Asimov’s Future History Volume 10

by Isaac Asimov

  Daneel placed an apologetic hand on Gladia’s elbow. Her chin lifted, but she turned and went up the gangplank and into the ship, Daneel at her side, Giskard following.

  D.G. then turned to the crewmen. “You five,” he said, his voice never lifting from its flat calm, “come with me. We‘ll get to the bottom of this – or of you. “And he gestured to a petty officer to pick up the sidearms and take them away.

  20.

  D.G. stared at the five grimly. He was in his own quarters, the only portion of the ship that had a semblance of size to it and the beginnings of an appearance of luxury.

  He said, pointing to each in turn, “Now, this is the way we’ll work it. You tell me exactly what happened, word for word, motion for motion. When you’re finished, you tell me anything that was wrong or left out. Then you the same, and then you, and then I’ll get to you, Niss. I expect that you were all out of order, that you all did something unusually stupid that earned you all, but especially Niss, considerable humiliation. If, in your story, it would appear that you did nothing wrong and suffered 00 humiliation, then I’ll know you’re lying, especially as the Spacer woman will surely tell me what happened – and I intend to believe every word she says. A lie will make matters worse for you than anything you’ve actually done. Now,” he barked, “start!”

  The first crewman stumbled hastily through the story, and then the second, somewhat correcting, somewhat expanding, then the third and the fourth. D.G. listened, stony-faced, to the recital, then motioned Berto Niss to one side.

  He spoke to the other four, “And while Niss was getting his face rightly mashed into the dirt by the Spacer, what were you four doing? Watching? Scared to move? All four of you? Against one man?”

  One of the men broke the thickening silence to say, “It all happened so quick, Captain. We were just getting set to move in and then it was allover.”

  “And what were you getting ready to do in case you did manage to get to move someday?”

  “Well, we were going to pull the Spacer foreigner off our mate.”

  “Do you think you could have?”

  This time no one offered to make a sound.

  D.G. leaned toward them. “Now, here’s the situation. You had no business interfering with the foreigners, so you ‘re fined one week’s pay each. And now let’s get something straight. If you tell what has happened to anyone else – in the crew or out, now or ever, whether drunk or sober – you’ll be broken, every one of you, to apprentice shipper. It doesn’t matter which one of you talks, you’ll all four be broken, so keep an eye on each other. Now get to your assigned tasks and if you cross me at any time during this voyage, if you as much as hiccup against regulations, you’ll be in the brig.”

  The four left. mournful, hangdog, tight-lipped. Niss remained, a bruise developing on his face, his arms clearly in discomfort.

  D.G. regarded him with a threatening quiet, while Niss stared to the left, to the right, at his feet, everywhere but at the face of the captain. It was only when Niss’s eyes, running out of evasion, caught the glare of the captain that D.G. said, “Well, you look very handsome, now that you have tangled with a sissy Spacer half your size. Next time you better hide when one of them shows up.”

  “Yes, Captain,” said Niss miserably.

  “Did you or did you not, Niss, hear me in my briefing, before we left Aurora, say that the Spacer woman and her companions were on no account to be disturbed or spoken to?”

  “Captain, I wanted only a polite howdydo. We was curious for a closer look. No harm meant.”

  “You meant no harm? You asked how old she was. Was that your business?”

  “Just curious. Wanted to know.”

  “One of you made a sexual suggestion.”

  “Not me, Captain.”

  “Someone else? Did you apologize for it?”

  “To a Spacer?” Niss sounded horrified.

  “Certainly. You were going against my orders.”

  “I meant no harm,” said Niss doggedly.

  “You meant no harm to the man?”

  “He put his hand on me, Captain.”

  “I know he did. Why?”

  “Because he was ordering me around.”

  “And you wouldn’t stand for it?”

  “Would you, Captain.”

  “All right, then. You didn’t stand for it. You fell down for it. Right on your face. How did that happen?”

  “I don’t rightly know, Captain. He was fast. Like the camera was sped up. And he had a grip like iron.”

  D.G. said, “So he did. What did you expect, you idiot? He is iron.”

  “Captain?”

  “Niss, is it possible you don’t know the story of Elijah Baley?”

  Niss rubbed his ear in embarrassment. “I know he’s your great – something – grandfather, Captain. “

  “Yes, everyone knows that from my name. Have you ever viewed his life story?”

  “I’m not a viewing man, Captain. Not on history.” He shrugged and, as he did so, winced and made as though to rub his shoulder, then decided he didn’t quite dare do so.

  “Did you ever hear of R. Daneel Olivaw?”

  Niss squeezed his brows together. “He was Elijah Baley’s friend.”

  “Yes, he was. You do know something then. Do you know what the ‘R’ stands for in R. Daneel Olivaw?”

  “It stands for ‘Robot,’ right? He was a robot friend. There was robots on Earth in them days.”

  “There were, Niss, and still are. But Daneel wasn’t just a robot. He was a Spacer robot who looked like a Spacer man. Think about it, Niss. Guess who the Spacer man you picked a fight with really was.”

  Niss’s eyes widened, his face reddened dully. “You mean that Spacer was a ro –”

  “That was R. Daneel Olivaw.”

  “But, Captain, that was two hundred years ago.”

  “Yes and the Spacer woman was a particular friend of my Ancestor Elijah. She’s been alive for two hundred and thirty-three years, in case you still want to know, and do you think a robot can’t do as well as that? You were trying to fight a robot, you great fool.”

  “Why didn’t it say so?” Niss said with great indignation.

  “Why should it? Did you ask? See here, Niss. You heard what I told the others about telling this to anyone. It goes for you, too, but much more so. They are only crewmen, but I had my eye on you for crew leader. Had my eye on you. If you’re going to be in charge of the crew, you’ve got to have brains and not just muscle. So now it’s going to be harder for you because you ‘re going to have to prove you have brains against my firm opinion that you don’t.”

  “Captain, I –”

  “Don’t talk. Listen. If this story gets out, the other four will be apprentice shippers, but you will be nothing. You will never go on shipboard again. No ship will take you, I promise you that. Not as crew, not as passenger. Ask yourself what kind of money you can make on Baleyworld – and doing what? That’s if you talk about this, or if you cross the Spacer woman in any way, or even just look at her for more than half a second at a time, or at her two robots. And you are going to have to see to it that no one else among the crew is in the least offensive. You ‘re responsible. – and you’re fined two week’s pay.”

  “But, Captain,” said Niss weakly, “the others –”

  “I expected less from the others, Niss, so I fined them less. Get out of here.”

  21.

  D.G. played idly with the photocube that always stood on his desk. Each time he turned it, it blackened, then cleared when stood upon one of its sides as its base. When it cleared, the smiling three-dimensional image of a woman’s head could be seen.

  Crew rumor was that each of the six sides lead to the appearance of a different woman. The rumor was quite correct.

  Jamin Oser watched the flashing appearance and disappearance of images totally without interest. Now that the ship was secured – or as secured as it could be against attack of any expected variety – it w
as time to think of the next step.

  D.G., however, was approaching the matter obliquely – or, perhaps, not approaching it at all. He said, “It was the woman’s fault, of course.”

  Oser shrugged and passed his hand over his beard, as though he were reassuring himself that he, at least, was not a woman. Unlike D.G., Oser had his upper lip luxuriantly covered as well.

  D.G. said, “Apparently, being on the planet of her birth removed any thought of discretion. She left the ship, even though I had asked her not to.”

  “You might have ordered her not to.”

  “I don’t know that that would have helped. She’s a spoiled aristocrat, used to having her own way and to ordering her robots about. Besides, I plan to use her and I want her cooperation, not her pouting. And again – she was the Ancestor’s friend.”

  “And still alive,” said Oser, shaking his head. “It makes the skin crawl. An old, old woman.”

  “I know, but she looks quite young. Still attractive. And nose in the air. Wouldn’t retire when the crewmen approached, wouldn’t shake hands with one of them. – Well, it’s over.”

  “Still, Captain, was it the right thing to tell Niss he had tackled a robot?”

  “Had to! Had to, Oser. If he thought he’d been beaten and humiliated before four of his mates by an effeminate Spacer half his size, he’d be useless to us forever. It would have broken him completely. And we don’t want anything to happen that will start the rumor that Spacers – that human Spacers – are supermen. That’s why I had to order them so strenuously not to talk about it. Niss will ride herd on all of them – and if it does get out, it will also get out that the Spacer was a robot. – but I suppose there was a good side to the whole thing.”

  “Where, Captain?” asked Oser.

  “It got me to thinking about robots. How much do we know about them? How much do you know?”

  Oser shrugged. “Captain, it’s not something I think about much.”

  “Or something anyone else thinks about, either. At least, any Settler. We know that the Spacers have robots, depend on them, go nowhere without them, can’t do a thing without them, are parasites on them, and we’re sure they’re fading away because of them. We know that Earth once had robots forced on them by the Spacers and that they are gradually disappearing from Earth and are not found at all in Earth Cities, only in the countryside. We know that the Settler worlds don’t and won’t have them anywhere – town or country. So Settlers never meet them on their own worlds and hardly ever on Earth.” (His voice had a curious inflection each time he said “Earth,” as though one could hear the capital, as though one could hear the words “home” and “mother” whispered behind it.) “What else do we know?”

  Oser said, “There’s the Three Laws of Robotics.”

  “Right,” D.G. pushed the photocube to one side and leaned forward. “Especially the First Law. ‘A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. ‘Yes? Well, don’t rely on it. It doesn’t mean a thing. We all feel ourselves to be absolutely safe from robots because of that and that’s fine if it gives us confidence, but not if it gives us false confidence. R. Daneel injured Niss and it didn’t bother the robot at all, First Law or no First Law.”

  “He was defending –”

  “Exactly. What if you must balance injuries? What if it was a case of either hurt Niss or allow your Spacer owner to come to harm? Naturally, she comes first.”

  “It makes sense.”

  “Of course it does. And here we are on a planet of robots, a couple of hundred million of them. What orders do they have? How do they balance the conflict between different harms? How can we be sure that none of them will touch us? Something on this planet has destroyed two ships already.”

  Oser said uneasily, “This R. Daneel is an unusual robot, looks more like a man than we do. It may be we can’t generalize from him. That other robot, what’s his name –”

  “Giskard. It’s easy to remember. My name is Daneel Giskard.”

  “I think of you as captain, Captain. Anyway, that R. Giskard just stood there and didn’t do a thing. He looks like a robot and he acts like one. We’ve got lots of robots out there on Solaria watching us right now and they’re not doing a thing, either. Just watching.”

  “And if there are some special robots that can harm us?”

  “I think we’re prepared for them.”

  “Now we are. That’s why the incident with Daneel and Niss was a good thing. We’ve been thinking that we can only be in trouble if some of the Solarians are still here. They don’t have to be. They can be gone. It may be that the robots – or at least some specially designed robots can be dangerous. And if Lady Gladia can mobilize her robots in this place – it used to be her estate – and make them defend her and us, too, we may well be able to neutralize anything they’ve left behind.”

  “Can she do that?” said Oser.

  “We’re going to see,” said D.G.

  22.

  “Thank you, Daneel,” Gladia said, “You did well.” Her face seemed pinched together, however. Her lips were thin and bloodless, her cheeks pale. Then, in a lower voice. “I wish I had not come.”

  Giskard said, “It is a useless wish, Madam Gladia. Friend Daneel and I will remain outside the cabin to make sure you are not further disturbed.”

  The corridor was empty and remained so, but Daneel and Giskard managed to speak in sound-wave intensities below the human threshold, exchanging thoughts in their brief and condensed way.

  Giskard said, “Madam Gladia made an injudicious decision in refusing to retire. That is clear.”

  “I presume, friend Giskard,” said Daneel, “that there was no possibility of maneuvering her into changing that decision.”

  “It was far too firm, friend Daneel, and taken too quickly. The same was true of the intention of Niss, the Settler. Both his curiosity concerning Madam Gladia and his contempt and animosity toward you were too strong to manage without serious mental harm. The other four I could handle. It was quite possible to keep them from intervening. Their astonishment at your ability to handle Niss froze them naturally and I had only to strengthen that slightly.”

  “That was fortune, friend Giskard. Had those four joined Mr. Niss, I would have been faced with the difficult choice of forcing Madam Gladia into a humiliating retreat or of badly damaging one or two of the Settlers to frighten off the rest. I think I would have had to choose the former alternative but it, too, would have caused me grave discomfort.”

  “You are well, friend Daneel?”

  “Quite well. My damage to Mr. Niss was minimal.”

  “Physically, friend Daneel, it was. Within his mind, however, there was great humiliation, which was to him much Worse than the physical damage. Since I could sense that, I could not have done what you did so easily. And yet, friend Daneel –”

  “Yes, friend Giskard?”

  “I am disturbed over the future. On Aurora, through all the decades of my existence, I have been able to work slowly, to wait for opportunities of touching minds gently, without doing harm; of strengthening what is already there, of weakening what is already attenuated, of pushing gently in the direction of existing impulse. Now, however, we are coming to a time of crisis in which emotions will run high, decisions will be taken quickly, and events will race past us. If I am to do any good at all, I will have to act quickly, too, and the Three Laws of Robotics prevent me from doing so. It takes time to weigh the subtleties of comparative physical and mental harm. Had I been alone with Madam Gladia at the time of the Setters’ approach, I do not see what course I could have taken that I would not have recognized as entailing serious damage to Madam Gladia, to one or more of the Settlers, to myself – or possibly to all who were involved.”

  Daneel said, “What is there to do, friend Giskard?”

  “Since it is impossible to modify the Three Laws, friend Daneel, once again we must come to the conclusion that there is nothing we can do but
await failure.”

  7. The Overseer

  23.

  IT WAS MORNING on Solaria, morning on the estate – her estate. Off in the distance was the establishment that might have been her establishment. Somehow twenty decades dropped away and Aurora seemed to her to be a far-off dream that had never happened.

  She turned to D.G., who was tightening the belt about his thin outer garment, a belt from which two sidearms hung. On his left hip was the neuronic whip; on his right, something shorter and bulkier that she guessed was a blaster.

  “Are we going to the house?” she asked.

  “Eventually,” said D.G. with a certain absence of mind. He was inspecting each sidearm in turn, holding one of them to his ear as though he were listening for a faint buzz that would tell him it was alive.

  “Just the four of us?” She automatically turned her eyes to each of the others: D.G., Daneel

  She said to Daneel, “Where is Giskard, Daneel?”

  Daneel said, “It seemed to him, Madam Gladia, that it would be wise to act as an advance guard. As a robot, he might not be noticeable among other robots – and if there should be anything wrong, he could warn us. In any case, he is more expendable than either yourself or the captain.”

  “Good robotic thinking,” said D.G. grimly. “It’s just as well. Come, we’re moving forward now.”

  “Just the three of us?” said Gladia, a touch plaintively. “To be honest, I lack Giskard’s robotic ability to accept expendability.”

  D.G. said, “We’re all expendable, Lady Gladia. Two ships have been destroyed, every member of each crew indiscriminately brought to an end. There’s no safety in numbers here.”

  “You’re not making me feel any better, D.G.”

  “Then I’ll try. The earlier ships were not prepared. Our ship is. And I’m prepared, too.” He slapped his two hands to his hips. “And you’ve got a robot with you who has showed himself to be an efficient protector. What’s more, you yourself are our best weapon. You know how to order robots to do what you want them to do and that may well be crucial. You are the only one with us who can do that and the earlier ships had no one at all of your caliber. Come, then –”