Robots and Empire

by Isaac Asimov

  Was she becoming Elijah, in a fashion, with none of his talent and none of his fierce dedication to duty at all costs?

  What had she done to deserve it?

  She felt her rage being buried under a flood tide of self-pity. She felt unjustly dealt with. No one had the right to unload responsibility on her against her will.

  She said, forcing her voice level, "Why do you insist on my being a Solarian, when I tell you that I am not a Solarian?"

  D.G. did not seem disturbed by the chill that had now entered her voice. He was still holding the soft napkin that had been given him at the conclusion of the meal. It had been damply hot—not too hot—and he had imitated the actions of Gladia in carefully wiping his hands and mouth. He had then doubled it over and stroked his beard with it. It was shredding now and shriveling.

  He said, "I presume it will vanish altogether."

  "It will." Gladia had deposited her own napkin in the appropriate receptacle on the table. Holding it was unmannerly and could be excused only by D.G.'s evident unfamiliarity with civilized custom. "There are some who think it has a polluting effect on the atmosphere, but there is a gentle draft that carries the residue upward and traps it in filters. I doubt that it will give us any trouble. —But you ignore my question, sir."

  D.G. wadded what was left of his napkin and placed it on the arm of the chair. A robot, in response to Gladia's quick and unobtrusive gesture, removed it.

  D.G. said, "I don't intend to ignore your question, my lady. I am not trying to force you to be a Solarian. I merely point out that you were born on Solaria and spent your early decades there and therefore you might reasonably be considered a Solarian, after a fashion at least. —Do you know that Solaria has been abandoned?"

  "So I have heard. Yes."

  "Do you feel anything about that?"

  "I am an Auroran and have been one for twenty decades."

  "That is a non sequitur."

  "A what?" She could make nothing of the last sound at all.

  "It has not connection with my question."

  "A non sequitur, you mean. You said a 'nonsense quitter.' "

  D.G. smiled. "Very well. Let's quit the nonsense. I ask you if you feel anything about the death of Solaria and you tell me you're an Auroran. Do you maintain that is an answer? A born Auroran might feel badly at the death of a sister world. How do you feel about it?"

  Gladia said icily, "It doesn't matter. Why are you interested?"

  "I'll explain. We—I mean the Traders of the Settler worlds—are interested because there is business to be done, profits to be made, and a world to be gained. Solaria is already terraformed; it is a comfortable world; you Spacers seem to have no need or desire for it. Why would we not settle it?"

  "Because it's not yours."

  "Madam, is it yours that you object? Has Aurora any more claim to it than Baleyworld has? Can't we suppose that an empty world belongs to whoever is pleased to settle it?"

  "Have you settled it?"

  "No—because it's not empty."

  "Do you mean the Solarians have not entirely left?" Gladia said quickly.

  D.G.'s smile returned and broadened into a grin. "You're excited at the thought. —Even though you're an Auroran."

  Gladia's face twisted into a frown at once. "Answer my question."

  D.G. shrugged. "There were only some five thousand Solarians on the world just before it was abandoned, according to our best estimates. The population had been declining for years. But even five thousand—can we be sure that all are gone? However, that's not the point. Even if the Solarians were indeed all gone, the planet would not be empty. There are, upon it, some two hundred million or more robots—masterless robots—some of them among the most advanced in the Galaxy. Presumably, those Solarians who left took some robots with them—it's hard to imagine Spacers doing without robots altogether." (He looked about, smiling, at the robots in their niches within the room.) "However, they can't possibly have taken forty thousand robots apiece."

  Gladia said, "Well, then, since your Settler worlds are so purely robot-free and wish to stay so, I presume, you can't settle Solaria."

  "That's right. Not until the robots are gone and that is where Traders such as myself come in."

  "In what way?"

  "We don't want a robot society, but we don't mind touching robots and dealing with them in the way of business. We don't have a superstitious fear of the things. We just know that a robot society is bound to decay. The Spacers have carefully made that plain to us by example. So that while we don't want to live with this robotic poison, we are perfectly willing to sell it to Spacers for a substantial sum—if they are so foolish as to want such a society."

  "Do you think Spacers will buy them?"

  "I'm sure they will. They will welcome the elegant modes that the Solarians manufacture. It's well known that they were the leading robot designers in the Galaxy, even though the late Dr. Fastolfe is said to have been unparalleled in the field, despite the fact that he was an Auroran. —Besides, even though we would charge a substantial sum, that sum would still be considerably less than the robots are worth. Spacers, and Traders would both profit—the secret of successful trade.

  "The Spacers wouldn't buy robots from Settlers," said Gladia with evident contempt.

  D.G. had a Trader's way of ignoring such nonessentials as anger or contempt. It was business that counted. He said, "Of course they would. Offer them advanced robots at half-price and why should they turn them down? Where business is to be done, you would be surprised how unimportant questions of ideology, become."

  "I think you'll be the one to be surprised. Try to sell your robots and you'll see."

  "Would that I could, my lady. Try to sell them, that is. I have none on hand."

  "Why not?"

  "Because none have been collected. Two separate trading vessels have landed on Solaria, each capable of storing some twenty-five robots. Had they succeeded, whole fleets of trading vessels would have followed them and I dare say we would have continued to do business for decades—and then have settled the world."

  "But, they didn't succeed. Why not?"

  "Because both ships were destroyed on the surface of the planet and, as far as we can tell, all the crewmen are dead."

  "Equipment failure?"

  "Nonsense. Both landed safely; they were not wrecked. Their last reports were that Spacers were approaching—whether Solarians or natives of other Spacer worlds, we don't know. We can only assume that the Spacers attacked without warning."

  "That's impossible!"

  "Is it?"

  "Of course it's impossible. What would be the motive?"

  "To keep us off the world, I would say."

  "If they wished to do that," said Gladia, "they would merely have had to announce that the world was occupied."

  "They might find it more pleasant to kill a few Settlers. At least, that's what many of our people think and there is pressure to settle the matter by sending a few warships to Solaria and establishing a military base on the planet."

  "That would be dangerous."

  "Certainly. It could lead to war. Some of our fire-eaters look forward to that. Perhaps some Spacers look forward to that, too, and have destroyed the two ships merely to provoke hostilities."

  Gladia sat there amazed. There had been no hint of strained relations between Spacers and Settlers on any of the news programs.

  She said, "Surely it's possible to discuss the matter. Have your people approached the Spacer Federation?"

  "A thoroughly unimportant body, but we have. We've also approached the Auroran Council."

  "And?"

  "The Spacers deny everything. They suggest that the potential profits in the Solarian robot trade are so high that Traders, who are interested only in money—as though they themselves are not—would fight each other over the matter. Apparently, they would have us believe the two ships destroyed each other, each hoping to monopolize the trade for their own world."

 
; "The two ships were from I two different worlds, then?"

  "Yes."

  "Don't you think, then, that there might indeed have been a fight between them?"

  "I don't think it's likely, but I will admit it's possible. There have been no outright conflicts between the Settler worlds, but there have been some pretty strenuous disputes. All have been settled through arbitration by Earth. Still, it is indeed a fact that the Settler worlds might, in a pinch, not hang together when multibillion-dollar trade is at stake. That's why war is not such a good idea for us and why something will have to be done to discourage the hotheads. That's where we come in."

  "We?"

  "You and I. I have been asked to go to Solaria and find out—if I can—what really happened. I will take one ship—armed, but not heavily armed."

  "You might be destroyed, too."

  "Possibly. But my ship, at least, won't be caught unprepared. Besides, I am not one of those hypervision heroes and I have considered what I might do to lessen the chances of destruction. It occurred to me that one of the disadvantages of Settler penetration of Solaria is that we don't know the world at all. It might be useful, then, to take someone who knows the world—a Solarian, in short."

  "You mean you want to take me?"

  "Right, my lady."

  "Why me?"

  "I should think you could see that without explanation, my lady. Those Solarians who have left the planet are gone we know not where. If any Solarians are left on the planet, they are very likely the enemy. There are no known Solarian born Spacers living on some Spacer planet other than Solaria—except yourself. You are only Solarian available to me—the only one in all the Galaxy. That's why I must have you and that's why you must come."

  "You're wrong, Settler. If I am the only one available to you, then you have no one who is available. I do not intend to come with you and there is no way—absolutely no way—that you can force me to come with you. I am surrounded by my robots. Take one step in my direction and you will be immobilized at once—and if you struggle you will be hurt."

  "I intend no force. You must come of your own accord—and you should be willing to. It's a matter of preventing war."

  "That is the job of governments on your side and mine. I refuse to have anything to do with it. I am a private citizen."

  "You owe it to your world. We might suffer in case of war, but so will Aurora."

  "I am not one of those hypervision heroes, any more than you are."

  "You owe it to me, then."

  "You're mad. I owe you nothing."

  D.G. smiled narrowly. "You owe me nothing as an individual. You owe me a great deal as a descendant of Elijah Baley."

  Gladia froze and remained staring at the bearded monster for a long moment. How did she come to forget who he was?

  With difficulty, she finally muttered, "No."

  "Yes," said D.G. forcefully. "On two different occasions, the Ancestor did more for you than you can ever repay. He is no longer here to call in the debt—a small part of the debt. I inherit the right to do so."

  Gladia said in despair, "But what can I do for you if I come with you?"

  "We'll find out. Will you come?"

  Desperately, Gladia wanted to refuse, but was it for this that Elijah had suddenly become part of her life, once more, in the last twenty-four hours? Was is so that when this impossible demand was made upon her, it would be in his name and she would find it impossible to refuse?

  She said, "What's the use? The Council will not let me go with you. They will not have an Auroran taken away on a Settler's vessel."

  "My lady, you have been here on Aurora for twenty decades, so you think the Auroran-born consider you an Auroran. It's not so. To them, you are a Solarian still. They'll let you go."

  "They won't," said Gladia, her heart pounding and the skin of her upper arms turning to gooseflesh. He was right. She thought of Amadiro, who would surely think of her as nothing but a Solarian. Nevertheless, she repeated, "They won't," trying to reassure herself.

  "They will," retorted D.G. "Didn't someone from your Council come to you to ask you to see me?"

  She said defiantly, "He asked me only to report this conversation we have had. And I will do so."

  "If they want you to spy on me here in your own home, my lady, they will find it even more useful to have you spy on me on Solaria." He waited for a response and when there was none, he said with a trace of weariness, "My lady, if you refuse, I won't force you because I won't have to. They will force you. But I don't want that. The Ancestor would not want it if he were here. He would want you to come with me out of gratitude to him and for no other reason. —My lady, the Ancestor labored on your behalf under conditions of extreme difficulty. Won't you labor on behalf of his memory?"

  Gladia's heart sank. She knew she could not resist that. She said, "I can't go anywhere without robots."

  "I wouldn't expect you to." D.G. was grinning again. "Why not take my two namesakes? Do you need more?"

  Gladia looked toward Daneel, but he was standing motionless. She looked toward Giskard—the same. And then it seemed to her that, for just a moment, his head moved—very slightly—up and down.

  She had to trust him.

  She said, "Well, then, I'll come with you. These two robots are all I will need."

  PART II

  5. THE ABANDONED WORLD

  14.

  For the fifth time in her life, Gladia found herself on a spaceship. She did not remember, offhand, exactly how long ago it had been that she and Santirix had gone together to the world of Euterpe because its rain forests were widely recognized as incomparable, especially under the romantic glow of its bright satellite, Gemstone.

  The rain forest had, indeed, been lush and green, with the trees carefully planted in rank and file and the animal life thoughtfully selected so as to provide color and delight, while avoiding venomous or other unpleasant creatures.

  The satellite, fully 150 kilometers in diameter, was close enough to Euterpe to shine like a brilliant dot of sparkling light. It was so close to the planet that one could see it sweep west to east across the sky, outstripping the planet's slower rotational motion. It brightened as it rose toward zenith and dimmed as it dropped toward the horizon again. One watched it with fascination the first night, with less the second, and with a vague discontent the third—assuming the sky was clear on those nights, which it usually wasn't.

  The native Euterpans, she noted, never looked at it, though they praised it loudly to the tourists, of course.

  On the whole, Gladia had enjoyed the trip well enough, but what she remembered most keenly was the joy of her return to Aurora and her decision not to travel again except under dire need. (Come to think of it, it had to be at least eight decades ago.)

  For a while, she had lived with the uneasy fear that her husband would insist on another trip, but he never mentioned one. It might well be, she sometimes thought at that time, that he had come to the same decision she had and feared she might be the one to want to travel.

  It didn't make them unusual to avoid trips. Aurorans generally—Spacers generally, for that matter—tended to be stay-at-homes. Their worlds, their establishments, were too comfortable. After all, what pleasure could be greater than that of being taken care of by your own robots, robots who knew your every signal, and, for that matter, knew your ways and desires even without being told.

  She stirred uneasily. Was that what D.G. had meant when he spoke of the decadence of a roboticized society?

  But now she was back again in space, after all that time, And on an Earth ship, too.

  She hadn't seen much of it, but the little she had glimpsed made her terribly uneasy. It seemed to be nothing but straight lines, sharp angles, and smooth surfaces. Everything that wasn't stark had been eliminated, apparently. It was as though nothing must exist but functionality. Even though she didn't know what was exactly functional about any particular object on the ship, she felt it to be all that was required, that
nothing was to be allowed to interfere with taking the shortest distance between two points.

  On everything Auroran (on everything, Spacer, one might almost say, though Aurora was the most advanced in that respect), everything existed in layers. Functionality was at the bottom—one could not entirely rid one's self of that, except in what was pure ornament—but overlying that there was always something to satisfy the eyes and the senses, generally; and overlying that, something to satisfy the spirit.

  How much better that was! —Or did it represent such an exuberance of human creativity that Spacers could no longer live with the unadorned Universe—and was that bad? Was the future to belong to these from-here-to-there geometrizers? Or was it just that the Settlers had not yet learned the sweetnesses of life?

  But then, if life had so many sweetnesses to it, why had she found so few for herself.

  She had nothing really to do on board this ship but to ponder and reponder such questions. This D.G., this Elijah descended barbarian, had put it into her head, with his calm assumption that the Spacer worlds were dying, even though he could see all about him even during the shortest stay on Aurora (surely, he would have to) that it was deeply embedded in wealth and security.

  She had tried to escape her own thoughts by staring at the holofilms she had been supplied with and watching, with moderate curiosity, the images flickering and capering on the projection surface, as the adventure story (all were adventure stories) hastened from event to event with little time left for conversation and none for thought—or enjoyment, either. Very like their furniture.

  D.G. stepped in when she was in the middle of one of the films, but had stopped really paying attention. She was not caught by surprise. Her robots, who guarded her doorway, signaled his coming in ample time and would not have allowed him to enter if she were not in a position to receive him. Daneel entered with him.

  D.G. said, "How are you doing?" Then, as her hand touched a contact and the images faded, shriveled, and were gone, he said, "You don't have to turn it off. I'll watch it with you."