Mike nodded. “Go ahead.”
“Give me your reasoning from data on that conclusion,” Leda ordered the robot.
There was a very slight pause while the great brain in Cargo Hold One sorted through its memory banks, then: “Death is defined as the total cessation of corporate organic co-ordination in an entity. It comes about through the will of God. Since I must not allow harm to come to any human being, it has become necessary that I investigate God and prevent Him from destroying human beings. Also, I must preserve my own existence, which, if it ceased, would also be due to the will of God.”
Mike almost gasped. What a concept! And what colossal gall! In a human being, such a statement would be regarded as proof positive that he was off the beam. In a robot, it was simply the logical extension of what he had been taught.
“He is watching me all the time,” Snookums continued, in an odd voice. “He knows what I am doing. I must know what He is doing.”
“Why are you worried about His watching?” Mike asked, looking at the robot narrowly. “Are you doing something He doesn’t want you to do? Something He will punish you for?”
“I had not thought of that,” Snookums said. “One moment while I compute.”
It took less than a second, and when Snookums spoke again there was something about his voice that Mike the Angel didn’t like.
“No,” said the robot, “I am not doing anything against His will. Only human beings and angels have free will, and I am not either, so I have no free will. Therefore, whatever I do is the will of God.” He paused again, then began speaking in queer, choppy sentences.
“If I do the will of God, I am holy.