This time the look that passed between the two men was one of raised eyebrows. “What trap are you talking about?” asked Lanning 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.