Isaac Asimov - Robots and Empire

Gladia said, in a voice that rang with authority, “Do not inflect damage on me, Ernett, by refusing to tell me the location of your base on this planet. I order you to tell me.”

The robot seemed to stiffen. His mouth opened but made no sound. It opened again and he whispered huskily, “…mile…” It opened a third time silently—and then, while the mouth remained open, the gleam went out of the robot assassin’s eyes and they became flat and waxen. One arm, which had been a little raised, dropped downward.

Daneel said, “The positronic brain has frozen.”

Giskard whispered to Daneel only, “Irreversible! I did my best but could not hang on.”

“We have nothing,” said Andrev. “We don’t know where the other robots might be.

D.G. said, “It said, ‘mile.’”

“I do not recognize the word,” said Daneel. “It is not Galactic Standard as the language is used on Aurora. Does it have meaning on Earth?”

Andrev said, rather blankly, “He might have been trying to say ‘smile’ or ‘Miles.’ I once knew a man whose first name was Miles.”

Daneel said gravely, “I do not see how either word could make sense as an answer—or part of an answer—to the question. Nor did I hear any sibilance, either before or after the sound.”

An elderly Earthman, who till now had remained silent, said, with a certain appearance of diffidence, “I am under the impression a mile may be an ancient measure of distance, robot.”

“How long a measure, sir?” asked Daneel.

“I do not know,” said the Earthman. “Longer than a kilometer, I believe.”

“It isn’t used any longer, sir?”

“Not since the prehyperspatial era.”

D.G. pulled at his beard and he said thoughtfully, “It’s still used. At least, we have an old saying on Baleyworld that goes, ‘A miss is as good as a mile.’ It is used to mean that, in avoiding misfortune, avoidance by a little is as good as avoidance by a great deal. I always thought ‘mile’ meant a great deal. If it really represents a measure of distance, I can understand the phrase better.”

Gladia said, “If that is so, the assassin may have been trying to say exactly that. He may have indicated his satisfaction that a miss—his deliberately missed shot—would accomplish what he was ordered to accomplish or, perhaps, that his missed shot, doing no harm, was equivalent to his not having fired at all.”

“Madam Gladia,” said Daneel, “a robot of Auroran manufacture would scarcely be using phrases that might exist on Baleyworld but have certainly never been heard on Aurora. And, in his damaged condition, he would not philosophize. He was asked a question and he would only be trying to answer the question.”

“Ah,” said Andrev, “perhaps he was trying to answer. He was trying to tell us that the base was a certain distance from here, for instance. So many miles.”

“In that case,” said D.G., “why should he use an archaic measure of distance! No Auroran would use anything but kilometers in this connection, nor would any robot of Auroran manufacture. In fact,” he went on with an edge of impatience, “the robot was rapidly sinking into total inactivity and it might have been making nothing more than random sounds. It is useless to try to extract meaning from something that doesn’t contain it.—And now I want to make sure that Madam Gladia gets some rest or that she is at least moved out of this room before the rest of the ceiling comes down.”

They moved out quickly and Daneel, lingering behind for a moment, said softly to Giskard, “Again we fail!”

The City never grew entirely quiet, but there were periods when the lights were dimmer, the noise of the ever moving Expressways was subdued, and the endless clatter of machinery and humanity subsided just a bit. In several million apartments people slept.

Gladia got into bed in the apartment assigned to her, uncomfortable over the missing amenities that she feared might force her out into the corridors during the night.

Was it night on the surface, she wondered just before falling asleep, or was it merely an arbitrary “sleep period” fixed within this particular cave of steel, in deference to a habit developed over the hundreds of millions of years that human beings and their ancestors had lived on the surface of the land.

And then she slept.

Daneel and Giskard did not sleep. Daneel, finding there was a computer outlet in the apartment, spent an absorbed half-hour learning the unfamiliar key combinations by hit-and-miss. There were no instructions of any sort available (who needs instructions for what every youngster learns in grade school?) but, fortunately, the controls, while not the same as those of Aurora, were not wholly different either. Eventually, he was able to tune into the reference section of the City library and call up the encyclopedia. Hours passed.

At the lowest depth of the humans’ sleep period, Giskard said, “Friend Daneel.”

Daneel looked up. “Yes, friend Giskard.”

“I must ask for an explanation of your actions on the balcony.”

“Friend Giskard, you looked toward the crowd. I followed your glance, saw a weapon aimed in your direction, and reacted at once.”

Giskard said, “So you did, friend Daneel, and given certain assumptions, I can understand why it was me that you lunged forward to protect. Begin with the fact that the would-be assassin was a robot. In that case, however it might be programmed, it could not aim its weapon at any human being with the intention of hitting him or her. Nor was it likely to aim it’s weapon at you, for you look enough like a human being to activate the First Law. Even if the robot had been told that a humanoid robot would be on the balcony, he could not be certain that you were he. Therefore, if the robot intended to destroy someone in the balcony, it could only be me—the obvious robot and you acted at once to protect me.

“Or begin with the fact that the assassin was an Auroran whether human or robot does not matter. Dr. Amadiro is most likely to have ordered such an attack, since he is an extremist in his anti-Earth stand and, we believe, is plotting its destruction. Dr. Amadiro, we can be reasonably certain, has learned of my special abilities from Madam Vasilia and it might be argued that he would give my destruction top priority, since he would naturally fear me more than anyone priori else—robot or human. Reasoning this out, it would be logical for you to act as you did to protect me. And, indeed, had you not knocked me down, I believe the blast would have destroyed me.

“But, friend Daneel, you could not possibly have known that the assassin was a robot or that he was Auroran. I myself had only just caught the strange anomaly of a robotic brain pattern against the vast blur of human emotion when you struck me—and it was only after that, that I had the chance of informing you. Without my ability, you could only be aware that a weapon was being aimed by what you must naturally have—thought of as a human being and an Earthperson. The logical target, then, was Madam Gladia, as, in fact, everyone on the balcony assumed it to be. Why, then, did you ignore Madam Gladia and protect me, instead?”

Daneel said, “Friend Giskard, consider my line of thought. The Secretary-General had said that a two-man Auroran landing module had come to Earth’s surface. I assumed at once that Dr. Amadiro and Dr. Mandamus had come to Earth. For this, there could be only one reason. The plan they have, whatever its nature, is at—or very nearly at—the point of maturity. Now that you have come to Earth, friend Giskard, they have dashed here to see it carried through at once before you have a chance to stop it with your mind adjusting powers. To make matters doubly sure, they would act to destroy you if they could. Therefore, when I saw an aimed weapon, I moved at once to force you out of the line of fire.”