Asimov’s Future History Volume 10

by Isaac Asimov

  They moved forward. Gladia said, after a while, “We’re not walking toward the house.”

  “No, not yet. First, we’re walking toward a group of robots. You see them, I hope.”

  “Yes, I do, but they’re not doing anything.”

  “No, they’re not. There were many more robots present when we first landed. Most of them have gone, but these remain. Why?”

  “If we ask them, they’ll tell us.”

  “You will ask them, Lady Gladia.”

  “They’ll answer you, D.G., as readily as they’ll answer me. We’re equally human.”

  D.G. stopped short and the other two stopped with him. He turned to Gladia and said, smiling, “My dear Lady Gladia, equally human? A Spacer and a Settler? Whatever has come over you?”

  “We are equally human to a robot,” she said waspishly. “And please don’t play games. I did not play the game of Spacer and Earthman with your Ancestor. “

  D.G.’s smile vanished. “That’s true. My apologies, my lady. I shall try to control my sense of the sardonic for, after all, on this world we are allies.”

  He said, a moment later, “Now, madam, what I want you to do is to find out what orders the robots have been given – if any; if there are any robots that might, by some chance, know you; if there are any human beings on the estate or on the world; or anything else it occurs to you to ask. They shouldn’t be dangerous; they’re robots and you’re human; they can’t hurt you. To be sure,” he added, remembering, “your Daneel rather manhandled Niss, but that was under conditions that don’t apply here. And Daneel may go with you.”

  Respectfully, Daneel said, “I would in any case accompany Lady Gladia, Captain. That is my function.”

  “Giskard’s function, too, I imagine,” said D.G., “and yet he’s wandered off.”

  “For a purpose, Captain, that he discussed with me and that we agreed was an essential way of protecting Lady Gladia.”

  “Very well. You two move forward. I’ll cover you both.” He drew the weapon on his right hip. “If I call out ‘Drop,’ the two of you fall down instantly. This thing doesn’t play favorites.”

  “Please don’t use it as anything but a last resort, D.G.,” said Gladia. “There would scarcely be an occasion to against robots. – Come, Daneel!”

  Off she went, stepping forward rapidly and firmly toward the group of about a dozen robots that were standing just in front of a line of low bushes with the morning sun reflecting in glints here and – there from their burnished exteriors.

  24.

  The robots did not retreat, nor did they advance. They remained calmly in place. Gladia counted them. Eleven in plain sight. There might be others, possibly, that were unseen.

  They were designed Solaria-fashion. Very polished. Very smooth. No illusion of clothing and not much realism. They were almost like mathematical abstractions of the human body, with no two of them quite alike.

  She had the feeling that they were by no means as flexible or complex as Auroran robots but were more single-mindedly adapted to specific tasks.

  She stopped at least four meters from the line of robots and Daneel (she sensed) stopped as soon as she did and remained less than a meter behind. He was close enough to interfere at once in case of need, but was far enough back to make it clear that she was the dominant spokesperson of the pair. The robots before her, she was certain, viewed Daneel as a human being, but she also knew that Daneel was too conscious of himself as a robot to presume upon the misconception of other robots.

  Gladia said, “Which one of you will speak with me?”

  There was a brief period of silence, as though an unspoken conference were taking place. Then one robot took a step forward. “Madam, I will speak.”

  “Do you have a name?”

  “No, madam. I have only a serial number.”

  “How long have you been operational?”

  “I have been operational twenty-nine years, madam.”

  “Has anyone else in this group been operational for longer?”

  “No, madam. It is why I, rather than another, am speaking.”

  “How many robots are employed on this estate?”

  “I do not have that figure, madam.”

  “Roughly.”

  “Perhaps ten thousand, madam.”

  “Have any been operational for longer than twenty decades?”

  ‘The agricultural robots include some who may, madam.”

  “And the household robots?”

  “They have not been operational long, madam. The masters prefer new-model robots.”

  Gladia nodded, turned to Daneel, and said, “That makes sense. It was so in my day, too.”

  She turned back to the robot. “To whom does this estate belong?”

  “It is the Zoberlon Estate, madam.”

  “How long has it belonged to the Zoberlon family?”

  “Longer, madam, than I have been operational. I do not know how much longer, but the information can be obtained.”

  “To whom did it belong before the Zoberlons took possession?”

  “I do not know, madam, but the information can be obtained.”

  “Have you ever heard of the Delmarre family?”

  “No, madam.”

  Gladia turned to Daneel and said, rather ruefully, “I’m trying to lead the robot, little by little, as Elijah might once have done, but I don’t think I know how to do it properly.”

  “On the contrary, Lady Gladia,” said Daneel gravely, “it seems to me you have established much. It is not likely that any robot on this estate, except perhaps for a few of the agriculturals, would have any memory of you. Would you have encountered any of the agriculturals in your time?”

  Gladia shook her head. “Never! I don’t recall seeing any of them even in the distance.”

  “It is clear, then, that you are not known on this estate.”

  “Exactly. And poor D.G. has brought us along for nothing. If he expected any good of me, he has failed.”

  “To know the truth is always useful, madam. Not to be known is, in this case, less useful than to be known, but not to know whether one is known or not would be less useful still. Are there not, perhaps, other points on which you might elicit information?”

  “Yes, let’s see –” For a few seconds, she was lost in thought, then she said softly, “It’s odd. When I speak to these robots, I speak with a pronounced Solarian accent. Yet I do not speak so to you.”

  Daneel said, “It is not surprising, Lady Gladia. The robots speak with such an accent, for they are Solarian. That brings back the days of your youth and you speak, automatically, as you spoke then. You are at once yourself, however, when you turn to me because I am part of your present world.”

  A slow smile appeared on Gladia’s face and she said, “You reason more and more like a human being, Daneel.”

  She turned back to the robots and was keenly aware of the peacefulness of the surroundings. The sky was an almost unmarked blue, except for a thin line of clouds on the western horizon (indicating that it might turn cloudy in the afternoon). There was the sound of rustling leaves in a light wind, the whirring of insects, a lonely birdcall. No sound of human beings. There might be many robots about, but they worked silently. There weren’t the exuberant sounds of human beings that she had grown accustomed to (painfully, at first) on Aurora.

  But now back on Solaria, she found the peace wonderful. It had not been all bad on Solaria. She had to admit it.

  She said to the robot quickly, with a note of compulsion edging her voice, “Where are your masters?”

  It was useless, however, to try to hurry or alarm a robot or to catch it off-guard. It said, without any sign of perturbation. “They are gone, madam.”

  “Where have they gone?”

  “I do not know, madam. I was not told.”

  “Which of you knows?”

  There was a complete silence.

  Gladia said, “Is there any robot on the estate who would know?”r />
  The robot said, “I do not know of any, madam.”

  “Did the masters take robots with them?”

  “Yes, madam.”

  “Yet they didn’t take you. Why do you remain behind?”

  “To do our work, madam.”

  “Yet you stand here and do nothing. Is that work?”

  “We guard the estate from those from outside, madam.”

  “Such as we?”

  “Yes, madam.”

  “But here we are and yet you still do nothing. Why is that?”

  “We observe, madam. We have no further orders.”

  “Have you reported your observations?”

  “Yes, madam.”

  “To whom?”

  “To the overseer, madam.”

  “Where is the overseer?”

  “In the mansion, madam.”

  “Ah.” Gladia turned and walked briskly back to D.G.

  Daneel followed.

  “Well?” said D.G. He was holding both weapons at the ready, but put them back in their holsters as they returned.

  Gladia shook her head. “Nothing. No robot knows me. No robot, I’m sure, knows where the Solarians have gone. But they report to an overseer.”

  “An overseer?”

  “On Aurora and the other Spacer worlds, the overseer on large estates with numerous robots is some human whose profession it is to organize and direct groups of working robots in the fields, mines, and industrial establishments.”

  “Then there are Solarians left behind.”

  Gladia shook her head. “Solaria is an exception. The ratio of robots to human beings has always been so high that it has not been the custom to assign a man or woman to oversee the robots. That job has been done by another robot, one that is specially programmed.”

  “Then there is a robot in that mansion” – D.G. nodded with his head –” who is more advanced than these and who might profitably be questioned.”

  “Perhaps, but I am not certain it is safe to attempt to go into the mansion.”

  D.G. said sardonically, “It is only another robot.”

  “The mansion may be booby-trapped.”

  “This field may be booby-trapped.”

  Gladia said, “It would be better to send one of the robots to the mansion to tell the overseer that human beings wish to speak to him.”

  D.G. said, “That will not be necessary. That job has apparently been done already. The overseer is emerging and is neither a robot nor a ‘him.’ What I see is a human female.”

  Gladia looked up in astonishment. Advancing rapidly toward them was a tall, well-formed, and exceedingly attractive woman. Even at a distance, there was no doubt whatever as to her sex.

  25.

  D.G. smiled broadly. He seemed to be straightening himself a bit, squaring his shoulders, throwing them back. One hand went lightly to his beard, as though to make sure it was sleek and smooth.

  Gladia looked at him with disfavor. She said, “That is not a Solarian woman.”

  “How can you tell?” said D.G.

  “No Solarian woman would allow herself to be seen so freely by other human beings. Seen, not viewed.”

  “I know the distinction, my lady. Yet you allow me to see you.”

  “I have lived over twenty decades on Aurora. Even so I have enough Solarian left in me still not to appear to others like that.”

  “She has a great deal to display, madam. I would say she is taller than I am and as beautiful as a sunset.”

  The overseer had stopped twenty meters short of their position and the robots had moved aside so that none of them remained between the woman on one side and the three from the ship on the oilier.

  D.G. said, “Customs can change in twenty decades.”

  “Not something as basic as the Solarian dislike of human contact,” said Gladia sharply. “Not in two hundred decades.” She had slipped into her Solarian twang again.

  “I think you underestimate social plasticity. Still, Solarian or not, I presume she’s a Spacer – and if there are other Spacers like that, I’m all for peaceful coexistence.”

  Gladia’s look of disapproval deepened. “Well, do you intend to stand and gaze in that fashion for the next hour or two? Don’t you want me to question the woman?”

  D.G. started and turned to look at Gladia with distinct annoyance. “You question the robots, as you’ve done. I question the human beings.”

  “Especially the females, I suppose.”

  “I wouldn’t like to boast, but –”

  “It is a subject on which I have never known a man who didn’t.”

  Daneel interposed, “I do not think the woman will wait longer. If you wish to retain the initiative, Captain, approach her now. I will follow, as I did with Madam Gladia.”

  “I scarcely need the protection,” said D.G. brusquely.

  “You are a human being and I must not, through inaction, allow harm to come to you.”

  D.G. walked forward briskly, Daneel following. Gladia, reluctant to remain behind alone, advanced a bit tentatively.

  The overseer watched quietly. She wore a smooth white robe that reached down to mid-thigh and was belted at the waist. It showed a deep and inviting cleavage and her nipples were clearly visible against the thin material of the robe. There was no indication that she was wearing anything else but a pair of shoes.

  When D.G. stopped, a meter of space separated them. Her skin, he could see, was flawless, her cheekbones were high, her eyes wide-set and somewhat slanted, her expression serene.

  “Madam,” said D.G., speaking as close an approximation to Auroran Patrician as he could manage, “have I the pleasure of speaking to the overseer of this estate?”

  The woman listened for a moment and then said, in an accent so thickly Solarian as to seem almost comic when coming from her perfectly shaped mouth, “You are not a human being.”

  She then flashed into action so quickly that Gladia, still some ten meters off, could not see in detail what had happened. She saw only a blur of motion and then D.G. lying on his back motionless and the woman standing there with his weapons, one in each hand.

  26.

  What stupefied Gladia most in that one dizzying moment was that Daneel had not moved in either prevention or reprisal.

  But even as the thought struck her, it was out of date, for Daneel had already caught the woman’s left wrist and twisted it, saying, “Drop those weapons at once,” in a harsh peremptory voice she had never heard him use before. It was inconceivable that he should so address a human being.

  The woman said, just as harshly in her higher register, “You are not a human being.” Her right arm came up and she fired the weapon it held. For a moment, a faint glow flickered over Daneel’s body and Gladia, unable to make a sound in her state of shock, felt her sight dim. She had never in her life fainted, but this seemed a prelude.

  Daneel did not dissolve, nor was there an explosive report. Daneel, Gladia realized, had prudently seized the arm that held the blaster. The other held the neuronic whip and it was that which had been discharged in full – and at close range – upon Daneel. Had he been human, the massive stimulation of his sensory nerves might well have killed him or left him permanently disabled. Yet he was, after all, however human in appearance, a robot and his equivalent of a nervous system did not react to the whip.

  Daneel seized the other arm now, forcing it up. He said again, “Drop those weapons or I will tear each arm from its socket.”

  “Will you?” said the woman. Her arms contracted and, for a moment, Daneel was lifted off the ground. Daneel’s legs swung backward, then forward, pendulum-like, using the points where the arms joined as a pivot. His feet struck the woman with force and both fell heavily to the ground.

  Gladia, without putting the thought into words, realized that although the woman looked as human as Daneel did, she was just as nonhuman. A sense of instant outrage flooded Gladia, who was suddenly Solarian to the core – outrage that a robot should use for
ce on a human being. Granted that she might somehow have recognized Daneel for what he was, but how dare she strike D.G.

  Gladia was running forward, screaming. It never occurred to her to fear a robot simply because it had knocked down a strong man with a blow and was battling an even stronger robot to a draw.

  “How dare you?” she screamed in a Solarian accent so thick that it grated on her own ear – but how else does one speak to a Solarian robot? “How dare you, girl? Stop all resistance immediately!”

  The woman’s muscles seemed to relax totally and simultaneously, as though an electric current had suddenly been shut off. Her beautiful eyes looked at Gladia without enough humanity to seem startled. She said in an indistinct, hesitating voice, “My regrets, madam.”

  Daneel was on his feet, staring down watchfully at the woman who lay on the grass. D.G., suppressing a groan, was struggling upright.

  Daneel bent for the weapons, but Gladia waved him away furiously.

  “Give me those weapons, girl,” she said.

  The woman said, “Yes, madam.”

  Gladia snatched at them, chose the blaster swiftly, and handed it to Daneel. “Destroy her when that seems best, Daneel. That’s an order.” She handed the neuronic whip to D.G. and said, ‘This is useless here, except against me – and yourself. Are you all right?”

  “No, I’m not all right,” muttered D.G., rubbing one hip. “Do you mean she’s a robot?”

  “Would a woman have thrown you like that?”

  “Not any whom I have ever met before. I said there might be special robots on Solaria who were programmed to be dangerous.”

  “Of course,” said Gladia unkindly, “but when you saw something that looked like your idea of a beautiful woman, you forgot.”

  “Yes, it is easy to be wise after the fact.”