I, Robot - Isaac Asimov [42]
The corner of Dr. Calvin’s lip twitched, “I was afraid you would. It’s difficult to work with you, Herbie. You’re always a step ahead of me.”
“It’s the same with these books, you know, as with the others. They just don’t interest me. There’s nothing to your textbooks. Your science is just a mass of collected data plastered together by make-shift theory—and all so incredibly simple, that it’s scarcely worth bothering about.
“It’s your fiction that interests me. Your studies of the interplay of human motives and emotions”—his mighty hand gestured vaguely as he sought the proper words.
Dr. Calvin whispered, “I think I understand.”
“I see into minds, you see,” the robot continued, “and you have no idea how complicated they are. I can’t begin to understand everything because my own mind has so little in common with them—but I try, and your novels help.”
“Yes, but I’m afraid that after going through some of the harrowing emotional experiences of our present-day sentimental novel”—there was a tinge of bitterness in her voice—“you find real minds like ours dull and colorless.”
“But I don’t!”
The sudden energy in the response brought the other to her feet. She felt herself reddening, and thought wildly, “He must know!”
Herbie subsided suddenly, and muttered in a low voice from which the metallic timbre departed almost entirely, “But, of course, I know about it, Dr. Calvin. You think of it always, so how can I help but know?”
Her face was hard. “Have you—told anyone?”
“Of course not!” This, with genuine surprise. “No one has asked me.”
“Well, then,” she flung out, “I suppose you think I am a fool.”
“No! It is a normal emotion.”
“Perhaps that is why it is so foolish.” The wistfulness in her voice drowned out everything else. Some of the woman peered through the layer of doctorhood. “I am not what you would call—attractive.”
“If you are referring to mere physical attraction, I couldn’t judge. But I know, in any case, that there are other types of attraction.”
“Nor young.” Dr. Calvin had scarcely heard the robot.
“You are not yet forty.” An anxious insistence had crept into Herbie’s voice.
“Thirty-eight as you count the years; a shriveled sixty as far as my emotional outlook on life is concerned. Am I a psychologist for nothing?”
She drove on with bitter breathlessness, “And he’s barely thirty-five and looks and acts younger. Do you suppose he ever sees me as anything but . . . but what I am?”
“You are wrong!” Herbie’s steel fist struck the plastic-topped table with a strident clang. “Listen to me—”
But Susan Calvin whirled on him now and the hunted pain in her eyes became a blaze, “Why should I? What do you know about it all, anyway, you . . . you machine. I’m just a specimen to you; an interesting bug with a peculiar mind spread-eagled for inspection. It’s a wonderful example of frustration, isn’t it? Almost as good as your books.” Her voice, emerging in dry sobs, choked into silence.
The robot cowered at the outburst. He shook his head pleadingly. “Won’t you listen to me, please? I could help you if you would let me.”
“How?” Her lips curled. “By giving me good advice?”
“No, not that. It’s just that I know what other people think—Milton Ashe, for instance.”
There was a long silence, and Susan Calvin’s eyes dropped. “I don’t want to know what he thinks,” she gasped. “Keep quiet.”
“I think you would want to know what he thinks.”
Her head remained bent, but her breath came more quickly. “You are talking nonsense,” she whispered.
“Why should I? I am trying to help. Milton Ashe’s thoughts of you—” he paused.
And then the psychologist raised her head, “Well?”
The robot said quietly, “He loves you.”
For a full minute, Dr. Calvin did not speak. She merely stared. Then, “You are mistaken! You must be. Why should he?”
“But he does. A thing like that cannot be hidden, not from me.”
“But I am so . . . so—” she stammered to a halt.
“He looks deeper than the skin, and admires intellect in others. Milton Ashe is not the type to