Asimov’s Future History Volume 11

by Isaac Asimov

  There was a pause and Daneel said, “Did you not accept the Zeroth Law, at last, when you stopped Madam Vasilia’s robots and erased from her mind the knowledge of your mental powers?”

  Giskard said, “No, friend Daneel. Not really. I was tempted to accept it, but not really.”

  “And yet your actions –”

  “Were dictated by a combination of motives. You told me of your concept of the Zeroth Law and it seemed to have a certain validity about it, but not sufficient to cancel the First Law or even to cancel Madam Vasilia’s strong use of the Second Law in the orders she gave. Then, when you called my attention to the application of the Zeroth Law to psychohistory, I could feel the positronomotive force mount higher and yet it was not quite high enough to supersede the First Law or even the strong Second Law.”

  “Still,” murmured Daneel, “you struck down Madam Vasilia, friend Giskard.”

  “When she ordered the robots to dismantle you, friend Daneel, and showed a clear emotion of pleasure at the prospect, your need, added to what the concept of the Zeroth Law had already done, superseded the Second Law and rivaled the First Law. It was the combination of the Zeroth Law, psychohistory, my loyalty to Lady Gladia, and your need that dictated my action.”

  “My need could scarcely have affected you, friend Giskard. I am only a robot and though my need could affect my own actions by the Third Law, they cannot affect yours. You destroyed the overseer on Solaria without hesitation; you should have watched my destruction without being moved to act.”

  “Yes, friend Daneel, and ordinarily it might have been so. However, your mention of the Zeroth Law had reduced the First Law intensity to an abnormally low value. The necessity of saving you was sufficient to cancel out what remained of it and I – acted as I did.”

  “No, friend Giskard. The prospect of injury to a robot should not have affected you at all. It should in no way have contributed to the overcoming of the First Law, however weak the First Law may have become.”

  “It is a strange thing, friend Daneel. I do not know how it came about. Perhaps it was because I have noted that you continue to think more and more like a human being, but –”

  “Yes, friend Giskard?”

  “At the moment when the robots advanced toward you and Lady Vasilia expressed her savage pleasure, my positronic pathway pattern re-formed in an anomalous fashion. For a moment, I thought of you – as a human being – and I reacted accordingly.”

  “That was wrong.”

  “I know that. And yet – and yet, if it were to happen again, I believe the same anomalous change would take place again.”

  Daneel said, “It is strange, but hearing you put it so, I find myself feeling you did the proper thing. If the situation were reversed, I almost think that I, too, would – would do the same – that I would think of you as a – a human being.”

  Daneel, hesitantly and slowly, put out his hand and Giskard looked at it uncertainly. Then, very slowly, he put out his own hand. The fingertips almost touched and then, little by little, each took the other’s hand and clasped it – almost as though they were the friends they called each other.

  67.

  Gladia looked about with veiled curiosity. She was in D. G.’s cabin for the first time. It was not noticeably more luxurious than the new cabin that had been designed for her. D. G.’s cabin had a more elaborate viewing panel, to be sure, and it had a complex console of lights and contacts which, she imagined, served to keep D. G. in touch with the rest of the ship even here.

  She said, “I’ve seen little of you since leaving Aurora, D. G.”

  “I’m flattered that you are aware of that,” answered D. G., grinning. “And to tell you the truth, Gladia, I have been aware of it as well. With an all-male crew, you do rather stand out.”

  “That’s not a very flattering reason for missing me. With an all-human crew, I imagine Daneel and Giskard stand out, too. Have you missed them as much as you have missed me?”

  D. G. looked about. “Actually, I miss them so little it is only now that I am aware that they aren’t with you. Where are they?”

  “In my cabin. It seemed silly to drag them about with me inside the confines of the small world of this ship. They seemed willing to allow me to be on my own, which surprised me. – No,” she corrected herself, “come to think of it, I had to order them rather sharply to stay behind before they would do so.”

  “Isn’t that rather strange? Aurorans are never without their robots, I’ve been given to understand.”

  “What of that? Once, long ago, when I first came to Aurora, I had to learn to suffer the actual presence of human beings, something my Solarian upbringing did not prepare me for. Learning to be without my robots, occasionally, when I am among Settlers will probably be a less difficult adjustment for me than that first one was.”

  “Good. Very good. I must admit that I much prefer being with your without the glowing eyes of Giskard fixed on me – and better yet, without Daneel’s little smile.”

  “He doesn’t smile.”

  “To me, he seems to, a very insinuatingly lecherous tiny smile.”

  “You’re mad. That’s totally foreign to Daneel.”

  “You don’t watch him the way I do. His presence is very inhibiting. It forces me to behave myself.”

  “Well, I should hope so.”

  “You needn’t hope so quite that emphatically. But never mind. – Let me apologize for seeing so little of you since leaving Aurora.”

  “That’s scarcely necessary.”

  “Since you brought it up, I thought it was. However, let me explain, then. We’ve been on battle footing. We were certain, having left as we did, that Auroran vessels would be in pursuit.”

  “I should think they’d be glad to be rid of a group of Settlers.”

  “Of course, but you ‘re not a Settler and it might be you they would want. They were anxious enough to get you back from Baleyworld.”

  “They got me back. I reported to them and that was it.”

  “They wanted nothing more than your report?”

  “No,” Gladia paused and, for a moment, frowned as though something was nibbling vaguely at her memory. Whatever it was, it passed and she said indifferently, “No.”

  D. G. shrugged. “It doesn’t entirely make sense, but they made no attempt to stop us while you and I were on Aurora nor, after that, when we boarded the ship and it prepared to leave orbit. I won’t quarrel with that. It won’t be long now before we make the Jump – and after that there should be nothing to worry about.”

  Gladia said, “Why do you have an all-male crew, by the way? Auroran ships always have mixed crews.”

  “So do Settler ships. Ordinary ones. This is a Trader vessel.”

  “What difference does that make?”

  “Trading involves danger. It’s rather a rough-and-ready life. Women on board would create problems.”

  “What nonsense! What problems do I create?”

  “We won’t argue that. Besides, it’s traditional. The men wouldn’t stand for it.”

  “How do you know?” Gladia laughed. “Have you ever tried it?”

  “No. But, on the other hand, there are no long lines of women clamoring for a berth on my ship.”

  “I’m here. I’m enjoying it.”

  “You’re getting special treatment – and but for your service on Solaria, there might well have been much trouble. In fact, there was trouble. Still, never mind.” He touched one of the contacts on the console and a countdown briefly appeared. “We’ll be Jumping in just about two minutes. You’ve never been on Earth, have you, Gladia?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Or seen the sun, not just a sun.”

  “No – although I have seen it in historical dramas on hypervision, but I imagine what they show in the dramas is not really the sun.”

  “I’m sure it isn’t. If you don’t mind, we’ll dim the cabin lights.”

  The lights dimmed to nearly nothing and Gladia
was aware of the star field on the viewing panel, with the stars brighter and more thickly spread than in Aurora’s sky.

  “Is that a telescopic view?” she asked in a hushed voice.

  “Slightly. Low-power – Fifteen seconds.” He counted backward. There was a shift in the star field and a bright star was now nearly centered. D. G. touched another contact and said, “We’re well outside the planetary plane. Good! A little risky. We should have been farther from the Auroran star before Jumping, but we were in a slight hurry. – That’s the sun.”

  “That bright star, you mean?”

  “Yes. – What do you think of it?”

  Gladia said, a little puzzled over what sort of response he expected, “It’s bright.”

  He pushed another contact and the view dimmed perceptibly. “Yes – and it won’t do your eyes any good if you stare at it. But it’s not the brightness that counts. It’s just a star – in appearance – but think of it. That was the original sun. That was the star whose light shone down on a planet that was the only planet on which human beings existed. It shone down on a planet on which human beings were slowly evolving. It shone down on a planet on which life formed billions of years ago, life that would develop into human beings. There are 300 billion stars in the Galaxy and 100 billion galaxies in the Universe and there is only one of all those stars that presided over the human birth and that is the star.”

  Gladia was about to say: “Well, some star had to be the star,” but she thought better of it. “Very impressive,” she said rather weakly.

  “It’s not merely impressive,” said D. G., his eyes shadowed in the dimness. “There’s not a Settler in the Galaxy who doesn’t consider that star his own. The radiation of the stars that shine down on our various home planets is borrowed radiation – rented radiation that we make use of. There – right there – is the real radiation that gave us life. It is that star and the planet that circles it – Earth – that holds us all together in a tight bond. If we shared nothing else, we would share that light on the screen and it would be enough. – You Spacers have forgotten it and that is why you fall apart from each other and that is why you will not, in the long run, survive.”

  “There is room for us all, Captain,” said Gladia softly.

  “Yes, of course. I wouldn’t do anything to force nonsurvival on Spacers. I just believe that that is what will happen and it might not happen if Spacers would give up their irritating certainty of superiority, their robots, and their self-absorption in long life.”

  “Is that how you see me, D. G.?” asked Gladia.

  D. G. said, “You’ve had your moments. You’ve improved, though. I’ll give you that.”

  “Thank you,” she replied with evident irony. “And though you may find it hard to believe, Settlers have their prideful arrogance, too. But you’ve also improved and I’ll give you that.”

  D. G. laughed. “With all that I’m kindly giving you and you’re kindly giving me, this is liable to end as a lifelong enmity.”

  “Scarcely,” said Gladia, laughing in her turn, and was a little surprised to find that his hand was resting on hers. – And a great deal surprised to find that she had not removed her hand.

  68.

  Daneel said, “I am uneasy, friend Giskard, that Madam Gladia is not under our direct observation.”

  “That is not needful on board this ship, friend Daneel. I detect no dangerous emotions and the captain is with her at the moment. – In addition, there would be advantages to her finding it comfortable to be without us, at least on occasion, while we are all on Earth. It is possible that you and I might have to take sudden action without wishing to have her presence and safety a complicating factor.”

  “Then you manipulated her separation from us now?”

  “Scarcely. Oddly enough, I found a strong tendency in her to imitate the Settler way of life in this respect. She has a subdued longing for independence, hampered chiefly by the feeling that she is violating Spacerhood in this. That is the best way in which I can describe it. The sensations and emotions are by no means easy to interpret, for I have never encountered it among Spacers before. So I merely loosened the Spacerhood inhibition by the merest touch.”

  “Will she then no longer be willing to avail herself of our services, friend Giskard? That would disturb me.”

  “It should not. If she should decide she wishes a life free of robots and will be happier so, it is what we will want for her, too. As it is, though, I am sure we will still be useful to her. This ship is a small and specialized habitat in which there is no great danger. She had a further feeling of security in the captain’s presence and that reduces her need for us. On Earth, she will still need us, though I trust not in quite so tight a fashion as on Aurora. – As I have said, we may need greater flexibility of action once on Earth.”

  “Can you yet guess, then, the nature of the crisis facing Earth? Do you know what it is we will have to do?”

  Giskard said, “No, friend Daneel. I do not. It is you that have the gift of understanding. Is there something, perhaps, that you see?”

  Daneel remained silent for a while. Then he said, “I have had thoughts.”

  “What, then, are your thoughts?”

  “You told me at the Robotics Institute, you remember, just before Lady Vasilia entered the room in which Madam Gladia lay sleeping, that Dr. Amadiro had had two intense flashes of anxiety. The first came at the mention of the nuclear intensifier, the second at the statement that Madam Gladia was going to Earth. It seems to me that the two must be connected. I feel that the crisis we are dealing with involves the use of a nuclear intensifier on Earth, that there is time to stop it, and that Dr. Amadiro fears that we will do just that if we go to Earth.”

  “Your mind tells me you are not satisfied with that thought. Why not, friend Daneel?”

  “A nuclear intensifier hastens the fusion processes that happen to be already in progress, by means of a stream of W particles. I asked myself, therefore, whether Dr. Amadiro plans to use one or more nuclear intensifiers to explode the microfusion reactors that supply Earth with energy. The nuclear explosions so induced would involve destruction through heat and mechanical force, through dust and radioactive products that would be thrown into the atmosphere. Even if this did not suffice to damage Earth mortally, the destruction of Earth’s energy supply would surely lead to the long-term collapse of Earth’s civilization.”

  Giskard said somberly, “That is a horrifying thought and would seem to be an almost certain answer to the nature of the crisis we seek. Why are you not satisfied, then?”

  “I have taken the liberty of using the ship’s computer to obtain information concerning the planet Earth. The computer is, as one might expect on a Settler ship, rich in such information. It seems that Earth is the one human world that does not use microfusion reactors as a large-scale source of energy. It uses direct solar energy almost entirely, with solar power stations all among the geostational orbit. There is nothing for a nuclear intensifier to do, except to destroy small devices – spaceships, occasional buildings. The damage might not be negligible, but it would not threaten Earth’s existence.”

  “It may well be, friend Daneel, that Amadiro has some device that would destroy the solar power generators.”

  “If so, why did he react to the mention of nuclear intensifiers? There is no way they can serve against solar power generators.”

  Giskard nodded slowly. “That is a good point. And, to make another, if Dr. Amadiro was so horrified at the thought of our going to Earth, why did he make no effort to have us stopped while we were still on Aurora? Or if he only discovered our flight after we had left orbit, why did he not have an Auroran vessel intercept us before we made the Jump to Earth? Can it be that we are on a completely wrong track, that somewhere we have made a serious misstep that –”

  An insistent chain of intermittent chiming sounded throughout the ship and Daneel said, “We have safely made the Jump, friend Giskard. I sensed it some minutes
ago. But we have not yet reached Earth and the interception you have just mentioned has, I suspect, now come, so that we are not necessarily on the wrong track.”

  69.

  D. G. was moved to a perverse admiration. When the Aurorans were really moved to action, their technological polish showed. No doubt they had sent one of their newest warships, from which one could at once deduce that whatever had moved them was close to their heart.

  And that ship had detected the presence of D. G.’s vessel within fifteen minutes of its appearance in normal space – and from a sizable distance, at that.

  The Auroran ship was using a limited-focus hyperwave setup. The speaker’s head could be seen clearly while it was at the focal spot. All else was a gray haze. If the speaker moved his head a decimeter or so from the focal spot, that went into haze as well. Sound focus was limited as well. The net result was that one saw and heard only the fundamental minimum of the enemy ship (D. G. already thought of it as the “enemy” ship), so their privacy was guarded.

  D. G.’s ship also possessed a limited-focus hyperwave, but, D. G. thought enviously, it lacked the polish and elegance of the Auroran version. Of course, his own ship was not the best the Settlers could do, but even so, the Spacers were well ahead technologically. The Settlers still had catching up to do.

  The Auroran head in focus was clear and so real in appearance that it looked gruesomely disembodied, so that D. G. would not have been surprised if it had dripped blood. On second glance, however, it could be made out that the neck faded into grayness just after the neckpiece of an undoubtedly well-tailored uniform began to show.

  The head identified itself, with punctilious courtesy, as Commander Lisiform of the Auroran ship Borealis. D. G. identified himself in his turn, thrusting his chin forward so as to make certain that his beard lent him an air of fierceness that could not help but be daunting to a beardless and (he thought) weak-chinned Spacer.

  D. G. assumed the traditional air of informality that was as irritating to a Spacer officer, as the latter’s traditional arrogance was to a Settler. He said, “What is your reason for hailing me, Commander Lisiform?”