Trevize considered. "You are Gaia and I don't want to talk to Gaia. I want to talk to you as an individual, if that has any meaning at all."
"It has meaning. We are far from existing in a common melt. I can block off Gaia for a period of time."
"Yes," said Trevize. "I think you can. Have you now done so?"
"I have now done so."
"Then, first, let me tell you that you have played games. You did not enter my mind to influence my decision, perhaps, but you certainly entered Janov's mind to do so, didn't you?"
"Do you think I did?"
"I think you did. At the crucial moment, Pelorat reminded me of his own vision of the Galaxy as alive and the thought drove me on to make my decision at that moment. The thought may have been his, but yours was the mind that triggered it, was it not?"
Bliss said, "The thought was in his mind, but there were many thoughts there. I smoothed the path before that reminiscence of his about the living Galaxy - and not before any other thought of his. That particular thought, therefore, slipped easily out of his consciousness and into words. Mind you, I did not create the thought. It was there."
"Nevertheless, that amounted to an indirect tampering with the perfect independence of my decision, did it not?"
"Gaia felt it necessary."
"Did it? - Well, it may make you feel better - or nobler - to know that although Janov's remark persuaded me to make the decision at that moment, it was the decision I think I would have made even if he had said nothing or if he had tried to argue me into a decision of a different kind. I want you to know that."
"I am relieved," said Bliss coolly. "Is that what you wanted to tell me when you asked to see me?"
"No."
"What else is there?"
Now Trevize sat down in a chair he had drawn opposite her so that their knees nearly touched. He leaned toward her.
"When we approached Gaia, it was you on the space station. It was you who trapped us; you who came out to get us; you who have remained with us ever since - except for the meal with Dom, which you did not share with us. In particular, it was you on the Far Star with us, when the decision was made. Always you."
"I am Gaia."
"That does not explain it. A rabbit is Gaia. A pebble is Gaia. Everything on the planet is Gaia, but they are not all equally Gaia. Some are more equal than others. Why you?"
"Why do you think?"
Trevize made the plunge. He said, "Because I don't think you're Gaia. I think you're more than Gaia."
Bliss made a derisive sound with her lips.
Trevize kept to his course. "At the time I was making the decision, the woman with the Speaker..."
"He called her Novi."
"This Novi, then, said that Gaia was set on its course by the robots that no longer exist and that Gaia was taught to follow a version of the Three Laws of Robotics."
"That is quite true."
"And the robots no longer exist?"
"So Novi said."
"So Novi did not say. I remember her exact words. She said: 'Gaia was formed thousands of years ago with the help of robots that once, for a brief time, served The human species and now serve them no more."
"Well, Trev, doesn't that mean they exist no more?"
"No, it means they serve no more. Might they not rule instead?"
"Ridiculous!"
"Or supervise? Why were you there at the time of the decision? You did not seem to be essential. It was Novi who conducted matters and she was Gaia. What need of you? Unless..."
"Well? Unless?"
"Unless you are the supervisor whose role it is to make certain that Gaia does not forget the Three Laws. Unless you are a robot, so cleverly made that you cannot be told from a human being."
"If I cannot be told from a human being, how is it you think that you can tell?" asked Bliss with a trace of sarcasm.
Trevize sat back. "Do you not all assure me I have the faculty of being sure; of making decisions, seeing solutions, drawing correct conclusions. I don't claim this; it is what you say of me. Well, from the moment I saw you I felt uneasy. There was something wrong with you. I am certainly as susceptible to feminine allure as Pelorat is - more so, I should think - and you are an attractive woman in appearance. Yet not for one moment did I feel the slightest attraction."
"You devastate me."
Trevize ignored that. He said, "When you first appeared on our ship, Janov and I had been discussing the possibility of a nonhuman civilization on Gaia, and when Janov saw you, he asked, in his innocence, 'Are you human?' Perhaps a robot must answer the truth, but I suppose it can be evasive. You merely said, 'Don't I look human?' Yes, you look human, Bliss, but let me ask you again. Are you human?"
Bliss said nothing and Trevize continued. "I think that even at that first moment, I felt you were not a woman. You are a robot and I could somehow tell. And because of my feeling, all the events that followed had meaning for me - particularly your absence from the dinner."
Bliss said, "Do you think I cannot eat, Trev? Have you forgotten I nibbled a shrimp dish on your ship? I assure you that I am able to eat and perform any of the other biological functions. - Including, before you ask, sex. And yet that in itself, I might as well tell you, does not prove that I am not a robot. Robots had reached the pitch of perfection, even thousands of years ago, where only by their brains were they distinguishable from human beings, and then only by those able to handle mentalic fields. Speaker Gendibal might have been able to tell whether I were robot or human, if he had bothered even once to consider me. Of course, he did not."