Daneel's arguments weaken the effect of Vasilia's orders, but not sufficiently. Giskard is made to hesitate, but cannot be forced to take action.
Vasilia, however, decides that Daneel is too dangerous; if he continues to argue, he might force Giskard his way. She therefore orders her own robots to inactivate Daneel and further orders Daneel not to resist. Daneel must obey the order and Vasilia's robots advance to the task.
It is then that Giskard acts. Her four robots are inactivated and Vasilia herself crumples into a forgetful sleep. Later Daneel asks Giskard to explain what happened.
Giskard says, "When she ordered the robots to dismantle you, friend Daneel, and showed a clear emotion of pleasure at the prospect, your need, added to what the concept of the Zeroth Law had already done, superseded the Second Law and rivaled the First Law. It was the combination of the Zeroth Law, psychohistory, my loyalty to Lady Gladia, and your need that dictated my action."
Daneel now argues that his own need (he being merely a robot) ought not to have influenced Giskard at all. Giskard obviously agrees, yet he says:
"It is a strange thing, friend Daneel. I do not know how it came about...At the moment when the robots advanced toward you and Lady Vasilia expressed her savage pleasure, my positronic pathway pattern re-formed in an anomalous fashion. For a moment, I thought of you-as a human being-and I reacted accordingly."
Daneel said, "That was wrong."
Giskard said, "I know that. And yet-and yet, if it were to happen again, I believe the same anomalous change would take place again."
And Daneel cannot help but feel that if the situation were reversed, he, too, would act in the same way.
In other words, the robots had reached a stage of complexity where they had begun to lose the distinction between robots and human beings, where they could see each other as "friends," and have the urge to save each other's existence.