by Isaac Asimov
Fastolfe shook his head. “The population does not rise. Aurora’s population is two hundred million and that has remained stable for three centuries. It is the number desired. Surely you have read that in the books you viewed.”
“Yes, I have,” admitted Baley, “but I found it difficult to believe.”
“Let me assure you it’s true. It gives each of us ample land, ample space, ample privacy, and an ample share of the world’s resources. There are neither too many people as on Earth, nor too few as on Solaria.” He held out his arm for Baley to take, so they might continue walking.
“What you see,” Fastolfe said, “is a tame world. It is what I have brought you out to show you, Mr. Baley?”
“There is no danger in it?”
“Always some danger. We do have storms, rock slides, earthquakes, blizzards, avalanches, a volcano or two–Accidental death can never be entirely done away with. And there are even the passions of angry or envious persons, the follies of the immature, and the madness of the shortsighted. These things are very minor irritants, however, and do not much affect the civilized quiet that rests upon our world.”
Fastolfe seemed to ruminate over his words for a moment, then he sighed and said, “I can scarcely want it to be any other way, but I have certain intellectual reservations. We have brought here to Aurora only those plants and animals we felt would be useful, ornamental, or both. We did our best to eliminate anything we would consider weeds, vermin, or even less than standard. We selected strong, healthy, and attractive human beings, according to our own views, of course. We have tried–But you smile, Mr. Baley.”
Baley had not. His mouth had merely twitched. “No no,” he said. “There is nothing to smile about.”
“There is, for I know as well as you do that I myself am not attractive by Auroran standards. The trouble is that we cannot altogether control gene combinations and intrauterine influences. Nowadays, of course, with ectogenesis becoming more common–though I hope it shall never be as common as it is on Solaria–I would be eliminated in the late fetal stage.”
“In which case, Dr. Fastolfe, the worlds would have lost a great theoretical roboticist.”
‘Perfectly correct,” said Fastolfe, without visible embarrassment, “but the worlds would never have known that, would they?–In any case, we have labored to set up a very simple but completely workable ecological balance, an equable climate, a fertile soil, and resources as evenly distributed as is possible. The result is a world that produces all of everything that we need and that is, if I may personify, considerate of our wants.
–Shall I tell you the ideal for which we have striven?”
“Please do,” said Baley.
“We have labored to produce a planet which, taken as a whole, would obey the Three Laws of Robotics. It does nothing to harm human beings, either by commission or omission. It does what we want it to do, as long as we do not ask it to harm human beings. And it protects itself, except at times and in places where it must serve us or save us even at the price of harm to itself. Nowhere else, neither on Earth nor in the other Spacer worlds, is this so nearly true as here on Aurora.”
Baley said sadly, “Earthmen, too, have longed for this, but we have long since grown too numerous and we have too greatly damaged our planet in the days of our ignorance to be able to do very much about it now.–But what of Aurora’s indigenous life-forms? Surely you did not come to a dead planet.”
Fastolfe said, “You know we didn’t, if you have viewed books on our history. Aurora had vegetation and animal life when we arrived–and a nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere. This was true of all the fifty Spacer worlds. Peculiarly, in every case, the life-forms were sparse and not very varied. Nor were they particularly tenacious in their hold on their own planet. We took over, so to speak, without a struggle–and what is left of the indigenous life is in our aquaria, our zoos, and in a few carefully maintained primeval areas.
“We do not really understand why the life-bearing planets that human beings have encountered have been so feebly lifebearing, why only Earth itself has been overflowing with madly tenacious varieties of life filling every environmental niche, and why only Earth has developed any sign of intelligence whatever.”
Baley said, “Maybe it is coincidence, the accident of incomplete exploration. We know so few planets so far.”
“I admit,” said Fastolfe, “that that is the most likely explanation. Somewhere there may be an ecological balance as complex as that of Earth. Somewhere there may be intelligent life and a technological civilization. Yet Earth’s life and intelligence has spread outward for parsecs in every direction. If there is life and intelligence elsewhere, why have they not spread out as well–and why have we not encountered each other?”
“That might happen tomorrow, for all we know.”
“It might. And if such an encounter is imminent, all the more reason why we should not be passively waiting. For we are growing passive, Mr. Baley. No new Spacer world has been settled in two and a half centuries. Our worlds are so tame, so delightful, we do not wish to leave them. This world was originally settled, you see, because Earth had grown so unpleasant that the risks and dangers of new and empty worlds seemed preferable by comparison. By the time our fifty Spacer worlds were developed–Solaria last of all–there was no longer any push, any need to move out elsewhere. And Earth itself had retreated to its underground caves of steel. The End. Finis.”
“You don’t really mean that.”
“If we stay as we are? If we remain placid and comfortable and unmoving? Yes, I do mean that. Humanity must expand its range somehow if it is to continue to flourish. One method of expansion is through space, through a constant pioneering reach toward other worlds. If we fail in this, some other civilization that is undergoing such expansion will reach us and we will not be able to stand against its dynamism.”
“You expect a space war–like a hyperwave shoot-’em-up.”
“No, I doubt that that would be necessary. A civilization that is expanding through space will not need our few worlds and will probably be too intellectually advanced to feel the need to batter its way into hegemony here. If, however, we are surrounded by a more lively, a more vibrant civilization, we will wither away by the mere force of the comparison; we will die of the realization of what we have become and of the potential we have wasted. Of course, we might substitute other expansions–an expansion of scientific understanding or of cultural vigor, for instance. I fear, however, that these expansions are not separable. To fade in one is to fade in all. Certainly, we are fading in all. We live too long. We are too comfortable.”
Baley said, “On Earth, we think of Spacers as all-powerful, as totally self-confident. I cannot believe I’m heating this from one of you.”
“You won’t from any other Spacer. My views are unfashionable. Others would find them intolerable and I don’t often speak of such things to Aurorans. Instead, I simply talk about a new drive for further settlement, without expressing my fears of the catastrophes which will result if we abandon colonization. In that, at least, I have been winning. Aurora has been seriously–even enthusiastically–considering a new era of exploration and settlement.”
“You say that,” said Baley, “without any noticeable enthusiasm. What’s wrong?”
“It’s just that we are approaching my motive for the destruction of Jander Panell.”
Fastolfe paused, shook his head, and continued, “I wish, Mr. Baley, I could understand human beings better. I have spent six decades in studying the intricacies of the positronic brain and I expect to spend fifteen to twenty more on the problem. In this time, I have barely brushed against the problem of the human brain, which is enormously more intricate. Are there Laws of Humanics as there are Laws of Robotics? How many Laws of Humanics might there be and how can they be expressed mathematically? I don’t know.
“Perhaps, though, there may come a day when someone will work out the Laws of Humanics and then be able to predict the broad strok
es of the future, and know what might be in store for humanity, instead of merely guessing as I do, and know what to do to make things better, instead of merely speculating. I dream sometimes of founding a mathematical science which I think of as ‘psychohistory,’ but I know I can’t and I fear no one ever will.”
He faded to a halt.
Baley waited, then said softly, “And your motive for the destruction of Jander Panell, Dr. Fastolfe?”
Fastolfe did not seem to hear the question. At any rate, he did not respond. He said, instead, “Daneel and Giskard are again signaling that all is clear. Tell me, Mr. Baley, would you consider walking with me farther afield?”
“Where?” asked Baley cautiously.
“Toward a neighboring establishment. In that direction, across the lawn. Would the openness disturb you?”
Baley pressed his lips together and looked in that direction, as though attempting to measure its effect. “I believe I could endure it I anticipate no trouble.”
Giskard, who was close enough to hear, now approached still closer, his eyes showing no glow in the daylight. If his voice was without human emotion, his words marked his concern. “Sir, may I remind you that on the journey here you suffered serious discomfort on the descent to the planet?”
Baley turned to face him. However he might feel toward Daneel, whatever warmth of past association might paper over his attitude toward robots, there was none here. He found the more primitive Giskard distinctly repellent. He labored to fight down the touch of anger he felt and said, “I was incautious aboard ship, boy, because I was overly curious. I faced a vision I had never experienced before and I had no time for adjustment. This is different.”
“Sir, do you feel discomfort now? May I be assured of that?”
“Whether I do or not,” said Baley firmly (reminding himself that the robot was helplessly in the grip of the First Law and trying to be polite to a lump of metal who, after all, had Baley’s welfare as his only care) “doesn’t matter. I have my duty to perform and that cannot be done if I am to hide in enclosures.”
“Your duty?” Giskard said it as though he had not been programmed to understand the word.
Baley looked quickly in Fastolfe’s direction, but Fastolfe stood quietly in his place and made no move to intervene. He seemed to be listening with abstracted interest, as though weighing the reaction of a robot of a given type to a new situation and comparing it with relationships, variables, constants, and differential equations only he understood.
Or so Baley thought. He felt annoyed at being part of an observation of that type and said (perhaps too sharply, he knew), “Do you know what ‘duty’ means?”
“That which should be done, sir,” said Giskard.
“Your duty is to obey the Laws of Robotics. And human beings have their laws, too–as your master, Dr. Fastolfe, was only this moment saying–which must be obeyed. I must do that which I have been assigned to do. It is important”
“But to go into the open when you are not–”
“It must be done, nevertheless. My son may someday go to another planet, one much less comfortable than this one, and expose himself to the Outside for the rest of his life. And if I could, I would go with him.”
“But why would you do that?”
“I have told you. I consider it my duty.”
“Sir, I cannot disobey the Laws. Can you disobey yours? For I must urge you to–”
“I can choose not to do my duty, but I do not choose to–and that is sometimes the stronger compulsion, Giskard.”
There was silence for a moment and then Giskard said, “Would it do you harm if I were to succeed in persuading you not to walk into the open?”
“Insofar as I would then feel I have failed in my duty, it would.”
“More harm than any discomfort you might feel in the open?”
“Much more.”
“Thank you for explaining this, sir,” said Giskard and Baley imagined there was a look of satisfaction on the robot’s largely expressionless face. (The human tendency to personify was irrepressible.)
Giskard stepped back and now Dr. Fastolfe spoke. “That was interesting, Mr. Baley. Giskard needed instructions before he could quite understand how to arrange the positronic potential response to the Three Laws or, rather, how those potentials were to arrange themselves in the light of the situation. Now he knows how to behave.”
Baley said, “I notice that Daneel asked no questions.”
Fastolfe said, “Daneel knows you. He has been with you on Earth and on Solaria.–But come, shall we walk? Let us move slowly. Look about carefully and, if at any time you should wish to rest, to wait, even to turn back, I will count on you to let me know.”
“I will, but what is the purpose of this walk? Since you anticipate possible discomfort on my part, you cannot be suggesting it idly.”
“I am not,” said Fastolfe. “I think you will want to see the inert body of Jander.”
“As a matter of form, yes, but I rather think it will tell me nothing.”
“I’m sure of that, but then you might also have the opportunity to question the one who was Jander’s quasi-owner at the time of the tragedy. Surely you would like to speak to some human being other than myself concerning the matter.”
22.
FASTOLFE MOVED SLOWLY forward, plucking a leaf from a shrub that he passed, bending it in two, and nibbling at it.
Baley looked at him curiously, wondering how Spacers could put something untreated, unheated, even unwashed into their mouths, when they feared infection so badly. He remembered that Aurora was free (entirely free?) of pathogenic microorganisms, but found the action repulsive anyway. Repulsion did not have to have a rational basis, he thought defensively–and suddenly found himself on the edge of excusing the Spacers their attitude toward Earthmen.
He drew back! That was different! Human beings were involved there!
Giskard moved ahead, forward and toward the right. Daneel lagged behind and toward the left. Aurora’s orange sun (Baley scarcely noted the orange tinge now) was mildly warm on his back, lacking the febrile heat that Earth’s sun had in summer (but, then, what was the climate and season on this portion of Aurora right now?).
The grass or whatever it was (it looked like grass) was a bit stiffer and springier than he recalled it being on Earth and the ground was hard, as though it had not rained for a while.
They were moving toward the house up ahead, presumably the house of Jander’s quasi-owner.
Baley could hear the rustle of some animal in the grass to the right, the sudden chirrup of a bird somewhere in a tree behind him, the small unplaceable clatter of insects all about. These, he told himself, were all animals with ancestors that had once lived on Earth. They had no way of knowing that this patch of ground they inhabited was not all there was–forever and forever back in time. The very trees and grass had arisen from other trees and grass that had once grown on Earth.
Only human beings could live on this world and know that they were not autochthonous but had stemmed from Earthmen–and yet did the Spacers really know it or did they simply put it out of their mind? Would the time come, perhaps, when they would not know it at all? When they would not remember which world they had come from or whether there was a world of origin at all?
“Dr. Fastolfe,” he said suddenly, in part to break the chain of thought that he found to be growing oppressive, “you still have not told me your motive for the destruction of Jander.”
“True! I have not!–Now why do you suppose, Mr. Baley, I have labored to work out the theoretical basis for the positronic brains of humaniform robots?”
“I cannot say.”
“Well, think. The task is to design a robotic brain as close to the human as possible and that would require, it would seem, a certain reach into the poetic–” He paused and his small smile became an outright grin. “You know it always bothers some of my colleagues when I tell them that, if a conclusion is not poetically balanced, it cannot be
scientifically true. They tell me they don’t know what that means.”
Baley said, “I’m afraid I don’t, either.”
“But I know what it means. I can’t explain it, but I feel the explanation without being able to put it into words, which may be why I have achieved results my colleagues have not. However, I grow grandiose, which is a good sign I should become prosaic. To imitate a human brain, when I know almost nothing about the workings of the human brain, needs an intuitive leap–something that feels to me like poetry. And the same intuitive leap that would give me the humaniform positronic brain should surely give me a new access of knowledge about the human brain itself. That was my belief–that through humaniformity I might take at least a small step toward the psychohistory I told you about.”
“I see.”
“And if I succeeded in working out a theoretical structure that would imply a humaniform positronic brain, I would need a humaniform body to place it in. The brain does not exist by itself, you understand. It interacts with the body, so that a humaniform brain in a nonhumaniform body would become, to an extent, itself nonhuman.”
“Are you sure of that?”
“Quite. You have only to compare Daneel with Giskard.”
“Then Daneel was constructed as an experimental device for furthering the understanding of the human brain?”
“You have it. I labored two decades at the task with Sarton. There were numerous failures that had to be discarded. Daneel was the first true success and, of course, I kept him for further study–and out of”–he grinned lopsidedly, as though admitting to something silly–” affection. After all, Daneel can grasp the notion of human duty, while Giskard, with all his virtues, has trouble doing so. You saw.”
“And Daneel’s stay on Earth with me, three years ago, was his first assigned task?”
“His first of any importance, yes. When Sarton was murdered, we needed something that was a robot and could withstand the infectious diseases of Earth and yet looked enough like a man to get around the antirobotic prejudices of Earth’s people.”