Isaac Asimov - The Robots of Dawn

“Undoubtedly. He would have had to. You must not think, however, that robotic response is a simple yes or no, up or down, in or out. It is a mistake the layman often makes. There is the matter of speed of response. My instructions with regard to you were so phrased that the potential built up within the robots of my establishment, including Daneel, is abnormally high, as high as I can reasonably make it, in fact. The response, therefore, to a clear and present danger to you is extraordinarily rapid. I knew it would be and it was for that reason that I could strike out at you as rapidly as I did—knowing I could give you I a most convincing demonstration of my inability to harm you.”

“Yes, but I don’t entirely thank you for it.”

“Oh, I was entirely confident in my robots, especially Daneel. It did occur to me, though, a little too late, that if I had not instantly released the spicer, he might, quite against his will—or the robotic equivalent of will have broken my wrist.”

Baley said, “It occurs to me that it was a foolish risk for you to have undertaken.”

“It occurs to me, as well—after the fact. Now if you had prepared yourself to hurl the spicer at me, Daneel would have at once countered your move, but not with quite the same speed, for he has received no special instructions as to my safety. I can hope he would have been fast enough to save me, but I’m not sure—and I would prefer not to test that matter.” Fastolfe smiled genially.

Baley said, “What if some explosive device were dropped on the house from some airborne vehicle?”

“Or if a gamma beam were trained upon us from a neighboring hilltop.—My robots do not represent infinite protection, but such radical terrorist attempts are I unlikely in the extreme here on Aurora. I suggest we do not worry about them.”

“I am willing not to worry about them. Indeed, I did not seriously suspect that you were a danger to me, Dr. Fastolfe, but I needed to eliminate the possibility altogether if I were to continue. We can now proceed.”

Fastolfe said, “Yes, we can. Despite this additional and very dramatic distraction, we still face the problem of proving, that Jander’s mental freeze-out was spontaneous chance.”

But Baley had been made aware of Daneel’s presence and he now turned to him and said uneasily, “Daneel, does it pain you that we discuss this matter?”

Daneel, who had deposited the spicer on one of the farther of the empty tables, said, “Partner Elijah, I would prefer that past-friend Jander were still operational, but since he is not and since he cannot be restored to proper functioning, the best of what is left is that action be taken to prevent similar incidents in the future. Since the discussion now has that end in view, it pleases rather than pains me.”

“Well, then, just to settle another matter, Daneel, do you believe that Dr. Fastolfe is responsible for the end of your fellow-robot Jander?—You’ll pardon my inquiring, Dr. Fastolfe?”

Fastolfe gestured his approval and Daneel said, “Dr. Fastolfe has stated that he was not responsible, so he, of course, was not.”

“You have no doubts on the matter, Daneel?”

“None, Partner Elijah.”

Fastolfe seemed a little amused. “You are cross-examining a robot, Mr. Baley.”

“I know that, but I cannot quite think of Daneel as a robot and so I have asked.”

“His answers would have no standing before any Board of Inquiry. He is compelled to believe me by his positronic potentials.”

“I am not a Board of Inquiry, Dr. Fastolfe, and I am clearing out the underbrush. Let me go back to where I was. Either you bummed out Jander’s brain or it happened by random circumstance. You assure me that I cannot prove random circumstance and that leaves me only with the task of disproving any action by you. In other words, if I can show that it is impossible for you to have killed Jander, we are left with random circumstance as the only alternative.”

“And how can you do that?”

“It is a matter of means, opportunity, and motive. You had the means of killing Jander—the theoretical ability to so, manipulate him that he would end in a mental freeze-out. But did you have the opportunity? He was your robot, in that you designed his brain paths and supervised his construction, but was he in your actual possession at the time of the mental freeze-out?”

“No, as a matter of fact. He was in the possession of another.”

“For how long?”

“About eight months—or a little over half of one of your years.”

“Ah. It’s an interesting point. Were you with him—or near him—at the time of his destruction? Could you have reached him? In short, can we demonstrate the fact that you were so far from him—or so out of touch with, him—that it is not reasonable to suppose that you could have done the deed at the time it is supposed to have been done?”

Fastolfe said, “That, I’m afraid, is impossible. There is a rather broad interval of time during which the deed might have been done. There are no robotic changes after destruction equivalent to rigor mortis or decay in a human being. We can only say that, at a certain time, Jander was known to be in operation and, at a certain other time, he was known not to be in operation. Between the two was a stretch of about eight hours. For that period, I have no alibi.”

“None?—During that time, Dr. Fastolfe, what were you doing?”

“I was here, in my establishment.”

“Your robots were surely aware, perhaps, that you were here and could bear witness.”

“They were certainly aware, but they cannot bear witness in any legal sense and on that day Fanya was off on business of her own.”

“Does Fanya share your knowledge of robotics, by the way?”

Fastolfe indulged in a wry smile. “She knows less than you do.—Besides, none of this matters.”

“Why not?”

Fastolfe’s patience was clearly beginning to stretch to the cracking point. “My dear Mr. Baley, this was not a matter of close-range physical assault, such as my recent pretended attack on you. What happened to Jander did not require my physical presence. As it happens, although not actually in my establishment, Jander was not far away geographically, but it wouldn’t have mattered if he were on the other side of Aurora. I could always reach him electronically and could, by the orders I gave him and the responses I could educe, send him into mental freeze-out. The crucial step would not even necessarily require much in the way of time—

Baley said at once, “It’s a short process, then, one that someone else might move through by chance, while intending something perfectly routine?”

“No!” said Fastolfe. “For Aurora’s sake, Earthman, let me talk. I’ve already told you that’s not the case. Inducing mental freeze-out in Jander would be a long and complicated and tortuous process, requiring the greatest understanding and wit, and could be done by no one accidentally, without incredible and long-continued coincidence. There would be far less chance, of accidental progress over that enormously complex route than of spontaneous mental freeze-out, if my mathematical reasoning were only accepted.

“However, if I wished to induce mental freeze-out, I could carefully produce changes and reactions, little by little, over a period of weeks, months, even years, until I had brought Jander to the very point of destruction. And at no time in that process would he show any signs of being at the edge of catastrophe, just as you could approach closer and closer to a precipice in the dark and yet feel no loss in firmness of footing whatever, even at the very edge. Once I had brought him to the very brink, however—the lip of the precipice—a single remark from me would send him over. It is that final step that would take but a moment of time. You see?”