by Isaac Asimov
"We might consider it an important message, then—to them. What do they want?"
"They want the Solarian woman back again."
"Obviously, then, they know our ship got away from Solaria and has come to Baleyworld. They have their monitoring stations, too, and eavesdrop on our communications as we eavesdrop on theirs."
"Absolutely," said Pandaral with considerable irritation. "They break our codes as fast as we break theirs. My own feeling is we ought to come to an agreement that we both send messages in the clear. Neither of us would be worse off."
"Did they say why they want the woman?"
"Of course not. Spacers don't give reasons; they give orders."
"Have they found out exactly what it was that the woman accomplished on Solaria? Since she's the only person who speaks authentic Solarian, do they want her to clear the planet of its overseers?"
"I don't see how they could have found out, D.G. We only announced her role last night. The message from Aurora was received well before that. —But it doesn't matter why they want her. The question is: What do we do? If we don't return her, we may have a crisis with Aurora that I don't want. If we do return her, it will look bad to the Baleyworlders and Old Man Bistervan will have a field day pointing out that we're crawling to the Spacers."
They stared at each other, then D.G. said slowly, "We'll have to return her. After all, she's a Spacer and an Auroran citizen. We can't keep her against Aurora's will or we'll put at risk every Trader who ventures into Spacer territory on business. But I'll take her back, Director, and you can put the blame on me. Say that the conditions of my taking her to Solaria were that I would return her to Aurora, which is true, actually, even if not a matter of written formality, and that I am a man of ethics and felt I had to keep my agreement. —And it may turn out to our advantage."
"In what way?"
"I'll have to work it out. But if it's to be done, Director, my ship will have to be refitted at planetary expense. And my men will need healthy bonuses. —Come, Director, they're giving up their leave."
39.
Considering that he had not intended to be in his ship again for at least three additional months, D.G. seemed in genial spirits.
And considering that Gladia had larger and more luxurious quarters than she had before, she seemed rather depressed.
"Why all this?" she asked.
"Looking a gift horse in the mouth?" asked D.G.
"I'm just asking. Why?"
"For one thing, my lady, you're a class-A heroine and when the ship was refurbished, this place was rather tarted up for you."
"Tarted up?"
"Just an expression. Fancied up, if you prefer."
"This space wasn't just created. Who lost out?"
"Actually, it was the crew's lounge, but they insisted, you know. You're their darling, too. In fact, Niss—you remember Niss?"
"Certainly."
"He wants you to take him on in place of Daneel. He says Daneel doesn't enjoy the job and keeps apologizing to his victims. Niss says he will destroy anyone who gives you the least trouble, will take pleasure in it, and will never apologize."
Gladia smiled. "Tell him I will keep his offer in mind and tell him I would enjoy shaking his hand if that can be arranged. I didn't get a chance to do so before we landed on Baleyworld."
"You'll wear your gloves, I hope, when you shake hands."
"Of course, but I wonder if that's entirely necessary. I haven't as much as sniffed since I left Aurora. The injections I've been getting have probably strengthened my immune system beautifully." She looked about again. "You even have wall niches for Daneel and Giskard. That's quite thoughtful of you, D.G."
"Madam," said D.G., "we work hard to please and we're delighted that you're pleased."
"Oddly enough"—Gladia sounded as though she were actually puzzled by what she was about to say—"I'm not entirely pleased. I'm not sure I want to leave your world."
"No? Cold—snow—dreary—primitive—endlessly cheering crowds everywhere. What can possibly attract you here?"
Gladia reddened. "It's not the cheering crowds."
"I'll pretend to believe you, madam."
"It's not. It's something altogether different. I—I have never done anything. I've amused myself in various trivial ways, I've engaged in force-field coloring and robot exodesign. I've made love and been a wife and mother and—and—in none of these things have I ever been an individual of any account. If I had suddenly disappeared from existence, or if I had never been born, it wouldn't have affected anyone or anything—except, perhaps, one, or two close personal friends. Now it's different."
"Yes?" There was the faintest touch of mockery in D.G.'s voice.
Gladia said, "Yes! I can influence people. I can choose a cause and make it my own. I have chosen a cause. I want to prevent war. I want the Universe populated by Spacer and Settler alike. I want each group to keep their own peculiarities, yet freely accept the others, too. I want to work so hard at this that after I am gone, history will have changed because of me and people will say things would not be as satisfactory as they are had it not been for her."
She turned to D.G., her face glowing. "Do you know what a difference it makes, after two and one-third centuries of being nobody, to have a chance, of being somebody; to find that a life you thought of as empty turns out to contain something after all, something wonderful; to be happy long, long after you had given up any hope of being happy?"
"You don't have to be on Baleyworld, my lady, to have all that." Somehow D.G. seemed a little abashed.
"I wouldn't have it on Aurora. I'm only a Solarian immigrant on Aurora. On a Settler world, I'm a Spacer, something unusual."
"Yet on a number of occasions—and quite forcefully you have stated you wanted to return to Aurora."
"Some time ago, yes—but I'm not saying it now, D.G. I don't really want it now."
"Which would influence us a great deal, except that Aurora wants you. They've told us so."
Gladia was clearly astonished. "They want me?"
"An official message from Aurora's Chairman of the Council tells us they do," said D.G. lightly. "We would enjoy keeping you, but the Directors have decided that keeping you is not worth an interstellar crisis. I'm not sure I agree with them, but they outrank me."
Gladia frowned. "Why should they want me? I've been on Aurora for over twenty decades and at no time have they ever seemed to want me. —Wait! Do you suppose they see me now as the only way of stopping the overseers on Solaria?"
"That thought had occurred to me, my lady."
"I won't do it. I held off that one overseer by a hair and I may never be able to repeat what I did then. I know I won't. —Besides, why need they land on the planet? They can destroy the overseers from a distance, now that they know what they are."
"Actually," said D.G., "the message demanding your return was sent out long before they could possibly have known of your conflict with the overseer. They must want you for something else."
"Oh." She looked taken aback. Then, catching fire again, "I don't care what else. I don't want to return. I have my work out here and I mean to continue it."
D.G. rose. "I am glad to hear you say so, Madam Gladia. I was hoping you would feel like that. I promise you I will do my best to take you with me when we leave Aurora. Right now, though, I must go to Aurora and you must go with me.
40.
Gladia watched Baleyworld, as it receded, with emotions quite different from those with which she had watched it approach. It was precisely the cold, gray, miserable world now that it had seemed at the start, but there was a warmth and life to the people. They were real, solid.
Solaria, Aurora, the other Spacer worlds that she had visited or had viewed on hypervision, all seemed filled with people who were insubstantial—gaseous.
That was the word. Gaseous.
No matter how few the human beings who lived upon a Spacer world, they spread out to fill the planet in the same way that m
olecules of gas spread out to fill a container. It was as if Spacers repelled each other.
And they did, she thought gloomily. Spacers had always repelled her. She had been brought up to such repulsion on Solaria, but even on Aurora, when she was experimenting madly with sex just at first, the least enjoyable aspect of it was the closeness it made necessary.
Except—except with Elijah. —But he was not a Spacer.
Baleyworld was not like that. Probably all the Settler worlds were not. Settlers clung together, leaving large tracts desolate about them as the price of the clinging—empty, that is, until population increase filled it. A Settler world was a world of people clusters, of pebbles and boulders, not gas.
Why was this? Robots, perhaps! They lessened the dependence of people upon people. They filled the interstices between. They were the insulation that diminished the natural attraction people had for each other, so that the whole system fell apart into isolates.
It had to be. Nowhere were there more robots than on Solaria and the insulating effect there had been so enormous that the separate gas molecules that were human beings became so totally inert that they almost never interrelated at all. (Where had the Solarians gone, she wondered again, and how were they living?)
And long life had something to do with it, too. How could one make an emotional attachment that, wouldn't turn slowly sour as the multidecades passed—or, if one died, how could another bear the loss for multidecades? One learned, then, not to make emotional attachments but to stand off, to insulate one's self.
On the other hand, human beings, if short-lived, could not so easily outlive fascination with life. As the generations passed by rapidly, the ball of fascination bounced from hand to hand without ever touching the ground.
How recently she had told D.G. that there was no more to do or know, that she had experienced and thought everything, that she had to live on in utter boredom. —And she hadn't known or even dreamed, as she spoke, of crowds of people, one upon another; of speaking to many as they melted into a continuous sea of heads; of hearing their response, not in words but in wordless sounds; of melting together with them, feeling their feelings, becoming one large organism.
It was not merely that she had never experienced such a thing before, it was that she had never dreamed anything like that might be experienced. How much more did she know nothing of despite her long life? What more existed for the experiencing that she was incapable of fantasying?
Daneel said gently, "Madam Gladia, I believe the captain is signaling for entrance."
Gladia started. "Let him enter, then."
D.G. entered, eyebrows raised. "I am relieved. I thought perhaps you were not at home."
Gladia smiled. "In a way, I wasn't. I was lost in thought. It happens to me sometimes."
"You are fortunate," said D.G. "My thoughts are never large enough to be lost in. Are you reconciled to visiting Aurora, madam?"
"No, I'm not. And among the thoughts in which I was lost was one to the effect that I still do not have any idea why you must go to Aurora. It can't be only to return me. Any space worthy cargo tug could have done the job."
"May I sit down, madam?"
"Yes, of course. That goes without saying, Captain. I wish you'd stop treating me as aristocracy. It becomes wearing. And if it's an ironic indication that I'm a Spacer, then it's worse than wearing. In fact, I'd almost rather you called me Gladia."
"You seem to be anxious to disown your Spacer identity, Gladia," said D.G. as he seated himself and crossed his legs.
"I would rather forget nonessential distinctions."
"Nonessential? Not while you live five times as long as I do."
"Oddly enough, I have been thinking of that as a rather annoying disadvantage for Spacers. —How long before we reach Aurora?"
"No evasive action this time. A few days to get far enough from our sun to be able to make a Jump through hyperspace that will take us to within a few days of Aurora—and that's it."
"And why must you go to Aurora, D.G.?"
"I might say it was simply politeness, but in actual fact, I would like an opportunity to explain to your Chairman—or even to one of his subordinates—exactly what happened on Solaria.
"Don't they know what happened?"
"In essentials, they do. They were kind enough to tap our communications, as we would have done theirs if the situation had been reversed. Still, they may not have drawn the proper conclusions. I would like to correct them—if that is so."
"What are the proper conclusions, D.G.?"
"As you know, the overseers on Solaria were geared to respond to a person as human only if he or she spoke with a Solarian accent, as you did. That means that not only were Settlers not considered human, but non-Solarian Spacers were not considered human, either. To be precise, Aurorans, would not be considered human beings if they had landed on Solaria."
Gladia's eyes widened. "That's unbelievable. The Solarians wouldn't arrange to have the overseers treat Aurorans as they treated you."
"Wouldn't they? They have already destroyed an Auroran ship. Did you know that?"
"An Auroran ship! No, I didn't know that."
"I assure you they did. It landed about the time we did. We got away, but they didn't. We had you, you see, and they didn't. The conclusion is—or should be—that Aurora cannot automatically treat other Spacer worlds as allies. In an emergency, it will be each Spacer world for itself."
Gladia shook her head violently. "It would be unsafe to generalize from a single instance. The Solarians would have found it difficult to have the overseers react favorably to fifty accents and unfavorably to scores of others. It was easier to pin them to a single accent. That's all. They gambled that no other Spacers would try to land on their world and they lost."
Yes, I'm sure that is how the Auroran leadership will argue, since people generally find it much easier to make a pleasant deduction than an unpleasant one. What I want to do is to make certain they see the possibility of the unpleasant one—and that this makes them uncomfortable indeed. Forgive my self-love, but I can't trust anyone to do it as well as I can and therefore I think that I, rather than anyone else, should go to Aurora."
Gladia felt uncomfortably torn. She did not want to be a Spacer; she wanted to be a human being and forget what she had just called "nonessential distinctions." And yet when D.G. spoke with obvious satisfaction of forcing Aurora into a humiliating position, she found herself still somehow a Spacer.
She said in annoyance, "I presume the Settler worlds are at odds among themselves, too. Is it not each Settler world for itself?"
D.G. shook his head. "It may seem to you that this must be so and I wouldn't be surprised if each individual Settler world had the impulse at times to put its own interest over the good of the whole, but we have something you Spacers lack."
"And what is that. A greater nobility?"
"Of course not. We're no more noble than Spacers are. What we've got is the Earth. It's our world. Every Settler visits Earth as often as he can. Every Settler knows that there is a world, a large, advanced world, with an incredibly rich history and cultural variety and ecological complexity that is his or hers and to which he or she belongs. The Settler worlds might quarrel with each other, but the quarrel cannot possibly result in violence or in a permanent breach of relations, for the Earth government is automatically called in to mediate all problems and its decision is sufficient and unquestioned.
"Those are our three advantages, Gladia: the lack of robots, something that allows us to build new worlds with our own hands; the rapid succession of generations, which makes for constant change; and, most of all, the Earth, which gives us our central core."
Gladia said urgently, "But the Spacers—" and she stopped.
D.G. smiled and said with an edge of bitterness, "Were you going to say that the Spacers are also descended from Earthpeople and that it is their planet, too? Factually true, but psychologically false. The Spacers have done their best to deny thei
r heritage. They don't consider themselves Earthmen once-removed—or any-number-removed. If I were a mystic, I would say that by cutting themselves away from their roots, the Spacers cannot survive long. Of course, I'm not a mystic so I don't put it that way—but they cannot survive long, just the same. I believe that."
Then, after a short pause, he added, with a somewhat troubled kindness, as though he realized that in his exultation he was striking a sensitive spot within her, "But please think of yourself as a human being, Gladia, rather than as a Spacer, and I will think of myself as a human being, rather than as a Settler. Humanity will survive, whether it will be in the form of Settlers or Spacers or both. I believe it will be in the form of Settlers only, but I may be wrong."
"No," said Gladia, trying to be unemotional. "I think you're right—unless somehow people learn to stop making the Spacer/Settler distinction. It is my goal—to help people do that."
"However," said D.G., glancing at the dim time strip that circled the wall, "I delay your dinner. May I eat with you?"
"Certainly," said Gladia.
D.G. rose to his feet. "Then I'll go get it. I'd send Daneel or Giskard, but I don't ever want to get into the habit of ordering robots about. Besides, however much the crew adores you, I don't think their adoration extends to your robots."
Gladia did not actually enjoy the meal when D.G. brought it. She did not seem to grow accustomed to the lack of subtlety in its flavors that might be the heritage of Earth cooking of yeast for mass consumption, but then, neither was it particularly repulsive. She ate stolidly.
D.G., noting her lack of enthusiasm, said, "The food doesn't upset you, I hope?"
She shook her head. "No. Apparently, I'm acclimated. I had some unpleasant episodes when I first got on the ship, but nothing really severe."
"I'm glad of that, but, Gladia—"
"Yes?"
"Can you suggest no reason why the Auroran government should want you back so urgently? It can't be your handling of the overseer and it can't be your speech. The request was sent out well before they could have known of either."
