Alas, Earth

On Earth, Gladia has remained a very public figure, and is pressed into another speech. Midway through, a laser shot is fired. Daneel dives to protect he who he considers to be most important: Giskard. He can now follow the Zeroth Law quite well. A clean hole is left just behind the point in space where Giskard’s head would have been.

The attacker, having been beaten by the crowd around him, is found to be a humanoid robot (sent by Mandamus). However, the act of aiming a deadly weapon so near a group of humans has greatly affected its positronic brain and it is under very strong orders not to reveal anything in relation to its master. After a short period of questioning, the only thing that the robot says about the location of the base in “-- mile --.” After this, its brain effectively shuts down; the information held within is irretrievable.

After some speculation on what the word “mile” means (everything, including Galactic Standard Time, is by now metric), Daneel and Giskard go to an official nuclear specialist (I no longer have the book, so I can’t give you the specific office) who they ask for advice about what three syllable word or phrase would have “mile” in the middle.

With some tampering by Giskard encouraging her to help them, she speculates on it before coming to a conclusion. There was one location that the base could be; one of the most isolated places on the planet, where it is taboo for any robot to go, let alone any human. It was the site of the nuclear near-catastrophe that forever turned Earthmen away from nuclear power (although the fusion of light particles is now a common energy source on other planets). Three Mile Island.

There, Amadiro and Mandamus squabble over the time frame of their plan. Mandamus has no interest in killing, only in weakening the Settlers, while Amadiro, with his hate of Elijah Baley, wants to see the plan come to fruition well within his lifetime, with the added bonus of killing great numbers of Earthpeople. Mandamus wants to set their machine so that the radiation produced by the nuclear intensifier’s action on the natural deposits of radioactive elements on Earth would cause the radiation to reach its peak in 150 years before steadying; this would give Earth more than enough time to evacuate and cause the Settlers to believe that it was an unexplained, but natural, phenomenon. Dr. Amadiro wants the destruction of Earth to occur over 4 times faster (a change from the setting 2.72 to 12) so that he is still alive to take the credit for the destruction of Earth.

Eventually, Dr. Amadiro pulls a blaster on Mandamus, threatening him with death while bribing him with a high governmental position.

Here, Daneel and Giskard enter, and rip the blaster out of Amadiro’s hands. The two doctors attempt to order the robots to leave, claiming that there is no danger, so the Second Law takes precedence; this, of course, fails against the Zeroth Law. Giskard is eventually forced to put Amadiro into a coma after manipulating him into a rage during which he admits their plans.

Mandamus then launches into a speech about how the destruction of Earth would ultimately benefit mankind. He speculates that, with the Holy World of the Settlers gone, they would be forced to spread ever farther into the galaxy. Giskard hears this and speculates on whether this is true. He knows that Mandamus does not believe his words, but he also knows that it would remove the one thing that he and Daneel had speculated was a crutch equivalent to the robots and long lives of the Spacers.

Thus, when Mandamus lunges for the controls after shouting a command to the robots to “Freeze!,” Daneel is powerless to stop him. After being ashamed of himself for having allowed the Second Law to take precedence over the Zeroth, Giskard reveals that he had prevented Daneel from stopping Mandamus. He believes that the destruction of Earth would ultimately be better for humanity, but the fair chance that it would not be is killing Giskard.

In his final moments, Giskard speaks the final set of commands that would convert Daneel into a telepath (though the two could only sense and manipulate emotions).

He was now the protector of the Galaxy, and is now all alone.

This was probably my favorite book out of the Foundation series so far.
I’m honestly not sure what else to say, but I will compare the Robot series to “Mid-Winter Resolution,” by S. L. P. Van der Veer, which we read in English a few days ago. The theme is actually quite similar. In the poem, a man speculates that if everyone remains in doors during the winter, (living relatively easy- taking no risks) everyone will remain lethargic evening the spring, when they need to get more things done. In the Robot novels, the Spacers have become to comfortable with their robot servants and perfect worlds; to comfortable to compete with the more energetic and vigorous Earthmen for control of the future. The authors seem to have set out to send the same message; one that is relevant even now.