Asimov’s Future History Volume 10

by Isaac Asimov

  Gladia paused. When Bistervan did not answer immediately, she called out, “How many want a new Galaxy, not the bad old Galaxy endlessly repeated?”

  The applause began, but Bistervan threw his arms up and shouted in stentorian fashion, “Wait! Wait! Don’t be fools! Stop!”

  There was a slow quieting and Bistervan said, “Do you suppose this woman believes what she’s saying? Do you suppose the Spacers intend us any good whatever? They still think they are strong, and they still despise us, and they intend to destroy us – if we don’t destroy them first. This woman comes here and, like fools, we greet her and make much of her. Well, put her words to the test. Let any of you apply for permission to visit a Spacer world and see if you can. Or if you have a world behind you and can use threats, as Captain Baley did, so that you are allowed to land on the world, how will you be treated? Ask the captain if he was treated like kin.

  “This woman is a hypocrite, in spite of all her words – no, because of them. They are the spoken advertisements of her hypocrisy. She moans and whines about her inadequate immune system and says that she must protect herself against the danger of infection. Of course, she doesn’t do this because she thinks we are foul and diseased. That thought, I suppose, never occurs to her.

  “She whines of her passive life, protected from mischance and misfortune by a too-settled society and a too-solicitous crowd of robots. How she must hate that.

  “But what endangers her here? What mischance does she feel will befall her on our planet? Yet she has brought two robots with her. In this hall, we meet in order to honor her and make much of her, yet she brought her two robots even here. They are there on the platform with her. Now that the room is generally lit, you can see them. One is an imitation human being and its name is R. Daneel Olivaw. Another is a shameless robot, openly metallic in structure, and its name is R. Giskard Reventlov. Greet them, my fellow Baleyworlders. They are this woman’s kinfolk.”

  “Checkmate!” groaned D.G. in a whisper.

  “Not yet,” said Gladia.

  There were craning necks in the audience, as if a sudden itch had affected them all, and the word “Robots” ran across the length and breadth of the hall in thousands of intakes of breath.

  “You can see them without trouble,” Gladia’s voice rang out. “Daneel, Giskard, stand up.”

  The two robots rose at once behind her.

  “Step to either side of me,” she said, “so that my body does not block the view. – not that my body is large enough to do much blocking, in any case.

  “Now let me make a few things clear to all of you. These two robots did not come with me in order to service me. Yes, they help run my establishment on Aurora, along with fifty-one other robots, and I do no work for myself that I wish a robot to do for me. That is the custom on the world on which I live.

  “Robots vary in complexity, ability, and intelligence and these two rate very high in those respects. Daneel, in particular, is, in my opinion, the robot, of all robots, whose intelligence most nearly approximates the human in those areas where comparison is possible.

  “I have brought only Daneel and Giskard with me, but they perform no great services for me. If you are interested, I dress myself, bathe myself, use my own utensils when I eat, and walk without being carried.

  “Do I use them for personal protection? No. They protect me, yes, but they equally well protect anyone else who needs protection. On Solaria, just recently, Daneel did what he could to protect Captain Baley and was ready to give up his existence to protect me. Without him, the ship could not have been saved.

  “And I certainly need no protection on this platform. After all, there is a force field stretched across the stage that is ample protection. It is not there at my request, but it is there and it supplies all the protection I need.

  “Then why are my robots here with me?”

  “Those of you who know the story of Elijah Baley, who freed Earth of its Spacer overlords, who initiated the new policy of settlement, and whose son led the first human being to Baleyworld – why else is it called that? – know that well before he knew me, Elijah Baley worked with Daneel. He worked with him on Earth, on Solaria, and on Aurora – on each of his great cases. To Daneel, Elijah Baley was always ‘Partner Elijah. ‘I don’t know if that fact appears in his biography, but you may safely take my word for it. And although Elijah Baley, as an Earthman, began with a strong distrust of Daneel, a friendship between them developed. When Elijah Baley was dying, here on this planet over sixteen decades ago, when it was just a cluster of prefabricated houses surrounded by garden patches, it was not his son who was with him in his last moment. Nor was it I.” (For a treacherous moment, she thought her voice would not hold steady.) “He sent for Daneel and he held on to life until Daneel arrived.

  “Yes, this is Daneel’s second visit to this planet. I was with him, but I remained in orbit.” (Steady!) “It was Daneel alone who made planetfall, Daneel who received his last words. – Well, does this mean nothing to you?”

  Her voice rose a notch as she shook her fists in the air. “Must I tell you this? Don’t you already know it? Here is the robot that Elijah Baley loved. Yes, loved. I wanted to see Elijah before he died, to say good-bye to him; but he wanted Daneel – and this is Daneel. This is the very one.

  “And this other is Giskard, who knew Elijah only on Aurora, but who managed to save Elijah’s life there.

  “Without these two robots, Elijah Baley would not have achieved his goal. The Spacer worlds would still be supreme, the Settler worlds would not exist, and none of you would be here. I know that. You know that. I wonder if Mr. Tomas Bistervan knows that?

  “Daneel and Giskard are honored names on this world. They are used commonly by the descendants of Elijah Baley at his request. I have arrived on a ship the captain of which is named Daneel Giskard Baley. How many, I wonder, among the people I face now – in person and via hyperwave – bear the name of Daneel or Giskard? Well, these robots behind me are the robots those names commemorate. And are they to be denounced by Tomas Bistervan?”

  The growing murmur among the audience was becoming loud and Gladia lifted her arms imploringly. “One moment. One moment. Let me finish. I have not told you why I brought these two robots.”

  There was immediate silence.

  “These two robots,” Gladia said, “have never forgotten Elijah Baley, any more than I have forgotten him. The passing decades have not in the least dimmed those memories. When I was ready to step on to Captain Baley’s ship, when I knew that I might visit Baleyworld, how could I refuse to take Daneel and Giskard with me? They wanted to see the planet that Elijah Baley had made possible, the planet on which he passed his old age and on which he died.

  “Yes, they are robots, but they are intelligent robots who served Elijah Baley faithfully and well. It is not enough to have respect for all human beings; one must have respect for all intelligent beings. So I brought them here.” Then, in a final outcry that demanded a response, “Did I do wrong?”

  She received her response. A gigantic cry of “No!” resounded throughout the hall and everyone was on his or her feet, clapping, stamping, roaring, screaming – on... and on... and on.

  Gladia watched, smiling, and, as the noise continued endlessly, became aware of two things. First, she was wet with perspiration. Second, she was happier than she had ever been in her life.

  It was as though all her life she had waited for this moment – the moment when she, having been brought up in isolation, could finally learn, after twenty-three decades, that she could face crowds, and move them, and bend them to her will.

  She listened to the unwearying, noisy response – on... and on... and on...

  35.

  It was a considerable time later – how long she had no way of telling – that Gladia finally came to herself.

  There had first been unending noise, the solid wedge of security people herding her through the crowd, the plunge into endless tunnels that seemed to sink d
eeper and deeper into the ground.

  She lost contact with D.G. early and was not sure that Daneel and Giskard were safely with her. She wanted to ask for them, but only faceless people surrounded her. She thought distantly that the robots had to be with her, for they would resist separation and she would hear the tumult if an attempt were made.

  When she finally reached a room, the two robots were there with her. She didn’t know precisely where she was, but the room was fairly large and clean. It was poor stuff compared to her home on Aurora, but compared to the shipboard cabin it was quite luxurious.

  “You will be safe here, madam,” said the last of the guards as he left. “If you need anything, just let us know.” He indicated a device on a small table next to the bed.

  She stared at it, but by the time she turned back to ask what it was and how it worked, he was gone.

  Oh, well, she thought, I’ll get by.

  “Giskard,” she said wearily, “find out which of those doors leads to the bathroom and find out how the shower works. What I must have now is a shower.”

  She sat down gingerly, aware that she was damp and unwilling to saturate the chair with her perspiration. She was beginning to ache with the unnatural rigidity of her position when Giskard emerged.

  “Madam, the shower is running,” he said, “and the temperature is adjusted. There is a solid material which I believe is soap and a primitive sort of toweling material, along with various other articles that may be useful.”

  “Thank you, Giskard,” said Gladia, quite aware that despite her grandiloquence on the manner in which robots such as Giskard did not perform menial service, that is precisely what she had required him to do. But circumstances alter cases –

  If she had never needed a shower, it seemed to her, as badly as now, she had also never enjoyed one as much. She remained in it much longer than she had to and when it was over it didn’t even occur to her to wonder if the towels had been in any way irradiated to sterility until after she had dried herself – and by that time it was too late.

  She rummaged about among the material Giskard had laid out for her – powder, deodorant, comb, toothpaste, hair dryer – but she could not locate anything that would serve as a toothbrush. She finally gave up and used her finger, which she found most unsatisfactory. There was no hairbrush and that too was unsatisfactory. She scrubbed the comb with soap before using it, but cringed away from it just the same. She found a garment that looked as though it were suitable for wearing to bed. It smelled clean, but it hung far too loosely, she decided.

  Daneel said quietly, “Madam, the captain wishes to know if he may see you.”

  “I suppose so,” said Gladia, still rummaging for alternate nightwear. “Let him in.”

  D.G. looked tired and even haggard, but when she turned to greet him, he smiled wearily at her and said, “It is hard to believe that you are over twenty-three decades old.”

  “What? In this thing?”

  “That helps. It’s semitransparent. – or didn’t you know?”

  She looked down at the nightgown uncertainly, then said, “Good, if it amuses you, but I have been alive, just the same, for two and a third centuries.”

  “No one would guess it to look at you. You must have been very beautiful in your youth.”

  “I have never been told so, D.G. Quiet charm, I always believed, was the most I could aspire to. – In any case, how do I use that instrument?”

  “The call box? Just touch the patch on the right side and someone will ask if you can be served and you can carry on from there.”

  “Good. I will need a toothbrush, a hairbrush, and clothing.”

  “The toothbrush and hairbrush I will see that you get. As for clothing, that has been thought of. You have a clothes bag hanging in your closet. You’ll find it contains the best in Baleyworld fashion, which may not appeal to you, of course. And I won’t guarantee they’ll fit you. Most Baleyworld women are taller than you and certainly wider and thicker. – but it doesn’t matter. I think you’ll remain in seclusion for quite a while.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, my lady. It seems you delivered a speech this past evening and, as I recall, you would not sit down, though I suggested you do that more than once.”

  “It seemed quite successful to me, D.G.”

  “It was. It was a howling success.” D.G. smiled broadly and scratched the right side of his beard as though considering the word very carefully. “However, success has its penalties too. Right now, I should say you are the most famous person on Baleyworld and every Baleyworlder wants to see you and touch you. If we take you out anywhere, it will mean an instant riot. At least, until things cool down. We can’t be sure how long that will take.

  “Then, too, you had even the war hawks yelling for you, but in the cold light of tomorrow, when the hypnotism and hysteria dies down, they’re going to be furious. If Old Man Bistervan didn’t actually consider killing you outright after your talk, then by tomorrow he will certainly have it as the ambition of his life to murder you by slow torture. And there are people of his party who might conceivably try to oblige the Old Man in this small whim of his.

  “That’s why you’re here, my lady. That’s why this room, this floor, this entire hotel is being watched by I don’t know how many platoons of security people, among whom, I hope, are no cryptowar hawks. And because I have been so closely associated with you in this hero-and-heroine game, I’m penned up here, too, and can’t get out.”

  “Oh,” said Gladia blankly. “I’m sorry about that. You can’t we your family, then.”

  D.G. shrugged. “Traders don’t really have much in the way of family.”

  “Your woman friend, then.”

  “She’ll survive. – Probably better than I will.” He cast his eyes on Gladia speculatively.

  Gladia said evenly, “Don’t even think it, Captain.”

  D.G.’s eyebrows rose. “There’s no way I can be prevented from thinking it, but I won’t do anything, madam.”

  Gladia said, “How long do you think I will stay here? Seriously.”

  “It depends on the Directory.”

  “The Directory?”

  “Our five-fold executive board, madam. Five people” – he held up his hand with the fingers spread apart –” each serving five years in staggered fashion, with one replacement each year, plus special elections in case of death or disability. This supplies continuity and reduces the danger of one-person rule. It also means that every decision must be argued out and that takes time, sometimes more time than we can afford.”

  “I should think,” said Gladia, “that if one of the five were a determined and forceful individual –”

  “That he could impose his views on the others. Things like that have happened at times, but these times are not one of those times – if you know what I mean. The Senior Director is Genovus Pandaral. There’s nothing evil about him, but he’s indecisive – and sometimes that’s the same thing. I talked him into allowing your robots on the stage with you and that turned out to be a bad idea. Score one against both of us.”

  “But why was it a bad idea? The people were pleased.”

  “Too pleased, my lady. We wanted you to be our pet Spacer heroine and help keep public opinion cool so that we wouldn’t launch a premature war. You were good on longevity; you had them cheering short life. But then you had them cheering robots and we don’t want that. For that matter, we’re not so keen on the public cheering the notion of kinship with the Spacers.”

  “You don’t want premature war, but you don’t want premature peace, either. Is that it?”

  “Very well put, madam.”

  “But, then, what do you want?”

  “We want the Galaxy, the whole Galaxy. We want to settle and populate every habitable planet in it and establish nothing less than a Galactic Empire. And we don’t want the Spacers to interfere. They can remain on their own worlds and live in peace as they please, but they must not interfere.”

&nbs
p; “But then you’ll be penning them up on their fifty worlds, as we penned up Earthpeople on Earth for so many years. The same old injustice. You’re as bad as Bistervan.”

  “The situations are different. Earthpeople were penned up in defiance of their expansive potential. You Spacers have no such potential. You took the path of longevity and robots and the potential vanished. You don’t even have fifty worlds any longer. Solaria has been abandoned. The others will go, too, in time. The Settlers have no interest in pushing the Spacers along the path to extinction, but why should we interfere with their voluntary choice to do so? Your speech tended to interfere with that.”

  “I’m glad. What did you think I would say?”

  “I told you. Peace and love and sit down. You could have finished in about one minute.”

  Gladia said angrily, “I can’t believe you expected anything so foolish of me. What did you take me for?”

  “For what you took yourself for – someone frightened to death of speaking. How did we know that you were a madwoman who could, in half an hour, persuade the Baleyworlders to howl in favor of what for lifetimes we have been persuading them to howl against? But talk will get us nowhere” – he rose heavily to his feet –” I want a shower, too, and I had better get a night’s sleep – if I can. See you tomorrow.”

  “But when do we find out what the Directors will decide to do with me?”

  “When they find out, which may not be soon. Good night, madam.”

  36.

  “I have made a discovery,” said Giskard, his voice carrying no shade of emotion. “I have made it because, for the first time in my existence, I faced thousands of human beings. Had I done this two centuries ago, I would have made the discovery then. Had I never faced so many at once, then I would never have made the discovery at all.

  “Consider, then, how many vital points I might easily grasp, but never have and never will, simply because the proper conditions for it will never come my way. I remain ignorant except where circumstance helps me and I cannot count on circumstance.”