A werewolf among us

you might have become unbalanced by having to live with this realization for years, and that you might have felt that murdering your brothers and sisters, one-by-one, was the most fitting revenge on your father. Then again, you're a bright girl, too intelligent not to realize that Jubal's life has been tainted by hypno-keying, too, and that when he had each of you treated, he could not be said to be a rational man making a rational choice."
    "But you still suspected me." She was still looking at her hands.
    "Yes. You lived separate from the others. At a glance, that seemed to be because of the space limitations on other floors. However, it was soon clear to me that, with your family's resources, you could have adapted any part of the house to make a fine studio. You
wanted
to be separate from them. Perhaps because you hated them."
    "Felt sorry for them," she corrected. "I didn't want to have to see them."
    "Finally," the cyberdetective said, "I was wary of the relationship that seemed to be growing between us—at the same time that I encouraged it. Had I become sexually involved with you, or had I allowed my fondness for you to become something deeper than mere
liking
, my judgment in your sphere would have been severely affected."
    "Very logical," she said. Her voice was bitter, not at all pleasant. St. Cyr thought that there might even be tears in it.
    "I have to be."
    "It's your job."
    "Yes."
    She looked at him for the first time now, and she did have tears in the corners of her eyes. She said, "Anything else I did that was suspicious?"
    Yes, he thought, you always seemed, somehow, to be an extension of my nightmare, an analogue of the stalker…
    Illogical.
    He knew it was illogical even without the bio-computer's judgment. "No other reasons," he said.
    Jubal roused himself. "But why do you hate your hypno-keyed talents, Tina? I don't understand. How can you hate me enough to murder your own brothers and sisters?"
    "She didn't," St. Cyr said.
    Jubal said, "
What
?
"
    "She didn't murder them."
    They all looked at him again, surprised more than before. He saw that Tina was shocked too, and he realized that she had expected him to prove logically that she was the killer even though she was not. That made him feel tired and
ill.
    "Then what has been the purpose of all of this?" Hirschel asked.
    "As I said when I started, I wanted you to see that I have been very careful to consider every angle before making an outright accusation. I want you to understand that I haven't been rash."
    You are being rash now, and you know it.
    I have proof.
    You seem to. But what you are about to suggest is impossible.
    "Who is it, then?" Hirschel asked
    St. Cyr got a grip on the table and said, evenly, though the bio-computer still tried to reason him out of vocalizing the absurdity, 'Teddy, the master unit, killed all four of them."
     

THIRTEEN:
Proof
     
    "But that's impossible!" Dane was the first to realize that they were no longer restricted to the open floor and that the cyberdetective would no longer be suspicious of any movement in his direction. He got to his feet and approached the detective, shaking his finger like a schoolmaster from the old days making a point with a misbehaving child. "You're grasping at straws to keep from admitting the truth, what we all know is the truth, that the
du-aga-klava
—"
    "I have proof," St. Cyr said.
    Hirschel was on his feet now, obviously intrigued by the prospect of a murderous robot but reluctant to believe it. "What about the Three Laws of Robotics? They've never been proven wrong before. Robots didn't turn against man as everyone once feared they might. Those three directives keep it from happening."
    "There is a simple flaw in all those laws," St. Cyr said. "They leave out the human equation."
    "Look," Hirschel said, approaching the detective and pointing at his own palm as if all of this were written there. "The First Law of Robotics: 'A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.' "
    "Unless," St. Cyr amended, "he has been programmed especially to circumvent that directive."
    "Programmed to kill?" Tina asked. She was standing next to him, her long black hair tucked behind her ears, out of mourning now.
    "To kill," St. Cyr affirmed.
    But Hirschel was not finished. He proceeded, almost as if he were reading a litany: 'The Second Law of Robotics—'A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings
except where such orders would