Isaac Asimov - The Robots of Dawn

Fastolfe nodded his head thoughtfully, “I imagine Vasilia suggested that my failure to offer to submit—to one was proof of my guilt. Not so. A Psychic Probe is dangerous and I am in as nervous about submitting myself to one as you are. Still, I would have done so, despite my fears, were it not for the fact that is what my opponents would most like to have me do. They would argue against any evidence to my innocence and the Psychic Probe is not delicate enough an instrument to demonstrate innocence beyond argument. But what they would get by use of the Probe is information about the theory and design of humaniform robots. That is what they are after and that is what I am not going to give them.”

Baley said, “Very well. Thank you, Dr. Fastolfe.”

Fastolfe said, “You are welcome. And now, if I may get back to what I was saying, Giskard reported that, after you were left alone in the airfoil, you were accosted by strange robots. At least, you spoke of strange robots, rather disjointedly, after you were found unconscious and exposed—to the storm.”

“The strange robots did accost me, Dr. Fastolfe. I managed to deflect them and send them away, but I thought it wise to leave the airfoil rather than await their return. I may not have been thinking clearly when I reached that decision. Giskard said I was not.”

Fastolfe smiled. “Giskard has a simplistic view of the Universe. Have you any idea whose robots they were?”

Baley moved about restlessly and seemed to find no way of adjusting himself to the seat in a comfortable manner. He said, “Has the Chairman arrived yet?”

“No, but he will be here momentarily. So will Amadiro, the head of the Institute, whom, the robots told me, you met yesterday. I am not sure that was wise. You irritated him.”

“I had to see him, Dr. Fastolfe, and he did not seem irritate.”

“That is no guide with Amadiro. As a result of what he calls your slanders and your unbearable sullying of professional reputation, he has forced the Chairman’s hand.”

“In what way?”

“It is the Chairman’s job to encourage the meting of contending parties and to work for a compromise. If Amadiro wishes to meet with me, the Chairman could not, by definition, discourage it, much less forbid it. He must hold the meeting and, if Amadiro can find enough evidence against you—and it is easy to find evidence against an Earthman—that will end the investigation.

“Perhaps, Dr. Fastolfe, you should not have called on an Earthman to help, considering how vulnerable we are.”

“Perhaps not, Mr. Baley, but I could think of nothing else to do—I still can’t, so I must leave it up to you to persuade the Chairman to our point of view—if you can.”

“The responsibility is mine?” said Baley glumly.

“Entirely yours,” said Fastolfe smoothly.

Baley said, “Are we four to be the only ones present?”

Fastolfe said, “Actually, we three: the Chairman, Amadiro, and myself. We are the two principals and the compromising agent, so to speak. You will be there as a fourth party, Mr. Baley, only on sufferance. The Chairman can order you to leave at will, so I hope you will not do anything to upset him.”

“I’ll try not to, Dr. Fastolfe.”

“For instance, Mr. Baley, do not offer him your hand, if you will forgive my rudeness.”

Baley felt himself grow warm with retroactive embarrassment at his earlier gesture. “I will not.”

“And be unfailingly polite. Make no angry accusations. Do not insist on statements for which there is no support—”

“You mean don’t try to stampede anyone into betraying himself. Amadiro, for instance.”

“Yes, do not do so. You will be committing slander and it will be counterproductive. Therefore, be polite! If the politeness masks an attack, we won’t quarrel with that. And try not to speak unless you are spoken to.”

Baley said, “How is it, Dr. Fastolfe, that you are so full of careful advice now and yet you never warned me about the dangers of slander earlier.”

“The fault is indeed mine,” said Dr. Fastolfe. “It was a matter of such basic knowledge to me that it never occurred to me that it had to be explained.”

Baley grunted. “Yes, I thought so.”

Fastolfe raised his head suddenly. “I hear an airfoil outside. More than that, I can hear the steps of one of my staff, heading for the entrance. I presume the Chairman and Amadiro are at hand.”

“Together?” asked Baley.

“Undoubtedly. You see, Amadiro suggested my establishment as the meeting place, thus granting me the advantage of home ground. He will therefore have the chance of offering, out of apparent politeness, to call for the Chairman and bring him here. After all, they must both come here. This will give him a few minutes to talk privately with the Chairman and push his point of view.”

“That is scarcely fair,” said Baley. “Could you have stopped that?”

“I didn’t want to. Amadiro takes a calculated risk. He may say something that will irritate the Chairman.”

“Is the Chairman particularly irritable by nature?”

“No. No more so than any Chairman in the fifth decade of his term of office. Still, the necessity of strict adherence to protocol, the further necessity of never taking sides, and the actuality of arbitrary power all combine toward making a certain irritability inevitable. And Amadiro is not always wise. His jovial smile, his white teeth, his exuding bonhomie can be extremely irritating when those upon whom he lavishes it are not in a good mood, for some reason.—But I must go meet them, Mr. Baley, and supply what I hope will be a more substantial version of charm. Please stay here and don’t move from that chair.”

Baley could do nothing but wait now. He thought, irrelevantly, that he had been on Aurora for just a bit short of fifty standard hours.

The Chairman was short, surprisingly short. Amadiro towered over him by nearly thirty centimeters.

However, since most of his shortness was in his thighs, the Chairman, when all were seated, was not noticeably inferior in height to the others. Indeed, he was thickset, with a massive chest and shoulders, and looked almost overpowering under those conditions.

His head was large, too, but his face was lined and marked by age. Nor were its wrinkles the kindly type carved by laughter. They were impressed into his cheeks and forehead, one felt, by the exercise of power. His hair was white and sparse and he was bald in the spot where the hairs would have met in a whorl.

His voice suited him—deep and decisive. Age had robbed it of some of its timbre, perhaps, and lent it a bit of harshness, but in a Chairman (Baley thought) that might help rather than hinder.

Fastolfe went through the full ritual of greeting, exchanged stroking—remarks without meaning, and offered food and drink.

Through all of this, no mention was made of the outsider and no notice was taken of him.

It was only when the preliminaries were finished and when all were seated that Baley (a little farther from the center than the others) was introduced.

He said, “Mr. Chairman,” without holding out his hand.

Then, with an offhand nod, he said, “And, of course, I have met Dr. Amadiro.”

Amadiro’s smile did not waver at the touch of insolence in Baley’s voice.

The Chairman, who had not acknowledged Baley’s greeting, placed his hands on each knee, fingers spread apart, and said, “Let us get started and let us see if we can’t make this as brief and as productive as possible.

“Let me stress first that I wish to get past this matter of the misbehavior—or possible misbehavior—of an Earthman and strike instantly to the heart of the matter. Nor, in dealing with the heart of the matter, are we speaking of this overblown matter of the robot. Disrupting the activity of a robot is a matter for the civil courts; it can result in a judgment of the infringement of property rights and the inflicting of a penalty of costs but nothing more than that. What’s more, if it should be proved that Dr. Fastolfe had rendered the robot, Jander Panell, inoperable, it is a robot who, after all, he helped design, whose construction he supervised, and the ownership of whom he held at the time of the inoperability. No penalty is likely to apply, since a person may do what he likes with his own.