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It's always struck Meyer as a little funny that they're using the church for the card game. It doesn't bother him; this place doesn't represent much to him -- even were he a man of faith, it wouldn't be the one this church stands for. As far as he can tell, it's the best place in the town for their card game, and they'd looked into other venues. There may be those who are offended by it, but they're few and far between, and until they make themselves too known to ignore, he'll continue on as usual.

That's why, despite his fairly serious injuries, he's in the church today, doing some light cleaning. He'd wanted to do more, but the broken ribs and the patchwork of bandages on his back and collarbone make heavy lifting difficult. Getting out of the house is important, though; he'd go insane if he had to sit in bed for one more day and read a book he'd either already read or didn't care about, or worse, stare at the ceiling.

He's fairly quiet himself, but the noise generated from the cleaning he's doing is probably enough to cover up the footsteps of anyone else. That might be why he doesn't notice Daneel at first.

Cleaning. This is a necessary task; he realises this all too well. Still, it should be his task, not a human being's, and this is ingrained in him far too deeply to have been removed by the handful of months he's spent here.

"Might I assist you?"

It's a genuine offer, and what it really means is may I do that for you.

If he's startled to suddenly find someone else there with him, he does a good job of hiding it. Instead, he looks up and shakes his head slightly, with a polite smile. "No," he says, "I'm almost done."

Then he takes a closer look at Daneel. He's seen him before, he realizes, but only in that bizarre dream, then over the network, and of course that dream of Ned's... If he looks back down at the floor quickly, it's only because his cheeks have gone a bit pink. He'll chalk it up to the exertion of the cleaning, and hope Daneel doesn't notice.

"You spend much time in the church?" he asks, a couple seconds later, mostly to cover up any uncomfortable silence. He hasn't seen Daneel here before, but that doesn't mean he hasn't been here when Meyer and Charlie hadn't been.

Daneel does notice, but he's kinder than to comment on it. There are many reasons humans might go pink in the face beyond embarssment, after all.

"I do not," he says. "I am merely patrolling."

He offers this as though it's completely normal; he does this because he wants to feel useful, because there are humans to protect, because to sit in a room and do nothing is a waste of his abilities.

But he does recognise Meyer; how could he fail to?

"We have met," he says. "We met within a dream, which was yours, I believe. I'm sorry I intruded. My name is Daneel Olivaw."

He nods at Daneel's comment, as though it makes perfect sense. And to Meyer, it is understandable -- if patrolling is something to keep Daneel busy, to make him feel useful, then it's really no different than the obsessive way Meyer's been cleaning the church, or the fact that he absolutely refuses to sit idle in bed and has been reading an outdated chemistry textbook instead. He understands that urge to be useful, to do something practical very well.

"Nice to meet you," he says, although really, it isn't the first time they've met. "Name's Meyer Lansky, but I guess you probably already knew that."

"We did speak on the network," Daneel says.

With the formalities concluded, he looks Meyer over, assessing his health and status, and not really liking what he sees.

"You are injured," he observes. "Perhaps you should be resting rather than exerting yourself in this manner."

He would say so to anyone; an injured human who moves around risks injuring themselvves further. That is, of course, undesirable.

"Yeah, I'm injured," he agrees, assuming Ned's probably filled Daneel in about the whole thing by now. After all, Ned had gotten that nasty scratch on his arm when he'd saved Meyer, and that doesn't seem like the kind of thing he could hide from a... whatever Ned and Daneel were to each other. It was better not to give it too much thought.

"You get bored sitting around after awhile, though," he says, but he still sets down what he's holding, just to take a quick breather. It's not polite to work while they're having a conversation, after all, and he has to admit, it's good to get the chance to catch his breath.

Daneel looks at him closely, critically, without any degree of self-consciousness. Humans lie, he knows that, but their physical wellbeing ranks as being more important than their pride.

"How were you injured?" Becausehe doesn't know, and this looks severe, and perhaps this is something he should know.

He draws closer, his hands folded politely in front of him, but he wants to take over from Meyer's chores, even if it's mostly done.

"There was a tiger that got a little too comfortable with the edge of the woods," he replies, "and I guess it got a little too comfortable with me, too."

Were he wearing the clothes he was accustomed to wearing back home, none of the injuries would even be visible, but around here, he's adopted much more informal attire, and in his jeans and undershirt, the bandage stuck to his back is almost visible through the fabric, as is the fact that there's a bandage wrapped around his ribs and one affixed to his collarbone. Perhaps he'd have put on more concealing clothes if he'd been expecting company, but for cleaning alone, he hadn't really thought it necessary.

He did, but introductions are something different. Introductions in person are particularly something different.

"Are you religious?"

He's curious; it's something he doesn't understand, fully. Though he's aware that religous texts have great significance for some, he doesn't know why. It's something far out of his personal experience, and no human he has known has felt that way, either.

He smiles slightly and shakes his head. "I was raised to be," he says, and that's true enough. As a child, he'd had some kind of faith, some kind of belief, but as an adult, he's not sure he believes in anything at all. It would be far too complicated to explain where and when his lack of belief had begun, and why, but he knows that he can no longer consider himself at all religious.

"I take it you're not?"

"Religion is uncommon on Spacer worlds," Daneel says, "and as a robot, it was not something I would have been likely to be invited to participate, in any case. I understand that it brings solace and comfort to some, but I don't believe that it would offer any respite to myself, even if I desired such a thing."

This is explained calmly, as though there were nothing unusual about it. He knows about the tiger already, through Ned, and this is the other half of that equation. It's Meyer he must know now.

"Even to people who want to believe, I'm not sure it offers a whole lot of respite. It's probably best that it's not something you wanted."

He knows he can be deeply cynical, knows that back home, his stubborn refusal to have any kind of faith can be frustrating for people. Here, it doesn't seem that anyone cares, and it's one of the small elements about this town that he finds himself liking.

"Perhaps it is better when humans put that desire behind them," Daneel suggests. "If it is a false hope, then perhaps it should not be relied upon at all."

A theory, nothing more, but perhaps one he maybe ought to investigate. If he is to do good as he wishes, to guide and care for humanity, it's the sort I'd thing he needs to know.

"I could be mistaken," he allows.

"I'm not sure about that. It's human nature to rely on false hope, whether it's religion or something else."

And it isn't as though he's not guilty of false hope himself, at times, though he'd never admit it. He wonders, for a moment, what it must be like to be a robot, who can apparently see things far more logically than any human can. Meyer considers himself a logical and analytical person, knows that other people often consider him cold and calculating, but he also acknowledges, much to his chagrin, that he's capable of human error.

Daneel considers this for a moment, frowning faintly in his concentration. If false hope is a normal thing for humans to rely on, to draw support from, then is that good or bad?

"If you reject religion, but humanity requires something to provide hope and support in difficult times, what do you rely on if not the supernatural?"

"Me personally, or people in general?"

It's an interesting question, and one that gives him pause for a moment. It makes him think, far more than most questions posed to him, makes him concentrate on what it really means to be human and to consider things from a human perspective.

"I think a lot of people rely on their families or friends to provide hope and support. Maybe art, too, or literature -- something they can see as bigger than themselves. Me, personally, I guess I rely on logic and statistics."

Now, they're on more familiar ground for Daneel. Logic is sometimes thorny, but it has rules to follow, and there's an inevitability with the answers. Statistics, though, are different.

"Statistics are only probability," he says. This is a common problem for him. "Though statistics can be used to guide decisions, just because something is likely to happen does not mean it will. Ideally, it should be possible to act in such a way to make the desired result more likely, but even that is not certain. Neither is it easy. Individual humans often act unpredictably."

"That's true," he says agreeably, "But statistics prove very useful for many situations. I agree, humans often act unpredictably, but if I'm playing a game of poker, for example, I know better than to rely on sheer luck. Nothing is ever one hundred percent certain, no matter how well calculated the probabilities are, but I'd rather understand likely outcomes than be completely in the dark, even if the thing that's likely to happen doesn't actually happen. Statistics're a tool, I know, and there's nothing magical or perfect about them, but maybe that's why I like them."

He realizes he's rambled a bit, and abruptly stops talking. He can't help it, sometimes; math, statistics, logic, they're all the lens through which he sees the world, and if given the chance -- which he's not often -- he'll talk on at length.

Daneel listens attentively, honestly fascinated by this point of view. It's very much unlike his own, but there's a sense to it, a rationality he likes. "You rely, then, on statistics to help you choose, but don't rely upon them alone."

He approves, though it is never so simple for him.

"What is poker?"

"Exactly," he replies, glad to see that it seemingly makes sense to Daneel. So many people see it as an emotionless and cold way to look at the word, and he's glad, for once, to be having a conversation that doesn't seem to include that assumption.

The next question, though, surprises him enough that he laughs a little. "What's poker? It's a card game. A gambling game. You've really never heard of it?"

"If I know it, then not by that name. It is possible some variant exists on Aurora, certainly."

And Meyer's description of poker, as it relates to luck and statistics and human behaviour, fascinates him. Daneel is curious, and one thing he can honestly say about this place is that people are very encouraging of his curiosity.

"Would I be able to trouble you for a description of the rules of this game? I would like to know more about it, if I may."

"There're a lot of varieties," he says, and it's obvious, with the way he relishes saying it, that this is a particularly pleasing topic of conversation for him. "But put most simply, it's a game to see who can get the best hand of five cards. There're varieties where you play with seven cards, varieties where you play with five, varieties where some of your cards are showing, varieties where you share cards with other players..."

He shakes his head. "It's complex. The best way to learn is by playing. Essentially, though, you're trying to win money from the other players by having a better hand -- or by pretending that you do, if you're a good bluffer. The hands are ranked in such a way, of course, that the better the hand gets, the more statistically improbable it is."

"I see." Daneel is intent, fascinated. It's a practical application of much that concerns him, but for entertainment. It's a remarkably human sort of creation, this game. "I am aware of similar games, usually played for tokens, but not precisely the same. A player cannot rely on receiving the correct cards to beat his opponent, and statistically I presume it would be unlikely that this would occur."

Perhaps he's only repeating and rephrasing, at least a little, but he wants to be clear on this, wants to understand it properly.

"In order to win, it is necessary to employ falsehood to mislead the other players, to make up for a lack in the cards received. Do I understand this correctly?" It's almost a microcosm of humanity itself, or so it seems to him. "The game is not about who is lucky enough to receive highly ranked cards, but who can most effectively use the cards they have and manipulate the other players."

"Yes," he says, glad to see how quickly Daneel is picking up on all of it, "Although there are some people who don't employ bluffing as much as others. Those people often fold -- drop out of the game, that is -- when they don't think their hands are good enough. It's important to know when to bluff, but equally important to know when to fold."

It really is an interesting study of humanity, he thinks. That's why it's always appealed to him so much; it's not just the numbers and the techniques, but rather, what they mean about the people who use them.

Edited 2013-07-12 21:24 (UTC)