Part 5 (1/2)
Dodeth did as he was told, without understanding at all.
”I still don't understand, sir,” he said bewilderedly.
”Dodeth, what would happen if I told Arvam, here, to fire on you?”
”Why ... why, he'd _refuse_.”
”Why should he?”
”Because I'm _human_! That's the most basic robot command.”
”I don't know,” the Eldest said, eying Dodeth shrewdly. ”You might not be a human. You might be a snith. You _look_ like a snith.”
Dodeth swallowed the insult, wondering what the Eldest meant.
”Arvam,” the Eldest Keeper said to the robot, ”doesn't he look like a snith to you?”
”Yes, sir,” Arvam agreed.
Dodeth swallowed that one, too.
”Then how do you know he _isn't_ a snith, Arvam?”
”Because he behaves like a human, sir. A snith does not behave like a human.”
”And if something does behave like a human, what then?”
”Anything that behaves like a human is human, sir.”
Dodeth suddenly felt as though his eyes had suddenly focused after being unfocused for a long time. He gestured toward the clearing. ”You mean those ... those _things_ ... are ... _human_?”
”Yes sir,” said Arvam solidly.
”But they don't even _talk_!”
”Pardon me for correcting you sir, but they do. I cannot understand their speech, but the pattern is clearly recognizable as speech. Most of their conversation is carried on in tones of subsonic frequency, so your ears cannot hear it. Apparently, your voices are supersonic to them.”
”Well, I'll be fried,” said Dodeth. He looked at the Elder Keeper.
”That's why the robots reported they couldn't find any _animal_ of that description in the vicinity.”