“That isn’t—” Hari then saw the subtle resemblances. The nose had been trimmed, cheeks filled out, hair thinned and browned, ears sloped back. “But I saw him die!”
“So you did. The voltage he took fully stopped him for a bit, and had my disguised guards not begun proper treatment at the site, he would have stayed dead.”
“You could pull him back from that?”
“It is an ancient craft.”
“How long can a human remain dead before—?”
“About an hour, at low temperatures. We had to work much faster than that,” Daneel said in measured tones.
“Honoring the First Law,” Hari said.
“Shading it a bit. There is no lasting harm done to Lamurk. Now he will devote his talents to better ends.”
“Why?” Hari realized that Lamurk had said nothing. The man stood attentively, watching Daneel, not Hari.
“I do have certain positive powers over human minds. An ancient robot named Giskard gave me limited sway over the neural com plexities of the human cerebral cortex. I have altered Lamurk’s motivations and trimmed some memories.”
“How much?” Dors asked suspiciously. To her, Hari realized, Lamurk was still an enemy until proven otherwise.
Daneel waved a hand. “Speak.”
“I understand that I have erred.” Lamurk spoke in a dry, sincere voice, without his usual fire. “I apologize, especially to you, Hari. I cannot recall my offenses, but I regret them. I shall do better now.”
“You do not miss your memories?” Dors probed.
“They are not precious,” Lamurk said reasonably. “An endless chain of petty barbarities and insatiable ambitions, as nearly as I can recall. Blood and anger. Not great moments, so why preserve them? I will be a better person now.”
Hari felt both wonder and fear. “If you could do this, Daneel, why do you bother to argue with me? Just change my mind!”
Daneel said calmly, “I would not dare. You are different from others.”
“Because of psychohistory? Is that all that holds you back?”
“That, yes. But you also did not have the brain fever when young. That makes my skills useless. For example, I could not sense your plot to use the tiktoks against the Lamurk faction, when we met in that open, public place, to enlist my robots’ help.”
“I…see.” To Hari it was sobering to see by how slender a thread his dealings had hung. Merely missing a childhood disease!
“I am looking forward to my future tasks,” Lamurk said flatly. “A new life.”
“What tasks?” Dors asked.
“I will go to the Benin Zone, as regional manager. A responsibility with many exciting challenges.”
“Very good,” Daneel said approvingly.
Something in the blandness of all this sent a chill down Hari’s spine. This was power indeed, played by an ageless master.
“Your Zeroth Law in action…”
“It is essential to psychohistory,” Daneel said.
Hari frowned. “How?”
“The Zeroth Law is a corollary of the First Law, for how can a human being best be kept from injury, if not by ensuring that human society in general is protected and kept functioning?”
Hari said, “And only with a decent theory of the future can you see what is necessary.”
“Exactly. Since the time of Giskard we robots have labored on such a theory, bringing forth only a crude model. So, Hari, you and your theory are essential. Even so, I knew that I was verging close to the First Law’s limit when I followed your orders, using my robots to shadow the Lamurkians.”
“You sensed something wrong?”
“Hyperresistance in the positronic pathways manifests as trouble standing and walking and then speaking. I displayed all these. I must have sensed that my robots would be used indirectly to kill humans. The ancient Giskard had similar difficulties with the boundary between the First and Zeroth Laws.”
Dors’ mouth trembled with barely repressed emotion. “The rest of us depend upon your judgment to negotiate the tension between those two most fundamental of Laws. I could not withstand what you have had to endure.”
Trying to comfort him, Hari said, “You had no choice, Daneel. I boxed you in.”
Daneel looked at Dors, allowing conflicted expressions to flit across his face, a symphony of agony. “The Zeroth Law…I have lived with it for so long…many millennia…and yet…”
“There is a clear contradiction,” Hari said softly, knowing he was treading in territory of great delicacy. “The sort of conceptual clash a human mind can sometimes manage.”
Dors whispered, “But we cannot, except at grave peril to our very stability.”
Daneel hung his head. “When I gave the orders, an acidic agony arose in my mind, a scalding tide I have barely contained.”
Hari’s throat just allowed him to squeeze out his words. “Old friend, you had no choice. Surely in all your ages of labor in the human cause, other contradictions have arisen?”
Daneel nodded. “Many. And each time I hang above an abyss.”
“You cannot succumb,” Dors said. “You are the greatest of us. More is demanded of you.”
Daneel looked at both of them as if seeking absolution. Across his face flickered forlorn hope. “I suppose…”
Hari added his assent, a lump in his throat. “Of course. All is lost without you. You must endure.”
Daneel looked off into infinity, speaking in a dry whisper. “My work…it is not done…so I cannot…deactivate. This must be what it is like…to be truly human…torn between two poles. Still, I can look forward. There will come a time when my work is finished. When I can be relieved of these contradictory tensions. Then I shall face the black blankness…and it will be good.”
The fervor of the robot’s speech left Hari silent and sad. For a long time the three sat together in the hushed room. Lamurk stood attentive and silent.
Then, without a further word, they went their separate ways.
15.
Hari sat alone and stared at the holo of a raging, ancient prairie fire.
In its place now stood the Empire. He knew now that he loved the Empire for reasons he could not name. The dark revelation, that the robots had visited death and destruction upon the old, remnant digital minds…even that did not deter him. He would never know the details of that ancient crime—he hoped.