8. THE SETTLER WORLD
PART III. BALEYWORLD
8. THE SETTLER WORLD
34
D.G.'s ship was in space again, surrounded by the everlasting changelessness of the endless vacuum.
It had not come too soon for Gladia, who had but imperfectly suppressed the tension that arose from the possibility that a second overseer - with a second intensifier - might arrive without warning. The fact that it would be a quick death if it happened, an unexperienced death, was not quite satisfying. The tension had spoiled what would have otherwise been a luxuriant shower, along with various other forms of renewal of comfort.
It was not till after actual takeoff, after the coming of the soft, distant buzz of the protonic jets, that she could compose herself to sleep. Odd, she thought as consciousness began to slip away, that space should feel safer than the world of her youth, that she should leave Solaria with even greater relief the second time than she had the first.
But Solaria was no longer the world of her youth. It was a world without humanity, guarded over by distorted parodies of humanity; humanoid robots that made a mockery of the gentle Daneel and the thought-filled Giskard.
She slept at last - and while she slept, Daneel and Giskard, standing guard, could once more speak to each other.
Daneel said, "Friend Giskard, I am quite certain that it was you who destroyed the overseer."
"Mere was clearly no choice, friend Daneel. It was purely an accident that I arrived in time, for my senses were entirely occupied with searching out human beings and I found none. Nor would I have grasped the significance of events if it were not for Lady Gladia's rage and despair. It was that which I sensed at a distance and which caused me to race to the scene - barely in time. In that respect, Lady Gladia did save the situation, at least as far as the captain's existence and yours were concerned. I would still have saved the ship, I believe, even if I had arrived too late to save you." He paused a moment and added, "I would have found it most unsatisfactory, friend Daneel, to arrive too late to save you."
Daneel said, with a grave and formal tone of voice, "I thank you, friend Giskard. I am pleased that you were not inhibited by the human appearance of the overseer. That had slowed my reactions, as my appearance had slowed hers."
"Friend Daneel, her physical appearance meant nothing to me because I was aware of the pattern of her thoughts. That pattern was so limited and so entirely different from the full range of human patterns that there was no need for me to make any effort to identify her in a positive manner. The negative identification as nonhuman was so clear I acted at once. I was not aware of my action, in fact, until after it had taken place."
"I had thought this, friend Giskard, but I wished confirmation lest I misunderstand. May I assume, then, that you feel no discomfort over having killed what was, in appearance, a human being?"
"None, since it was a robot."
"It seems to me that, had I succeeded in destroying her, I would have suffered some obstruction to the free positronic flow, no matter how thoroughly I understood her to be a robot."
"The humanoid appearance, friend Daneel, cannot be fought off when that is all one can directly judge by. Seeing is so much more immediate than deducing. It was only because I could observe her mental structure and concentrate on that, that I could ignore her physical structure."
"How do you suppose the overseer would have felt if she had destroyed us, judging from her mental structure?"
"She was given exceedingly firm instructions and there was no doubt in her circuits that you, and the captain were nonhuman by her definition."
"But she might have destroyed Madam Gladia as well."
"Of that we cannot be certain, friend Daneel."
"Had she done so, friend Giskard, would she have survived? Have you any way of telling?"
Giskard was silent for a considerable period. "I had insufficient time to study the mental pattern. I cannot say what her reaction might have been had she killed Madam Gladia."
"If I imagine myself in, the place of the overseer" - Daneel's voice trembled and grew slightly lower in pitch, "it seems to me that I might kill a human being in order to save the life of another human being, whom, there might be some reason to think, it was more necessary to save. The action would, however, be difficult and damaging. To kill a human being merely in order to destroy something I considered nonhuman would be inconceivable."
"She merely threatened. She did not carry through the threat."
"Might she have, friend Giskard?"
"How can we say, since we don't know the nature of her instructions?"
"Could the instructions have so completely negated the First Law?"
Giskard said, "Your whole purpose in this discussion, I see, has been to raise this question. I advise you to go no further."
Daneel said stubbornly, "I will put it in the conditional, friend Giskard. Surely what may not be expressed as fact can be advanced as fantasy. If instructions could be hedged about with definitions and conditions, if the instructions could be made sufficiently detailed in a sufficiently forceful manner, might it be possible to kill a human being for a purpose less overwhelming than the saving of the life of another human being?"
Giskard said tonelessly, "I do not know, but I suspect that this might be possible."
"But, then, if your suspicion should be collect, that would imply that it was possible to neutralize the First Law under specialized conditions. The First Law, in that case, and, therefore, certainly the other Laws might be modified into almost nonexistence. The Laws, even the First Law, might not be an absolute then, but might be whatever those who design robots defined it to be."
Giskard said, "It is enough, friend Daneel. Go no further."
Daneel said, "There is one more step, friend Giskard. Partner Elijah would have taken that additional step."
"He was a human being. He could."
"I must try. If the Laws of Robotics - even the First Law - are not absolutes and if human beings can modify them, might it not be that perhaps, under proper conditions, we ourselves might mod - " He stopped.
Giskard said faintly, "Go no further."
Daneel said, a slight hum obscuring his voice, "I go no further."
There was a silence for a long time. It was with difficulty that the positronic circuitry in each ceased undergoing discords.
Finally, Daneel said, "Another thought arises. The overseer was dangerous not only because of the set of her instructions but because of her appearance. It inhibited me and probably the captain and could mislead and deceive human beings generally, as I deceived, without meaning to, First Class Shipper Niss. He clearly was not aware, at first, that I was a robot."
"And what follows from that, friend Daneel?"
"On Aurora, a number of humanoid robots were constructed at the Robotics Institute, under the leadership of Dr. Amadiro, after the designs of Dr. Fastolfe had been obtained."
"This is well known."
"What happened to those humanoid robots?"
"The project failed."
In his turn, Daneel said, "This is well known. But it does not answer the question. What happened to those humanoid robots?"
"One can assume they were destroyed."
"Such an assumption need not necessarily be correct. Were they, in actual fact, destroyed?"
"That would have been the sensible thing to do. What else with a failure?"
"How do we know the humanoid robots were a failure, except in that they were removed from sight?"
"Isn't that sufficient, if they were removed from sight and destroyed?"
"I did not say 'and destroyed,' friend Giskard. That is more than we know. We know only that they were removed from sight."
"Why should that be so, unless they were failures?"
"And if they were not failures, might there be no reason for their being removed from sight?"
"I can think of none, friend Daneel."
"Think again, friend Giskard. Remember, we are talking now of humanoid robots who, we now think, might from the mere fact of their humanoid nature be dangerous. It has seemed to us in our previous discussion that there was a plan on foot on Aurora to defeat the Settlers drastically, surely, and at a blow. We decided that these plans must be centered on the planet Earth. Am I correct so far?"
"Yes, friend Daneel."
"Then might it not be that Dr. Amadiro is at the focus and center of this plan? His antipathy to Earth has been made plain these twenty decades. And if Dr. Amadiro has constructed a number of humanoid robots, where might these have been sent if they have disappeared from view? Remember that if Solarian roboticists can distort the Three Laws, Auroran roboticists can do the same."
"Are you suggesting, friend Daneel, that the humanoid robots have been sent to Earth?"
"Exactly. There to deceive the Earthpeople through their human appearance and to make possible whatever it is that Dr. Amadiro intends as his blow against Earth."
"You have no evidence for this."
"Yet it is possible. Consider for yourself the steps of the argument."
"If that were so, we would have to go to Earth. We would have to be there and somehow prevent the disaster."
"Yes, that is so."
"But we cannot go unless Lady Gladia goes and that is not likely."
"If you can influence the captain to take this ship to Earth, Madam Gladia would have no choice but to go as well."
Giskard said, "I cannot without harming him. He is firmly set on going to his own planet of Baleyworld. We must maneuver his trip to Earth - if we can - after he has done whatever he plans in Baleyworld."
"Afterward may be too late."
"I cannot help that. I must not harm a human being."
"If it is too late - Friend Giskard, consider what that would mean."
"I cannot consider what that would mean. I know only that I cannot harm a human being."
"Then the First Law is not enough and we must - " He could go no farther and both robots lapsed into helpless silence.
35
Baleyworld came slowly into sharper view as the ship approached it. Gladia watched it intently in her cabin's viewer; it was the first time she had ever seen a Settler world.
She had protested this leg of the journey when she had first been made aware of it by D.G., but he shrugged it off with a small laugh. "What would you have, my lady? I must lug this weapon of your people" - he emphasized "your" slightly - "to my people. And I must report to them, too."
Gladia said, coldly, "Your permission to take me along to Solaria was granted you by the Auroran Council on the condition that you bring me back."
"Actually that is not so, my lady. There may have been some informal understanding to that effect, but there is nothing in writing. No formal agreement."
"An informal understanding would bind me - or any civilized individual, D.G."
"I'm sure of that, Madam Gladia, but we Traders live by money and by written signatures on legal documents. I would never, under any circumstances, violate a written contract or refuse to do that for which I have accepted payment."
Gladia's chin turned upward. "Is that a hint that I must pay you in order to be taken home?"
"Madam!"
"Come, come, D.G. Don't waste mock indignation on me. If I am to be kept prisoner on your planet, say so and tell me why. Let me know exactly where I stand."
"You are not my prisoner and will not be. In fact, I will honor this unwritten understanding. I will take you home - eventually. First, however, I must go to Baleyworld and you must come with me."
"Why must I come with you?"
"The people of my world will want to see you. You are the heroine of Solaria. You saved us. You can't deprive them of a chance of shouting themselves hoarse for you. Besides, you were the good friend of the Ancestor."
"What do they know - or think they know - of that?" Gladia said sharply.
D.G. grinned. "Nothing to your discredit - I assure you. You are a legend and legends are larger than life - though I admit it would be easy for a legend to be larger than you, my lady - and a good deal nobler. Ordinarily, I wouldn't want you on the world because you couldn't live up to the legend. You're not tall enough, beautiful enough, majestic enough. But when the story of Solaria comes out, you will suddenly meet all requirements. In fact, they may not want to let you go. You must remember we are talking of Baleyworld, the planet on which the story of the Ancestor is taken more seriously than on any other - and you are part of the story."
"You are not to use that as an excuse to keep me in prison."
"I promise you I won't. And I promise I will get you home - when I can - when I can."
Gladia did not remain as indignant somehow as she felt she had every right to be. She did want to see what a Settler world was like and, after all, this was Elijah Baley's peculiar world. His son had founded it. He himself had spent his last decades here. On Baleyworld, there would be remnants of him - the name of the planet, his descendants, his legend.
So she watched the planet - and thought of Elijah.
36
The watching brought her little and she felt disappointed. There was not much to be seen through the cloud layer that covered the planet. From her relatively small experience as a space traveler it seemed to her that the cloud layer was denser than usual for inhabited planets. They would be landing within hours, now, and -
The signal light flashed and Gladia scrambled to push the HOLD button in answer. A few moments more and she pushed the ENTER button.
D.G. came in, smiling. "Inconvenient moment, my lady?"
"Not really," said Gladia. "Simply a matter of putting on my gloves and inserting my nose plugs. I suppose I should wear them all the time, but both grow tiresome and, for some reason, I grow less concerned about infection."
"Familiarity breeds contempt, my lady."
"Let's not call it contempt," said Gladia, who found herself smiling.
"Thank you," said D.G. "We'll be landing soon, madam, and I have brought you a coverall, carefully sterilized and placed inside this plastic bag so that it has since been untouched by Settler hands. It's simple to put on. You'll have no trouble and you'll find it covers everything but the nose and eyes."
"Just for me, D.G.?"
"No, no, my lady. We all wear such things when outdoors at this season of the year. It is winter in our capital city at the present time and it is cold. We live on a rather cold world - heavy cloud cover, much precipitation, often snow."
"Even in the tropical regions?"
"No, there it tends to be hot and dry. The population clusters in the cooler regions, however. We rather like it. It's bracing and stimulating. The seas, which were seeded with Earth species of life, are fertile, so that fish and other creatures have multiplied abundantly. There's no food shortage, consequently, even though land agriculture is limited and we'll never be the breadbasket of the Galaxy. - The summers are short but quite hot and the beaches are then well populated, although you might find them uninteresting since we have a strong nudity taboo."
"It seems like peculiar weather."
"A matter of land-sea distribution, a planetary orbit that is a bit more eccentric than most, and a few other things. Frankly, I don't bother with it." He shrugged. "It's not my field of interest."
"You're a Trader. I imagine you're not on the planet often."
"True, but I'm not a Trader in order to escape. I like it here. And yet perhaps I would like it less if I were here more. If we look at it that way, Baleyworld's harsh conditions serve an important purpose. They encourage trading. Baleyworld produces men who scour the seas for food and there's a certain similarity between sailing the seas and sailing through space. I would say fully a third of all the Traders plying the space lanes are Baleypeople."
"You seem in a semimanic state, D.G.," said Gladia.
"Do I? I think of myself right now as being in a good humor. I have reason to be. So have you."
"Oh?"
"It's obvious, isn't it? We got off Solaria alive. We know exactly what the Solarian danger is. We've gained control of an unusual weapon that should interest our military. And you will be the heroine of Baleyworld. The world officials already know the outline of events and are eager to greet you. For that matter, you're the heroine of this ship. Almost every man on board volunteered to bring you this coverall. They are all anxious to get close and bathe in your aura, so to speak."
"Quite a change," said Gladia dryly.
"Absolutely. Niss - the crewman whom your Daneel chastised - "
"I remember well, D.G."
"He is anxious to apologize to you. And bring his four mates so that they, too, might apologize. And to kick, in you presence, the one of them who made an improper suggestion. He is not a bad person, my lady."
"I am certain he isn't. Assure him, he is forgiven and the incident forgotten. And if you'll arrange matters, I will shake hands with him and perhaps some of the others before debarking. But you mustn't let them crowd about me."
"I understand, but I can't guarantee there won't be a certain amount of crowding in Baleytown - that's the capital city of Baleyworld. There's no way of stopping various government officials from trying to gain political advantage by being seen with you, while grinning away and bowing."
"Jehoshaphat! As your Ancestor would say."
"Don't say that once we land, madam. It's an expression reserved for him. It is considered bad taste for anyone else to say it. - There'll be speeches and cheering and all kinds of meaningless formalities. I'm sorry, my lady."
She said thoughtfully, "I could do without it, but I suppose there's no way of stopping it."
"No way, my lady."
"How long will it continue?"
"Till they get tired. Several days, perhaps, but there'll be a certain variety to it."
"And how long do we stay on the planet?"
"Till I get tired. I'm sorry, my lady, but I have much to do - places to go - friends to see - "
"Women to make love to."
"Alas for human frailty," said D.G., grinning broadly.
"You're doing everything but slobber."
"A weakness. I can't bring myself to slobber."
Gladia smiled. "You're not totally committed to sanity, are you?"
"I never claimed to be. But, leaving that aside, I also have to consider such dull matters as the fact that my officers and crew would want to see their families and friends, catch up on their sleep, and have a little planetside fun. - And if you want to consider the feelings of inanimate objects, the ship will have to be repaired, refurbished, refreshed, and refueled. Little things like that."
"How long will all those little things take?"
"It could be months. Who knows?"
"And what do I do meanwhile?"
"You could see our world, broaden your horizons."
"But your world is not exactly the playground of the Galaxy."
"Too true, but we'll try to keep you interested." He looked at his watch. "One more warning, madam. Do not refer to your age."
"What cause would I have to do that?"
"It might show up in some casual reference. You'll be expected to say a few words and you might say, for instance, In all my more than twenty-three decades of life, I have never been so glad to see anyone as I am to see, the people of Baleyworld. If you're tempted to say anything like that initial clause, resist it."
"I will. I have no intention of indulging in hyperbole in any case. - But, as a matter of idle curiosity, why not?"
"Simply because it is better for them not to know your age - "
"But they do know my age, don't they? They know I was your Ancestor's friend and they know how long ago he lived. Or are they under the impression" - she looked at him narrowly - "that I'm a distant descendant of the Gladia?"
"No, no, they know who you are and how old you are, but they know it only with their heads" - he tapped his forehead - "and few people have working heads, as you may have noticed."
"Yes, I have. Even on Aurora."
"That's good. I wouldn't want the Settlers to be special in this respect. Well, then, you have the appearance of" - he paused judiciously - "Forty, maybe forty-five, and they'll accept you as that in their guts, which is where the average person's real thinking mechanism is located. If you don't rub it in about your real age."
"Does it really make a difference?"
"Does it? Look, the average Settler really doesn't want robots. He has no liking for robots, no desire for robots. There we are satisfied to differ from the Spacers. Long life is different. Forty decades is considerably more than ten.
"Few of us actually reach the forty-decade mark."
"And few of us actually reach the ten-decade mark. We teach the advantage of short life-quality versus quantity, evolutionary speed, ever-changing world - but nothing really makes people happy about living ten decades when they imagine they could live forty, so past a point the propaganda produces a backlash and it's best to keep quiet about it. They don't often see Spacers, as you can imagine, and so they don't have occasion to grind their teeth over the fact that Spacers look young and vigorous even when they are twice as old as the oldest Settler who ever lived. They'll see that in you and if they think about it, it will unsettle them.
Gladia said bitterly, "Would you like to have me make a speech and tell them exactly what forty decades means? Shall I tell them for how many years one outlives the spring time of hope, to say nothing of friends and acquaintances. Shall I tell them of the meaninglessness of children and family; of the endless comings and goings of one husband after another, of the misty blurring of the informal matings between and alongside; of the coming of the time when you've seen all you want to see, and heard all you want to hear, and find it impossible to think a new thought, of how you forget what excitement and discovery are all about, and learn each year how much more intense boredom can become?"
"Baleypeople wouldn't believe that. I don't think I do. Is that the way all Spacers feel or are you making it up?"
"I only know for certain how I myself feel, but I've watched others dim as they aged; I've watched their dispositions sour, and their ambitions narrow, and their indifferences broaden. "
D.G.'s lips pressed together and he looked somber. "Is the suicide rate high among Spacers? I've never heard that it is."
"It's virtually zero."
"But that doesn't fit what you're saying."
"Consider! We're surrounded by robots who are dedicated to keeping us alive. There's no way we can kill ourselves when our sharp-eyed and active robots are forever about us. I doubt that any of us would even think of trying. I wouldn't dream of it myself, if only because I can't bear the thought of what it would mean to all my household robots and, even more so, to Daneel and Giskard."
"They're not really alive, you know. They don't have feelings."
Gladia shook her head. "You say that only because you've never lived with them. - In any case, I think you overestimate the longing for prolonged life among your people. You know my age, you look at my appearance, yet it doesn't bother you."
"Because I'm convinced that the Spacer worlds must dwindle and die, that it is the Settler worlds that are the hope of humanity's future, and that it is our short-lived characteristic that ensures it. Listening to what you've just said, assuming it is all true, makes me the more certain."
"Don't be too sure. You may develop your own insuperable problems - if you haven't already."
"That is undoubtedly possible, my lady, but for now I must leave you. The ship is coasting in for a landing and I must stare intelligently at the computer that controls it or no one will believe that I am the captain."
He left and she remained in gloomy abstraction for a while, her fingers plucking at the plastic that enclosed the coverall.
She had come to a sense of equilibrium on Aurora, a way of allowing life to pass quietly. Meal by meal, day, by day, season by season, it had been passing and the quiet had insulated her, almost, from the tedious waiting for the only adventure that remained, the final one of death.
And now she had been to Solaria - and had awakened the memories of a childhood that had long passed on a world that had long passed, so that the quiet had been shattered perhaps forever - and so that she now lay uncovered and bare to the horror of continuing life.
"What could substitute for the vanished quiet?"
She caught Giskard's dimly glowing eyes upon her and she said, "Help me on with this, Giskard."
37
It was cold. The sky was gray with clouds and the air glittered with a very light snowfall. Patches of powdery snow were swirling in the fresh breeze and off beyond the landing field Gladia could see distant heaps of snow.
There were crowds of people gathered here and there, held off by barriers from approaching too closely. They were all wearing coveralls of different types and colors and they all seemed to balloon outward, turning humanity into a crowd of shapeless objects with eyes. Some were wearing visors that glittered transparently over their faces.
Gladia pressed her mittened hand to her face. Except for her nose, she felt warm enough. The coverall did more than insulate; it seemed to exude warmth of its own.
She looked behind her. Daneel and Giskard were within reach, each in a coverall.
She had protested that at first. "They don't need coveralls. They're not sensitive to cold."
"I'm sure they're not," D.G. had said, "but you say you won't go anywhere without them and we can't very well have Daneel sitting there exposed to the cold. It would seem against nature. Nor do we wish to arouse hostility by making it too clear you have robots."
"They must know I've got robots with me and Giskard's face will give him away - even in a coverall."
"They might know," said D.G., "but the chances are they won't think about it if they're not forced to - so let's not force it.
Now D.G. was motioning her into a ground-car that had a transparent roof and sides. "They'll want to see you as we travel, my lady," he said, smiling.
Gladia seated herself at one side and D.G. followed on the other. "I'm co-hero," he said.
"Do you value that?"
"Oh, yes. It means a bonus for my crew and a possible promotion for me. I don't scorn that."
Daneel and Giskard entered, too, and sat down in seats that faced the two human beings. Daneel faced Gladia; Giskard faced D.G.
There was a ground-car before them, without transparency, and a line of about a dozen behind them. There was the sound of cheering and a forest of arm-waving from the assembled crowd. D.G. smiled and lifted an arm in response and motioned to Gladia to do the same. She waved in a perfunctory manner. It was warm inside the car and her nose had lost its numbness.
She said, "There's a rather unpleasant glitter to these windows. Can that be removed?"
"Undoubtedly, but it won't be," said D.G. "That's as unobtrusive a force field as we can set up. Those are enthusiastic people out there and they've been searched, but someone may have managed to conceal a weapon and we don't want you hurt."
"You mean someone might try to kill me?"
(Daneel's eyes were calmly scanning the crowd to one side of the car; Giskard's scanned the other side.)
"Very unlikely, my lady, but you're a Spacer and Settlers don't like Spacers. A few might hate them with such a surpassing hatred as to see only the Spacerness in you. - But don't worry. Even if someone were to try - which is, as I say, unlikely - they won't succeed."
The line of cars began to move, all together and very smoothly.
Gladia half-rose in astonishment. There was no one in front of the partition that closed them off. "Who's driving?" she asked.
"The cars are thoroughly computerized," said D.G. "I take it that Spacer cars are not?"
"We have robots to drive them."
D.G. continued waving and Gladia followed his lead automatically. "We don't," he said.
"But a computer is essentially the same as a robot."
"A computer is not humanoid and it does not obtrude itself on one's notice. Whatever the technological similarities might be, they are worlds apart psychologically."
Gladia watched the countryside and found it oppressively barren. Even allowing for winter, there was something desolate in the scattering of leafless bushes and in the sparsely distributed trees, whose stunted and dispirited appearance emphasized the death that seemed to grip everything.
D.G., noting her depression and correlating it with her darting glances here and there, said, "It doesn't look like much now, my lady. In the summer, though, it's not bad. There are grassy plains, orchards, grain fields - "
"Forests?"
"Not wilderness forests. We're still a growing world. It's still being molded. We've only had a little over a century and a half, really. The first step was to cultivate home plots for the initial Settlers, using imported seed. Then we placed fish and invertebrates of all kinds in the ocean, doing our best to establish a self-supporting ecology. That is a fairly easy procedure - if the ocean chemistry is suitable. If it isn't, then the planet is not habitable without extensive chemical modification and that has never been tried in actuality, though there are all sorts of plans for such procedures. - Finally, we try to make the land flourish, which is always difficult, always slow."
"Have all the Settler worlds followed that path?"
"Are following. None are really finished. Baleyworld is the oldest and we're not finished. Given another couple of centuries, the Settler worlds will be rich and full of life land as well as sea - though by that time there will by many still-newer worlds that will be working their way through various preliminary stages. I'm sure the Spacer worlds went through the same procedure."
"Many centuries ago - and less strenuously, I think. We had robots to help."
"We'll manage," said D.G. briefly.
"And what about the native life - the plants and animals that evolved on this world before human beings arrived?"
D.G. shrugged. "Insignificant. Small, feeble things. The scientists are, of course, interested, so the indigenous life still exists in special aquaria, botanical gardens, zoos. There are out-of-the-way bodies of water and considerable stretches of land area that have not yet been converted. Some indigenous life still lives out there in the wild."
"But these stretches of wilderness will eventually all be converted."
"We hope so.
"Don't you feel that the planet really belongs to these insignificant, small, feeble things?"
"No. I'm not that sentimental. The planet and the whole Universe belongs to intelligence. The Spacers agree with that. Where is the indigenous life of Solaria? Or of Aurora?"
The line of cars, which had been progressing tortuously from the spaceport, now came to a flat, paved area on which several low, domed buildings were evident.
"Capital Plaza," said D.G. in a low voice. "This is the official heartbeat of the planet. Government offices are located here, the Planetary Congress meets here, the Executive Mansion is found here, and so on."
"I'm sorry, D.G., but this is not very impressive. These are small and uninteresting buildings."
D.G. smiled. "You see only an occasional top, my lady. The buildings themselves are located underground - all interconnected. It's a single complex, really, and is still growing. It's a self-contained city, you know. It, along with the surrounding residential areas, makes up Baleytown."
"Do you plan to have everything underground eventually? The whole city? The whole world?"
"Most of us look forward to an underground world, yes."
"They have underground Cities on Earth, I understand."
"Indeed they do, my lady. The so-called Caves of Steel."
"You imitate that here, then?"
"It's not simple imitation. We add our own ideas and we're coming to a halt, my lady, and any moment we'll be asked to step out. I'd cling to the coverall openings if I were you. The whistling wind on the Plaza in winter is legendary."
Gladia did so, fumbling rather as she tried to put the edges of the openings together. "It's not simple imitation, you say."
"No. We design our underground with the weather in mind. Since our weather is, on the whole, harsher than Earth's, some modification in architecture is required. Properly built, almost no energy is required to keep the complex warm in winter and cool in summer. In a way, indeed, we keep warm in winter, in part, with the stored warmth of the previous summer and cool in summer with the coolness of the previous winter."
"What about ventilation?"
"That uses up some of the savings, but not all. It works, my lady, and someday we will match Earth's structures. That, of course, is the ultimate ambition - to make Baleyworld a reflection of Earth."
"I never knew that Earth was so admirable as to make imitation desirable," said Gladia lightly.
D.G. turned his eyes on her sharply. "Make no jokes of that sort, my lady, while you are with Settlers - not even with me. Earth is no joking matter."
Gladia said, "I'm sorry, D.G. I meant no disrespect."
"You didn't know. But now you know. Come, let's get out."
The side door of the car slid open noiselessly and D.G. turned in his seat and stepped out. He then held out one hand to help Gladia and said, "You'll be addressing the Planetary Congress, you know, and every government official who can squeeze in will do so."
Gladia, who had stretched out her hand to seize D.G.'s and who already felt - painfully - the cold wind on her face, shrank back suddenly. "I must make an address? I hadn't been told that."
D.G. looked surprised. "I rather thought you would take something of the sort for granted."
"Well, I didn't. And I can't make an address. I've never done such a thing."
"You must. It's nothing terrible. It's just a matter of saying a few words after some long and boring speeches of welcome."
"But what can I possibly say?"
"Nothing fancy, I assure you. Just peace and love and blah - Give them half a minute's worth. I'll scrawl out something for you if you wish."
And Gladia stepped out of the car and her robots followed her. Her mind was in a whirl.
***