Robots & Empire

by Robots

  They had walked into the dining room, Giskard preceding them, Daneel following them, each moving into his appropriate wall niche. Other robots were already in their niches and two emerged to do the serving. The room was bright with sunshine, the walls were alive with decoration, the table was set, and the odor of the food was enticing.

  The Settler sniffed and let his breath out in satisfaction. "I don't think I'll have any trouble at all eating Auroran food. Where would you like me to sit, my lady?"

  A robot said at once, "If you would sit here, sir?"

  The Settler sat down and then Gladia, the privileges of the guest satisfied, took her own seat.

  "Deejee?" she said. "I do not know the nomenclature peculiarities of your world, so excuse me if my question is offensive. Wouldn't Deejee be a feminine name?"

  "Not at all," said the Settler a bit stiffly. "In any case, it is not a name, it is a pair of initials. Fourth letter of the alphabet and the seventh."

  "Oh," said Gladia, enlightened, "D.G. Baley. And what do, the initials stand for, if you'll excuse my curiosity?"

  "Certainly. There's 'D,' for certain," he said, jerking his thumb toward one of the wall niches, "and I suspect that one may be 'G.'" He jerked his thumb toward another.

  "You don't mean that," said Gladia faintly.

  "But I do. My name is Daneel Giskard Baley. In every generation, MY family has had at least one Daneel or one Giskard in its multiplying batches. I was the last of six children, but the first boy. My mother felt that was enough and made up for having but one son by giving me both names. That made me Daneel- Giskard Baley and the double load was too, great for me. I prefer D G. as my name and I'd be honored if you used it." He smiled genially. "I'm the first to bear both names and I'm also the first to see the grand originals.

  "But why those names?"

  "It was Ancestor Elijah's idea, according to, the family story. He had the honor of naming his grandsons and he, named, the oldest Daneel, while the second was named Giskard. He insisted on those names and that established the tradition."

  "And the daughters?"

  "The traditional name from generation to generation is Jezebel-Jessie. Elijah's wife, you know."

  "I know."

  "There are no He caught himself and transferred his attention to the dish that had been placed before him. "If this were Baleyworld, I would say this was a slice of roast pork and that it was smothered in peanut sauce."

  "Actually, it is a vegetable dish, D.G. What you were about to say was that there are no Gladias in the family."

  "There aren't," said D.G. calmly. "One explanation is that Jessie-the original Jessie-would have objected, but I don't accept that. Elijah's wife, the Ancestress, never came to Baleyworld, you know, never left Earth. How could she have objected? No, to me, it's pretty certain that the Ancestor wanted no other Gladia. No imitations, no copies, no pretense. One Gladia. Unique. -He asked that there be no later Elijah, either."

  Gladia was having trouble eating. "I, think your Ancestor spent the latter portion of his life trying to be as unemotional as Daneel. Just the same, he had romantic notions under his skin. He might have allowed other Elijahs and Gladias. It wouldn't have offended me, certainly, and I imagine it wouldn't have offended his wife, either." She laughed tremulously.

  D.G. said, "All this doesn't seem real somehow. The Ancestor is practically ancient history; he died a hundred and sixty-four years ago. I'm his descendant in the, seventh generation, yet here I am sitting with a woman who knew him when he was quite young."

  "I didn't really know him," said Gladia, staring at her plate. "I saw him, rather briefly, on three separate occasions over a period of seven years."

  "I know. The Ancestor's son, Ben, wrote a biography of him which is one of the literary classics of Baleyworld. Even I have read it."

  "Indeed? I haven't read it. I didn't even know it existed. What-what does it say about me?"

  D.G. seemed amused. "Nothing you would object to; you come out very well. But never mind that. What I'm amazed at is that here we are together, across seven generations. How old are you, my lady? Is it fair to ask the question?"

  "I don't know that it's fair, but I have no objection to it. In Galactic Standard Years, I am two hundred and thirty-three years old. Over twenty-two decades."

  "You look as though you were no more than in your late forties. The Ancestor died at the age of seventy-nine, an old man. I'm thirty-nine and when I die you will still be alive---"

  "If I avoid death by misadventure."

  "And will continue to live perhaps five decades beyond."

  "Do you envy me, D.G.?" said Gladia with an edge of bitterness in her voice. "Do you envy me for having survived Elijah by over sixteen decades and for being condemned to survive him ten decades more, perhaps?"

  "Of course I envy you," came the composed answer. "Why not? I would have no objection to living for several centuries, were it not that I would be setting a bad example to the people of Baleyworld. I wouldn't want them to live that long as a general thing. The pace of historical and intellectual advance would then become too slow. Those at the top would stay in power too long. Baleyworld would sink into conversation and decay-as your world has done."

  Gladia's small chin lifted. "Aurora is doing quite well, you'll find."

  "I'm speaking of your world. Solaria."

  Gladia hesitated, then said firmly, "Solaria is not my world."

  D.G. said, I hope it is. I came to see you because I believe Solaria is your world."

  "If that is why you came to seem me, you are, wasting your time, young man."

  "You were born Solaria, weren't you, and lived there a While?"

  "I lived there for the first three decades of my life about an eighth of my lifetime."

  "Then that makes you enough of a Solarian to be able to help me in a matter that is rather important."

  "I am not a Solarian, despite this so-called important matter."

  "It is a matter of war and peace-if you call that important. The Spacer worlds face war with the Settler worlds and things will go badly for all of us if it comes to that. And it is up to you, my lady, to prevent that war and to ensure peace.

  The meal was done (it had been a small one) and Gladia found herself looking at D.G, in a coldly furious way.

  She had lived quietly for the last twenty decades, peeling off the complexities of life. Slowly she had forgotten the misery of Solaria and the difficulties of adjustment to Aurora. She had managed to bury quite deeply the agony of two murders and the ecstasy of two strange loves-with a robot and with an Earthman-and to get well past it all. She had ended by spinning out a long quiet marriage, having two children, and working at her applied art of costumery. And eventually the children had left, then her husband, and soon she might be retiring even from her work.

  Then she would be alone with her robots, content with or, rather, resigned to-letting life glide quietly and uneventfully to a slow close in its own time-a close so gentle she might not be aware of the ending when it came.

  It was what she wanted.

  "Then- What was happening?"

  It had begun the night before when she looked up vainly at the star-lit sky to see Solaria's star, which was not in the sky and would not have been visible to her if it were. It was as though this one foolish reaching for the past- a past that should have been allowed to remain dead-had burst the cool bubble she had built about herself.

  First the name of Elijah Baley, the most joyously painful memory of all the ones she had so carefully brushed away, had come up again and again in a grim repetition.

  I She was then forced to deal with a man who thought mistakenly-he might be a descendant of Elijah in the fifth degree and now with another man who actually was a descendant in the seventh degree. Finally, she was now being given problems and responsibilities similar to those that had plagued Elijah himself on various occasions.

  Was she becoming Elijah, in a fashion, with none of his talent and none of his f
ierce dedication to duty at all costs?

  What had she done to deserve it?

  She felt her rage being buried under a flood tide of self-pity. She felt unjustly dealt with. No one had the right to unload responsibility on her against her will.

  She said, forcing her voice level, "Why do you insist on MY being a Solarian, when I tell you that I am not a Solarian?"

  D.G. did not seem disturbed by the chill that had now entered her voice. He was still holding the soft napkin that had been given him at the conclusion of the meal. It had been damply hot-not too hot-and he had imitated the actions of Gladia in carefully wiping his hands and mouth. He had then doubled it over and stroked his beard with it. It was shredding now and shriveling.

  He said, "I presume it will vanish altogether."

  "It will." Gladia had deposited her own napkin in the appropriate receptacle on the table. Holding it was unmannerly and could be excused only by D.G.'s evident unfamiliarity -with civilized custom. "There are some who think it has a polluting effect on the atmosphere, but there is a gentle draft that carries the residue upward and traps it in filters. I doubt that it will give us any trouble. -But you ignore my question, sir."

  D.G. wadded what was left of his napkin and placed it on the arm of the chair. A robot, in response to Gladia's quick and unobtrusive gesture, removed it.

  D.G. said, "I don't intend to ignore your question, my lady. I am not trying to force you to be a Solarian. I merely point out that you were born on Solaria and spent your early decades there and therefore you might reasonably be considered a Solarian, after a fashion at least. -Do you know that Solaria has been abandoned?"

  "So I have heard. Yes."

  "Do you feel anything about that?"

  "I am an Auroran and have been one for twenty decades."

  "That is a non sequitur."

  "A what?" She could make nothing of the last sound at all.

  "It has not connection with my question."

  "A non sequitur, you mean. You said a nonsense quitter."

  D.G. smiled. "Very well. Let's quit the nonsense. I ask you if you feel anything about the death of Solaria and you tell me you're an Auroran. Do you maintain that is an answer? A born Auroran might feel badly at the death o a sister world. How do you feel about it?"

  Gladia said icily, "It doesn't matter. Why are you interwed?"

  "I'll explain. We- I mean the Traders of the Settler worlds -are interested because there is business to be done, profits to be made, and a world to be gained. Solaria is already terraformed; it is a comfortable world; you Spacers seem to have no need or desire for it. Why would we not settle it?"

  "Because it's not yours."

  "Madam, is it yours that you object? Has Aurora any more claim to it than Baleyworld has? Can't we suppose that an empty world belongs to whoever is pleased to settle it?"

  "Have you settled it?"

  "No-because it's not empty-"

  "Do you mean the Solarians have not entirely left?" Gladia said quickly.

  D.G.'s smile returned and broadened into a grin. "You're excited at the thought. -Even though you're an Auroran."

  Gladia's face twisted into a frown at once. "Answer my question."

  D.G. shrugged. "There were only some five thousand Solarians on the world just before it was abandoned, according to our best estimates. The population had been declining for years. But even five thousand- can we be sure that all are gone? However, that's not the point. Even if the Solarians, were indeed all gone, the planet would not be empty There are, upon it, some two hundred million or more robots -masterless robots-some of them among the most advanced in the Galaxy. Presumably, those Solarians who left took some robots with them-it's hard to imagine Spacers doing without robots altogether." (He looked about, smiling, at the robots in their niches within the room.) "However, they can't possibly have taken forty thousand robots apiece.

  Gladia said, "Well, then, since your Settler worlds are so purely robot-free and wish to stay so, I presume, you can't settle Solaria.

  "That's right. Not until the robots are gone and that is where Traders such as myself come in."

  "In what way?"

  "We don't want a robot society, but we don't mind touching robots and dealing with them in the way of business. We don't have a superstitious fear of the things. We just know that a robot society is bound to decay. The Spacers have carefully made that plain to us by example. So that while we don't want to live with this robotic poison, we are perfectly willing to sell it to Spacers for a substantial sum-if they are so foolish as to want such a society"

  "Do you think Spacers will buy them?"

  "I'm sure they will. They will welcome the elegant modes that the Solarians manufacture. It's well known that they were the leading robot designers in the Galaxy, even though the late Dr. Fastolfe is said to have been unparalleled in the field, despite the fact that he was an Auroran. -Besides, even though we would charge a substantial sum, that sum would still be considerably less than the robots are worth. Spacers, and Traders would both profit-the secret of successful trade.

  "The Spacers wouldn't buy robots from Settlers," said Gladia with evident contempt.

  D.G. had a Trader's way of ignoring such nonessentials as anger or contempt. It was business that counted. He said, "Of course they would. Offer them advanced robots at halfprice and why should they turn them down? Where business is to be done, you would be surprised how unimportant questions of ideology, become."

  "I think you'll be the one to be surprised. Try to sell your robots and you'll see."

  "Would that I could, my lady. Try to sell them, that is. I have none on hand."

  "Why not?"

  "Because none have been collected. Two separate trading vessels have landed on Solaria, each capable of storing some twenty-five robots. Had they succeeded, whole fleets of trading vessels would have followed them and I dare say we would have continued to do business for decades-and then have settled the world. "

  "But, they didn't succeed. Why not?"

  "Because both ships were destroyed on the surface of the planet and, as far as we can tell, all the crewmen are dead."

  "Equipment failure?"

  "Nonsense. Both landed safely; they were not wrecked. Their last reports were that Spacers were approaching whether Solarians or natives of other Spacer worlds, we don't know. We can only assume that the Spacers attacked without warning."

  "That's impossible!"

  "Is it?"

  "Of course it's impossible. What would be the motive?"

  "To keep us off the world, I would say."

  "If they wished to do that," said Gladia, "they would merely have had to announce that the world was occupied." They might find it more pleasant to kill a few Settlers. At least, that's what many of our people think and there is pressure to settle the matter by sending a few warships to Solaria and establishing a military base on the planet."

  "That would be dangerous."

  "Certainly. It could lead to war. Some of our fire-eaters look forward to that. Perhaps some Spacers look forward to that, too, and have destroyed the two ships merely to provoke hostilities."

  Gladia sat there amazed. There had been no hint of strained relations between Spacers and Settlers on any of the news programs.

  She said, "Surely it's possible to discuss the matter. Have your people approached the Spacer Federation?"

  "A thoroughly unimportant body, but we have. We've also approached the Auroran Council."

  "And?"

  "The Spacers deny everything. They suggest that the potential profits in the Solarian robot trade are so high that Traders, who are interested only in money-as though they themselves are not- would fight each other over the matter. Apparently, they would have us believe the two ships destroyed each other, each hoping to monopolize the trade for their own world."

  "The two ships were from I two different worlds, then?"

  "Yes."

  "Don't you think, then, that there might indeed have been
a fight between them?"

  "I don't think it's likely, but I will admit it's possible. There have been no outright conflicts between the Settler worlds, but there have been some pretty strenuous disputes. All have been settled through arbitration by Earth. Still, it is indeed a fact that the Settler worlds might, in a pinch, not hang together when multibillion-dollar trade is at stake. That's why war is not such a good idea for us and why something will have to be done to discourage the hotheads. That's where we come in."

  "We?"

  "You and I. I have been asked to go to Solaria and find out-if I can-what really happened. I will take one ship - armed, but not heavily armed."