Asimov’s Future History Volume 16

by Isaac Asimov

  “I was made to look human, and to mimic in my poor way both wit and style,” he replied. “There were real artists in those days. But there’s one who’s even more of a work of art than I am, and another who is older than either of us.”

  “Plussix,” she said with a shudder.

  Brann stepped to one side and shoved between her and Kallusin. Klia looked up at his bulk with questioning eyes. Are they all robots? Is everyone on Trantor a robot–but me? Or am lone, too?

  “We have to get used to all this,” Brann said. “It won’t do anybody any good if you force us.”

  “Of course not,” Kallusin said, and his smile faded, to be replaced by an alert blankness that was neither kindly nor threatening. He turned to Klia. “It’s very important that you understand. You could help us avert a major catastrophe–a human catastrophe.”

  “Robots used to be servants,” she said. “Like tiktoks before I was born.”

  “Yes,” Kallusin said.

  “How can they be in charge of anything?”

  “Because humans rejected us, long ago, but not before a very bad problem arose among us.”

  “Who–robots? A problem among the robots?” Brann asked.

  “Plussix will explain. There can be no better testimony than from Plussix. He was functioning at the time.”

  “Did he... go wrong?” Klia asked. “Is he an Eternal?”

  “Let him explain,” Kallusin said patiently, and urged her to walk forward, toward the others.

  Klia noticed the man they had rescued in the Agora of Vendors. He looked over his shoulder at them and gave her a smile. He seemed friendly enough; his face was so unattractive she wondered why anyone could have ever made a robot like him.

  To fool us. To walk among us undetected.

  She shivered again and wrapped her arms around herself. This room was what the woman on the cart had been looking for–this room, and the robots inside it.

  She and Brann were the only humans here.

  “All right,” she said, and drew herself together. They did not want to kill her, not yet. And they weren’t threatening her to make her do what they wanted. Not yet. Robots seemed to be more subtle and patient than most of the humans she had known.

  She looked up at Brann. “Are you human?” she asked him.

  “You know I am,” he said.

  “Let’s do it, then. Let’s go hear what the machines have to say.”

  Plussix had not appeared to her in his actual shape for obvious reasons. He–it–was the only robot that looked like a robot, and a rather interesting look it was–steel with a lovely silvery-satin finish, and glowing green eyes. His limbs were slender and graceful, their joints marked by barely perceptible fine lines that could themselves orient in different directions–fluid and adaptable.

  “You’re beautiful,” she told him grudgingly, as they stood less than three meters from each other.

  “Thank you, Mistress.”

  “How old are you?”

  “I am twenty thousand years old,” Plussix said.

  Klia’s heart sank. She could not find any words to express her astonishment–older than the Empire!–so she said nothing.

  “Now they’ll have to kill us,” Brann said with what he hoped was passing for a brave grin. But his words made Klia’s stomach flip and her knees wobble.

  “We will not kill you,” Plussix said. “It is not within our capacity to kill humans. There are some robots who believe killing humans, our onetime masters and creators, is permissible for the greater good. We are not among them. We are handicapped by this, but it is our nature.”

  “I am not so constrained,” Lodovik said. “But I have no wish to break any of the Three Laws.”

  Klia stared unhappily at Lodovik. “Spare me the details. I don’t understand any of this.”

  “As with nearly all humans alive today, you are ignorant of history,” Plussix said. “Most do not care. This is because of brain fever.”

  “I had brain fever,” Klia said. “It nearly killed me.”

  “So did I,” said Brann.

  “So have nearly all the high mentalics, the persuaders, we have gathered and cared for here,” Plussix said. “Like you, they suffered extreme cases, and it is possible that many potential mentalics died. Brain fever was created by humans in the time of my construction to handicap other human societies to which they were politically opposed. Like many attempts at biological warfare, it backfired–it became pandemic, and perhaps coincidentally, perhaps not, allowed the Empire to exist with little intellectual turmoil for thousands of years. Though nearly all children get ill, about a fourth of them–those with a mental potential above a certain level–is more severely affected. Curiosity and intellectual ability are blunted just enough to level out social development. The majority do not experience a loss of mental skill–perhaps because their skills are general, and they are never given to bouts of genius.”

  “I still don’t understand why they wanted to make us sick,” Klia said, her face creased by a stubborn frown.

  “The intent was not to make you sick, but to prevent certain societies from ever flourishing.”

  “My curiosity has never been dulled,” Brann said.

  “Nor mine,” Klia added. “I don’t feel stupid, but I was very sick.”

  “I am pleased to hear that,” Plussix said, then added, as diplomatically as possible, “but there is no way of knowing what your intellectual capacity would have been had you never caught brain fever. What is apparent is that your severe bout increased other talents.”

  The ancient robot invited them to step into another room of the long chamber. This room had a one-way window view of the warehouse district. They looked out over the bellying arched roofs to the layered-wall dwellings of the citizen neighborhoods beyond. The dome ceil was in particularly sad shape in this part of the municipality, with many dark gaps and flickering panels.

  Klia sat on a dusty couch and patted the place next to her, for Brann. Kallusin stood just behind them, and the ugly robot stood by the window, watching them with interest. I’d like to talk with him–it. His face is ugly, but he looks very friendly. It. Whatever!

  “You don’t feel like humans,” she said after a moment’s silence.

  “You would have noticed this sooner or later,” Plussix said. “It is the difference that Vara Liso can detect, as well.”

  “Is she the woman who was chasing him?” Klia pointed to the ugly humaniform robot.

  “Yes.”

  “She’s the woman who was after me, wasn’t she?”

  “Yes,” Plussix said. Its joints made small shhshhing noises as he moved. It was pretty, but it was also noisy. It sounded worn-out, like old bearings in machinery.

  “There’s all kinds of stuff going on, isn’t there? Stuff I don’t know about.”

  “Yes,” Plussix said, and lowered itself to a boxy plastic chair.

  “Explain it to me,” she said. “Do you want to hear?” she asked Brann. Then, in an aside, with a grimace, “Even if they have to kill us?”

  “I don’t know what I want or what I believe,” Brann said.

  “Tell us everything,” Klia said. She put on what she thought was a brave and defiant face. “I love being different. I always have. I’d like to be better informed than anyone except you robots.”

  Plussix made a gratified humming noise. Klia found the sound appealing.

  “Please tell us,” she said, suddenly falling back on Dahlite manners she hadn’t used in months or even years. She really did not know how to think or feel, but these machines were, after all, her elders. She sat down before Plussix, drew up her knees, and wrapped her arms around them.

  The old robot leaned forward on its seat. “It is a pleasure to teach humans again,” it began. “Thousands of years have passed since I last did so, to my constant regret. I was manufactured and programmed to be a teacher, you see.”

  Plussix began. Klia and Brann listened, and Lodovik as well, for he had never
heard much of this story. The day became evening and they brought food for the young humans to eat–decent food, but no better than what they were fed in the warehouse with the others. As the hours passed, and Plussix wove more words, and her fascination grew, Klia wanted to ask what the others would be told–the other mentalics, not as strong as she and Brann, but good people, like Rock, the boy who could not speak. For the first time, in the presence of this marvel, she felt responsible for others around her. But the robot’s sonorous, elegant tones droned on, half mesmerizing her, and she kept quiet and listened.

  Brann listened intently as well, eyes half closed much of the time. She glanced at him in the middle of the evening and he seemed asleep, but when she nudged him, his eyes shot open wide; he had been awake all the time.

  She seemed to enter a trance state and half see what Plussix was telling her. All words, no pictures, all skillfully woven; the robot was a very good teacher, but there was so little she could actually immediately understand. The time scales were so vast as to be meaningless.

  How could we lose interest? she thought. How could we do this to ourselves–forget and not even be curious? This is our story! What else have we lost? Are these robots more human than we are, now, because they carry our history?

  It all came down to contests. Who would win how many of the hundreds of billions of stars in the Galaxy, Earthmen (the Earth–home to all humanity once, not a legend!) or the first migrants, the Spacers, and finally, a contest between factions of robots.

  And for thousands of years, the attempt to guide humans through painful shoals, thousands of robots led by Daneel, and thousands more in opposition, led most recently by Plussix.

  Plussix paused after the third break, when sweet drinks and snacks were served. It was early in the morning. Klia’s butt ached, and her knees had cramped. She drank greedily from her cup.

  Lodovik watched her, fascinated by her litheness and youth and quick devotion. He turned to Brann and saw a solid strength that was also quick, and different. He had known that humans, with their animal chemistry, were a varied lot–but not until now, watching this pair of youths have their past restored to them, did he realize how different their thinking was from that of robots.

  Plussix summed up after the snacks had been consumed. He held out his arms and extended his fingers, as professors–human professors–must have done twenty thousand years ago. “That is how the robotic need to serve became transmuted into the robotic obsession with manipulation and guidance.”

  “Maybe we did need guidance,” Klia said softly, then looked up at Plussix. The robot’s eyes glowed a rich yellow-green. “Those wars–whatever they were–and those Spacers, so arrogant and filled with hate,” she added. “Our ancestors.”

  Plussix’s head leaned slightly to one side, and the silver robot made a soft whirring noise in its chest, not the pleasant sound she had heard earlier.

  “But you make it sound like we’re just children,” she concluded. “It doesn’t matter how many thousands of years the Empire has existed–we’ve always had robots watching over us, one way or the other.”

  Plussix nodded.

  “But all the things Daneel and his robots have done on Trantor... the politics, the plotting, killings–”

  “A few, and only when necessary,” Plussix said, still devoted to teaching only the truth. “But nevertheless, killing.”

  “The worlds Hari Seldon suppressed when he was First Minister–just as Dahl has been held down. The Renaissance Worlds–what does that mean, Renaissance?”

  “Rebirth,” the ugly robot said.

  “Why did Hari Seldon call them Chaos Worlds?”

  “Because they lead to instabilities in his mathematical picture of the Empire,” Plussix said. “He believes they ultimately breed human death and misery, and–”

  “I’m tired,” Klia said, stretching her arms and yawning for the first time in hours. “I need to sleep and to think. I need to get cleaned up.”

  “Of course,” Plussix said.

  She stood and glanced at Brann. He stood as well, stiff and slow, groaning.

  She turned her intense eyes back to Plussix, frowning. “I’m not clear about some things,” she said.

  “I hope to explain,” Plussix said.

  “Robots–robots like you, at any rate–must obey people. What would stop me from just telling you to go destroy yourself–now? To tell all of you to destroy yourselves, even this Daneel? Wouldn’t you have to obey me?”

  Plussix made a sound of infinite patience–a hmm followed by a small click. “You must understand that we belonged to certain people or institutions. I would have to take your request to my owners, my true masters, and they would have to concur before I would be allowed to destroy myself. Robots were valuable property, and such loose and ill-considered commands were regarded as harassment of the owner.”

  “Who owns you now?”

  “My last owners died over nineteen thousand five hundred years ago,” Plussix said.

  Klia blinked slowly, tired and confused by such ages. “Does that mean you own yourself?” she asked.

  “That is the functional equivalent of my present condition. All of our human ‘owners’ are long dead.”

  “What about you?” She turned to the ugly humaniform. “I haven’t been told your name.”

  “I have been called Lodovik for the last forty years. It is the name I am most familiar with. I was manufactured for a special strategic purpose by a robot, and have never had an owner.”

  “You followed Daneel for a long time. Yet now you don’t.”

  Lodovik explained briefly the change in circumstances, and in his internal nature. He did not mention Voltaire.

  Klia considered this, then it was her turn to whistle softly. “Some scheme,” she said, her face flushing angrily. “We just couldn’t get along by ourselves, so we had to make robots to help us. What do you want me to do?” She turned to Kallusin. “I mean, what do you want us to do?”

  “Brann has useful talents, but you are the stronger,” Kallusin said. “We would like to blunt Daneel’s main effort. We may be able to do this if you will visit with Hari Seldon.”

  “Why? Where?” she asked. All she wanted to do was sleep, but she had to ask these questions, now. “He’s famous–he must have guards, or even this robot Daneel...”

  “He is on trial now and we do not believe Daneel can protect him. You will visit and persuade him to give up psychohistory.”

  Klia went pale. Her jaw clenched. She took Brann by the arm. “It’s not pleasant to have talents people–or robots–can use.”

  “Please think over what you have been told. The decision to help us remains yours. We believe Hari Seldon supports the efforts of Daneel, to whom we are opposed. We would like humanity to be free of robotic influence.”

  “Can I ask Hari Seldon questions, too–get the other side of the story?”

  “If you wish,” Plussix said. “But there will be little time, and if you meet with him, whatever you ultimately decide, you must convince him to forget about you.”

  “Oh, I can do that,” Klia said. Then, defensively cocky, giddy with exhaustion, she added, “I might be able to persuade Daneel, too.”

  “Given the strength of your powers, that seems possible,” Plussix said, “though not likely. But it is even less likely you will ever be able to meet with Daneel.”

  “I could persuade you,” Klia concluded, closing one eye and focusing on the old teacher with the other, like a sharpshooter.

  “With practice, and if I were not aware of the attempt, you could.”

  “I might yet. I’m not very simple, you know. Brain fever failed to make me stupid and simple. Are you sure... Are you sure robots didn’t give us brain fever, to make us easier to serve?”

  Before Plussix could answer, she stood abruptly, turned to leave the room, and walked back along the length of the old chamber with Brann by her side. The walls and floor seemed distant, part of another world; she seemed
to be walking on air. She lurched, and Brann caught her.

  When they thought they were out of earshot, Brann whispered, “What are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know. What about you?”

  “I don’t like being messed with,” he said.

  Klia frowned. “I’m in shock. Plussix–so much history. Why can’t we remember our own history? Did we do that to ourselves, or did they–or did we order them to? All these robots hanging around, messing with us. Maybe we can make all of them go away and leave us be.”

  Brann’s expression turned grim. “We still can’t be sure they won’t kill us. They’ve told us so much–”

  “Crazy stuff. Nobody would believe us, unless they saw Plussix–or took apart Kallusin or Lodovik.”

  This did not mollify Brann. “We could cause them a lot of trouble. But that Lodovik–he doesn’t obey the Three Laws.”

  “He doesn’t have to,” Klia said, “but he says he wants to.”

  Brann hunched his shoulders and gave a small shiver. “Who can you trust? They all make my flesh creep. What if he doesn’t want to kill us, but he has to?”

  To that, Klia had no answer. “Sleep,” she said. “I can’t stay on my feet any longer or think anymore.”

  Plussix turned to Lodovik when the young humans had left the chamber. “Have my skills declined with age?” he asked.

  “Not your skills,” Lodovik said, “but perhaps your sense of timing has suffered. You have delivered thousands of years of history in a few hours. They are young and likely to be confused.”

  “There is so little time,” Plussix said. “It has been so long since I have taught young humans.”

  “We have a day or two at most to make our arrangements,” Kallusin added.

  “Robots have great difficulty understanding human nature, though we are made to serve them,” Lodovik said. “That is true for individuals as well as for an Empire. If Daneel is as capable now as he has been in the past, he understands humans better than any of us.”

  “Yet he has seriously hampered their growth,” Plussix said, “and perhaps brought about this decline he is so intent on avoiding.”