"Then what is all this? I'm beginning to think you're wasting my time."
"Another moment, please. Have you ever asked yourself why the job couldn't have been done with a laser beam, with a field deactivator-with a sledgehammer, for God's sake? Why should anyone go to the incredible trouble of getting a weapon guarded by the strongest possible government security to do a job that didn't require such a weapon? Aside from the difficulty of getting it, why risk revealing the existence of a disintegrator to the rest of the world?"
"This whole business of a disintegrator is just a theory of yours."
"The robot disappeared completely before my eyes. I was watching. I rely on no secondhand evidence for that. It doesn't matter what you call the weapon; whatever name you give it, it had the effect of taking the robot apart atom by atom and scattering all those atoms irretrievably. Why should this be done? It was tremendous overkill."
"I don't know what was in the mind of the perpetrator."
"No? Yet it seems to me that there is only one logical reason for a complete powdering when something much simpler would have carried through the destruction. The powdering left no trace behind of the destroyed object. It left nothing to indicate what it had been, whether robot or anything else."
Janek said, "But there is no question of what it was."
"Isn't there? I said only the President could have arranged for a disintegrator to be obtained and used. But, considering the existence of a look-alike robot, which President did the arranging?"
Janek said harshly, "I don't think we can carry on this conversation. You are mad."
Edwards said, "Think it through. For God's sake, think it through. The President did not destroy the robot. Your arguments there are convincing. What happened was that the robot destroyed the President. President Winkler was killed in the crowd on July 4, 2076. A robot resembling President Winkler then gave the Tercentenary speech, ran for re-election, was re-elected, and still serves as President of the United States!"
"Madness!"
"I've come to you, to you because you can prove this-and correct it, too."
"It is simply not so. The President is-the President." Janek made as though to rise and conclude the interview.
"You yourself say he's changed," said Edwards quickly and urgently. "The Tercentenary speech was beyond the powers of the old Winkler. Haven't you been yourself amazed at the accomplishments of the last two years? Truthfully-could the Winkler of the first term have done all this?"
"Yes, he could have, because the President of the second term is the President of the first term."
"Do you deny he's changed? I put it to you. You decide and I'll abide by your decision."
"He's risen to meet the challenge, that is all. It's happened before this in American history." But Janek sank back into his seat. He looked uneasy.
"He doesn't drink," said Edwards.
"He never did-very much."
"He no longer womanizes. Do you deny he did so in the past?"
"A President is a man. For the last two years, however, he's felt dedicated to the matter of the Federation."
"It's a change for the better, I admit," said Edwards, "but it's a change. Of course, if he had a woman, the masquerade could not be carried on, could it?"
Janek said, "Too bad he doesn't have a wife." He pronounced the archaic word a little self-consciously. "The whole matter wouldn't arise if he did."
"The fact that he doesn't made the plot more practical. Yet he has fathered two children. I don't believe they have been in the White House, either one of them, since the Tercentenary."
"Why should they be? They are grown, with lives of their own."
"Are they invited? Is the President interested in seeing them? You're his private secretary. You would know. Are they?"
Janek said, "You're wasting time. A robot can't kill a human being. You know that that is the First Law of Robotics."
"I know it. But no one is saying that the robot-Winkler killed the human-Winkler directly. When the human-Winkler was in the crowd, the robot-Winkler was on the stand and I doubt that a disintegrator could be aimed from that distance without doing more widespread damage. Maybe it could, but more likely the robot-Winkler had an accomplice-a hit man, if that is the correct Twentieth-Century jargon."
Janek frowned. His plump face puckered and looked pained. He said, "You know, madness must be catching. I'm actually beginning to consider the insane notion you've brought here. Fortunately, it doesn't hold water. After all, why would an assassination of the human-Winkler be arranged in public? All the arguments against destroying the robot in public hold against the killing of a human President in public. Don't you see that ruins the whole theory?"
"It does not-" began Edwards. "It does. No one except for a few officials knew that the mechanical device existed at all. If President Winkler were killed privately and his body disposed of, the robot could easily take over without suspicion-without having roused yours, for instance."
"There would always be a few officials who would know, Mr. Janek. The assassinations would have to broaden." Edwards leaned forward earnestly. "See here, ordinarily there couldn't have been any danger of confusing the human being and the machine. I imagine the robot wasn't in constant use, but was pulled out only for specific purposes, and there would always be key individuals, perhaps quite a number of them, who would know where the President was and what he was doing. If that were so, the assassination would have to be carried out at a time when those officials actually thought the President was really the robot."
"I don't follow you."
"See here. One of the robot's tasks was to shake hands with the crowd; press the flesh. When this was taking place, the officials in the know would be perfectly aware that the hand shaker was, in truth, the robot."
"Exactly. You're making sense now. It was the robot."
"Except that it was the Tercentenary, and except that President Winkler could not resist. I suppose it would be more than human to expect a President-particularly an empty crowd pleaser and applause hunter like Winkler-to give up the adulation of the crowd on this day of all days, and let it go to a machine. And perhaps the robot carefully nurtured this impulse so that on this one Tercentenary day, the President would have ordered the robot to remain behind the podium, while he himself went out to shake hands and to be cheered."
"Secretly?"
"Of course secretly. If the President had told anyone in the Service, or any of his aides, or you, would he have been allowed to do it? The official attitude concerning the possibility of assassination has been practically a disease since the events of the late Twentieth Century. So with the encouragement of an obviously clever robot-"
"You assume the robot to be clever because you assume he is now serving as President. That is circular reasoning. If he is not President, there is no reason to think he is clever, or that he were capable of working out this plot. Besides, what motive could possibly drive a robot to plot an assassination? Even if it didn't kill the President directly, the taking of a human life indirectly is also forbidden by the First Law, which states: 'A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.'"