Ned is satisfied with that ending. It is happy, but not entirely, unrealistically so. It might have seemed so to him before he came to the Cape, before he'd met any of the people here who he's grown so close to over time. Back then, the idea that anyone, let alone a whole group of people, could accept and like him even after learning about his powers, was inconceivable. And Daneel... the idea that he'd have anyone like Daneel in his life was even moreso.

It is this thought, which lay behind the question in the first place, which leads him to ask.

"And what sorts of things did people say, when you asked about how they define 'person'?" He could have scanned through the network, seen what responses he could turn up, but that always seemed like eavesdropping to him. Besides, he only cares about their answers so far as they have impacted Daneel.