Now alone with the robots, Mandamus claims that his intentions were to draw out the radioactive catastrophe over many decades, rather than the mere years that Amadiro wanted, and Giskard, believing it best for humanity to abandon the Earth, allows Mandamus to do this (resulting in the situation depicted by "Pebble in the Sky"), and deprives Mandamus of the memory of doing so. Giskard predicts, correctly, that by forcing humanity into leaving the Earth, vigor will be reintroduced into mankind and the new Settlers will populate space until all the governments of the interstellar colonies form a "Galactic Empire". Under the stress of changing the course of humanity (against First and Zeroth Laws), R. Giskard himself suffers a soon-fatal malfunction of his positronic brain and confers his telepathic ability upon R. Daneel.