Robots and Empire (Robot 4)

10. AFTER THE SPEECH

42

Memory!

It lay in Daneel's mind like a closed book of infinite detail, always available for his use. Some passages were called upon frequently for their information, but only a very few were called upon merely because Daneel wished to feel their texture. Those very few were, for the most part, those that contained Elijah Baley.

Many decades ago, Daneel had come to Baleyworld while Elijah Baley was still alive. Madam Gladia had come with him, but after they entered into orbit about Baleyworld, Bentley Baley soared upward in his small ship to meet them and was brought aboard. By then, he was a rather gnarled man of middle age.

He looked at Gladia with faintly hostile eyes and said, "You cannot see him, madam."

And Gladia, who had been weeping, said, "Why not?"

"He does not wish it, madam, and I must respect his wishes."

"I cannot believe that, Mr. Baley."

"I have a handwritten note and I have a voice recording, madam. I do not know if you can recognize his handwriting or his voice, but you have my word of honor these are his and that no untoward influence was used upon him to produce - "

She went into her own cabin to read and listen alone. Then she emerged - with an air of defeat about her - but she managed to say firmly, "Daneel, you are to go down alone to see him. It is his wish. But you are to report to me everything that is done and said."

"Yes, madam," Daneel said.

Daneel went down, in Bentley's ship and Bentley said to him, "Robots are not allowed on this world, Daneel, but an exception is being made in your case because it is my father's wish and because he is highly revered here. I have no personal animus against you, you understand, but your presence here must be an entirely limited one. You will be taken directly to my father. When he is done with you, you will be taken back into orbit at once. Do you understand?"

"I understand, sir. How is your father?"

"He is dying," Bentley said with perhaps conscious brutality.

"I understand that, too," said Daneel, his voice quivering noticeably, not out of ordinary emotion but because the consciousness of the death of a human being, however unavoidable, disordered his positronic brain paths. "I mean, how much longer before he must die?"

"He should have died some time ago. He is tied to life because he refuses to go, until he sees you."

They landed. It was a large world, but the inhabited portion - if this were all - was small and shabby. It was a cloudy day and it had rained recently. The wide, straight streets were empty, as though what population existed there was in no mood to assemble in order to stare at a robot.

The ground-car took them through the emptiness and brought them to a house somewhat larger and more impressive than most. Together they entered. At an inner door, Bentley halted.

"My father is in there," he said sadly. "You are to go in alone. He will not have me there with you. Go in. You might not recognize him."

Daneel went into the gloom of the room. His eyes adjusted rapidly and he was aware of a body covered by a sheet inside a transparent cocoon that was made visible only by its faint glitter. The light within the room brightened a bit and Daneel could then see the face clearly.

Bentley had been right. Daneel saw nothing of his old partner in it. It was gaunt and bony. The eyes were closed and it seemed to Daneel that what he saw was a dead body. He had never seen a dead human being and when this thought struck him, he staggered and it seemed to him that his legs would not hold him up.

But the old-man's eyes opened and Daneel recovered his equilibrium, though he continued to feel an unaccustomed weakness just the same.

The eyes looked at him and a small, faint smile curved the pale, cracked lips.

"Daneel. My old friend Daneel."

There was the faint timbre of Elijah Baley's remembered voice in that whispered sound. An arm emerged slowly from under the sheet and it seemed to Daneel that he recognized Elijah after all.

"Partner Elijah," he said softly.

"Thank you - thank you for coming."

"It was important for me to come, Partner Elijah."

"I was afraid they might not allow it. They - the others - even my son - think of you as a robot."

"I am a robot."

"Not to me, Daneel. You haven't changed, have you? I don't see you clearly, but it seems to me you are exactly the same as I remember. When did I last see you? Twenty-nine years ago?"

"Yes - and in all that time, Partner Elijah, I have not changed, so you see, I am a robot."

"I have changed, though, and a great deal. I should not have let you see me like this, but I was too weak to resist my desire to see you once again." Baley's voice seemed to have grown a bit stronger, as though it had been fortified by the sight of Daneel.

"I am pleased to see you, Partner Elijah, however you have changed."

"And Lady Gladia? How is she?"

"She is well. She came with me."

"She is not - " A touch of painful alarm came into his voice as he tried to look about.

"She is not on this world, but is still in orbit. It was explained to her that you did not wish to see her - and she understood."

"That is wrong. I do wish to see her, but I have been able to withstand that temptation. She has not changed, has she?"

"She still has the appearance she had when you last saw her.

"Good. - But I couldn't let her see me like this. I could not have this be her last memory of me. With you, it is different."

"That is because I am a robot, Partner Elijah."

"Stop insisting on that, " said the dying man peevishly. "You could not mean more to me, Daneel, if you were a man."

He lay silently in his bed for a while, then he said, "All these years, I have never hypervised, never written to her. I could not allow myself to interfere with her life. - Is Gladia still married to Gremionis?"

"Yes, sir."

"And happy?"

"I cannot judge that. She does not behave in a fashion that might be interpreted as unhappy."

"Children?"

"The permitted two."

"She has not been angry that I have not communicated?"

"It is my belief she understood your motives."

"Does she ever - mention me?"

"Almost never, but it is Giskard's opinion that she often thinks of you."

"How is Giskard?"

"He functions properly - in the manner that you know."

"You know, then - of his abilities."

"He has told me, Partner Elijah."

Again Baley lay there silently. Then he stiffed and said, "Daneel, I wanted you here out of a selfish desire to see you, to see for myself that you haven't changed, that there is a breath of the great days of my life still existing, that you remember me and will continue to remember me. - But I also want to tell you something.

"I will be dead soon, Daneel, and I knew the word would reach you. Even if you weren't here, even if you were on Aurora, the word would come to you. My death will be Galactic news." His chest heaved in a weak and silent laugh. "Who would have thought it once?"

He said, "Gladia would hear of it as well, of course, but Gladia knows I must die and she will accept the fact, how ever sadly. "I feared the effect on you, however, since you are - as you insist and I deny - a robot. For old time's sake you may feel it is incumbent upon you to keep me from dying and the fact that you cannot do so may perhaps have a permanently deleterious effect on you. Let me, then, argue with you about that."

Baley's voice was growing weaker. Though Daneel sat motionless, his face was in the unusual condition of reflecting emotion. It was set in an expression of concern and sorrow. Baley's eyes were closed and he could not see that.

"My death, Daneel," he said, "is not important. No individual death among human beings is important. Someone who dies leaves his work behind and that does not entirely die. It never entirely dies as long as humanity exists. - Do you understand what I'm saying?"

Daneel said, "Yes, Partner Elijah."

"The work of each individual contributes to a totality and so becomes an undying part of the totality. That totality of human lives - past and present and to come - forms a tapestry that has been in existence now for many tens of thousands of years and has been growing more elaborate and, on the whole, more beautiful in all that time. Even the Spacers are an offshoot of the tapestry and they, too, add to the elaborateness and beauty of the pattern. An individual life is one thread in the tapestry and what is one thread compared to the whole?

"Daneel, keep your mind fixed firmly on the tapestry and do not let the trailing off of a single thread affect you. There are so many other threads, each valuable, each contributing - !"

Baley stopped speaking, but Daneel waited patiently.

Baley's eyes opened and, looking at Daneel, he frowned slightly.

"You are still here? It is time for you to go. I have told you what I meant to tell you."

"I do not wish to go, Partner Elijah."

"You must. I cannot hold off death any longer. I am tired - desperately tired. I want to die. It is time."

"May I not wait while you live?"

"I don't wish it. If I die while you watch, it may affect you badly despite all my words. Go now. That is an order. I will allow you to be a robot if you wish but, in that case, you must follow my orders. You cannot save my life by anything you can do, so there is nothing to come ahead of Second Law. Go!"

Baley's finger pointed feebly and he said, "Good-bye, friend Daneel."

Daneel turned slowly, following Baley's orders with unprecedented difficulty "Good-bye, Partner - " He paused and then said, with a faint hoarseness, "Good-bye, friend Elijah."

Bentley confronted Daneel in the next room. "Is he still alive?"

"He was alive when I left."

Bentley went in and came out almost at once. "He isn't now. He saw you and then - let go."

Daneel found he had to lean against the wall. It was some time before he could stand upright.

Bentley, eyes averted, waited and - then together they returned to the small ship and moved back up into orbit where Gladia waited.

And she, too, asked if Elijah Baley was still-alive and when they told her gently that he was not, she turned away, dry-eyed, and went into her own cabin to weep.

43

Daneel continued his thought as though the sharp memory of Baley's death in all its details had not momentarily intervened. "And yet I may understand something more of what Partner Elijah was saying now in the light of Madam Gladia's speech.

"In what way?"

"I am not yet sure. It is very difficult to think in the direction - I am trying to think."

"I will wait for as long as is necessary," said Giskard.

44

Genovus Pandaral was tall and not, as yet, very old for all his thick shock of white hair which, together with his fluffy white sideburns, gave him a look of dignity and distinction. His general air of looking like a leader had helped his advancement through the ranks, but as he himself knew very well, his appearance was much stronger than his inner fiber.

Once he had been elected to the Directory, he had gotten over the initial elation rather rapidly. He was in beyond his depth and, each year, as he was automatically pushed up a notch, he knew that more clearly. Now he was Senior Director.

Of all the times to be Senior Director!

In the old days, the task of ruling had been nothing. In the time of Nephi Morler, eight decades before, the same Morler who was always being held up to the schoolchildren as the greatest of all Directors, it had been nothing. What had Baleyworld been then? A small world, a trickle of farms, a handful of towns clustered along natural lines of communication. The total population had been no more than five million and its most important exports had been raw wood and some titanium.

The Spacers had ignored them completely under the more or less benign influence of Han Fastolfe of Aurora and life was simple. People could always make trips back to Earth - if they wanted a breath of culture or the feel of technology - and there was a steady flow of Earthpeople arriving as immigrants. Earth's mighty population was inexhaustible.

Why shouldn't Morler have been a great Director, then? He had had nothing to do.

And, in the future, ruling would again be simple. As the Spacers continued to degenerate (every schoolchild was told that they would, that they must drown in the contradictions of their society - though Pandaral wondered, sometimes, whether this was really certain) and as the Settlers continued to increase in numbers and strength, the time would soon come when life would be again secure. The Settlers would live in peace and develop their own technology to the utmost.

As Baleyworld filled, it would assume the proportion and ways of another Earth, as would all the worlds, while new ones would spring up here and there in ever greater numbers, finally making up the great Galactic Empire to come. And surely Baleyworld, as the oldest and most populous of the Settler worlds, would always have a prime place in that Empire, under the benign and perpetual rule of Mother Earth.

But it was not in the past that Pandaral was Senior Director. Nor was it in the future. It was now.

Han Fastolfe was dead, now, but Kelden Amadiro was alive. Amadiro had held out against Earth being allowed to send out Settlers twenty decades ago and he was still alive now to make trouble. The Spacers were still too strong to be disregarded; the Settlers were still not quite strong enough to move forward with confidence. Somehow the Settlers had to hold off the Spacers till the balance had shifted sufficiently.

And the task of keeping the Spacers quiet and the Settlers at once resolute and yet sensible fell more upon Pandaral's shoulders than on anyone else's - and it was a task he neither liked nor wanted.

Now it was morning, a cold, gray morning with more snow coming - though that was no surprise - and he made his way through the hotel alone. He wanted no retinue.

The security guards, out in force, snapped to attention as he passed and he acknowledged them wearily. He spoke to the captain of the - guard when the latter advanced to meet him. "Any trouble, Captain?"

"None, Director. All is quiet."

Pandaral nodded. "In which room has Baley been put? - Ah. - And the Spacer woman and her robots are under strict guard? - Good."

He passed on. On the whole, D.G. had behaved well. Solaria, abandoned, could be used by Traders as an almost endless supply of robots and as a source of large profits though profits were not to be taken as the natural equivalent of world security, Pandaral thought morosely. But Solaria, booby-trapped, had best be left alone. It was not worth a war. D.G. had done well to leave at once.

And to take the nuclear intensifier with him. So far, such devices were so overwhelmingly massive that they could be used only in huge and expensive installations designed to destroy invading ships - and even these had never gotten beyond the planning stage. Too expensive. Smaller and cheaper versions were absolutely necessary, so D.G. was right in feeling that bringing home a Solarian intensifier was more important than all the robots on that world put together. That intensifier should help the scientists of Baleyworld enormously.

And yet if one Spacer world had a portable intensifier, why not others? Why not Aurora? If those weapons grew small enough to place on warships, a Spacer fleet could wipe out any number of Settler ships without trouble. How far toward that development were they? And how fast could Baleyworld progress in the same direction with the help of the intensifier D.G. had brought back?

He signaled at D.G.'s hotel room door, then entered without quite waiting for a response and sat down without quite waiting for an invitation. There were some useful perquisites that went along with being Senior Director...

D.G. looked out of the bathroom and said through the towel with which he was giving his hair a first dry, "I would have liked to greet your Directorial Excellence in a properly imposing manner, but you catch me at a disadvantage, since I am in the extremely undignified predicament of having just emerged from my shower."

"Oh, shut up," said Pandaral pettishly.

Ordinarily, he enjoyed D.G.'s irrepressible breeziness, but not now. In some ways, he never really understood D.G. at all. D.G. was a Baley, a lineal descendant of the great Elijah and the Founder, Bentley. That made D.G. a natural for a Director's post, especially since he had the kind of bonhomie that endeared him to the public. Yet he chose to be a Trader, which was a difficult life - and a dangerous one. It might make you rich, but it was much more likely to kill you or - what was worse - prematurely age you.

What's more, D.G.'s life as a Trader took him away from Baleyworld for months at a time and Pandaral preferred his advice to those of most of his department heads. One couldn't always tell when D.G. was serious, but, allowing for that, he was worth listening to.

Pandaral said heavily, "I don't think that that woman's speech was the best thing that could have happened to us."

D.G., mostly dressed, shrugged his shoulders, "Who could have foretold it?"

"You might have. You must have looked up her background - if you had made up your mind to carry her off."

"I did look up her background, Director. She spent over three decades on Solaria. It was Solaria that formed her and she lived there entirely with robots. She saw human beings only by holographic images, except for her husband and he didn't visit her often. She had a difficult adjustment to make when she came to Aurora and even there she lived mostly with robots. At no time in twenty-three decades would she have faced as many as twenty people all together, let alone four thousand. I assumed she wouldn't be able to speak more than a few words - if that. I had no way of knowing she was a rabble-rouser."

"You might have stopped her, once you found out she was. You were sitting right next to her."

"Did you want a riot? The people were enjoying her. You were there. You know they were. If I had forced her down, they would have mobbed the stage. After all, Director, you didn't try to stop her."

Pandaral cleared his throat. "I had that in mind, actually, but each time I looked back, I'd catch the eye of her robot the one who looks like a robot."

"Giskard. Yes, but what of it? He wouldn't harm you."

"I know. Still, he made me nervous and it put me off somehow."

"Well, never mind, Director," said D.G. He was fully clothed now and he shoved the breakfast tray toward the other. "The coffee is still warm. Help yourself to the buns and jams if you want any. - It will pass. I don't think the public will really overflow with love for the Spacers and spoil our policy. It might even serve a purpose. If the Spacers hear of it, it might strengthen the Fastolfe party. Fastolfe may be dead, but his party isn't - not altogether - and we need to encourage their policy of moderation."

"What I'm thinking of," said Pandaral, "is the All-Settler Congress that's coming up in five months. I'm going to have to listen to any number of sarcastic references to Baleyworld appeasement and to Baleyworlders being Spacer lovers. I tell you," he added gloomily, "the smaller the world, the more war hawkish it is."

"Then tell them that," said D.G. "Be very statesmanlike in public, but when you get them to one side, look them right in the eye - unofficially - and say that there's freedom of expression on Baleyworld and we intend to keep it that way. Tell them Baleyworld has the interests of Earth at heart, but that if any world wishes to prove its greater devotion to Earth by declaring war on the Spacers, Baleyworld will watch with interest but nothing more. That would shut them up.

"Oh, no," said Pandaral with alarm. "A remark like that would leak out. It would create an impossible stink."

D.G. said, "You're right, which is a pity. But think it and don't let those big mouthed small brains get to you."

Pandaral sighed. "I suppose we'll manage, but last night upset our plans to end on a high note. That's what I really regret.

"What high note?"

Pandaral said, "When you left Aurora for Solaria, two Auroran warships went to Solaria as well. Did you know that?"

"No, but it was something I expected," said D.G. indifferently. "It was for that reason I took the trouble of going to Solaria by way of an evasive path."

"One of the Auroran ships landed on Solaria, thousands of kilometers away from you - so it didn't seem to be making any effort to keep tabs on you - and the second remained in orbit."

"Sensible. It's what I would have done if I had had a second ship at my disposal."

"The Auroran ship that landed was destroyed in a matter of hours. The ship in orbit reported the fact and was ordered to return. - A Trader monitoring station picked up the report and it was sent to us."

"Was the report uncoded?"

"Of course not, but it was in one of the codes we've broken."

D.G. nodded his head thoughtfully, then said, "Very interesting. I take it they didn't have anyone who could speak Solarian."

"Obviously," said Pandaral weightily. "Unless someone can find where the Solarians went, this woman of yours is the only available Solarian in the Galaxy."

"And they let me have her, didn't they? Tough on the Aurorans."

"At any rate, I was going to announce the destruction of the Auroran ship last night. In a matter-of-fact way - no gloating. Just the same, it would have excited every Settler in the Galaxy. I mean, we got away and the Aurorans didn't."

"We had a Solarian," said D.G. dryly. "The Aurorans didn't."

"Very well. It would make you and the woman look good, too. - But it all came to nothing. After what the woman did, anything else would have come as anticlimax, even the news of the destruction of an Auroran warship."

D.G. said, "To say nothing of the fact that once everyone has finished applauding kinship and love, it would go against the grain - for the next half hour anyway - to applaud the death of a couple of hundred of the Auroran kin."

"I suppose so. So that's an enormous psychological blow that we've lost."

D.G. was frowning. "Forget that, Director. You can always work the propaganda at some other, more appropriate time. The important thing is what it all means. - An Auroran ship was blown up. That means they weren't expecting a nuclear intensifier to be used. The other ship was ordered away and that may mean it wasn't equipped with a defense against it - and maybe they don't even have a defense. I should judge from this that the portable intensifier - or semiportable one, anyway - is a Solarian development specifically and not a Spacer development generally. That's good news for us - if it's true. For the moment, let's not worry about propaganda brownie points but concentrate on squeezing every bit of information we can out of that intensifier. We want to be ahead of the Spacers in this - if possible."

Pandaral munched away at a bun and said, "Maybe you're right. But in that case, how do we fit in the other bit of news?"

D.G. said, "What other bit of news? Director, are you going to give me the information I need to make intelligent conversation or do you intend to toss them into the air one by one and make me jump for them?"

"Don't get huffy, D.G. There's no point in talking with you if I can't be informal. Do you know what it's like at a Directory meeting? Do you want my job? You can have it, you know."

"No, thank you, I don't want it. What I want is your bit of news."

"We have a message from Aurora. An actual message. They actually deigned to communicate directly with us instead of sending it by way of Earth."

"We might consider it an important message, then - to them. What do they want?"

"They want the Solarian woman back again."

"Obviously, then, they know our ship got away from Solaria and has come to Baleyworld. They have their monitoring stations, too, and eavesdrop on our communications as we eavesdrop on theirs."

"Absolutely," said Pandaral with considerable irritation. "They break our codes as fast as we break theirs. My own feeling is we ought to come to an agreement that we both send messages in the clear. Neither of us would be worse off."

"Did they say why they want the woman?"

"Of course not. Spacers don't give reasons; they give orders."

"Have they found out exactly what it was that the woman accomplished on Solaria? Since she's the only person who speaks authentic Solarian, do they want her to clear the planet of its overseers?"

"I don't see how they could have found out, D.G. We only announced her role last night. The message from Aurora was received well before that. - But it doesn't matter why they want her. The question is: What do we do? If we don't return her, we may have a crisis with Aurora that I don't want. If we do return her, it will look bad to the Baleyworlders and Old Man Bistervan will have a field day pointing out that we're crawling to the Spacers."

They stared at each other, then D.G. said slowly, "We'll have to return her. After all, she's a Spacer and an Auroran citizen. We can't keep her against Aurora's will or we'll put at risk every Trader who ventures into Spacer territory on business. But I'll take her back, Director, and you can put the blame on me. Say that the conditions of my taking her to Solaria were that I would return her to Aurora, which is true, actually, even if not a matter of written formality, and that I am a man of ethics and felt I had to keep my agreement. - And it may turn out to our advantage."

"In what way?"

"I'll have to work it out. But if it's to be done, Director, my ship will have to be refitted at planetary expense. And my men will need healthy bonuses. - Come, Director, they're giving up their leave."

45

Considering that he had not intended to be in his ship again for at least three additional months, D.G. seemed in genial spirits.

And considering that Gladia had larger and more luxurious quarters than she had before, she seemed rather depressed.

"Why all this?" she asked.

"Looking a gift horse in the mouth?" asked D.G.

"I'm just asking. Why?"

"For one thing, my lady, you're a class-A heroine and when the ship was refurbished, this place was rather tarted up for you."

"Tarted up?"

"Just an expression. Fancied up, if you prefer."

"This space wasn't just created. Who lost out?"

"Actually, it was the crew's lounge, but they insisted, you know. You're their darling, too. In fact, Niss - you remember Niss?"

"Certainly."

"He wants you to take him on in place of Daneel. He says Daneel doesn't enjoy the job and keeps apologizing to his victims. Niss says he will destroy anyone who gives you the least trouble, will take pleasure in it, and will never apologize."

Gladia smiled. "Tell him I will keep his offer in mind and tell him I would enjoy shaking his hand if that can be arranged. I didn't get a chance to do so before we landed on Baleyworld."

"You'll wear your gloves, I hope, when you shake hands."

"Of course, but I wonder if that's entirely necessary. I haven't as much as sniffed since I left Aurora. The injections I've been getting have probably strengthened my immune system beautifully." She looked about again. "You even have wall niches for Daneel, and Giskard. That's quite thoughtful of you, D.G."

"Madam," said D.G., "we work hard to please and we're delighted that you're pleased."

"Oddly enough" - Gladia sounded as though she were actually puzzled by what she was about to say - "I'm not entirely pleased. I'm not sure I want to leave your world."

"No? Cold - snow - dreary - primitive - endlessly cheering crowds everywhere. What can possibly attract you here?"

Gladia reddened. "It's not the cheering crowds."

"I'll pretend to believe you, madam."

"It's not. It's something altogether different. I - I have never done anything. I've amused myself in various trivial ways, I've engaged in force-field coloring and robot exodesign. I've made love and been a wife and mother and - and - in none of these things have I ever been an individual of any account. If I had suddenly disappeared from existence, or if I had never been born, it wouldn't have affected anyone or anything - except, perhaps, one, or two close personal friends. Now it's different."

"Yes?" There was the faintest touch of mockery in D.G.'s voice.

Gladia said, "Yes! I can influence people. I can choose a cause and make it my own. I have chosen a cause. I want to prevent war. I want the Universe populated by Spacer and Settler alike. I want each group to keep their own peculiarities, yet freely accept the others, too. I want to work so hard at this that after I am gone, history will have changed because of me and people will say things would not be as satisfactory as they are had it not been for her."

She turned to D.G., her face glowing. "Do you know what a difference it makes, after two and one-third centuries of being nobody, to have a chance, of being somebody; to find that a life you thought of as empty turns out to contain something after all, something wonderful; to be happy long, long after you had given up any hope of being happy?"

"You don't have to be on Baleyworld, my lady, to have all that." Somehow D.G. seemed a little abashed.

"I wouldn't have it on Aurora. I'm only a Solarian immigrant on Aurora. On a Settler world, I'm a Spacer, something unusual."

"Yet on a number of occasions - and quite forcefully you have stated you wanted to return to Aurora."

"Some time ago, yes - but I'm not saying it now, D.G. I don't really want it now."

"Which would influence us a great deal, except that Aurora wants you. They've told us so."

Gladia was clearly astonished. "They want me?"

"An official message from Aurora's Chairman of the Council tells us they do," said D.G. lightly. "We would enjoy keeping you, but the Directors have decided that keeping you is not worth an interstellar crisis. I'm not sure I agree with them, but they outrank me."

Gladia frowned. "Why should they want me? I've been on Aurora for over twenty decades and at no time have they ever seemed to want me. - Wait! Do you suppose they see me now as the only way of stopping the overseers on Solaria?"

"That thought had occurred to me, my lady."

"I won't do it. I held off that one overseer by a hair and I may never be able to repeat what I did then. I know I won't. - Besides, why need they land on the planet? They can destroy the overseers from a distance, now that they know what they are."

"Actually," said D.G., "the message demanding your return was sent out long before they could possibly have known of your conflict with the overseer. They must want you for something else."

"Oh - " She looked taken aback. Then, catching fire again, "I don't care what else. I don't want to return. I have my work out here and I mean to continue it."

D.G. rose. "I am glad to hear you say so, Madam Gladia. I was hoping you would feel like that. I promise you I will do my best to take you with me when we leave Aurora. Right now, though, I must go to Aurora and you must go with me.

46

Gladia watched Baleyworld, as it receded, with emotions quite different from those with which she had watched it approach. It was precisely the cold, gray, miserable world now that it had seemed at the start, but there was a warmth and life to the people. They were real, solid.

Solaria, Aurora, the other Spacer worlds that she had visited or had viewed on hypervision, all seemed filled with people who were insubstantial - gaseous.

That was the word. Gaseous.

No matter how few the human beings who lived upon a Spacer world, they spread out to fill the planet in the same way that molecules of gas spread out to fill a container. It was as if Spacers repelled each other.

And they did, she thought gloomily. Spacers had always repelled her. She had been brought up to such repulsion on Solaria, but even on Aurora, when she was experimenting madly with sex just at first, the least enjoyable aspect of it was the closeness it made necessary.

Except - except with Elijah. - But he was not a Spacer.

Baleyworld was not like that. Probably all the Settler worlds were not. Settlers clung together, leaving large tracts desolate about them as the price of the clinging - empty, that is, until population increase filled it. A Settler world was a world of people clusters, of pebbles and boulders, not gas.

Why was this? Robots, perhaps! They lessened the dependence of people upon people. They filled the interstices between. They were the insulation that diminished the natural attraction people had for each other, so that the whole system fell apart into isolates.

It had to be. Nowhere were there more robots than on Solaria and the insulating effect there had been so enormous that the separate gas molecules that were human beings became so totally inert that they almost never interrelated at all. (Where had the Solarians gone, she wondered again, and how were they living?)

And long life had something to do with it, too. How could one make an emotional attachment that wouldn't turn slowly sour as the multidecades passed - or, if one died, how could another bear the loss for multidecades? One learned, then, not to make emotional attachments but to stand off, to insulate one's self.

On the other hand, human beings, if short-lived, could not so easily outlive fascination with life. As the generations passed by rapidly, the ball of fascination bounced from hand to hand without ever touching the ground.

How recently she had told D.G. that there was no more to do or know, that she had experienced and thought everything, that she had to live on in utter boredom. - And she hadn't known or even dreamed, as she spoke, of crowds of people, one upon another; of speaking to many as they melted into a continuous sea of heads; of hearing their response, not in words but in wordless sounds; of melting together with them, feeling their feelings, becoming one large organism.

It was not merely that she had never experienced such a thing before, it was that she had never dreamed anything like that might be experienced. How much more did she know nothing of despite her long life? What more existed for the experiencing that she was incapable of fantasying?

Daneel said gently, "Madam Gladia, I believe the captain is signaling for entrance."

Gladia started. "Let him enter, then."

D.G. entered, eyebrows raised. "I am relieved. I thought perhaps you were not at home."

Gladia smiled. "In a way, I wasn't. I was lost in thought. It happens to me sometimes."

"You are fortunate," said D.G. "My thoughts are never large enough to be lost in. Are you reconciled to visiting Aurora, madam?"

"No, I'm not. And among the thoughts in which I was lost was one to the effect that I still do not have any idea why you must go to Aurora. It can't be only to return me. Any space worthy cargo tug could have done the job."

"May I sit down, madam?"

"Yes, of course. That goes without saying, Captain. I wish you'd stop treating me as aristocracy. It becomes wearing. And if it's an ironic indication that I'm a Spacer, then it's worse than wearing. In fact, I'd almost rather you called me Gladia."

"You seem to be anxious to disown your Spacer identity, Gladia," said D.G. as he seated himself and crossed his legs.

"I would rather forget nonessential distinctions."

"Nonessential? Not while you live five times as long as I do."

"Oddly enough, I have been thinking of that as a rather annoying disadvantage for Spacers. - How long before we reach Aurora?"

"No evasive action this time. A few days to get far enough from our sun to be able to make a Jump through hyperspace that will take us to within a few days of Aurora and that's it."

"And why must you go to Aurora, D.G.?"

"I might say it was simply politeness, but in actual fact, I would like an opportunity to explain to your Chairman - or even to one of his subordinates - exactly what happened on Solaria.

"Don't they know what happened?"

"In essentials, they do. They were kind enough to tap our communications, as we would have done theirs if the situation had been reversed. Still, they may not have drawn the proper conclusions. I would like to correct them - if that is so."

"What are the proper conclusions, D.G.?"

"As you know, the overseers on Solaria were geared to respond to a person as human only if he or she spoke with a Solarian accent, As you did. That means that not only were Settlers not considered human, but non-Solarian Spacers were not considered human, either. To be precise, Aurorans would not be considered human beings if they had landed on Solaria.

Gladia's eyes widened. "That's unbelievable. The Solarians wouldn't arrange to have the overseers treat Aurorans as they treated you."

"Wouldn't they? They have already destroyed an Auroran ship. Did you know that?"

"An Auroran ship! No, I didn't know that."

"I assure you they did. It landed about the time we did. We got away, but they didn't. We had you, you see, and they didn't. The conclusion is - or should be - that Aurora cannot automatically treat other Spacer worlds as - allies. In an emergency, it will be each Spacer world for itself."

Gladia shook her head violently. "It would be unsafe to generalize from a single instance. The Solarians would have found it difficult to have the overseers react favorably to fifty accents and unfavorably to scores of others, it was easier to pin them to a single accent. That's all. They gambled that no other Spacers would try to land on their world and they lost."

"Yes, I'm sure that is how the Auroran leadership will argue, since people generally find it much easier to make a pleasant deduction than an unpleasant one. What I want to do is to make certain they see the possibility of the unpleasant one - and that this makes them uncomfortable indeed. Forgive my self-love, but I can't trust anyone to do it as well as I can and therefore I think that I, rather than anyone else, should go to Aurora."

Gladia felt uncomfortably torn. She did not want to be a Spacer; she wanted to be a human being and forget what she had just called "nonessential distinctions." And yet when D.G. spoke with obvious satisfaction of forcing Aurora into a humiliating position, she found herself still somehow a Spacer.

She said in annoyance, "I presume the Settler worlds are at odds among themselves, too. Is it not each Settler world for itself?"

D.G. shook his head. "It may seem to you that this must be so and I wouldn't be surprised if each individual Settler world had the impulse at times to put its own interest over the good of the whole, but we have something you Spacers lack."

"And what is that. A greater nobility?"

"Of course not. We're no more noble than Spacers are. What we've got is the Earth. It's our world. Every Settler visits Earth as often as he can. Every Settler knows that there is a world, a large, advanced world, with an incredibly rich history and cultural variety and ecological complexity that is his or hers and to which he or she belongs. The Settler worlds might quarrel with each other, but the quarrel cannot possibly result in violence or in a permanent breach of relations, for the Earth government is automatically called in to mediate all problems and its decision is sufficient and unquestioned.

"Those are our three advantages, Gladia: the lack of robots, something that allows us to build new worlds with our own hands; the rapid succession of generations, which makes for constant change; and, most of all, the Earth, which gives us our central core."

Gladia said urgently, "But the Spacers - " and she stopped.

D.G. smiled and said with an edge of bitterness, "Were you going to say that the Spacers are also descended from Earthpeople and that it is their planet, too? Factually true, but psychologically false. The Spacers have done their best to deny their heritage. They don't consider themselves Earthmen once-removed - or any-number-removed. If I were a mystic, I would say that by cutting themselves away from their roots, the Spacers cannot survive long. Of course, I'm not a mystic so I don't put it that way - but they cannot survive long, just the same. I believe that."

Then, after a short pause, he added, with a somewhat troubled - kindness, as though he realized that in his exultation he was striking a sensitive spot within her, "But please think of yourself as a human being, Gladia, rather than as a Spacer, and I will think of myself as a human being, rather than as a Settler. Humanity will survive, whether it will be in the form of Settlers or Spacers or both. I believe it will be in the form of Settlers only, but I may be wrong."

"No," said Gladia, trying to be unemotional. "I think you're right - unless somehow people learn to stop making the Spacer/Settler distinction. It is my goal - to help people do that."

"However," said D.G., glancing at the dim time strip that circled the wall, "I delay your dinner. May I eat with you?"

"Certainly," said Gladia.

D.G. rose to his feet. "Then I'll go get it. I'd send Daneel or Giskard, but I don't ever want to get into the habit of ordering robots about. Besides, however much the crew adores you, I don't think their adoration extends to your robots."

Gladia did not actually enjoy the meal when D.G. brought it. She did not seem to grow accustomed to the lack of subtlety in its flavors that might be the heritage of Earth cooking of yeast for mass consumption, but then, neither was it particularly repulsive. She ate stolidly.

D.G., noting her lack of enthusiasm, said, "The food doesn't upset you, I hope?"

She shook her head. "No. Apparently, I'm acclimated. I had some unpleasant episodes when I first got on the ship, but nothing really severe."

"I'm glad of that, but, Gladia - "

"Yes?"

"Can you suggest no reason why the Auroran government should want you back so urgently? It can't be your handling of the overseer and it can't be your speech. The request was sent out well before they could have known of either."

"In that case, D.G.," Gladia said sadly, "they can't possibly want me for anything. They never have."

"But there must be something. As I told you, the message arrived in the name of the Chairman of the Council of Aurora."

"This particular Chairman at this particular time is thought to be rather a figurehead."

"Oh? Who stands behind him? Kelden Amadiro?"

"Exactly. You know of him, then."

"Oh, yes," said D.G. grimly, "the center of anti-Earth fanaticism. The man who was politically smashed by Dr. Fastolfe twenty decades ago survives to threaten us again. There's an example of the dead hand of longevity."

"But there's the puzzle, too." Gladia said. "Amadiro is a vengeful man. He knows that it was Elijah Baley who was the cause of that defeat you speak of and Amadiro believes I shared responsibility. His dislike - extreme dislike - extends to me. If the Chairman wants me, that can only be because Amadiro wants me - and why should Amadiro want me? He would rather get rid of me. That's probably why he sent me along with you to Solaria. Surely he expected your ship would be destroyed - and me along with it. And that would not have pained him at all."

"No uncontrollable tears, eh?" said D.G. thoughtfully.

"But surely that's not what you were told. No one said to you, 'Go with this mad Trader because it would give us pleasure to have you killed.'"

"No. They said that you wanted my help badly and that it was politic to cooperate with the Settler worlds at the moment and that it would do Aurora a great deal of good if I would report back to them on all that occurred on Solaria once I returned."

"Yes, they would say so. They might even have meant it to some extent. Then, when - against all their expectations - our ship got off safely while an Auroran ship was destroyed, they might well have wanted a firsthand account of what happened. Therefore, when I took you to Baleyworld instead of back to Aurora, they would scream for your return. That might possibly be it. By now, of course, they know the story, so they might no longer want you though" - he was talking to himself rather than to Gladia - "what they know is what they picked up from Baleyworld hypervision and they may not choose to accept that at face value. And yet - "

"And yet what, D.G.?"

"Somehow instinct tells me that their message could not have been sparked only by their desire to have you report. The forcefulness of the demand, it seems to me, went beyond that."

"There's nothing else they can want. Nothing," said Gladia.

"I wonder," said D.G.

47

"I wonder as well," said Daneel from his wall niche that night.

"You wonder concerning what, friend Daneel?" asked Giskard.

"I wonder concerning the true significance of the message from Aurora demanding Lady Gladia. To me, as to the captain, a desire for a report seems a not altogether sufficient motivation."

"Have you an alternate suggestion?"

"I have a thought, friend Giskard."

"May I know it, friend Daneel?"

"It has occurred to me that, in demanding the return of Madam Gladia, the Auroran Council may expect to see more than they ask for - and it may not be Madam Gladia they want."

"What is there more than Madam Gladia that they will get?"

"Friend Giskard, is it conceivable that Lady Gladia will return without you and me?"

"No, but of what use to the Auroran Council would you and I be?"

"I, friend Giskard, would be of no use to them. You, however, are unique, for you can sense minds directly."

"That is true, friend Daneel, but they do not know this."

"Since our leaving, is it not possible that they have somehow discovered the fact and have come to regret bitterly having allowed you to leave Aurora?"

Giskard did not hesitate perceptibly. "No, it is not possible, friend Daneel. How would they have found out?"

Daneel said carefully, "I have reasoned in this fashion. You have, on your long-ago visit to Earth with Dr. Fastolfe, managed to adjust a few Earth robots so as to allow them a very limited mental capacity, merely enough to enable them to continue your work of influencing officials on Earth to look with courage and favor on the process of Settlement. So, at least, you once told me. There are, therefore, robots on Earth that are capable of mind adjusting.

"Then, too, as we have come recently to suspect, the Robotics Institute of Aurora has sent humanoid robots to Earth. We do not know their precise purpose in doing so, but the least that can be expected of such robots is that they observe events there on Earth and report on them."

"Even if the Auroran robots cannot sense minds, they can send back reports to the effect that this or that official has suddenly changed his attitude toward Settlement and, perhaps, in the time since we have left Aurora, it has dawned on someone in power in Aurora - on Dr. Amadiro himself perhaps - that this can only be explained by the existence of mind-adjusting robots on Earth. It may be, then, that the establishment of mind-adjusting can be traced back to either Dr. Fastolfe or yourself.

"This might, in turn, make clear to Auroran officials the meaning of certain other events, which might be traced back to you rather than to Dr. Fastolfe. As a result, they would want you back desperately, yet not be able to ask for you directly, for that would give away the fact of their new knowledge. So they ask for Lady Gladia - a natural request knowing that if she is brought back, you will be, too."

Giskard was silent for a full minute, then he said, "It is interestingly reasoned, friend Daneel, but it does not hold together. Those robots whom I designed for the task of encouraging Settlement completed their job more than eighteen decades ago and have been inactive since, at least as far as mind-adjustment is concerned. What's more, the Earth removed robots from their Cities and confined them to the unpopulated non-City areas quite a considerable time ago.

"This means that the humanoid robots who were, we speculate, sent to Earth, would, even so, not have had occasion to meet my mind-adjusting robots or be aware of any mind-adjustment either, considering that the robots are no longer engaged in that. It is impossible, therefore, for my special ability to have been uncovered in the manner you suggest."

Daneel said, "Is there no other way of discovery, friend Giskard?"

"None," said Giskard firmly.

"And yet - I wonder," said Daneel.

***