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Who: Meyer & Daneel
Where: Near the edge of the woods
When: Day 101, also known as happy fun blackout times
What: They're both gathering firewood (gotta keep productive during unexpected blackouts, after all!) and run into each other.

Meyer had been wary of the woods ever since the incident with the tiger. It strikes him as something isolated, something statistically unlikely to occur again, but that doesn't mean that he doesn't give the denser clumps of trees wide berth, aware that some kind of large animal could be lurking within them. There's good reason to be on the edge of the woods this afternoon, though, and that's because of the blackout; more firewood will be needed soon enough, and gathering it makes him feel as though he's doing something productive.

He's alone, for the moment -- he'd convinced the freshly returned Charlie to stay back, to get some rest, still not entirely convinced that Charlie is as physically healthy as he seems, still not sure what those days of disappearance had done to him. Pausing for a moment in his meticulous gathering of any sticks that look usable for the large fire, he takes a second to light a cigarette (an indulgence which he wouldn't normally allow himself, not when supplies are low, but which seems appropriate at the moment) and takes a long drag on it, surveying the woods with an intent eye, ready to go for his gun in case anything suddenly leaps out at him.

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Though Meyer's discomfort might not be visible, to an empath it's perfectly clear.

"My apologies. I momentarily forgot to make allowances for differing cultural taboos. I did not mean to offend."

He's... well, excited is the wrong word, but this is nevertheless important. "I will need to consider this idea from all points of view before I attempt to integrate it. I must be sure it is wholly logical. Still, it has a great deal of promise."

"You didn't... offend."

Well, so much for that. Now he actually is turning slightly red, simply from the fact that Daneel had obviously noticed his discomfort, somehow. "I'm just not used to people discussing that sort of thing freely." Or rather, not necessarily in the context that Daneel is -- he certainly knows plenty of people who talk about sex incessantly, but normally jokingly.

"Exactly where I misstepped." He's rather contrite, actually. Embarrassment is a form of harm, after all. "I beg your pardon."

Perhaps it's better to simply change the subject and hope for a more comfortable conversation.

"Are there any other questions I might be able to answer for you? To an extent, you do seem curious about me."

"I am intrigued," he admits, "but it seems rude to treat you like some sort of... curiosity."

Maybe it's his own sense of personal space dictating his discomfort with the idea, but he can't imagine being so open to questions as Daneel is. Half of what he's asked Daneel has already been what he'd consider overstepping polite boundaries, and Daneel hadn't seemed to mind.

"I have always been a curiosity," is Daneel's calm reply. "Humaniform robots, such as myself, have never been common, and I was originally a prototype. Even in a society very used to robots, I am something unusual."

More than one person has objected to asking Daneel questions. He has to acknowledge that perhaps, if he were human, he might take offense to some questions, but he isn't and he doesn't.

"You may ask me whatever you wish. I would prefer people here are comfortable with me, and I hope it will be easier for people to be comfortable with me if they know about me."

"I see."

That willingness to answer questions, perhaps more than anything else about Daneel thus far, strikes Meyer as very alien. He's grown up in a world where being too open with one's personal information can be dangerous, and information is never volunteered without a sense of caution.

"Do you think people here are comfortable with you now? In general?"

He is, and obviously Ned is, but he can't speak for the rest of the populace.

He hesitates a moment.

"I believe so. I certainly hope so. I believe that my ability to be aware of the emotional state of minds around me is most troubling to people. I... I admit that I attempted to hide that ability for some time. However, at this point, with a number of people whom I have chosen to share that ability with, along with having this secret revealed against my will, I now judge it better to be honest."

"I can't blame you for attempting to hide it."

And, privately, he thinks that if he were in a similar position, he never would have revealed it at all, unless he'd been forced to. That's the kind of thing that can make people uneasy, and it's also the kind of thing that could be exceptionally beneficial if used in the proper way. He doesn't think Daneel is that kind of person, though, what with his rules about harming humanity -- he'd probably see using those abilities to his own benefit as being harmful.

"There're so many people around here with powers. Abilities. Things that strikes me as... out of the ordinary. It's odd."

"I would certainly have thought many of the abilities I've witnessed here to be impossible," Daneel says, seriously. "On the whole, they are possibly quite useful. As far as my own go..."

He pauses, gives a little sigh. "I am not eager to share it, even now. I have had the ability guessed, and I've been revealed against my will, but on the whole my experience is that people are frightened less when I volunteer it to them. Ned himself learned it in this way, and was deeply uncomfortably initially. He is... more comfortable, now."

Shared secrets, perhaps, make things easier.

"Everyone has secrets, I suppose. Some more uncomfortable than others. I doubt anyone would fault you for being less than eager to share your secrets."

His are of the uncomfortable type, though they don't apply to abilities or powers. Still, while he can completely understand that people may be more comfortable with honesty, he can't fathom being honest about half of the things he's experienced or done. He imagines most of the people in town have their own deep, dark secrets, even if they are open about their powers.

"Perhaps. I merely don't wish to raise suspicions if it's discovered that that I have been hiding something like this."

That isn't to say he doesn't have secrets, ones that he won't touch upon at all unless forced to. Ned found it out. It was hard enough for Ned to learn that. There are things that he and Giskard have done -- even if he knows, believes it's for the best, it meant creating a planet-scaled disaster. It's hard for that to be seen as an entirely benevolent act.

"I am beginning to believe that secrets are a universal part of being human, or being a person at all for that matter."

"I'm of the opinion that they are. Any person who claims to be one hundred percent honest is undoubtedly lying."

It's not cynicism, exactly, but it has been his experience. He's never met someone who claimed to have no secrets that wasn't attempting to be manipulative, or attempting to cover up something enormous. His own tactic, he thinks, works well enough: he gives people enough information that they feel he's polite and genuine, if slightly reserved, but never gives anyone anything that they could use against him. Except for Ned, of course. Ned knows things he shouldn't. In another place, in another time, he'd consider Ned a threat. Here, he's beginning to consider him a friend.

"Perhaps this is so."

Meyer is... interesting. He likes him, on the whole -- though it would be difficult for him to say anything negative about any human being. Still, he understands Meyer in what is a rather pleasant way. Human in a way that is very, very different from Daneel, but... logical in a nearly robotic sense.

It's a shade of being human that makes it a little easier to accept himself as a person.

"I find it difficult to believe humans are lying to me, unless I am near enough to sense their emotional state. Intellectually, I know that they do, but unless I know for certain that what they say is false, I have never been able to accuse them."

"That's probably just as well. Most people don't take too kindly to being accused of lying, even if they are. Better to keep your suspicions quiet, unless you have evidence that they're not telling the truth."

He very rarely assumes that what anyone says is honest, but that doesn't mean he goes around accusing people of lying, either. It's too dangerous -- people have a vested interest in appearing to be decent human beings, and apparently, that involves an interest in appearing truthful. The average person gets angry when challenged, he finds.

Daneel, he thinks, is interesting in that he's simultaneously so relatable in his logic and his precision, and yet, so different in so many ways. Maybe it's the divide between human and robot, or maybe it's simply that, although they obviously both place value on logic and reasoning, their personalities have inherent differences -- starting with Daneel's apparent desire to protect humanity.

He considers this advice. This is perhaps true.

"It offends people to be accused of falsehood, even when they are in fact, lying." He frowns, slightly. "I have observed this in the past, though it does not strike me as logical."

It's one of those aspects of human behaviour he recognises and knows without understanding.

"It's not logical," he says, with a little smile. How much of human behavior is, really?

"If I had to guess, I'd say it offends some people because getting caught in a lie can make people feel guilty for lying in the first place. Feeling guilty makes people defensive. People get self-righteous, because then they have to question whether they've done something wrong, and they'd rather not think about it."

That's part of it. There are other aspects, too, he thinks. The simple fact that being caught in a lie can have deadly results, for example.

Daneel thinks about this, runs over the emotional reactions in his mind, thinks about what he's witnessed in the past.

"This sounds correct. I believe this matches with my past observations. You have an advantage over me in this: you understand better than I do the why of an emotional reaction. I hope to learn this in time, but it is still a relatively new thing for me, and there are seemingly an endless number of emotional combinations."

"It's all observational. You watch people enough, you pick up certain things. Especially around here, where emotions tend to run high."

That is, perhaps, telling about his own personality; he's rather strongly implying that he understands emotional reactions from witnessing them in other people and putting the pieces together in his head, not from having his own emotional reactions. Maybe that's true. Maybe it's just another bluff, another layer of his well-practiced poker face -- after all, it's obvious that he does have emotions.

"Then I need to observe more. I am relatively new to the ability to be aware of other minds, and for much of my twenty decades of existence I have had limited opportunity to observe more than a handful of people. In this respect, being here has been very instructive."

It's... one good thing, though surely not something he wouldn't have been able to learn elsewhere, eventually.

"Being here has been instructive to all of us, I think."

In different ways, of course. To him, it's introduced the idea that people can be capable of having powers and abilities he thought unimaginable, impossible. For someone like Daneel, perhaps the instruction comes in the form of being able to observe people up close and personal, and learn about their motivations. Their lessons may not be comfortable, exactly, but they can be seen as a benefit.

He looks down at his stack of firewood guiltily. He really should have collected more, but he'd been caught up in the conversation, and completely neglected it. "I didn't mean to keep you so long," he says apologetically.

"There is no need to apologise," Daneel says by way of reassurance. "I've found our conversation to be both educational and enlightening."

He offers one of his small, too-serious smiles as he bends to pick up his load of firewood again.

"If there is ever anything I can do for you, please don't hesitate to ask."

"So have I."

And educational and enlightening remains his favorite kind of conversation -- it's that unceasing desire to learn everything he possibly can that drives him, and he's pleased that he's learned so much just from speaking with Daneel for a brief time.

He picks up his own firewood, and gives Daneel a nod. "Thank you. I'll keep that in mind."

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