Asimov’s Future History Volume 10

by Isaac Asimov

  “Then consider it now.” Again it had the flavor of an order.

  Daneel said, “I will do so. “There was silence, one that grew protracted, but Giskard by no word or sign showed any impatience as he waited.

  Finally, Daneel said – slowly, as though he were feeling his way along strange avenues of thought –” I do not think that Baleyworld – or any of the Settler worlds – has a clear right to appropriate robotic property on Solaria. Even though the Solarians have themselves left or have, perhaps, died out, Solaria remains a Spacer world, even if an unoccupied one. Certainly, the remaining forty-nine Spacer worlds would reason so. Most of all, Aurora would reason so – if it felt in command of the situation.”

  Giskard considered that. “Are you now saying, friend Daneel, that the destruction of the two Settler ships was the Spacer way of enforcing their proprietorship of Solaria?”

  Daneel said, “No, that would not be the way if Aurora, the leading Spacer power, felt in command of the situation. Aurora would then simply have announced that Solaria, empty or not, was off-limits to Settler vessels and would have threatened reprisals against the home worlds if any Settler vessel entered the Solarian planetary system. And they would have established a cordon of ships and sensory stations about that planetary system. There was no such warning, no such action, friend Giskard. Why, then, destroy ships that might have been kept away from the world quite easily in the first place?”

  “But the ships were destroyed, friend Daneel. Will you make use of the basic illogicality of the human mind as an explanation?”

  “Not unless I have to. Let us for the moment take that destruction simply as given. Now consider the consequence – The captain of a single Settler vessel approaches Aurora, demands permission to discuss the situation with the Council, insists on taking an Auroran citizen with him to investigate events on Solaria, and the Council gives in to everything. If destroying the ships without prior warning is too strong an action for Aurora, giving in to the Settler captain so cravenly is far too weak an action. Far from seeking a war, Aurora, in giving in, seems to be willing to do anything at all to ward off the possibility of war.”

  “Yes,” said Giskard, “I see that this is a possible way of interpreting events. But what follows?”

  “It seems to me,” said Daneel, “that the Spacer worlds are not yet so weak that they must behave with such servility – and, even if they were, the pride of centuries of overlordship would keep them from doing so. It must be something other than weakness that is driving them. I have pointed out that they cannot be deliberately instigating a war, so it is much more likely that they are playing for time.”

  “To what end, friend Daneel?”

  “They want to destroy the Settlers, but they are not yet prepared. They let this Settler have what he wants, to avoid a war until they are ready to fight one on their own terms. I am only surprised that they did not offer to send an Auroran warship with him. If this analysis is correct – and I think it is – Aurora cannot possibly have had anything to do with the incidents on Solaria. They would not indulge in pinpricks that could only serve to alert the Settlers before they are ready with something devastating.”

  “Then how account for these pinpricks, as you call them, friend Daneel?”

  “We will find out perhaps when we land on Solaria. It may be that Aurora is as curious as we are and the Settlers are and that that is another reason why they have cooperated with the captain, even to the point of allowing Madam Gladia to accompany him.”

  It was now Giskard’s turn to remain silent. Finally he said, “And what is this mysterious devastation that they plan?”

  “Earlier, we spoke of a crisis arising from the Spacer plan to defeat Earth, but we used Earth in its general sense, implying the Earthpeople together with their descendents on the Settler worlds. However, if we seriously suspect the preparation of a devastating blow that will allow the Spacers to defeat their enemies at a stroke, we can perhaps refine our view. Thus, they cannot be planning a blow at a Settler world. Individually, the Settler worlds are dispensable and the remaining Settler worlds will promptly strike back. Nor can they be planning a blow at several or at all the Settler worlds. There are too many of them; they are too diffusely spread. It is not likely that all the strikes will succeed and those Settler worlds that survive will, in fury and despair, bring devastation upon the Spacer worlds.”

  “You reason, then, friend Daneel, that it will be a blow at Earth itself.”

  “Yes, friend Giskard. Earth contains the vast majority of the short-lived human beings; it is the perennial source of emigrants to the Settler worlds and is the chief raw material for the founding of new ones; it is the revered homeland of all the Settlers. If Earth were somehow destroyed, the Settler movement might never recover.”

  “But would not the Settler worlds then retaliate as strongly and as forcefully as they would if one of themselves were destroyed? That would seem to me to be inevitable.”

  “And to me, friend Giskard. Therefore, it seems to me that unless the Spacer worlds have gone insane, the blow would have to be a subtle one; one for which the Spacer worlds would seem to bear no responsibility.”

  “Why not such a subtle blow against the Settler worlds, which hold most of the actual war potential of the Earthpeople?”

  “Either because the Spacers feel the blow against Earth would be more psychologically devastating or because the nature of the blow is such that it would work only against Earth and not against the Settler worlds. I suspect the latter, since Earth is a unique world and has a society that is not like that of any other world-settler or, for that matter, Spacer.”

  “To summarize, then, friend Daneel, you come to the conclusion that the Spacers are planning a subtle blow against Earth that will destroy it without evidence of themselves as the cause, and one that would not work against any other world, and that they are not yet ready to launch that blow.”

  “Yes, friend Giskard, but they may soon be ready – and once they are ready, they will have to strike immediately. Any delay will increase the chance of some leak that will give them away.”

  “To deduce all this, friend Daneel, from the small indications we have is most praiseworthy. Now tell me the nature of the blow. What is it, precisely, that the Spacers plan?”

  “I have come this far, friend Giskard, across very shaky ground, without being certain that my reasoning is entirely sound. But even if we suppose it is, I can go no further. I fear I do not know and cannot imagine what the nature of the blow might be.”

  Giskard said, “But we cannot take appropriate measures to counteract the blow and resolve the crisis until we know what its nature will be. If we must wait until the blow reveals itself by its results, it will then be too late to do anything.”

  Daneel said, “If any Spacer knows the nature of the forthcoming event, it would be Amadiro. Could you not force Amadiro to announce it publicly and thus alert the Settlers and make it unusable?”

  “I could not do that, friend Daneel, without virtually destroying his mind. I doubt that I could hold it together long enough to allow him to make the announcement. I could not do such a thing.”

  “Perhaps, then,” said Daneel, “we may console ourselves with the thought that my reasoning is wrong and that no blow against Earth is being prepared.”

  “No,” said Giskard. “It is my feeling that you are right and that we must simply wait – helplessly.”

  17.

  Gladia waited, with an almost painful anticipation, for the conclusion of the final Jump. They would then be close enough to Solaria to make out its sun as a disk.

  It would just be a disk, of course, a featureless circle of light, subdued to the point where it could be watched unblinkingly after that light had passed through the appropriate filter.

  Its appearance would not be unique. All the stars that carried, among their planets, a habitable world in the human sense had a long list of property requirements that ended by making them all r
esemble one another. They were all single stars – all not much larger or smaller than the sun that shone on Earth – none too active, or too old, or too quiet, or too young, or too hot, or too cool, or too offbeat in chemical composition. All had sunspots and flares and prominences and all looked just about the same to the eye. It took careful spectroheliography to work out the details that made each star unique.

  Nevertheless, when Gladia found herself staring at a circle of light that was absolutely nothing more than a circle of light to her, she found her eyes welling with tears. She had never given the sun a thought when she had lived on Solaria; it was just the eternal source of light and heat, rising and falling in a steady rhythm. When she had left Solaria, she had watched that sun disappear behind her with nothing but a feeling of thankfulness. She had no memory of it that she valued.

  – Yet she was weeping silently. She was ashamed of herself for being so affected for no reason that she could explain, but that didn’t stop the weeping.

  She made a stronger effort when the signal light gleamed. It had to be D.G. at the door; no one else would approach her cabin.

  Daneel said, “Is he to enter, madam? You seem emotionally moved.”

  “Yes, I’m emotionally moved, Daneel, but let him in. I imagine it won’t come as a surprise to him.”

  Yet it did. At least, he entered with a smile on his bearded face – and that smile disappeared almost at once. He stepped back and said in a low voice, “I will return later.”

  “Stay!” said Gladia harshly. “This is nothing. A silly reaction of the moment. “She sniffed and dabbed angrily at her eyes. “Why are you here?”

  “I wanted to discuss Solaria with you. If we succeed with a microadjustment, we’ll land tomorrow. If you’re not quite up to a discussion now –”

  “I am quite up to it. In fact, I have a question for you. Why is it we took three Jumps to get here? One Jump would have been sufficient. One was sufficient when I was taken from Solaria to Aurora twenty decades ago. Surely the technique of space travel has not retrogressed since.”

  D.G.’s grin returned. “Evasive action. If an Auroran ship was following us, I wanted to – confuse it, shall we say?”

  “Why should one follow us?”

  “Just a thought, my lady. The Council was a little overeager to help, I thought. They suggested that an Auroran ship join me in my expedition to Solaria.”

  “Well, it might have helped, mightn’t it?”

  “Perhaps – if I were quite certain that Aurora wasn’t behind all this. I told the Council quite plainly that I would do without – or, rather” – he pointed his finger at Gladia – “just with you. Yet might not the Council send a ship to accompany me even against my wish – out of pure kindness of heart, let us say? Well, I still don’t want one; I expect enough trouble without having to look nervously over my shoulder at every moment. So I made myself hard to follow. – How much do you know about Solaria, my lady?”

  “Haven’t I told you often enough? Nothing! Twenty decades have passed.”

  “Now, madam, I’m talking about the psychology of the Solarians. That can’t have changed in merely twenty decades. – Tell me why they have abandoned their planet.”

  “The story, as I’ve heard it,” said Gladia calmly, “is that their population has been steadily declining. A combination of premature deaths and very few births is apparently responsible.”

  “Does that sound reasonable to you?” “Of course it does. Births have always been few.” Her face twisted in memory. “Solarian custom does not make impregnation easy, either naturally, artificially, or ectogenetically.”

  “You never had children, madam?”

  “Not on Solaria.”

  “And the premature death?”

  “I can only guess. I suppose it arose out of a feeling of failure. Solaria was clearly not working out, even though the Solarians had placed a great deal of emotional fervor into their world’s having the ideal society – not only one that was better than Earth had ever had, but more nearly perfect than that of any other Spacer world.”

  “Are you saying that Solaria was dying of the collective broken heart of its people?”

  “If you want to put it in that ridiculous way,” said Gladia, displeased.

  D.G. shrugged. “It seems to be what you’re saying. But would they really leave? Where would they go? How would they live?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “But, Madam Gladia, it is well known that Solarians are accustomed to enormous tracts of land, serviced by many thousands of robots, so that each Solarian is left in almost complete isolation. If they abandon Solaria, where can they go to find a society that would humor them in this fashion? Have they, in fact, gone to any of the other Spacer worlds?”

  “Not as far as I know. But then, I’m not in their confidence.”

  “Can they have found a new world for themselves? If so, it would be a raw one and require much in the way of terraforming. Would they be ready for that?”

  Gladia shook her head. “I don’t know.”

  “Perhaps they haven’t really left.”

  “Solaria, I understand, gives every evidence of being empty.”

  “What evidence is that?”

  “All interplanetary communication has ceased. An radiation from the planet, except that consistent with robot work or clearly due to natural causes has ceased.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “That is the report on the Auroran news.”

  “Ah! The report! Could it be that someone is lying?”

  “What would be the purpose of such a lie?” Gladia stiffened at the suggestion.

  “So that our ships would be lured to the world and destroyed.”

  “That’s ridiculous, D.G.” Her voice grew sharper. “What would the Spacers gain by destroying two trading vessels through so elaborate a subterfuge?”

  “Something has destroyed two Settler vessels on a supposedly empty planet. How do you explain that?”

  “I can’t. I presume we are going to Solaria in order to find an explanation.”

  D.G. regarded her gravely. “Would you be able to guide me to the section of the world that was yours when you lived on Solaria?”

  “My estate?” She returned his stare, astonished.

  “Wouldn’t you like to see it again?”

  Gladia’s heart skipped a beat. “Yes, I would, but why my place?”

  “The two ships that were destroyed landed in widely different spots on the planet and yet each was destroyed fairly quickly. Though every spot may be deadly, it seems to me that yours might be less so than others.”

  “Why?”

  “Because there we might receive help from the robots. You would know them, wouldn’t you? They do last more than twenty decades, I suppose. Daneel and Giskard have. And those that were there when you lived on your estate would still remember you, wouldn’t they? They would treat you as their mistress and recognize the duty they owed you even beyond that which they would owe to ordinary human beings.”

  Gladia said, “There were ten thousand robots on my estate. I knew perhaps three dozen by sight. Most of the rest I never saw and they may not have ever seen me. Agricultural robots are not very advanced, you know, nor are forestry robots or mining robots. The household robots would still remember me – if they have not been sold or transferred since I left. Then, too, accidents happen and some robots don’t last twenty decades. – Besides, whatever you may think of robot memory, human memory is fallible and I might remember none of them.”

  “Even so,” said D.G., “can you direct me to your estate?”

  “By latitude and longitude? No.”

  “I have charts of Solaria. Would that help?”

  “Perhaps – approximately. It’s in the south-central portion of the northern continent of Heliona.”

  “And once we’re approximately there, can you make use of landmarks for greater precision – if we skim the Solarian surface?”

  “By s
eacoasts and rivers, you mean?”

  “Yes.”

  “I think I can.”

  “Good! And meanwhile, see if you can remember the names and appearances of any of your robots. It may prove the difference between living and dying.”

  18.

  D.G. Baley seemed a different person with his officers. The broad smile was not evident, nor the easy indifference to danger. He sat, poring over the charts, with a look of intense concentration on his face.

  He said, “If the woman is correct, we’ve got the estate pinned down within narrow limits – and if we move into the flying mode, we should get it exactly before too long.”

  “Wasteful of energy, Captain, “muttered Jamin Oser, who was second-in-command. He was tall and, like D.G., well bearded. The beard was russet-colored, as were his eyebrows, which arched over bright blue eyes. He looked rather old, but one got the impression that this was due to experience rather than years.

  “Can’t help it,” said D.G. “If we had the antigravity that the technos keep promising us just this side of eternity, it would be different.”

  He stared at the chart again and said, “She says it would be along this river about sixty kilometers upstream from where it runs into this larger one. If she is correct.”

  “You keep doubting it,” said Chandrus Nadirhaba, whose insigne showed him to be Navigator and responsible for bringing the ship down in the correct spot – or, in any case, the indicated spot. His dark skin and neat mustache accentuated the handsome strength of his face.

  “She’s recalling a situation over a time gap of twenty decades,” said D.G. “What details would you remember of a site you haven’t seen for just three decades? She’s not a robot. She may have forgotten.”

  “Then what was the point of bringing her?” muttered Oser. “And the other one and the robot? It unsettles the crew and I don’t exactly like it, either.”

  D.G. looked up, eyebrows bunching together. He said in a low voice, “It doesn’t matter on this ship what you don’t like or what the crew doesn’t like, mister. I have the responsibility and I make the decisions. We’re all liable to be dead within six hours of landing unless that woman can save us.”