All the major facts had already been there, but not the color.
Not the details.
And especially not the one crucial element that suddenly became clear to Dors, one day on Smushell, when she abruptly decided to hand her duties over to an assistant, grabbed a ship, and took hurried flight across the galaxy. Ever since then, she had been chewing on the implications, unable to think of anything else.
Daneel and Giskard always had good reasons for everything they did. Or, as Lodovic might put it, convincing rationalizations.
Even when interfering in sovereign human institutions, meddling in legitimate political processes, or taking it on themselves to destroy the birthplace of mankind, they always acted for the ultimate good of humans and humanity, under the First and Zeroth Law, as they saw it.
But there lay the problem.
As they saw it.
Dors could not help imagining that Giskard’s grin was a leer, personally directed at her. She glared back at the head.
You two were completely satisfied to talk all of this out between yourselves,she thought.All of the back-and-forth reasoning about the Zeroth Law. The robo-religious Reformation you and Daneel thus set off Your decisions to alter people’s minds and change the policy of nations, even worlds. You took on all of that responsibility and power without even once bothering to confer with a wise human being.
She stared at Giskard’s head, still astonished by the realization.
Not one.
No professor, philosopher, or spiritual leader. No scientist, pundit, or author-sage.
No expert roboticist, to double-check and diagnose whether Daneel and Giskard justmight be short-circuited, or malfunctioning while they cooked up a rationalization that would wind up extinguishing most of the species on Earth.
Not a single man or woman on the street.
No one. They simply took it on themselves.
I always assumed that some kind of human volition had to lie somewhere beneath the Zeroth Law, just as the older Three Laws were first decreed by Calvin and her peers. The Zeroth had to be grounded with its roots and origins somehow based on the masters’ will.
It had to be!
To find out that it wasn’t, that no human being even heard of the doctrine until decades after Earth was rendered uninhabitable, struck her to the core.
This revelation wasn’t about logic. The basic arguments that Daneel and Giskard traded with each other so long ago remained valid today.
(In other words, the two of themweren’t malfunctioning-though how could they have been so sure of that, at the time? What right did they have to act without at least checking the possibility?)
No. Logic wasn’t the problem. Anyone with sense could see that the First Law of Roboticsmust be extended to something broader. The good of humanity at large had to supersede that of individual human beings. The early Calvinians who rejected the Zeroth Law were simply wrong, and Daneel was right.
That was not the discovery upsetting Dors.
It was finding out that Giskard and Daneel had proceeded down this path without consulting any humans at all. Without asking their opinions, or hearing what they might have to say.
For the first time, Dors understood some of the desperate energy and positronic passion with which so many Calvinians resisted Daneel’s cause, during the centuries that followed Earth’s demise-a civil war in which millions of robots were destroyed.
Suddenly, Olivaw’s campaign had to be judged at an entirely different level than deductive reason.
The level of right and wrong.
What arrogance,she thought.What utter conceit and contempt!
The Joan of Arc sim did not share her anger.
“There is nothing new about what Daneel and his friend did, so long ago. Since when have angels ever consulted human beings, when meddling in our fate?”
“I keep telling you. Robots arenot angels! “
The chain-mailed figure smiled out of the holo display.
“Then let us just say that Daneel and Giskard prayed for, and acted on, divine guidance. Any way you look at it, don’t we fundamentally come down to a matter of faith? This insistence on reason and mutual consultation is very much the sort of thing that obsesses Lodovic and Voltaire. But I had thought you to be above such things.“
Dors uttered an oath and shut off the holo unit, wondering why she even bothered calling up the ancient sim. It was presently her only companion, and so she had summoned Joan in order to get some feedback. To get a sounding board.
But the creature seemed only interested in asking disturbing questions.
Dors was still uncertain what she planned to do when she reached her destination.
As yet, she had no plan to oppose the Immortal Servant. If she ever did confront Daneel, he could probably just talk her out of it. Olivaw’s logic was always so impeccable-as it had been in those bygone days when Earth was still green and humans still had a little control over their own lives, for well or ill.
Even now, in all likelihood, Daneel probably had the best policy for humanity’s long-range good. His vision was doubtless without flaw or blemish.
Nevertheless, Dors knew one thing for certain.
I am not working for him anymore.
At that moment, she had one paramount priority, above all else.
Dors needed to see Hari Seldon.
9.
“What is it? Tell me!” he called after Horis, who stood staring blankly into the ship’s lounge. For the first time in days, Hari felt his age again as he hobbled next to Antic and looked inside.
Where the conference table had formerly been covered with ancient archives, still bright and crystalline after ages in space, only molten chunks of ruined matter now lay, slumped and smoldering, as the ship’s air conditioners struggled to suck away curls of black smoke.
The scream must have come from Sybyl, who was now crumpled on the floor near her precious discoveries. Nearby sat Gornon Vlimt, slumped against a wall, apparently unconscious or asleep. One of Mors Planch’s crewmen also lay in repose beyond the table, limp fingers outstretched toward a blaster.
Planch himself swayed, halfway between the table and the door. He pointed a shaking finger at Hari’s servant. Kers Kantun. who was the sole figure standing near the melted relics.
“He-”
Biron Maserd and Horis Antic watched the confrontation with expressions of mixed surprise and dismay. Neither of them moved as Mors Planch brought his right hand slowly toward the holster containing his sidearm. Cords of tension stood out on his neck and brow. expressing an acute inner struggle. Low moans escaped the raider captain. His hand curled around the weapon. and he started to draw it…
Then Mors Planch toppled. joining his colleagues on the floor.
“What is…what is…what is…” Antic kept repeating over and over. popping a calmative pill in his mouth. then another.
In contrast. Maserd maintained the characteristic aplomb of his caste. gesturing toward Hari’s blank-faced servant with a curt nod.
“Is he one of them, Seldon?”
Hari glanced at Kers, then back to Maserd.
“That is a very good inference. my lord. Are you sure you never had the fever?”
The nobleman’s eyes grew steely. hinting at the other side of the gentry personality, the part capable of deadly vendetta.
“Do not patronize me. Academician. I asked a civil question.Is your aide a…robot?”
Hari did not answer directly. He looked at Kers, his nurse-bodyguard for over a year, and let out a sigh.
“So. Daneel left one of his own behind to keep an eye on me, after all. Is that because he still cares? Or do I have some residual importance to his plans?”
Kers answered with the same deferential tone Hari had known.