Asimov’s Future History Volume 11

by Isaac Asimov

  “No chance at all. Since you insisted on making yourself a heroine on Baleyworld, you’ll have to be one on Earth as well. Still, the ceremonies will be through eventually. When you recover from them, we will get a guide and we’ll really see the City.”

  “Will we have any trouble taking my robots with us?” She gestured toward Daneel and Giskard at the other end of the room. “I don’t mind being without them when I’m with you on the ship, but if I’m going to be with crowds of strangers I’ll feel more secure having them with me.”

  “There’ll be no problem with Daneel, certainly. He’s a hero in his own right. He was the Ancestor’s partner and he passes for human. Giskard, who is an obvious robot, should, in theory, not be allowed inside the city borders, but they’ve made an exception in his case and I hope they will continue to do so. – It is too bad, in a way, that we must wait here and can’t step outside.”

  “You say I should not be exposed to all that noise just yet,” said Gladia.

  “No, no. I’m not referring to the public squares and roadways. I would just like to take you out into the corridors within this particular building. There are miles and miles of them – literally – and they’re a small bit of City in themselves: shopping recesses, dining halls, amusement areas, Personals, elevators, transways, and so on. There’s more color and variety on one floor in one building in one City on Earth than in a whole Settler town or in a whole Spacer world.”

  “I should think everyone would get lost.”

  “Of course not. Everyone knows his own neighborhood here, as anywhere else. Even strangers need only follow the signs.”

  “I suppose all the walking that people are forced to do must be very good for them physically,” said Gladia dubiously.

  “Socially, too. There are people in the corridors at all times and the convention is that you stop to exchange words with anyone you know and that you greet even those you don’t know. Nor is walking absolutely necessary. There are elevators everywhere for vertical travel. The main corridors are transways and move for horizontal travel. Outside the building, of course, there is a feeder line to the Expressway network. That’s something. You’ll get to ride it.”

  “I’ve heard of them. They have strips that you walk across and that drag you along faster and faster – or slower and slower – as you move from one to another. I couldn’t do that. Don’t ask me to.”

  “Of course you’ll be able to do it,” said D. G. genially. “I’ll help you. If necessary, I’ll carry you, but all it takes is a little practice. Among the Earthpeople, kindergarten children manage and so do old people with canes. I admit Settlers tend to be clumsy about it. I’m no miracle of grace myself, but I manage and so will you.”

  Gladia heaved an enormous sigh. “Well, then, I’ll try if I have to. But I tell you what, D. G., dear. We must have a reasonably quiet room for the night. I want your ‘Drone of the City’ muted.”

  “That can be arranged, I’m sure.”

  “And I don’t want to have to eat in the Section kitchens.”

  D. G. looked doubtful. “We can arrange to have food brought in, but really it would do you good to participate in the social life of Earth. I’ll be with you, after all.”

  “Maybe after a while, D. G., but not just at first – and I want a Personal for myself.”

  “Oh, no, that’s impossible. There’ll be a washbasin and a toilet bowl in any room they assign us because we have status, but if you intend to do any serious showering or bathing, you’ll have to follow the crowd. There’ll be a woman to introduce you to the procedure and you’ll be assigned a stall or whatever it is they have there. You won’t be embarrassed. Settler women have to be introduced to the use of Personals every day of the year. – and you may end up enjoying it, Gladia. They tell me that the Women’s Personal is a place of much activity and fun. In the Men’s Personal, on the other hand, not a word is allowed spoken. Very dull.”

  “It’s all horrible,” muttered Gladia. “How do you stand the lack of privacy?”

  “On a crowded world, needs must,” said D. G. lightly. “What you’ve never had, you never miss. – Do you want any other aphorisms?”

  “Not really,” said Gladia.

  She looked dejected and D. G. put an arm about her shoulder. “Come, it won’t be as bad as you think. I promise you.”

  76.

  It was not exactly a nightmare, but Gladia was thankful to her earlier experience on Baleyworld for having given her a preview of what was now a veritable ocean of humanity. The crowds were much larger here in New York than they had been on the Settler world, but on the other hand, she was more insulated from the herd here than she had been on the earlier occasion.

  The government officials were clearly anxious to be seen with her. There was a wordless, polite struggle for a position near enough to her to be seen with her on hypervision. It isolated her, not only from the crowds on the other side of the police lines but from D. G. and from her two robots. It also subjected her to a kind of polite jostling from people who seemed to have an eye only on the camera.

  She listened to what seemed innumerable speeches, all mercifully brief, without really listening. She smiled periodically, both blandly and blindly, casting the vision of her implanted teeth in all directions indiscriminately.

  Gladia went by ground-car through miles of passageways at a crawl, while an uncounted ant heap lined the walkways, cheering and waving as she passed. (She wondered if ever a Spacer had received such adulation from Earthpeople and was quite confident that her own case was entirely unprecedented.)

  At one point, Gladia caught sight of a distant knot of people gathered round a hypervision screen and momentarily had an undoubted glimpse of herself upon it. They were listening, she knew, to a recording of her speech on Baleyworld. Gladia wondered how many times and in how many places and before how many people it was being played now, and how many times it had been played since she gave it, and how many times it would yet be played in the future, and whether anything at all had been heard of it on the Spacer worlds.

  Might she, in fact, seem a traitor to the people of Aurora and would this reception be held to be proof of it?

  She might – and it might – and she was beyond caring. She had her mission of peace and reconciliation and she would follow it wherever it led without complaint – even to the unbelievable orgy of mass bathing and shrilly unconscious exhibitionism in the Women’s Personal that morning. (Well, without much complaint.)

  They came to one of the Expressways that D. G. had mentioned, and Gladia gazed in open horror at the endless snake of passenger cars that passed – and passed – and passed – each with its load of people who were on business that could not be postponed for the motorcade (or who simply didn’t want to be bothered) and who stared solemnly at the crowds and the procession for the few moments they remained in sight.

  Then the ground-car plunged downward under the Expressway, through a short tunnel that in no way differed from the passage above (the City was all tunnel), and up again on the other side.

  And eventually the motorcade came to an end at a large public building that was, mercifully, more attractive than the endlessly repetitious blocks that represented the units of the City’s residential section.

  Within the building, there was yet another reception, during which alcoholic drinks and various hors d’oeuvres were served. Gladia fastidiously touched neither. A thousand people milled about and an endless succession of them came up to speak to Gladia. The word had apparently gone out not to offer to shake hands, but some inevitably did, and, trying not to hesitate, Gladia would briefly place two fingers on the hand and then withdraw them.

  Eventually, a number of women prepared to leave for the nearest Personal and one of them performed what was obviously a social ritual and tactfully asked Gladia if she would like to accompany them. Gladia didn’t, but there might be a long night ahead and might be more embarrassing to have to interrupt it later.

  Within the P
ersonal, there was the usual excited laughing and chattering and Gladia, bowing to the exigencies of the situation and fortified by her experience that morning, made use of the facilities in a small chamber with partitions on either side, but with none in front of her.

  No one seemed to mind and Gladia tried to remind herself she must adjust to local customs. At least the place was well-ventilated and seemed spotlessly clean.

  Throughout, Daneel and Giskard had been ignored. This, Gladia realized, was a kindness. Robots were no longer allowed within City limits, though there were millions in the countryside without. To have made a point of the presence of Daneel and Giskard would have meant raising the legal issue that involved. It was easier to pretend, tactfully, that they weren’t there.

  Once the banquet began, they sat quietly at a table with D. G., not too far removed from the dais. At the dais, Gladia sat, eating sparingly and wondering if the food would give her dysentery.

  D. G., perhaps not entirely pleased with his relegation to the post of keeper of the robots, kept staring restlessly in Gladia’s direction and, occasionally, she lifted one hand and smiled at him.

  Giskard, equally watchful of Gladia, had an opportunity to say to Daneel very quietly, under cover of the relentless and unending background clash of cutlery and babble, “Friend Daneel, these are high officials that sit here in this room. It is possible that one or more may have information of use to us.”

  “It is possible, friend Giskard. Can you, thanks to your abilities, guide me in this respect?”

  “I cannot. The mental background yields me no specific emotional response of interest. Nor does the occasional flash among the nearest show me anything. Yet the climax of the crisis is, I am certain, approaching quickly, even as we sit here, idle.”

  Daneel said gravely, “I will try to do as Partner Elijah would have done and force the pace.”

  77.

  Daneel was not eating. He watched the assemblage with his calm eyes and located the one he was searching for. Quietly, he rose and moved toward another table, his eyes on a woman who was managing to eat briskly and yet maintain a cheerful conversation with the man on her left. She was a stocky woman, with short hair that showed definite traces of gray. Her face, if not youthful, was pleasant.

  Daneel waited for a natural break in the conversation and when that did not come, he said with an effort, “Madam, may I interrupt?”

  She looked up at him, startled and plainly displeased. “Yes,” she said rather bruskly, “what is it?”

  “Madam,” said Daneel, “I ask your pardon for this interruption, but may I have your permission to speak with you for a time?”

  She stared at him, frowning for a moment, and then her expression softened. She said, “I should guess, from your excessive politeness, that you’re the robot, aren’t you?”

  “I am one of Madam Gladia’s robots, madam.”

  “Yes, but you’re the human one. You’re R. Daneel Olivaw.”

  “That is my name, madam.”

  The woman turned to the man on her left and said, “Please excuse me. I can’t very well refuse this – robot.”

  Her neighbor smiled uncertainly and transferred his attention to the place before him.

  The woman said to Daneel, “If you have a chair, why don’t you bring it here? I will be glad to speak to you.”

  “Thank you, madam.”

  When Daneel had returned and seated himself, she said, “You are really R. Daneel Olivaw, aren’t you?”

  “That is my name, madam,” said Daneel again.

  “I mean the one who worked with Elijah Baley long ago. You’re not a new model of the same line? You’re not R. Daneel the Fourth or something like that?”

  Daneel said, “There is little of me that has not been replaced in the past twenty decades – or even modernized and improved – but my positronic brain is the same as it was when I worked with Partner Elijah on three different worlds – and once on a spaceship. It has not been altered.”

  “Well!” She looked at him admiringly. “You’re certainly a good job. If all robots were like you, I’d see no objection to them whatever. – What is it you want to talk to me about?”

  “When you were introduced to Lady Gladia, madam, before we all took our seats, you were presented to her as the Undersecretary of Energy, Sophia Quintana.”

  “You remember well. That is my name and my office.”

  “Does the office refer to all of Earth or merely to the City?”

  “I’m Global Undersecretary, I assure you.”

  “Then you are knowledgeable in the field of energetics?”

  Quintana smiled. She did not seem to object to being questioned. Perhaps she thought it amusing or perhaps she found herself attracted to Daneel’s air of deferential gravity or to the mere fact that a robot could question her so. In any case, she said with a smile, “I majored in energetics at the University of California and have a master’s degree in it. As to how knowledgeable I still am, I’m not certain. I’ve spent too many years as an administrator – something that saps one’s brains, I assure you.”

  “But you would be well acquainted with the practical aspects of Earth’s present energy supply, would you not?”

  “Yes. That I will admit to. Is there something you want to know about it?”

  “There is something that piques my curiosity, madam.”

  “Curiosity? In a robot?”

  Daneel bowed his head. “If a robot is complex enough, he can be aware of something within himself that seeks information. This is analogous to what I have observed to be called ‘curiosity’ in human beings and I take the liberty of using the same word in connection with my own feelings.”

  “Fair enough. What are you curious about, R. Daneel? May I call you that?”

  “Yes, madam. I understand that Earth’s energy supply is drawn from solar power stations in geostationary orbit in Earth’s equatorial plane.”

  “You understand correctly.”

  “But are these power stations the sole energy supply of this planet?”

  “No. They are the primary – but not the sole – energy supply. There is considerable use of energy from Earth’s internal heat, from winds, waves, tides, flowing water, and so on. We have quite a complex mix and each variety has its advantages. Solar energy is the mainstay, however.”

  “You make no mention of nuclear energy, madam. Are there no uses for microfusion?”

  Quintana raised her eyebrows. “Is that what you’re curious about, R. Daneel?”

  “Yes, madam. What is the reason for the absence of nuclear power sources on Earth?”

  “They are not absent, R. Daneel. On a small scale, one comes across it. Our robots – we have many in the countryside, you know – are microfusionized. Are you, by the way?”

  Daneel said, “Yes, madam.”

  “Then, too,” she went on, “there are microfusionized machines here and there, but the total is quite trifling.”

  “Is it not true, Madam Quintana, that microfusion energy sources are sensitive to the action of nuclear intensifiers?”

  “They certainly are. Yes, of course. The microfusion power source will blow up and I suppose that comes under the heading of being sensitive.”

  “Then it isn’t possible for someone, using a nuclear intensifier, to seriously cripple some crucial portion of Earth’s energy supply.”

  Quintana laughed. “No, of course not. In the first place, I don’t see anyone dragging a nuclear intensifier about from place to place. They weigh tons and I don’t think they can be maneuvered through and along the streets and corridors of a City. Certainly, it would be noticed if anyone tried. And then, even if a nuclear intensifier were brought into play, all it could do would be to destroy a few robots and a few machines before the thing would be discovered and stopped. There is no chance at all – zero – of our being hurt in that way. Is that the reassurance you wanted, R. Daneel?”

  It was almost a dismissal.

  Daneel sai
d, “There are just one or two small points I would like clarified, Madam Quintana. Why is there no large microfusion source on Earth? The Spacer worlds all depend on microfusion and so do all the Settler worlds. Microfusion is portable, versatile, and cheap – and doesn’t require the enormous effort of maintenance, repair, and replacement that space structures do.”

  “And, as you said, R. Daneel, they are sensitive to nuclear intensifiers.”

  “And, as you said, Madam Quintana, nuclear intensifiers are too large and bulky to be of much use.”

  Quintana smiled broadly and nodded. “You are very intelligent, R. Daneel,” she said. “It never occurred to me that I would ever sit at a table and carry on a discussion like this with a robot. Your Auroran roboticists are very clever – too clever – for I fear to carry on this discussion. I’d have to worry about you taking my place in the government. You know, we do have a legend about a robot named Stephen Byerly taking a high post in the government.”

  “That must be merely fiction, Madam Quintana,” said Daneel gravely. “There are no robots in governmental posts on any of the Spacer worlds. We are merely – robots.”

  “I’m relieved to hear that and will therefore go on. The matter of differences in power sources has its roots in history. At the time that hyperspatial travel was developed, we had microfusion, so that people leaving Earth took microfusion power sources with them. It was necessary on spaceships and on planets, too, in the generations during which they were being adapted for human occupation. It takes many years to build an adequate complex of solar power stations – and rather than undertake such a task, the emigrants remained with microfusion. So it was with the Spacers in their time and so it is now with the Settlers.

  “On Earth, however, microfusion and solar power in space were developed at roughly the same time and both were used more and more. Finally, we could make our choice and use either microfusion or solar power or, of course, both. And we chose solar power.”

  Daneel said, “That seems strange to me, Madam Quintana. Why not both?”