"I'll ask him!" Lanning turned to the robot. "All right, Herbie, take it easy. Have I resigned?"
Herbie stared, and Lanning repeated anxiously, "Have I resigned?" There was the faintest trace of a negative shake of the robot's head. A long wait produced nothing further.
The two men looked at each other and the hostility in their eyes was all but tangible.
"What the devil," blurted Bogert, "has the robot gone mute? Can't you speak, you monstrosity?"
"I can speak," came the ready answer.
"Then answer the question. Didn't you tell me Lanning had resigned? Hasn't he resigned?"
And again there was nothing but dull silence, until from the end of the room Susan Calvin's laugh rang out suddenly, high-pitched and semi-hysterical.
The two mathematicians jumped, and Bogerts eyes narrowed, "You here? What's so funny?"
"Nothing's funny." Her voice was not quite natural. "It's just that I'm not the only one that's been caught. There's irony in three of the greatest experts in robotics in the world falling into the same elementary trap, isn't there?" Her voice faded, and she put a pale hand to her forehead, "But it isn't funny!"
This time the look that passed between the two men was one of raised eyebrows. "What trap are you talking about?" asked Lansing stiffly. "Is something wrong with Herbie?"
"No," she approached them slowly, "nothing is wrong with him - only with us." She whirled suddenly and shrieked at the robot, "Get away from me! Go to the other end of the room and don't let me look at you."
Herbie cringed before the fury of her eyes and stumbled away in a clattering trot.
Lanning's voice was hostile, "What is all this, Dr. Calvin?"
She faced them and spoke sarcastically, "Surely you know the fundamental First Law of Robotics."
The other two nodded together. "Certainly," said Bogert, Irritably, "a robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow him to come to harm"
"How nicely put," sneered Calvin. "But what kind of harm?"
"Why - any kind."
"Exactly! Any kind! But what about hurt feelings? What about deflation of one's ego? What about the blasting of one's hopes? Is that injury?"
Lanning frowned, "What would a robot know about-" And then he caught himself with a gasp.
"You've caught on, have you? This robot reads minds. Do you suppose it doesn't know everything about mental injury? Do you suppose that if asked a question, it wouldn't give exactly that answer that one wants to hear? Wouldn't any other answer hurt us, and wouldn't Herbie know that?"
"Good Heavens!" muttered Bogert.
The psychologist cast a sardonic glance at him, "I take it you asked him whether Lanning had resigned. You wanted to hear that he had resigned and so that's what Herbie told you."
"And I suppose that is why," said Lanning, tonelessly, "it would not answer a little while ago. It couldn't answer either way without hurting one of us."
There was a short pause in which the men looked thoughtfully across the room at the robot, crouching in the chair by the bookcase, head resting in one hand.
Susan Calvin stared steadfastly at the floor, "He knew of all this. That... that devil knows everything - including what went wrong in his assembly." Her eyes were dark and brooding.
Lanning looked up, "You're wrong there, Dr. Calvin. He doesn't know what went wrong. I asked him."
"What does that mean?" cried Calvin. "Only that you didn't want him to give you the solution. It would puncture your ego to have a machine do what you couldn't. Did you ask him?" she shot at Bogert.
"In a way." Bogert coughed and reddened. "He told me he knew very little about mathematics."
Lanning laughed, not very loudly and the psychologist smiled caustically. She said, "I'll ask him! A solution by him won't hurt my ego" She raised her voice into a cold, imperative, "Come here!"
Herbie rose and approached with hesitant steps.
"You know, I suppose," she continued, "just exactly at what point in the assembly an extraneous factor was introduced or an essential one left out."
"Yes," said Herbie, in tones barely heard.
"Hold on," broke in Bogert angrily. "That's not necessary true. You want to hear that, that's all."
"Don't be a fool," replied Calvin. "He certainly knows as much math as you and Lanning together, since he can read minds. Give him his chance."
The mathematician subsided, and Calvin continued, "All right, then, Herbie, give! We're waiting." And in an aside, "Get pencils and paper, gentlemen."
But Herbie remained silent, and there was triumph in the psychologist's voice, "Why don't you answer, Herbie?"
The robot blurted out suddenly, "I cannot. You know I cannot! Dr. Bogert and Dr. Lanning don't want me to."
"They want the solution."
"But not from me."
Lanning broke in, speaking slowly and distinctly, "Don't be foolish, Herbie. We do want you to tell us."
Bogert nodded curtly.
Herbie's voice rose to wild heights, "What's the use of saying that? Don't you suppose that I can see past the superficial skin of your mind? Down below, you don't want me to. I'm a machine, given the imitation of life only by virtue of the positronic interplay in my brain - which is man's device. You can't lose face to me without being hurt. That is deep in your mind and won't be erased. I can't give the solution."
"We'll leave," said Dr. Lanning. "Tell Calvin."