Robots and Empire (Page 125)

Giskard said in a low voice, so that only Daneel heard him, "It may not be possible. He may have been ordered into irreversible freeze if the questioning becomes too insistent."

Daneel’s head turned sharply to Giskard. He whispered, "Can you prevent that?"

"Uncertain," said Giskard. "The brain has been physically damaged by the act of firing a blaster toward human beings."

Daneel turned back to Gladia. "Madam," he said, "I would suggest you be probing, rather than brutal."

Gladia said doubtfully, "Well, I don’t know." She faced the robot assassin, drew a deep breath, and in a voice that was firm yet soft and gentle, she said, "Robot, how may I address you?"

The robot said, "I am referred to as R. Ernett Second, madam."

"Ernett, can you tell that I am an Auroran?"

"You speak in the Auroran fashion, yet not entirely, madam."

"I was born on Solaria, but I am a Spacer who has lived for twenty decades on Aurora and I am accustomed to being served by robots – I have expected and received service from robots every day of my life since I was a small child. I have never been disappointed."

"I accept the fact, madam."

"Will you answer my questions and accept my orders, Ernett?"

"I will, madam, if they are not counteracted by a competing order."

"If I ask you the location of your base on this planet what portion of it you count as your master’s establishment – will you answer that?"

"I may not do so, madam. Nor any other question with respect to my master. Any question at all."

"Do you understand that if you do not answer I will be bitterly disappointed and that my rightful expectation of robotic service will be permanently blunted?"

"I understand, madam," said the robot faintly.

Gladia looked at Daneel, "Shall I try?"

Daneel said, "Mere is no choice but to try, Madam Gladia. If the effort leaves us without information, we are no worse off than now."

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!"

90

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.