Asimov’s Future History Volume 9

by Isaac Asimov

  “As much as possible.”

  “Good. Perhaps you should make some coffee. This may take some time.”

  “The Spacer Worlds,” Hofton began, “weren’t settled all at once. A few at a time, over centuries. The last were opened up not from Earth but from other Spacer colonies. Solaria was such a colony. It was originally settled from Nexon. There was a second wave of settlement—I suppose it would be more accurate to say ‘refugees’—which caused the initial rift between Earth and the Fifty Worlds and resulted in the war and the isolation.

  “At first, though, it was all in the spirit of a dream come true. Hyperdrive gave us the ability to go to the stars, and we did. It was a golden age—at least, on the surface. I can’t imagine what it must have been like for most of the ten billion people trapped on Earth. There was a paradigm shift—what some historians call a ‘phase change’—occurring at the same time. The old institutions upon which Earth relied no longer worked. This was the time of the World Coordinators and Machine management. Trade from the new settlements boosted the global economy and the Machines—the first RIs, really—controlled the fluctuations that normally accompanied new expansions and pretty much kept things stable for a long, long time.

  “Can you imagine a time when robots proliferated on Earth? The Cities were being built, slowly, and most of the dangerous work was done by robots. The old institutions that dictated full employment for humans, obsolete though they were and had been for centuries, changed into quasi-religious movements that pitted the unemployed—though cared-for—against the so-called onslaught of the artificial person. There are thousands of reasons why the first Riots occurred. I’m inclined to believe that it was largely because the original Machines had gradually removed themselves from operation. A misapplication of Three Law protocol, probably. Once stabilized, they misunderstood their role and believed—I’m guessing—that continued maintenance on their part would be harmful in the long run to humanity. They shut themselves down. No one really knows how long matters ran on without their management.

  “But eventually, resentments over a hundred perceived slights against the common people combined to cause riots. Not the least of which were a series of plagues which turned out to be the result of nanotech.

  “You can’t have a mechanism as complex as a positronic robot without extreme miniaturization. Earth, in fact, developed crude nanotech before the first useful robots were designed and built. The one was necessary to the other, and the other spurred research in the one. Side by side, the two technologies increased in complexity and utility.

  “The problem, however, was the closeness to organic function a lot of nanotech became, specifically in the terraforming aspects. Nanotech proved incredibly efficient at adapting ecosystems to human requirements. In order to do that, though, a certain latitude was necessary in the organelles themselves, an innate ability to analyze and adapt. Mutate. Once you cross that line, though, you bring about all the uncertainties and unpredictabilities that come with actual living organisms. One solution was to program in a self-destruct sequence that caused the specific type to eat itself out after it had done its job. Oh, the technology was fabulous, and amazing, and ninety-nine percent effective.

  “But that one percent . . . well, like any new plague, it began with a few outbreaks here and there and then spread. By the time Earth knew what was happening to it, people were in a blind panic. Once the thing that was killing them was identified, they conflated it with any and all technology seen to imitate life—including robots. The Riots ran across the entire planet. A second wave of settlement exploded onto the Spacer worlds. I called them refugees. They were. They were fleeing the riots, the plagues, the politics, the backlash. People who wanted to keep their robots, protect themselves from infection, start anew elsewhere. Hundreds of thousands.

  “In the end, it turned out that Earth could do without robots, but it had to keep some of the nanotech. Food production alone had become dependent on it. By the time the plagues had been wrestled into submission, the surviving technologies were called other things, innocuous labels, and the tech itself operated far less independently.

  “The Spacers, however, had to stanch the flow of new colonists. The flood threatened to bring the riots out to us. That is what started the events that led to the war, and the isolation, and Earth losing its home-based star travel ability. That is also the beginning of our long fear of infection. Not all the refugees came unburdened. When the smoke cleared, Earth had purged itself of robots and virulent nanoplagues and a lot of political undesirables—at our expense. You exported some of your diseases. We nearly cut you off completely, but we needed the expertise of your researchers who had successfully isolated and stopped the spread and eruption of new plagues. Some Spacer worlds—Solaria in particular—became irremediably paranoid. All of us suffered in one way or another.”

  Coren shifted uncomfortably and took another sip of coffee. Everything Hofton said matched or complimented what he had heard from Myler Towne’s researcher. “None of this is in the history texts.”

  Hofton smiled sadly. “Of course it isn’t. Who wants to remember all that ugliness? When we tried to reintroduce robots, it ended in failure because your cultural memory is longer than your factual memory. We’re slowly getting over our fears of infection—when we allowed Terrans once more to settle, it was a fight of epic proportions among our politicians. The Settler program is essential, but an undesired compromise.”

  “I’ve heard Spacers talk about the importance of the Settler program before, but it’s obvious you don’t like it.”

  “Some of us do. But it doesn’t matter. We need it. Humankind needs it. You see, I spoke of the plagues on Earth. The cause, I said, was the high mutability factor in a particular kind of nanotech—terraforming tech. What would you conclude from that?”

  “That Spacers must themselves have suffered some sort of plague.”

  “We did. Burundi’s Fever was one of them. It came out of the very grasses we transplanted to take over the native ecosystems of our new worlds. There were others, but Burundi’s was the worst. It emerged long before the plagues on Earth began and, in fact, was the first cause of a quarantine movement. On Earth’s part. We suffered it in successive waves for centuries. No Spacer world was immune. After Earth’s plagues, we finally were able to control it, but not before it virtually remade our sense of who we were, our history. We came out of the plagues reborn, a sharp wall between what we once were and what we have now become.”

  “I don’t quite follow.”

  “History is a fiction and memory cooperates most of the time, especially when it concerns something as unpleasant as this.”

  Coren considered for a few seconds. “You mean Spacers just don’t remember?”

  “Most don’t. Those who lived through the last waves of all this have been privileged to suffer a case of Burundi’s. Even before that, so many people were infected that it’s amazing there is a history at all.”

  “A whole society . . . amnesia . . .” Coren frowned. “Then how is it any of it’s remembered?”

  “Unlike Earth, we didn’t get rid of our robots.”

  “Uh-huh. So how come the robots don’t remind you?”

  “Why? The question is not asked. And it’s consistent with the Three Laws. At this point it would serve no useful purpose.”

  “I don’t—”

  “You see, once we got control of the disease, we didn’t simply eliminate it, like Earth has done with a number of its ancient killers.”

  “You used it. On purpose.”

  “Very much on purpose.”

  “And the robots know.”

  “Some do, the older ones. Our planetary RIs know.”

  “And at the risk of violating one of the precious Three

  Laws—”

  “—it is not spoken about.”

  “Unless doing so will be a worse violation.”

  “Which may be what we’re facing on Nova Levis.”

&
nbsp; They sat in silence for a time, not looking at each other. Coren wrestled with his impressions and conclusions. He wanted to ask if that had been the case with Ariel. What had she done to be sentenced to the eradication of her memory?

  But finally, Coren did not ask that question. Instead, he looked at Hofton, and asked, “So how come you remember?”

  Chapter 20

  MASID LEFT THE apartment dark. He checked the pale glow of his watch occasionally, but did not move from the high-backed chair he had moved into the corner, farthest from the front door. Vague light from the unevenly lit city outlined the windows and gave enough illumination for him to make out the lumpy shape of Marshal Toranz propped in a chair in the center of the room. He had taped her mouth and cuffed her ankles. As an added measure, he had given her an anesthetic hours earlier.

  He glanced toward his cabinet. He wanted anxiously to respond to the message he had received from the blockade. Someone up there had chosen to recognize him and reply, an Internal Security Officer named Daventri, a lieutenant, not even the highest rung of his or her own special ladder. That fact alone told Masid a number of things about the situation, the most important of which was that the blockade was compromised at the command level at least. He had guessed as much, given Tilla’s abandonment and the subsequent failure of any other team to reach the surface of Nova Levis. He wondered how many agents had been caught and killed over the last year trying to infiltrate the network here. If he had told anyone above him what he had intended to do, he now doubted he would have lived past the first baley ride.

  The bulk of Daventri’s message was both cryptic and plain: SITUATION FLUID AND UNRELIABLE. DIRECT LINK EXISTS BETWEEN BLOCKADE AND NOVA CITY. WORKING ON IT. WAIT FOR FURTHER COMMUNICATION FROM ME BEFORE SENDING ANOTHER MESSAGE.

  So, badly as he wanted to send back “What do you mean? Who’s compromised? Where should I go?” Daventri wanted him to maintain, do nothing till he replied.

  Which might never happen. For all he knew, his message had been intercepted—or Daventri’s had—and right now his one contact was being eliminated.

  One thing at a time, Mas old son, one thing at a time. . . .

  An hour past midnight, he heard footsteps on the landing outside his door. He tensed, his hand curling around his blaster.

  It seemed minutes before his door inched open. Masid watched the thin light of paler darkness outside grow to a wedge. Then a human-sized shadow filled it. The shape entered quickly and closed the door behind itself.

  A flashlight winked on.

  “Shit!” someone hissed.

  The light shifted toward Masid. He raised the blaster.

  “Do we talk or try to shoot it out?” Masid asked quietly.

  The light winked off. Masid followed the sound of movement to his left and fired. The crimson bolt threw the room into sudden relief, freezing action for that moment. He saw a man jumping for cover.

  The bolt splashed against the wall alongside the door with a loud crack! and a slow, sizzling after-hiss. Acrid smoke filled the air.

  Masid rolled to the floor and touched the wafer in his pocket.

  The room lights came on brilliantly to his dark-adjusted eyes, and he squinted as he rose to a kneeling posture.

  Opposite him stood Kar, his own weapon raised and aimed.

  The door banged open. Both men looked. Filoo stood there, Tosher behind him, as well as two others Masid did not know. Muscle, by the look of them.

  “Well, well,” Filoo said, smiling. “Isn’t this lovely? What an interesting spectacle.” He stepped into the room and stopped in front of Toranz, frowning. “Berit?” He snapped his fingers in front of her face, then shrugged. “I would be most happy to have an explanation.”

  “This is your thief—” Kar began, stopping abruptly at Filoo’s raised hand.

  “Let me finish,” Filoo said. “I said I would be most happy to have an explanation, but I would want the right one. The truth. I rather doubt I’m going to get it. Not all of it, at least. So I’ll settle for guessing all by myself.”

  Filoo sighed and went to the sofa. His muscle ranged quietly out across the front of the room. Masid noticed then that each one held a blaster.

  “Would you mind if I put this away?” Masid asked, waving his own weapon. “You seem to have the situation stabilized.”

  Filoo smiled. “I think that’s a fine idea. For both of you.”

  Masid holstered his blaster. A few seconds later, clearly unhappy, so did Kar.

  “It would be easiest,” Filoo said with mock gravity, “to kill you both. Maybe Berit, too, while I’m at it, since her presence here raises several annoying questions. But healthy employees are hard to come by. I’m sure you noticed,” he said directly to Masid, “how sick everyone seems to be. Those few who aren’t are worth a small fortune. So it’s a fool who kills them without good cause. The question is, what cause is good enough?” He looked from Kar to Masid. “Suggestions?”

  Masid folded his arms. Kar glowered at him.

  “I followed Toranz here,” Kar said. “He’s your leak—or she is, and he’s the one buying from her.”

  Filoo seemed to consider that and nodded. “That’s a plausible explanation, Kar. Do you have anything to say in defense?”

  “No,” Masid said. “He’s right. In the last three weeks I was able to seduce Marshal Toranz into throwing over a solid income from you on the off-chance that I could successfully steal enough of your supply to not only replace what you pay her, but to increase it. I told her I could unseat you within a month, and that her best chance of survival would be to deal with me. I’m caught, obviously.”

  Filoo frowned. “What could you possibly have offered her as proof that you could do that?”

  “Oh, I forgot. She’s in love with me. The seduction was on all levels.”

  Filoo burst out laughing. He craned his neck to look at his bodyguards, all of whom were stifling laughter. Filoo’s eyes teared up, and he walked around in front of the still-unconscious marshal.

  “She’s likes it rough, I gather,” he said, lifting her cuffed hands, and laughed louder. He sat back down and wiped at his eyes. “I must say, you’ve got carbon, gato.”

  “Boss—” Kar began.

  “Shut up!” Filoo snapped, all laughter gone. “Tosher, search the place. You know what I want.”

  Tosher pulled a scanner from his coat and began a slow circuit around the apartment. It began chirping near the cabinet. Tosher tugged at the doors.

  “Locked,” he said.

  Filoo looked expectantly at Masid. Slowly, Masid crossed the room and unlocked the cabinet. The pack of ampules lay on the shelf. Masid waited for Tosher to start poking at the false back that hid the hyperwave unit, but all the man did was bring the scanner closer to the ampules.

  “Found ‘em,” he announced.

  “Bring them,” Filoo said.

  Tosher handed Filoo the pack. After a moment, Filoo took out his own scanner and ran a check.

  “Now I must ask myself,” he said then, “why a man would leave something he stole not a day ago lying around his apartment, especially after he knew someone was coming to ask about them.”

  Filoo looked at Kar, who seemed puzzled but worried.

  “Would you care to try again?” Filoo asked him.

  “He’s had this stuff at least five days,” Kar said. “Look at the marker!”

  “Mm. Yes, the marker.” Filoo held the ampules up toward Masid. “You may have noticed, we mark our product with a date stamp. No? Well, it’s one thing to do business illegally, it’s another to do it stupidly. No one anymore would be so careless as to aggravate an epidemic through sloppy distribution. That’s why I train all my people to know how to give the proper advice, and I never sell impotent product. We tend to deal harshly with newcomers who try cutting their product to increase profit. Not many do, contrary to popular misconception, but a few have tried, and they don’t survive. It’s not altruism, it’s self-preservation. We date stam
p to ensure the quality of what we sell.” He tapped the markers on the ampules. “This tells me that this stuff ought to have been sold, at the latest, three days ago. If it were still in my warehouse, we’d destroy it. But it’s here. I wonder how?”

  “Obviously, it was stolen four or five days ago,” Kar said, though Masid detected doubt in his voice.

  “That’s one possibility,” Filoo said. “The other is that someone thought I was sloppy, leaving old product lying around.” He looked at Kar. “Used to be, when you appeared before a magistrate, they’d say something fatuous, like, ‘If you confess and show remorse, the mercy of the court will be entreated and things will go easier.’ We don’t have any magistrates like that now. Things are a bit more basic. For instance, entrapment is not allowed in a proper court as evidence. If you lay out something you know will be stolen and it’s then stolen, you can’t use that against the thief. Silly, in my opinion, but it has something to do with mutual collusion. I never quite understood it.”

  Filoo stood and turned toward Kar. “But I like this way of doing things fine. I understand it. I change the date stamp on some brand new product and leave it where I know it’ll be noticed and probably stolen, and then follow it to the thief. A court might say it’s entrapment, but to me it’s just proof.” He smiled thinly at Kar. “So, do you want to try asking for mercy?”

  “Boss—”

  “Don’t lie. Toranz is too stupid to take advantage of a plant, and too lazy to think of a scam like this, anyway. This one—” Filoo jerked a thumb at Masid “—doesn’t even know where our warehouse is. Inviting him in was just an opportunity for you to do one more stupid thing yourself.”

  Kar’s face darkened. “If you knew—”

  “I didn’t. Till now, you’ve been very good. You got sloppy. I don’t know which I hate more, the theft or the slop.” He shook his head. “What a waste.”

  “Boss—”

  Filoo stepped back. “Remove him.”

  The two muscle Masid did not know came forward. Kar’s face flashed his fear as they grabbed him and dragged him from Masid’s apartment.