“We were wondering what to do if Jack really is insane-which is the simplest hypothesis, after all.” Powell’s tone was dark. “Get him aboard a robotic ship and back to Earth for Dr. Calvin to interview, sure. Except, how? He believes his duty is to stay and fight any new effort to exploit Io. He might return with us anyway, I suppose, if he knew we’re human. Second Law. You could add your voice for reinforcement, Svend. We’d outvote Napoleon three to one. But he can’t be certain. My guess is that even if he granted a ninety-nine percent probability that we’re human, he wouldn’t risk it. That one percent contains an outcome he finds unendurable.”
The smile died on Borup’s mouth. “We all do, no?” he replied most softly. “I would not take such a chance, would you? Better we go back to bad, corrupt politics than nearly everybody on Eart’ die and the survivors are starving savages. Could Napoleon be telling the trut’?”
“Absolutely not,” Donovan stated. “I know that much biology, physics, and geology. Too bad Jack doesn’t.”
“He’s utterly ignorant about people, too,” Powell added. “ A quite ordinary robot, even, would wonder about that story, if he’d had normal human contacts. You needn’t stipulate our politicians and capitalists are farsighted, altruistic, or extraordinarily bright. Simply ask yourself whether they’d take such a risk with the civilization that keeps them alive and well-to-do. Besides, the scientific method doesn’t work the way the story claims. You don’t get a few geniuses makIng a discovery overnight in a garret and then unable to get it published. Something as fundamental as this would come out in bits and pieces, over the years, with the news media following and exaggerating every step. “
“And the public sure as hell would demand a screeching halt the moment it heard operations here might bring doomsday,” Donovan said.
Borup nodded a bit impatiently. “Yes, yes. I am not quite so naive as Yack.”
“I’m sorry,” Donovan apologized, while Powell offered, “I guess we’re overwrought.”
“It is all right. I only wondered how plausible to anybody are the viroids. “
“To nobody, except Jack,” Donovan growled. “In fact, it’s so crackpot that if we reported right now what he’d told us, they’d wonder on Earth whether we’d gone off trajectory ourselves. We need all the data we can collect, which is why I wanted that search for another ship. “ His eyes brightened…If we do find it, we’ll beam the news back the same minute, and the world police can begin right away tracking down the conspirators.”
“Who might they be, do you t’ink?”
Powell shrugged…I can’t name anybody specific. I have my guesses, but they taught me in school that a man is presumed innocent until proven guilty. Imagine a couple of powerful old-guard politicians whose careers are in trouble, probably conjoined with one or two industrialists who were getting rich off the former cozy arrangements, plus a few skilled underlings. The idea obviously is to show Project Io was a monumental, expensive blunder, and cause the Young Turks who pushed it through to be discredited. The reform coalition will fall apart and the wily old-timers can pick off its members piecemeal. “
Donovan’s mane bristled with excitement…We’ll have one damn good clue,” he said…The cabal has to’ve had a mole in U.S. Robots or high up in the World Space Agency-somebody who knew about Code Oops!-ilon and passed the information on. Probably that was what decided the conspirators to go ahead. It’s the key to their whole stunt. Well, the number of possible suspects must be mighty small. Once we can prove this was a hoax, I’ll bet the mole is under arrest inside a week, and his buddies by the end of the month.”
“That’s if we can prove it,” Powell demurred, “which we can’t if it’s not true.”
“Yes, why should a person lying to Yack pretend he is Napoleon?” Borup asked…It is crazy.”
Donovan’s laugh rattled…Exactly. Hearing what Jack has to tell, most people would take for granted he’s gone blinkety.”
“Confusions about Napoleon are a clichй,” Powell said…And you’d expect a poor, limited robot to fall into clichйs, wouldn’t you? Yes, it was a clever touch. Maybe Jack never heard the name ‘Napoleon’ before he was on Io, but we don’t know, and he isn’t about to inform us.”
“Or he could lie, could he not?” Borup suggested. “If he believes you are robots too, not humans, you cannot order him to speak the trut’.”
“Right,” Donovan snarled. “We can’t give him any damned orders he doesn’t want to carry out.”
“Oh, I’m sure he desperately wants to,” Powell replied. “Couldn’t you hear it in his voice? This conflict, this uncertainty is racking him apart. It may well destroy him, bum out his brain, all by itself. “
“In which case the gang will’ve won.”
“If the gang exists.”
“Yeah. How do we settle Jack’s dilemma for him? How do we convince him we’re human?”
Powell leered. “I could chop off your head.” Sobering: “No, seriously, he would see the action performed, but he couldn’t be certain the gore wasn’t fake. A human doubtless would be, knowing we can’t have brought along the studio equipment needed to stage a realistic-looking murder. But Jack doesn’t know humans that well. He’s had so little direct exposure to them, he’s like a small child.”
“And we can’t land on Io to let him meet us in the flesh,” Donovan said unnecessarily. “We could, that is, if we didn’t mind dying shortly afterward. “
“Not in my spaceship,” Borup declared.
“Of course. Besides, Jack would probably run away and hide from us-Wait, though. I’m on the track of something. “
Donovan stared into a comer. The ventilator whirred. Warm odors drifted in from the galley. After a minute he tossed off his drink, struck his fist against the table, and exclaimed, “How’s this? I don’t imagine you have any weapon aboard, Svend, but inside the station I noticed a supply room that hadn’t been emptied-stuff might be wanted someday-and the manifest on the door mentioned a case of detonol sticks. Jack can recognize one of those, all right! Look, while he watches, somebody waves it and says to him,, Jack, your behavior makes me feel so terrible I want to kill myself. ‘ Then the man pulls out the firing pin. If he doesn’t push it back in within five minutes, bang!”
Borup blinked. “ Are you crazy like him? What good will that do, except to ruin my ship?”
“Why, if I’m a robot I can’t suicide,” Donovan crowed. “Third Law, remember? Therefore I must be human. Therefore Jack will immediately yell ‘Stop!’ and beg our pardon for ever having doubted us. “
“That firewater went to your head almighty fast, boy,” Powell clipped. “ A robot damn well can self-destruct if that’s necessary for executing his orders.”
“But-well, naturally, I mean first we’ll set it up-uh-it does call for some preliminary detail work.”
“It calls for an infinite amount, because its value is zero. However-hmm-” Powell refilled his own glass and fell into a similar reverie.
Under the ghostly gravity, Knud entered without sound. One by one they saw his tall form in the doorway, and tensed.
“Search completed, sir,” the robot reported. “
Already?” Donovan wondered.
“The sweep and data crunching go fast,” Borup said. “They must, on a courier. la, Knud. hvad har du-What have you found?”
“Negative, sir,” the flat voice announced. “No indications of a vessel within either the northern or the southern cones of space that you specified, for as far as reliability extends.”
Powell and Donovan exchanged stares. Powell slumped. “Then Jack is insane,” he said heavily. “Conditions on Io were too much for him, and Project Io is kaput.”
“You may go, Knud,” Borup said. The robot departed. “I am sorry, my friends. Come, have a little more to drink.”
“No, hold on, hold on!” Donovan bawled. He sprang to his feet. They left the deck. He caught the table edge in time to keep from rising to the overhead. Hanging upside down, he blurted, “Listen, I sort of expected this. Napoleon wouldn’t likely be human. A big risk of life, a big expense. But he can be a robot!”
The silence was not lengthy, nor stunned. The idea had lain at the back of each mind. Powell began to develop it. While the other two sat, he paced in front of them, long strides bouncing off the ends of the cabin, and counted points on his fingers as they occurred to him.
“Yes,” he said, “that does make sense. Any man-capable spacecraft is a sizable, powerful machine. Misused, it can kill a lot of people. So the authorities keep track of it. You don’t take it anywhere without a certified crew and a filed flight plan. Hard to go clandestinely. But a one-robot vessel, why, that needn’t be much more than a framework and a motor. You could keep it somewhere unbeknownst to anyone, as it might be the Lunar outback, and lift off from there unnoticed. When the robot wanted to drift along undetectable beyond a few hundred klicks, he’d shut off the power and sit in the cold. He himself-not every robot is a U.S.R. product and property, leased to the user and periodically inspected. The best are, yes, but-hm, every now and then one of ours is irrecoverably destroyed, in some accident or other. Except that not all those reports have been honest. I know of a few cases where the robot was in fact hidden away, to be redirected to illegal jobs. This could well be such a case.”