Utopia - By Isaac Asimov,Roger E. Allen Page 0,96
Law prevented me from abstaining from an action that could prevent harm to a human."
"Whether or not you had to do it, you did it," said Lentrall. "Thank you."
There was a moment's silence, and Kaelor looked from Lentrall to Fredda and back again. "There is no need for these games," he said. "I know what you want, and you know thhhat I I I knowww."
Lentrall and Fredda exchanged a look, and it was plain Lentrall knew as well as she did that it was First Law conflict making it hard for Kaelor to speak.
Kaelor faced a moral conundrum few humans could have dealt with well. How to decide between probable harm and death to an unknown number of persons; and the misery and the lives ruined by the ruined planetary climate. And it is my husband who must decide, Fredda told herself, the realization a sharp stab of pain. If we succeed here, I am presenting him with that nightmare choice. She thrust that line of thought to one side. She had to concentrate on Kaelor, and the precious knowledge hidden inside him. Fredda could see hope sliding away as the conflicts piled up inside the tortured robot's mind. "We know," she said at last, admitting defeat. "And we understand. We know that you cannot tell us, and we will not ask." It was pointless to go further. It was inconceivable that Kaelor would be willing or able to tell them, or that he would survive long enough to do so, even if he tried.
Lentrall looked at Fredda in surprise, and then relief. "Yes," he said. "We will not ask. We see now that it would be futile to do so. I thought Dr. Leving might have some trick, some technique, some way of learning the truth without destroying you, but I see that I was wrong. We will not ask this of you, and we will not seek to gain the knowledge from you in other ways. This is our promise."
"I join in this promise," Fredda said.
"Hu-hu-humansss lie," Kaelor said.
"We are not lying," Fredda said, her voice as urgent as she could make it. "There would be nothing we could gain by asking you, and thus no motive for lying."
"Yourrrr promisse does-does-does not apply to other humans."
"We will keep the fact of what you know secret," Lentrall said, a note of hysteria in his voice. "Kaelor, please! Don't!"
"I tried tooo kee-keep the fact of wwwhat I knewww secret," said Kaelor, "but yoooou realized that I had seeen what I saw, and that I woullld remember." He paused a moment, as if to gather the strength to speak again. "Othhers could do the same," he said in a voice that was suddenly little more than a whisper. "I cannot take thhat channnce."
"Please!" Davlo cried out. "No!"
"Remaininng alivvve represents inaction," Kaelor said, his voice suddenly growing stronger as he reached his decision. "I must act to prevent harm to humans."
His eyes glowed brighter, his gaze turned from Davlo to Fredda, as if looking at each of them one last time, and then he looked straight ahead, at the wall, at nothing at all, at infinity. There was a low-pitched hum, the smell of burning insulation, and suddenly the light was gone from his eyes. His head sagged forward, and a thin wisp of smoke curled up from the base of his neck.
The room was silent. Fredda and Davlo looked at each other, and at the dead thing hanging on the frame in the center of the room.
"By all the forgotten gods," Fredda whispered. "What have we done?"
"You did nothing, Doctor," said Davlo, his voice nothing but a whisper as he fought to hold back a sob. "Nothing but help me do what I would have done. But as for me," he said, his voice close to cracking, "I'll tell you what I've done."
He moved a step or two forward, and looked up at Kaelor's body.
"I've just killed the closest thing to a friend I've ever had."
Chapter 13
JADELO GILDERN LIKED to tell himself that his job was to guess-and to guess correctly. The job of an intelligence chief was not to know everything. That was impossible. But a good intelligence chief was capable of seeing the whole puzzle when many of the pieces were lost, or hidden, or even disguised. A good intel chief could see the underlying pattern, take what he knew of the facts, what he knew of the personalities involved and figure out how they would interact. He could