a sunny face might break into a brilliant smile at her appearance, that she might prove reluctantly attracted to him.

In consequence, she was relieved at the sight of him. He was young, yes, and probably had not yet completed his first half-century, but he hadn’t made the best of that. He was tall—perhaps 185 centimeters in height, she judged but too thin. It made him appear spindly. His hair was a shade too dark for an Auroran, his eyes a rather faded hazel, his face too long, his lips too thin, his mouth too broad, his complexion insufficiently fair. But what robbed him of the true appearance of youth was that his expression was too prim, too humorless.

With a flash of insight, Gladia remembered the historical novels that were such a fad on Aurora (novels that invariably dealt with primitive Earth—which was odd for a world that was increasingly hating Earthpeople) and thought: Why, he’s the picture of a Puritan.

She felt relieved and almost smiled. Puritans were usually pictured as villains and, whether this Mandamus was indeed one or not, it was convenient to have him look like one.