“What sort of theory?” Mike asked.
She sniffled, took a handkerchief from her pocket, and began wiping at her tears. Mike took the handkerchief away from her and did the wiping job himself. “What’s this theory?” he said.
“Oh, it isn’t important now. But I felt—I still feel—that everybody is born with a sort of Three Laws of Robotics in him. You know what I mean—that a person wouldn’t kill or harm anyone, or refuse to do what was right, in addition to trying to preserve his own life. I think babies are born that way. But I think that the information they’re given when they’re growing up can warp them. They still think they’re obeying the laws, but they’re obeying them wrongly, if you see what I mean.”
Mike nodded without saying anything. This was no time to interrupt her.
“For instance,” she went on, “if my theory’s right, then a child would never disobey his father—unless he was convinced that the man was not really his father, you see. For instance, if he learned, very early, that his father never spanks him, that becomes one of the identifying marks of ‘father.’ Fine. But the first time his father does spank him, doubt enters. If that sort of thing goes on, he becomes disobedient because he doesn’t believe that the man is his father.
“I’m afraid I’m putting it a little crudely, but you get the idea.”
“Yeah,” said Mike. For all he knew, there might be some merit in the girl’s idea; he knew that philosophers had talked of the “basic goodness of mankind” for centuries. But he had a hunch that Leda was going about it wrong. Still, this was no time to argue with her. She seemed calmer now, and he didn’t want to upset her any more than he had to.
“That’s what you’ve been working on with Snookums?” he asked.
“That’s it.”
“For eight years?”