Isaac Asimov - Robots and Empire

Vasilia said sharply, “You are not to refer to that Earthman again.—I recognize you as well, Daneel. You are as famous as I am in your own way. You are both famous, for you are the greatest creations of the late Dr. Han Fastolfe.”

“Of your father, madam,” said Giskard.

“You know very well, Giskard, that I attach no importance to that purely genetic relationship. You are not to refer to him in that manner again.”

“I will not, madam.”

“And this one?” She looked casually at the sleeping figure on the couch. “Since you two are here, I can reasonably assume that the sleeping beauty is the Solarian woman.”

Giskard said, “She is Lady Gladia and I am her property. Do you want her awake, madam?”

“We will merely disturb her, Giskard, if you and I talk of old times. Let her sleep.”

“Yes, madam.”

Vasilia said to Daneel, “Perhaps the discussion that Giskard and I will have will be of no interest to you, either, Daneel. Would you wait outside?”

Daneel said, “I fear I cannot leave, my lady. My task is to guard Lady Gladia.”

“I don’t think she needs much guarding from me. You’ll notice I do not have any of my robots with me, so Giskard alone will be ample protection for your Solarian lady.”

Daneel said, “You have no robots in the room, madam, but I saw four robots just outside in the corridor when the door was opened. It will be best if I stay.”

“Well, I won’t try to override your orders. You can stay—Giskard!”

“Yes, madam.”

“Do you remember when you were first activated?”

“Yes, madam.

“What do you remember?”

“First light. Then sound. Then a crystallization into the sight of Dr. Fastolfe. I could understand Galactic Standard and I had a certain amount of innate knowledge built into my positronic brain paths. The Three Laws, of course; a large vocabulary, with definitions; robotic duties; social customs. Other things I learned rapidly.”

“Do you remember your first owner?”

“As I said, Dr. Fastolfe.”

“Think again, Giskard. Wasn’t it I?”

Giskard paused, then said, “Madam, I was assigned the task of guarding you in my capacity as a possession of Dr. Han Fastolfe.”

“It was a bit more than that, I think. You obeyed only me for ten years. If you obeyed anyone else, including Dr. Fastolfe, it was only incidentally, as a consequence of your robotic duties and only insofar as it fit your prime function of guarding me.”

“I was assigned to you, it is true, Lady Vasilia, but Dr. Fastolfe retained ownership. Once you left his establishment, he resumed full control of me as my owner. He remained my owner even when he later assigned me to Lady Gladia. He was my only owner for as long as he lived. Upon his death, by his will, ownership of me was transferred to Lady Gladia and that is how it stands now.”

“Not so. I asked you if you remembered, when you were first activated and what you remembered. What you were when you were first activated is not what you are now.”

“My memory banks, madam, are now incomparably fuller than they were then and I have much in the I way of experience that I did not have then.”

Vasilia’s voice grew sterner. “I am not talking about memory, nor am I talking about experience. I am talking about capacities. I added to your positronic pathways. I adjusted them. I improved them.”

“Yes, madam, you did so, with Dr. Fastolfe’s help and approval.”

“At one time, Giskard, on one occasion, I introduced an improvement—at least, an extension, and without Dr. Fastolfe’s help and approval. Do you remember that?”

Giskard was silent for a substantial period of time. Then he said, “I remember one occasion on which I did not witness your consulting him. I assumed that you consulted him at a time when I was not a witness.”

“If you assumed that, you assumed incorrectly. In fact, since you knew he was off the world at the time, you could not possibly have assumed it. You are being evasive, to use no stronger word.”

“No, madam. You might have consulted him by hyperwave. I considered that a possibility.”

Vasilia, said, “Nevertheless, that addition was entirely mine. The result was that you became a substantially different robot afterward from what you had been before. The robot you have been ever since that change has been my design, my creation, and you know that well.”

Giskard remained silent.

“Now, Giskard, by what right was Dr. Fastolfe your master at the time you were activated?” She waited, then said sharply, “Answer me, Giskard. That is an order!”

Giskard said, “Since he was designer and supervised the construction, I was his property—”

“And when I, in effect, redesigned and reconstructed you in a very fundamental way, did you not then become my property?”

Giskard said, “I cannot answer that question. It would require the decision of a law court to argue out the specific case. It would depend, perhaps, on the degree to which I was redesigned and reconstructed.”

“Are you aware of the degree to which that took place?”

Giskard was again silent.

“This is childish, Giskard,” said Vasilia. “Am I to be required to nudge you after each question? You are not to make me do that. In this case, at any rate, silence is a sure indication of an affirmative. You know what the change was and how fundamental it was and you know that I know what it was. You put the Solarian woman to sleep because you did not want her to learn from me what it was. She doesn’t know, does she?”

“She does not, madam,” said Giskard.

“And you don’t want her to know?”

“I do not, madam,” said Giskard.

“Does Daneel know?”

“He does, madam.”

Vasilia nodded. “I rather suspected that from his eagerness to stay.—Now, then, listen to me, Giskard. Suppose that a court of law finds out that, before I redesigned you, you were an ordinary robot and that, after I redesigned you, you were a robot who could sense the mind-set of an individual human being and adjust it to his liking. Do you think they could possibly fail to consider it a change great enough to warrant the ownership to have passed into my hands?”

Giskard said, “Madam Vasilia, it would not be possible to let this come before a court of law. Under the circumstances, I would surely be declared the property of the state for obvious reasons. I might even be ordered inactivated.”

“Nonsense. Do you take me for a child? With your abilities, you could keep the court from making any such judgment. But that is not the point. I’m not suggesting that we take this to court. I am asking you for your own judgment. Would you not say that I am your rightful owner and have been since I was a very young woman?”

Giskard said, “Madam Gladia considers herself to be my owner and, until the law speaks to the contrary, she must be considered that.”

“But you know that both she and the law labor under a misapprehension. If you worry about the feelings of your Solarian woman, it would be very easy to adjust her mindset so that she wouldn’t mind your no longer being her property. You can even cause her to feel relieved that I will take you off her hands. I will order you to do so as soon as you can bring yourself to admit what you already know that I am your owner. How long has Daneel known your nature?”

“For decades, madam.”

“You can make him forget. For some time now, Dr. Amadiro has known and you can make him forget. There will be only you and I who will know.”

Daneel said suddenly, “Madam Vasilia, since Giskard does not consider himself your property, he can easily make you forget and you will then be perfectly content with matters as they are.”