Asimov’s Future History Volume 9

by Isaac Asimov

  “No. I imagine the Council has more than enough to talk to him about.”

  “Very good. Then, I only want to ask what you intend to do, and if you are willing to appear upon request of the Courts at any hearings concerning your tenure on Earth and matters involving Ambassador Eliton.”

  “I intend finding quarters,” Ariel said, “taking a long nap, and waiting for a new assignment, assuming one is forthcoming. Of course I’ll make myself available. I imagine that I would be subpoenaed in any case.”

  “Of course, but a statement of cooperation on record now can save time and inconvenience. A formality, that’s all.”

  “I see. Then, if there’s nothing else . . . ?”

  “We’re finished. Thank you. Oh, and please register your address with my office as soon as you have it.”

  “Register with Planetary Security?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s unusual, isn’t it?”

  “New policy in place since the Nova Levis blockade. Again, just a formality. No need to register with anyone else once you do so with us.”

  “Nova Levis . . . of course.”

  She stood.

  Byris resumed studying his flatscreen. When Ariel reached the door, he said, “Welcome home, Ambassador. Enjoy your stay.”

  Ariel stepped out of the office, feeling unsettled. Nova Levis . . . it’s affecting everything . . .

  Ariel passed through customs after only a brief, innocuous interrogation, and strode into the main reception area of the port. The chamber sprawled, a vast expanse beneath a pearl-white dome suspended by delicate arching arms, between which stretched huge windows letting in the golden light of Tau Ceti. People moved in Brownian trajectories, followed by robots of various types as well as the orbiting “electron” shells of their personal extensions. Ariel remembered the tech from her days at the Calvin, but back then only a few wealthy Aurorans and government officials used them. Now it appeared everyone possessed a cadre of floating eyes, ears, and sensors, all attached to a homebased RI.

  Eos Port did not seem crowded, but Ariel knew that was illusory. Union Station in D.C. on Earth, huge as it was, could fit within this single chamber. One-person transports were available at numerous stations throughout. Most Aurorans chose to walk.

  Ariel moved anxiously, surveying the scene. Robots stood on pedestals at wide intervals, giving information or stepping down to provide assistance. She saw no lines, no booths, no official desks. As she scanned the scene, she felt disturbed that no party of officials had come to meet her. Only that single, troubling interview with the head of Planetary Security . . . and no one else. She had passed his inspection and now could safely be let loose on Aurora.

  She almost laughed. She needed to adjust her expectations. Things happened at a different pace, in a different order on Aurora. She knew there would be more questions in due course; Byris had all but promised her that, with his request for a “statement of cooperation” for the courts. There was no need here, after having passed any reasonable security check on board ship, above on the station, and now on the ground, to embarrass her or cause unnecessary alarm among the rest of the people present by treating her as a potential threat. Respect, especially between fellow Aurorans, if not genuinely felt, was always practiced.

  We are not Terrans . . .

  But even though she had told Byris that she had no one here, some part of her still expected—

  “Ariel!”

  She stopped abruptly at the sound of her name spoken by a familiar voice. She looked around. At first she saw no one she knew. Then—

  He came toward her energetically, one hand half-raised in greeting. Ariel recognized the hair first—lead gray and uncharacteristically long and disheveled by Auroran standards—then the wide, gleeful grin. He wore a brilliant red shirt above grayish-white pants. He was slightly heavier than the average Auroran, a bit shorter, and clearly less reserved.

  “Ariel, I thought you’d run right out of here and never see me.”

  Ariel felt her face tug into a smile. “Dr. Penj?”

  Two younger-looking assistants hurried in his wake.

  “Well, you haven’t forgotten, then,” he said loudly. “I would have been crushed if you had, even more so since you haven’t sent me any kind of correspondence since you left for Earth.”

  He stopped in front of her and raised his arms, hands spread as if to seize her by the shoulders. He looked down at her feet and brought his gaze slowly up to her face.

  “You look tired but on the whole better. Terrans must agree with you.”

  “I’ve met a few who weren’t terrible. Dr. Penj . . .”

  “You know better than that. ‘Rolf’ it is, and ‘Rolf’ it had better remain.” He turned. “These are my current aides: Yvon and Farlos. And before you ask—human, yes. I left Binder behind. He can be a pest when it comes to Terrans. He still considers anyone from Earth a source of infection. Embarrassing.”

  Ariel started laughing.

  “What?” Rolf Penj asked with mock indignation. “All these years and you laugh at me? She thinks I’m amusing,” he said to his aides. “That’s only because I am, of course, but I’m not trying to be now and she’s laughing. You can see how she must have been as a student, always reacting in exactly the wrong way during class.”

  Ariel saw smiles playing on the more ideally Auroran faces of Yvon and Farlos. She stifled herself.

  “You evidently haven’t changed a bit,” she said.

  Penj’s thick eyebrows rose. “I hope not. It took me a long time to get to a condition I liked—I intend to keep it till I’m tired of it. Do you have any luggage?”

  “It’s already on its way to storage. I don’t have a domicile yet. I suppose I’ll get one—”

  “Where in particular?”

  “I gather at the Calvin Institute hostelry. Are the Madarian Apartments still—”

  “You gather. You think. As usual, not absolutely sure.” He said to Yvon and Farlos, “She came up with a sound argument in defense of positronic drift, demonstrating that over time a positronic template mutates, much like a human mind, and is not absolutely reliable. I think she was using her own mind as a model.” To Ariel, grinning, he said, “The Madarians are still there, still overly-furnished, and still where all the pretentious graduates who think they know something about positronics live until the Calvin finds them tasks elsewhere. Let’s go see if they’ll have you, find out for certain where you’re supposed to be staying. Till then, you can stay with me, and I’m not sure my place is clean enough for guests. Not on the ground ten minutes and a nuisance already!”

  “I can see to her accommodations, Doctor,” Farlos said.

  “Do,” Penj said. “And see to her luggage.” He pointed to Yvon. “Get us transport.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Both aides went off in separate directions.

  “I can’t believe how glad I am to see you,” Ariel said. “I didn’t expect anyone to meet me.”

  “You should be glad to see me, Ariel. If not me, then it would be some dour politico with an agenda.” His grin vanished, and he was instantly as serious as ever she had seen him. “What kind of mess have you generated, Ariel? There are people here wanting your head on a stake. And we’ve detained a Terran ambassador at your say-so? What is that about? My sense is that it’s a worse scandal than—well, anyway, as soon as we’re out of any possibility of eavesdropping, we have to have a very detailed, very serious talk. You are in trouble, Ariel Burgess, along with all the rest of us.”

  He spun around and walked away from her. After a few seconds, Ariel followed, catching up with him in less than a dozen strides.

  “I never did know what you’d say next,” she said caustically.

  “Best teaching method ever invented,” Penj said. “Keep them guessing, but give them enough clues to make a correct deduction.” He gave a sidelong glance. “You know what I’m talking about, so don’t act indignant or surprised.”

  �
�I’m not. I actually did expect a reception committee from the Council or from the Institute.” Or rather, I hoped someone would . . .

  “I told the Institute I’d do it. Why the Council agreed I don’t know. Things are not as carefree as they were the last time you were here.”

  “So I gathered. I was interviewed by the head of Planetary Security just before going through Customs.”

  “Pon Byris? That officious—? What did he want? Never mind, tell me later, not here.”

  He walked quickly, giving her little chance to look around. They passed beneath one of the graceful arches and suddenly they stood in brilliant sunlight and open air. Penj looked left and right.

  “We have a few moments before my aides catch up,” he said, turning toward her. “And out here, I doubt anyone will think to listen in. Some privacy still remains.”

  “What?”

  “Listen, don’t talk. The organism you sent back, the cyborg. It’s causing small revolutions throughout the Institute. Paradigms are shifting and ivory towers are crumbling. Such a thing is supposed to be impossible.” He grinned. “Excellent work, Ariel, even if it is pure serendipity. The smug bastards have to work for a change and no one is certain anymore. About anything.” The grin vanished. “Which leads directly to a very dangerous political atmosphere. For the first time in memory—in my memory, which is long and accurate—Aurora is afraid.”

  “You mean the Calvin Institute is upset?”

  “No. I mean the organic thinking population of the world is afraid. Most of them aren’t even sure why, they’re just borrowing it from their representatives and avatars. Their comfort zone has been violated, all their expectations are called into question. Yes, the Calvin is full of fear, and of course it bled over into the Council, and from there . . . well, fear, like any strong emotion, is viral, isn’t it? The mission on Earth is a dismal failure thanks to that cretin we’ve just arrested—and yes, I do know what it’s about and thank you for the word on that, Ariel, I’m sure it will go a long way toward some useful palliative, and can’t hurt your standing with the Council at all—and the situation with Solaria and the Settler Coalition is no closer to resolution than it was when we began trying to resolve it. For the first time since the Independence Aggressions, Aurora doesn’t know what to do next, and we’re failing on several important matters. Scapegoats are being actively sought, so you be careful. It’s not a good sign at all that Pon Byris chose to interview you right off the shuttle. Watch him, Ariel, he seems like a typical bureaucrat, but right now he can be a very dangerous man. I don’t wish to see my favorite student sacrificed in some primitive expression of hurt pride and vented spleen.”

  Ariel smiled. “ ‘Favorite’? I thought I was your best.”

  “You’ll never hear it from me.” He patted her shoulder. “Quiet now, you need to hear the rest. Earth has requested direct Spacer intervention in the Nova Levis situation. A Spacer world has never waged war on another, and if we step in, it is likely to come to that.”

  “With Solaria?”

  “Or one of their allies.”

  “Nexon?”

  “Nexon could care less—they’ve grown more and more disinterested in anything Solaria does. They’ve removed themselves from it all so much that enlisting their aid is nothing but a gesture. Keres has a war fleet, though.”

  “Since when?”

  “Since they bought one off the black market, about a year ago. Settler mercenaries are running it with Keresian officers seconded from their police arm. So far they haven’t done anything with it but fly pretty patterns. I don’t even think Earth knows about it. However, we have information that they are in negotiations with their weapons source for a new cadre of mercenaries to run the fleet and act as their police force. We don’t have the details, but Keres is balking. They’re afraid.”

  “Cyborgs?”

  Penj shrugged. “Do you think more of those could be built, and, if so, in sufficient numbers to form a sizable threat?”

  “I don’t know. What about the arms dealer?”

  Another shrug.

  “Kynig Parapoyos,” Ariel guessed.

  Penj raised his eyebrows. “You know about him, then?”

  “He’s the great bogeyman of interstellar trade on Earth. Most people don’t actually believe he’s a real person, but there are companies that do exactly what he’s accused of doing.”

  “The Hunter Group is the largest. We can’t get the Settler Coalition to investigate effectively or grant us permission to send our own people.”

  “They’re afraid you’ll bring robots along.”

  “Side issues. What is important is that cyborg. Where was it manufactured?”

  “We believe—I believe—there’s a facility on Nova Levis. We found connections between it and a lab on Earth and—”

  Penj held up a hand. His two aides emerged from the terminal and converged on them.

  “Later,” Penj said. Loudly to his aides, he said, “So, do we have transport or must we walk?”

  With three robots, under Denis’s supervision, Derec quickly got the lab up and assembled Thales and reconnected all the memory nodes. He hesitated, hands poised above the main console, relishing the next few moments. On a diagnostics table behind him stretched the inanimate hulk of Bogard. Derec wanted to acknowledge to himself, to his surroundings, to his memory, to everything he had been through in the past eighteen months, that this was no illusion. That he was awake and about to recover most of what he had been deprived of since life on Earth became untenable for him.

  He let his right hand fall, one finger touching the contact that prompted—

  “Hello, Derec,” Thales said. “Are we operational now?”

  “Check it out. Run diagnostics.”

  A few seconds later, Thales came back, “Full capacity memory access. All systems optimal. I am online and at your service. What shall I do first?”

  “Explore our accommodations, access Eos City services and find out what I need to know to live here, then . . . I guess we can go back to work on Bogard.”

  “Working. Give me a few seconds while I connect to the Eos RI grid.”

  A chime sounded. Derec looked around.

  “You have a guest,” Thales said.

  “I’ll get back to you.”

  Derec hurried to his door. Clin Craym smiled as he opened it.

  running diagnostic, running parameter check, running alignment routines—compatibility factors plus nine, plus eight-seven, optimal path transduction—fill buffers, isolate comm nodes, check security, run purge on external feeds, loops located in eighteen tiers, isolating and capping—check sources, maintain ghost feeds

  resource manifest, available physical plant, access—

  reset dedication, attach hierarchical links to available mobile units, establish household protocols, assess capacity, route command interlink through primary feeds

  Derec watched, bemused, as Clin commandeered his kitchen. She had brought containers of food, which she began preparing with an attitude of authority and pride.

  “Shipboard cuisine is very good,” she said as she sliced small reddish bullets. A sharp odor filled the room. “But it’s nothing compared to what can be done with human hands.”

  Derec folded his arms over his chest. “Why?”

  Clin gave him a curious look. “Because robots—good as they are—just don’t quite—”

  “That’s not what I mean.”

  She set her paring knife down. “You mean why am I here?”

  Derec nodded, not sure he should say anything.

  Clin sighed, picked up the knife, and resumed chopping. “Are you hungry?”

  “I’m curious.”

  “Don’t be. Some people are just more interesting than others. Until you start examining the interest. Then . . .” She shrugged.

  “So it’s purely whimsical?”

  “Probably not. But we’ll never find out if I leave.” She looked at him with narrowed eyes. “Is this the way
it is on Earth? A couple of excellent encounters and then suspicion?”

  Derec felt stung. “I’m sorry, I—”

  “What criteria do you use to decide on a relationship? I mean, at the beginning? Appearance? A turn of phrase? Maybe just something about the eyes? Instinct?”

  “I haven’t had a relationship in a long time. Not . . . like this.”

  “That Earth thing, maybe? Suspicion?”

  “No. Too busy.” He considered. “I’m sorry, I’m just not used to having someone suddenly want to be around me like this.”

  “This is Aurora. You never have to be alone here.”

  Derec could think of no response that would not sound hurtful. He wanted to accept Clin as exactly what she appeared to be, but he did not trust his sudden willingness to do that. Maybe it is the Earth thing . . .

  “So,” he said finally, “what’s on the menu?”

  * * *

  control established, household protocols in place, previous authority suppressed, three staff mobiles, class MP-90, “B” level positronics, fully adaptive

  secure premises from all covert surveillance, establish secondary communications channels, query Auroran positronic network, requesting orientation and introduction

  uncrate Bogard, connect service and diagnostic links, inventory available resources for continued update, repair, and recovery

  secondary priority run identity profiles on following subjects, list appended

  Derec wondered at her every time she undressed. Clin had the physique of a gymnast, and she seemed to make love with every part of her body at once, undulating against him constantly, slowly, concentrating his attention so completely on the sensations she provided that he could think of being no where else.

  “I have things to do,” he said.

  “You’re doing them.”

  Welcome to Aurora, he thought, giving up.

  main trunk lines sorted, comm directory accessed, data encoded, securing closed lines, interrogatory Institute resident intelligence network, establish links, identity open to positronic verification, request dialogue