by Isaac Asimov
"Two Settler ships have already landed on Solaria. We have sent a protest over this, but they will surely disregard the protest and, just as surely, we will do nothing further. Quite the contrary. Some of the Spacer worlds are sending out quiet queries as to the nature of the robots that might be salvaged and what their prices would be."
"Perhaps just as well," said Mandamus quietly.
"Just as well that we're behaving exactly as the Settler propagandists say we will? That we act as though we are degenerating and turning into soft pulps of decadence?"
"Why repeat their buzz words, sir? The fact is that we are quiet and civilized and have not yet been touched where it hurts. If we were, we would fight back strongly enough and, I'm sure, smash them. We still far outstrip them technologically."
"But the damage to ourselves will not be exactly pleasurable."
"Which means that we must not be too ready to go to war. If Solaria is deserted and the Settlers wish to plunder it, perhaps we ought to let them. After all, I predict that we will be all set to make our move within months."
A rather hungry and ferocious look came over Amadiro's face. "Months?"
"I'm sure of it. So the first thing we must do is to avoid being provoked. We will ruin everything if we move toward a conflict there is no need to fight and undergo damage even if we win—that we don't need to suffer. After all, in a little while, we are going to win totally, without fighting and without damage. —Poor, Earth!"
"If you're going to be sorry for them," said Amadiro with spurious lightness, "perhaps you'll do nothing to them."
"On the contrary," said Mandamus coolly. "It's precisely because I fully intend to do something to them—and know that it will be done—that I am sorry for them. You will be Chairman!"
"And you will be the head of the Institute."
"A small post in comparison to yours."
"And after I die?" said Amadiro in half a snarl.
"I do not look that far ahead."
"I am quite—" began Amadiro, but was interrupted by the steady buzz of the message unit. Without looking and quite automatically, Amadiro placed his hand at the EXIT slot. He looked at the thin strip of paper that emerged and a slow smile appeared on his lips.
"The two Settler ships that landed on Solaria—" he said.
"Yes, sir?" asked Mandamus, frowning.
"Destroyed! Both destroyed!"
"How?"
"In an explosive blaze of radiation, easily detected from space. You see what it means? The Solarians have not left after all and the weakest of our worlds can easily handle Settler ships. It is a bloody nose for the Settlers and not something they'll forget. —Here, Mandamus, read for yourself."
Mandamus pushed the paper aside. "But that doesn't necessarily mean that the Solarians are still on the planet. They may merely have booby-trapped it somehow."
"What is the difference? Personal attack or booby-trap, the ships were destroyed.
"This time they were caught by surprise. What about next time, when they are prepared? And what if they consider the event a deliberate Spacer attack?"
"We will reply that the Solarians were merely defending themselves against a deliberate Settler invasion."
"But, sir, are you suggesting a battle of words? What if the Settlers don't bother talking, but consider the destruction of their ships an act of war and retaliate at once?"
"Why should they?"
"Because they are as insane as we can be once pride is hurt; more so, since they have a greater background of violence."
"They will be beaten."
"You yourself admit they will inflict unacceptable damage upon us, even if they are beaten."
"What would you have me do? Aurora did not destroy those ships."
"Persuade the Chairman to make it quite plain that Aurora had nothing to do with it, that none of the Spacer worlds had anything to do with it, that the blame for the action rests on Solaria alone."
"And abandon Solaria? That would be a cowardly act."
Mandamus blazed into excitement. "Dr. Amadiro, have you never heard of anything called a strategic retreat? Persuade the Spacer worlds to back off for only a little while on some plausible pretext. It is only a matter of some months till our plan on Earth comes to fruition. It may be hard for everyone else to back off and be apologetic to the Spacers, for they don't know what is coming—but we do. In fact, you and I, with our special knowledge, can look upon this event as a gift from what used to be called the gods. Let the Settlers remain preoccupied with Solaria while their destruction is prepared—all unobserved by them—on Earth. —Or would you prefer us to be ruined on the very brink of final victory?"
Amadiro, found himself flinching before the direct glare of the other's deep-set eyes.
52.
Amadiro had never had a worse time than during the period following the destruction of the Settler ships. The Chairman, fortunately, could be persuaded to follow a policy of what Amadiro termed "masterful yielding." The phrase caught the Chairman's imagination, even though it was an oxymoron. Besides, the Chairman was good at masterful yielding.
The rest of the Council was harder to handle. The exasperated Amadiro exhausted himself in picturing the horrors of war and the necessity of choosing the proper moment to strike—and not the improper one—if war there must be. He invented novel plausibilities for why the moment was not yet and used them in discussions with the leaders of the other Spacer Worlds. Aurora's natural hegemony had to be exercised to the utmost to get them to yield.
But when Captain D.G. Baley arrived with his ship and his demand, Amadiro felt he could do no more. It was too much.
"It is altogether impossible," said Amadiro. "Are we to allow him to land on Aurora with his beard, his ridiculous clothing, his incomprehensible accent? Am I expected to ask the Council to agree to hand over a Spacer woman to him? It would be an act absolutely unprecedented in our history. A Spacer woman!"
Mandamus said dryly, "You have always referred to that particular Spacer woman as 'the Solarian woman.' "
"She is 'the Solarian woman' to us, but she will be considered a Spacer woman once a Settler is involved. If his ship lands on Solaria, as he suggests it will, it may be destroyed as the others were, together with him and the woman. I may then be accused by my enemies, with some color of justification, of murder—and my political career may not survive that."
Mandamus said, "Think, instead, of the fact that we have labored nearly seven years in order to arrange the final destruction of Earth and that we are now only a few months from the completion of the project. Shall we risk war now and, at a stroke, ruin everything we've done when we are so close to final victory?"
Amadiro shook his head. "It isn't as though I have a choice in the matter, my friend. The Council wouldn't follow me if I try to argue them into surrendering the woman to a Settler. And the mere fact that I have suggested it will be used against me. My political career will be shaken and we may then have a war in addition. Besides, the thought of a Spacer woman dying in service to a Settler is unbearable."
"One would suppose you were fond of the Solarian woman."
"You know I am not. With all my heart I wish she had died twenty decades ago, but not this way, not on a Settler ship. But I should remember that she is an ancestress of yours in the fifth generation."
Mandamus looked a bit more dour than he usually did. "Of what consequence is that to me? I am a Spacer individual, conscious of myself and of my society. I am not an ancestor-worshiping member of a tribal conglomerate."
For a moment, Mandamus fell silent and his thin face took on a look of intense concentration. "Dr. Amadiro," he said, "could you not explain to the Council that this ancestress of mine is being taken, not as a Spacer hostage but only because her unique knowledge of Solaria, where she spent her childhood and youth, could make her an essential part of the exploration and that this exploration might even be helpful to us, as well as to the Settlers? After all, in truth, wouldn't it be desirab
le for us to know what those miserable Solarians, are up to? The woman will presumably bring back a report of the events—if she survives."
Amadiro thrust out his lower lip. "That might work if the woman went on board voluntarily, if she made it clear that she understood the importance of the work and wished to perform her patriotic duty. To put her on board ship by force, though, is unthinkable."
"Well, then, suppose I were to see this ancestress of mine and try to persuade her to get on the ship willingly; and suppose, also, that you speak to this Settler captain by hyperwave and tell them he can land on Aurora and have the woman if he can persuade her to go with him willingly—or, at least, say that she'll go with him willingly, whether she does or not."
"I suppose we can't lose by making the effort, but I don't see how we can win."
Yet to Amadiro's surprise, they did win. He had listened with astonishment as Mandamus told him the details.
"I brought up the matter of the humanoid robots," Mandamus said, "and it's clear she knew nothing about them, from which I deduced Fastolfe had known nothing about them. It has been one of those things that nagged at me. Then I talked a great deal about my ancestry in such a way as to force her to talk of that Earthman Elijah Baley."
"What about him?" said Amadiro harshly.
"Nothing, except that she talked about him and remembered. This Settler who wants her is a descendant of Baley and I thought it might influence her to consider the Settler's request more favorably than she might otherwise have done."
In any case, it had worked and for a few, days Amadiro felt a relief from the almost continuous pressure that had plagued him from the start of the Solarian crisis.
But only for a very few days.
53.
One point that worked to Amadiro's advantage at this time was that he had not seen Vasilia, thus far, during the Solarian crisis.
It would certainly not have been an appropriate time to see her. He did not wish to be annoyed by her petty concern over a robot she claimed as her own—with total disregard for the legalities of the situation—at a time when a true crisis exercised his every nerve and thought. Nor did he wish to expose himself to the kind of quarrel that might easily arise between her and Mandamus over the question of which was eventually to preside over the Robotics Institute.
In any case, he had about come to the decision that Mandamus ought to be his successor. Throughout the Solarian crisis, he had kept his eye fixed on what was important. Even when Amadiro himself had felt shaken, Mandamus had remained icily calm. It was Mandamus who thought it conceivable that the Solarian woman might accompany the Settler captain voluntarily and it was he who maneuvered her into doing so.
And if his plan for the destruction of Earth worked itself out as it should—as it must—then Amadiro could see Mandamus succeeding as Council Chairman eventually. It would even be just, thought Amadiro, in a rare burst of selflessness.
On this particular evening, in consequence, he did not so much as expend a thought upon Vasilia. He left the Institute with a small squad of robots seeing him safely to his ground-car. That ground-car, driven by one robot and with two more in the backseat with him, passed quietly through a twilit and chilly rain and brought him to his establishment, where two more robots ushered him indoors. And all this time he did not think of Vasilia.
To find her sitting in his living room, then, in front of his hyperwave set, watching an intricate robot ballet, with several of Amadiro's robots in their niches and two of her own robots behind her chair, struck him at first not as much with the anger of violated privacy, as with pure surprise.
It took some time for him to control his breathing well enough to be able to speak and then his anger arose and he said harshly, "What are you doing here? How did you get in?"
Vasilia was calm enough. Amadiro's appearance was, after all, entirely expected. "What I'm doing here," she said, "is waiting to see you. Getting in was not difficult. Your robots know my appearance very well and they know my standing at the Institute. Why shouldn't they allow me to enter if I assure them I have an appointment with you?"
"Which you haven't. You have violated my privacy."
"Not really. There's a limit to how much trust you can squeeze out of someone else's robots. Look at them. They have never once taken their eyes from me. If I had wanted to disturb your belongings, look through your papers, take advantage of your absence in any way, I assure you I could not have. My two robots are no match against them."
"Do you know," said Amadiro, bitterly, "that you have acted in a thoroughly un-Spacer fashion. You are despicable and I will not forget this."
Vasilia seemed to blanch slightly at the adjectives. She said in a low, hard voice, "I hope you don't forget it, Kelden, for I've done what I've done for you—and if I reacted as I should to your foul mouth, I would leave now and let you continue for the rest of your life to be the defeated man you have been for the past twenty decades."
"I will not remain a defeated man—whatever you do."
Vasilia said, "You sound as though you believe that, but, you see, you do not know what I know. I must tell you that without my intervention you will remain defeated. I don't care what scheme you have in mind. I don't care what this thin-lipped, acid-faced Mandamus has cooked up for you—"
"Why do you mention him?" said Amadiro quickly.
"Because I wish to," said Vasilia with a touch of contempt. "Whatever he has done or thinks he is doing—and don't be frightened, for I haven't any idea what that might be—it won't work. I may not know anything else about it, but I do know it won't work."
"You're babbling idiocies," said Amadiro.
"You had better listen to these idiocies, Kelden, if you don't want everything to fall into ruin. Not just you, but possibly the Spacer worlds, one and all. Still, you may not want to listen to me. It's your choice. Which, then, is it to be?"
"Why should I listen to you? What possible reason is there for me to listen to you?"
"For one thing, I told you the Solarians were preparing to leave their world. If you had listened to me then, you would not have been caught so by surprise when they did,"
"The Solarian crisis will yet turn to our advantage."
"No, it will not," said Vasilia. "You may think it will, but it won't. It will destroy you—no matter what you are doing to meet the emergency—unless you are willing to let me have my say."
Amadiro's lips were white and were trembling slightly. The two centuries of defeat Vasilia had mentioned had had a lasting effect upon him and the Solarian crisis had not helped, so he lacked the inner strength to order his robots to see her out, as he should have. He said sullenly. "Well, then, put it in brief."
"You would not believe what I have to say if I did, so let me do it my own way. You can stop me at any time, but then you will destroy the Spacer worlds. Of course, they will last my time and it won't be I who will go down in history—Settler history, by the way—as the greatest failure on record. Shall I speak?"
Amadiro folded into a chair. "Speak, then, and when you are through—leave."
"I intend to, Kelden, unless, of course, you ask me—very politely—to stay and help you. Shall I start?"
Amadiro said nothing and Vasilia began, "I told you that during my stay on Solaria I became aware of some very peculiar positronic pathway patterns they had designed, pathways that struck me—very forcefully—as representing attempts at producing telepathic robots. Now, why should I have thought that?"
Amadiro said bitterly, "I cannot tell what pathological drives may power your thinking."
Vasilia brushed that aside with a grimace. "Thank you, Kelden. —I've spent some months thinking about that, since I was acute enough to think the matter involved not pathology but some subliminal memory. My mind went back to my childhood when Fastolfe, whom I then considered my father, in one of his generous moods—he would experiment now and then with generous moods, you understand—gave me a robot of my own."
"Giskard again?" mutt
ered Amadiro with impatience.
"Yes, Giskard. Giskard, always. I was in my teenage years and I already had the instinct of a roboticist or, I should say, I was born with the instinct. I had as yet very little mathematics, but I had a grasp of patterns. With the passing of scores of decades, my knowledge of mathematics steadily improved, but I don't think I have advanced very far in my feeling for patterns. My father would say, 'Little Vas'—he also experimented in loving diminutives to see how that would affect me—'you, have a genius for patterns.' I think I did—"
Amadiro said, "Spare me. I'll concede your genius. Meanwhile, I have not yet had my dinner, do you know that?"
"Well," said Vasilia sharply, "order your dinner and invite me to join you."
Amadiro, frowning, raised his arm perfunctorily and made a quick sign. The quiet motion of robots at work made itself evident at once.
Vasilia said, "I would play with pathway patterns for Giskard. I would come to Fastolfe—my father, as I then thought of him—and I would show him a pattern. He might shake his head and laugh and say, 'If you add that to poor Giskard's brain, he will no longer be able to talk and he will be in a great deal of pain.' I remember asking if Giskard could really feel pain and my father said, 'We don't know what he would feel, but he would act as we would act if we were in a great deal of pain, so we might as well say he would feel pain.'
"Or else I would take one of my patterns to him and he would smile indulgently and say, 'Well, that won't hurt him, Little Vas, and it might be interesting to try.'
"And I would. Sometimes I would take it out again and sometimes I would leave it. I was not simply fiddling with Giskard for the sadistic joy of it, as I imagine I might have been tempted to do if I were someone other than myself. The fact is, I was very fond of Giskard and I had no desire to harm him. When it seemed to me that one of my improvements—I always thought of them as improvements—made Giskard speak more freely or react more quickly or more interestingly—and seemed to do no harm—I would let it stay.
