Asimov’s Future History Volume 6

by Isaac Asimov

  Derec sat down, thinking of that, and felt vaguely dissatisfied. He had always taken that statement for granted, and considered Earth uncivilized, in the lofty Spacer manner. No wonder, he thought slowly, that Spacers are resented on Earth. Because those people seemed to get along quite well without robots. That commissary might seem like an animal feeding trough to the overrefined sensibilities of a Spacer, but was that just? Human beings could adapt to a wide variety of societies. If Earthers were adapted to a way of life that gave Spacers the heebie-jeebies, it did not necessarily follow that Earth society was inferior.

  True, Earth’s Cities were the end product of an artificial process, and were highly unstable. If power supplies were interrupted for an hour, every human in the City would die of asphyxiation. Water was nearly as critical, and food almost as critical as water. Nor could the people leave the Cities in case of emergency; there was no place to go, and in any case, they could not bear the open air.

  That train system could not begin to evacuate them, assuming it had power when the City didn’t.

  Was not Spacer society, though, with its dependence on robots, in its way just as artificial and dependent as Earth’s? It was a novel and alarming thought. True, the robots could not all be simultaneously stricken by some plague, nor would all the factories shut down and not be reopened before the last robot wore out. They were not going to be deprived of their robots and robotic care.

  No, Derec thought uneasily, it was a more serious problem than that. More serious even than Spacers’ reliance on robots to save them from their own folly. Derec had had all he could do to keep from stopping and looking back to watch their pursuers being seized by the robots he knew must be there. Beyond that reliance, which was actually quite trivial, was the freezing of their whole society.

  When a robot was unable to respond, caught between conflicting demands of the Laws of Robotics, it was said to be in “mental freeze-out.” All of Spacer society, he suspected, might be in mental freeze-out, or at least in stasis. It was the Earthers, after all, who were settling the galaxy.

  Somberly, he thought: The only solution might be to give up robots. Or at least restrict their numbers.

  In the meantime, Dr. Avery had some mad scheme for spreading advanced robots all across a planet, and then, apparently, peopling it with humans.

  With that thought in his mind, Derec drifted off to sleep, and was not conscious of R. David springing forward to keep him from falling off the couch.

  Derec dreamed.

  He had swollen to enormous size, and larger, and larger. He was a planet, and something was crawling across his stomach. Raising his head and peering at the swollen dome of his belly, he saw that it was a city. Not an Earthly City, but a city of buildings separated by streets. A city populated by robots, ever-changing as buildings were built, torn down, rebuilt in different shapes. It was Robot City, and it spread around his equator.

  He watched in fascination for a time, in fascination and horror — this was wrong, wrong, it was a spreading disease — and then he heard Ariel’s voice.

  No! The Human Medical Team was carrying her lifeless body sadly toward the crematorium. He struggled to move, to cry out … but he no longer had hands, or a voice Ariel was shaking him awake; he lay in a cramped position on the couch. R. David hovered in concern behind her.

  “You were sleeping peacefully, then started struggling when you heard my voice. Sorry.”

  “Nothing,” he managed. “Just a nightmare.”

  “Ah.” She turned to R. David and began to question him while Derec sat on the couch, arms dangling, still badly shaken by the nightmare, telling himself it was only a dream. Only a dream.

  But it gripped him, shook him as badly as the pursuit by the yeast farmers had done. He threw it off and looked up as Ariel turned to him.

  “I’ve been asking about news,” she said in a complaining tone. “There’s no broadcast reception in this apartment, not of any kind. Frost! No news, no entertainment — there’s only the book-viewer. Not even an audio for music!”

  “This apartment is for solitary Step Threes of various ratings,” said R. David soothingly. “Step Threes are expected to consume their entertainment at the public facilities.”

  “It’s probably for youngsters with low-paying entry-level jobs, just getting away from their parents,”

  Derec said vaguely.

  He looked closely at Ariel. During their excursions on the expressway she had seemed alive, vital, healthy. Now she seemed tired, petulant, lethargic. Fear gripped his heart like a fist.

  “I’m tired of being cooped up. I want out!” she said.

  Derec had to slow his own breathing and wait till his heart stopped pounding. “So do I,” he said, his tone so controlled that despite her lethargy she glanced quickly at him.

  R. David’s face was not made to express his concern. “Few Earth people leave their Cities, but there are some with a perverse attraction for openness and isolation. These direct the robots of the mines and farms, and man certain industrial facilities distant from the Cities for safety reasons. Other Earthers, wishing to become Settlers, join conditioning schools that accustom them to space and openness.”

  “Settlers!” said Ariel with surprise.

  “Of course,” said Derec wonderingly. “We know Earth people never leave their Cities; we also know that they alone are settling new planets. We should have made the connection long since. Conditioning is the only answer.”

  “Could we join one of these schools?” she asked.

  “It would take us outdoors,” said Derec uncertainly. But as he thought about it he shook his head. “I suspect that applicants for Settler worlds are investigated pretty strictly.”

  “Oh. Then — the other?”

  Derec didn’t know. “If we could get a job on a farm, directing robots …” He turned to R. David. “How are these workers chosen?”

  “I am not sure of the details, but I suppose that one must apply for the job,” said R. David.

  Something Scanlan had said occurred to Derec. “Food and other raw materials are brought in from the surrounding areas by truck,” he said. “Maybe, if we got jobs driving trucks —”

  He didn’t care to finish the sentence, not knowing to what extent R. David would condone violations of Earth laws. Ariel caught his meaning at once however and her eyes brightened.

  How long it would take to drive a distance that a train could travel in twelve hours, he didn’t know.

  What kind of pursuit they could expect, he had no idea. But nothing else seemed even remotely feasible.

  R. David told them how to find out what they needed to know: the nearest communo would give them most of the information they needed for a start. Ariel’s mood had lifted again, and again they ventured forth.

  They consulted the directory at the communo, found Job Service, and checked Farms — truck drivers.

  A number of company names were listed, and Derec chose the Missouri Farm Company at random. It immediately transmitted an application form for them, which they could fill out by answering verbally when the pointer moved from question to question.

  The first question was, Do you have a driver’s license?

  Derec sighed and canceled everything, went back to the menu, and did some exploring.

  “I wish there was an information robot we could call up and ask,” he said, frustrated.

  It turned out that many Earthers who never went outside the City needed to know how to drive. There were schools, which taught them according to the regulations — and the instructions and regulations, being government-standardized, were readily available. They only had to take a book card and go to a library, then pay to have them printed off.

  Another request gave them a map of the area, with YOU ARE HERE labeled and TARGET: Library indicated. They compared that to their own map, and nodded.

  Opening the door of the communo booth made it switch back from opaque to clear, and they were given a sour look by the middle-a
ged fellow waiting for it.

  “Canntchee find a private place out of people’s way?” he growled, lurching past them.

  Derec turned red, half with anger, half with embarrassment. Ariel was equally angry and much less embarrassed.

  They walked away, seething, and observed that the playground was largely deserted. It was getting late.

  “I hope we’re not too late,” he said.

  “Yes.” After a moment, Ariel said, “I suppose Earthers have a lot of trouble courting.”

  She had a point. No pleasant, nearly empty gardens for them to walk in on fine days; no large rambling mansions to prowl through on wet ones. What did they do? Derec wondered what he and Ariel might have done, back in his unremembered past.

  It had been the leading edge of the rush hour when they had arrived back home from the train station.

  Now all that was over, and the people were leaving the section kitchen in droves. They had only eaten twice today, both times fairly early — and neither had eaten much on the ship.

  “Frost, they’re still open,” said Derec. “I thought we’d go hungry all night.”

  “So did I,” said Ariel. The line moved rapidly and they were soon in, and were astonished to find that free choice had not been suspended. They were assigned to table F-3 this time. The place, with only a couple of thousand people in it, seemed deserted.

  The table, when they found it, had probably been used by three or four relays of diners for the evening meal, but it was surprisingly clean and neat. They saw Earthers industriously wiping up their places prior to leaving. Others, attendants, came around with cleansing utensils that seemed almost superfluous; some sprayed the places with steam guns to sterilize them.

  They were far enough from their neighbors to speak freely in low tones. “I suppose there are strong social forces to make them clean up their places,” Ariel said.

  Derec thought about it, nodded. Mere laws could not have such force. “I suppose they train their kids: Clean up your places. What’ll the neighbors think?”

  “The forces for conformity to social norms must be tremendous,” she said. “It’s not necessarily a bad thing.”

  “It makes their whole civilization possible. And are we that different?” he asked.

  Ariel shook her head somberly. She had been exiled for violating some of those norms.

  They were given three choices: Zymosteak, again, Sweet-and-Pungent Zymopork, and Pseudo-Chicken Casserole. Side dishes included such things as salads and fruit plates, Hearty Hungarian Goulash, Vegetable Pseudo-Beef Stew, and so on. They chose the Zymopork and the casserole, and browsed among the side dishes, almost famishing from the smell of the food around them.

  “At least, seated here in the middle, we can watch the families,” Ariel said.

  “Right. I was wondering if it would be acceptable to divide our dishes with each other. But see that family with the four kids — the kids are swapping around ad lib.”

  “Yes — and the parents. Different side dishes come with different main courses, and they’re trading off.”

  The food arrived at that point, and they wasted no more time watching others eat.

  When they had finished and exited the kitchen, Derec paused, glancing around.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s still light,” he said. “It should be getting dark.”

  She laughed nervously. They moved aside, out of the way, and strolled slowly toward the ways. “I know what you mean. Especially for us, since we got up well before what these people consider the dawn. But, of course, the lights will never dim.”

  They rode the localway for a short distance, changed ways, and presently found themselves at a massive entrance flanked with stone lions.

  “Stone!” said Ariel, sounding astonished. “I supposed they’d be plastic or something.”

  “Or nothing,” said Derec. He liked libraries, though people rarely visited them on the Spacer worlds. It was simpler just to call them up and have the books transmitted over your phone.

  “I suppose many apartments on Earth must be equipped to receive book transmissions,” he said.

  “In higher social classes,” Ariel said wryly, and he laughed. Spacers though they were, they were not masquerading merely as Earthers, but as low-rated Earthers.

  Crowds of people, as usual on Earth, swarmed up and down the ornamental steps that led up to the entry. Some sat on the steps or the balusters, talking, laughing, eating or drinking, and many reading. A group of children played on one of the lions, their book-viewers laid carefully between its paws. Inside were uniformed guards with clubs and surprisingly cheerful expressions, sober people of all ages swarming about, many of them young, and people sitting around tables. Virtually every terminal was in use.

  “This must be the library’s rush hour,” Derec whispered.

  With school out for the day, people off work and looking for the cheapest entertainment — it probably was.

  At length they found an unused terminal and did a twenty-minute search for the information, making sure they had all they needed. Derec had a moment of doubt when he inserted his money tab into the slot.

  This metal tab was not unlike the credit-transfer system on the Spacer worlds. But he had no idea what formalities were employed here, or how much money there was in this account.

  ACCEPTED, said the blinking transparency, and the machine tinkled a tune to let them know it was copying the information on their card.

  “We’ve got it,” he said, breathing more easily. “Let’s go.”

  Out of the library, down the steps, to the right. They marched more slowly than they had at the beginning of the day. Derec was as tired as Ariel looked.

  “It’s been a long day,” he said hollowly.

  “And we’ve come a long way,” she added.

  Turn, and turn again, and they confronted a smaller marquee than one they’d seen in Old Town Sector: WILL YOU FOLLOW?

  “Not tonight, honey,” said Derec vaguely. “I’m too tired.”

  “We didn’t come by that, Derec,” Ariel said, gripping his arm.

  “I know,” he said tiredly. “We’ve gotten turned around.”

  They retraced their steps, and now couldn’t find the library. After quite a while they paused, gray-faced with weariness and strain, before a window showing dresses and hats of incredible fabrics, some of which glowed. Cheap finery. Men and women peered through windows, pointed out things they’d like but would probably never afford. Not far from them a young man in tight blue pants and silver pseudo-leather jacket, with elaborately coiffed hair, stood next to a girl who seemed much older than Ariel and who wore even tighter violet pants and a nearly transparent, slashed top. Her hair was blonde and long on one side and short and red on the other, and her eyes were cynical and hard.

  This was a major thoroughfare, though it was not part of the moving way system. It ought to join to the ways somewhere, but didn’t seem to. They had no idea which way to go.

  “Just like a couple of Transients,” said Derec glumly. “We can’t be far from the ways, but we could spend an hour blundering around looking for them.”

  The youth with the tough expression and the silvery jacket turned toward them.

  “Transients, eh?” he said. He looked them up and down. The hard-featured young woman looked at them curiously also.

  Derec braced himself.

  Chapter 7

  BACK TO SCHOOL

  “THAT WAY TWO blocks, take the up ramp,” the young tough said courteously, and the hard-featured young woman looked sympathetically at them.

  “Thank you,” said Derec, and Ariel, as startled as he, echoed him.

  Their rescuers had forgotten them before they were out of sight, but Derec and Ariel remembered them all the way home.

  The section kitchen had become a familiar place by the time of their third meal, next morning. Much of the shock of enormous rooms, enormous numbers of loud talking Earthers, of being ignored amid mobs, was g
one. After breakfast, out into the monotonous every-day of the ways, they rode south toward the edge of the sprawling megalopolis. Finally, in a section called Mattese, they found the driving school they sought.

  They had chosen it because it was a “private” school. Though regulated by the government, it counted as a luxury, and one paid for the privilege of learning here, a concept that bemused the Spacers.

  “Yes, please?”

  The receptionist was not the robot the term called to their minds, but a middle-aged woman — though Earthers aged fast by Spacer standards; she was probably quite young, perhaps no more than forty-five or fifty.

  “Derec and Ariel Avery,” Derec said apologetically, trying again to imitate the Earth dialect.

  “Oh, yes, new students. You’re a bit early, but that’s good — you have to do your forms.”

  They thought they’d already done the forms over the communo, but took the papers and sat down.

  These forms were simple and asked primarily how much experience they’d had with automobiles and something called “models.”

  “Can that mean what I think it does?” Ariel asked. Derec could only shrug.

  They had sweated over the application last night, for it asked for their schooling, but R. David had given them the names of schools in the City they might have gone to. They hoped the driving school would be lax in checking up. Of course, sooner or later their imposture would be detected, but even one day, they calculated

  “You may see Ms. Winters now,” said the receptionist, smiling kindly.

  Ms. Winters kept them waiting in an outer office for a moment while she examined their forms, and Ariel nudged Derec.

  “Did you hear that receptionist? She was trying to copy our accent!”

  Ms. Winters called them in, asked a question or two, nodded, and, taking the forms, left with a brief

  “Wait just a moment.” It hadn’t taken her long, as they had indicated no experience.

  She hadn’t closed the door completely.