Asimov's Future History Volume 4 by Isaac Asimov Read Free Book Online Page B

butt first.
    Baley said, “A plain-clothes man must never abandon his blaster, but a robot has no choice but to obey a human.”
    “Except, Mr. Baley,” said Dr. Gerrigel, “when obedience involves breaking the First Law.”
    “Do you know, Doctor, that Daneel drew his blaster on an unarmed group of men and women and threatened to shoot?”
    “But I did not shoot,” said R. Daneel.
    “Granted, but the threat was unusual in itself, wasn’t it, Doctor?”
    Dr. Gerrigel bit his lip. “I’d need to know the exact circumstances to judge. It sounds unusual.”
    “Consider this, then. R. Daneel was on the scene at the time of the murder, and if you omit the possibility of an Earthman having moved across open country, carrying a weapon with him, Daneel and Daneel alone of all the persons on the scene could have hidden the weapon.”
    “Hidden the weapon?” asked Dr. Gerrigel.
    “Let me explain. The blaster that did the killing was not found. The scene of the murder was searched minutely and it was not found. Yet it could not have vanished like smoke. There is only one place it could have been, only one place they would not have thought to look.”
    “Where, Elijah?” asked R. Daneel.
    Baley brought his blaster into view, held its barrel firmly in the robot’s direction.
    “In your food sac,” he said. “In your food sac, Daneel!”
     

13: Shift to the Machine
    “T HAT IS NOT so,” said R. Daneel, quietly.
    “Yes? We’ll let the Doctor decide. Dr. Gerrigel?”
    “Mr. Baley?” The roboticist, whose glance had been alternating wildly between the plain-clothes man and the robot as they spoke, let it come to rest upon the human being.
    “I’ve asked you here for an authoritative analysis of this robot. I can arrange to have you use the laboratories of the City Bureau of Standards. If you need any piece of equipment they don’t have, I’ll get it for you. What I want is a quick and definite answer and hang the expense and trouble.”
    Baley rose. His words had emerged calmly enough, but he felt a rising hysteria behind them. At the moment, he felt that if he could only seize Dr. Gerrigel by the throat and choke the necessary statements out of him, he would forgo all science.
    He said, “Well, Dr. Gerrigel?”
    Dr. Gerrigel tittered nervously and said, “My dear Mr. Baley, I won’t need a laboratory.”
    “Why not?” asked Baley apprehensively. He stood there, muscles tense, feeling himself twitch.
    “It’s not difficult to test the First Law. I’ve never had to, you understand, but it’s simple enough.”
    Baley pulled air in through his mouth and let it out slowly. He said, “Would you explain what you mean? Are you saying that you can test him here?”
    “Yes, of course. Look, Mr. Baley, I’ll give you an analogy. If I were a Doctor of Medicine and had to test a patient’s blood sugar, I’d need a chemical laboratory. If I needed to measure his basal metabolic rate, or test his cortical function, or check his genes to pinpoint a congenital malfunction, I’d need elaborate equipment. On the other hand, I could check whether he were blind by merely passing my hand before his eyes and I could test whether he were dead by merely feeling for his pulse.
    “What I’m getting at is that the more important and fundamental the property being tested, the simpler the needed equipment. It’s the same in a robot. The First Law is fundamental. It affects everything. If it were absent, the robot could not react properly in two dozen obvious ways.”
    As he spoke, he took out a flat, black object which expanded into a small book-viewer. He inserted a well-worn spool into the receptacle. He then took out a stop watch and a series of white, plastic slivers that fitted together to form something that looked like a slide rule with three independent movable scales. The notations upon it struck no chord of familiarity to Baley.
    Dr. Gerrigel tapped his book-viewer and smiled a little, as though the prospect of