Asimov’s Future History Volume 4

by Isaac Asimov

Daneel said, “Aurora revolves about its sun in 373.5 Auroran days or in about 0.95 Earth years. That is not considered a vital matter in chronology. Aurora accepts 30 of its days as equaling a month and io months as equaling a metric year. The metric year is equal to about o. 8 seasonal years or about three-quarters of an Earth year. The relationship is different on each world, of course. Ten days is usually referred to as a decimonth. All the Spacer worlds use this system.”

  “Surely, there must be some convenient way of following the cycle of the seasons?”

  “Each world has its seasonal year, too, but it is little regarded. One can, by computer, convert any day–past or present–into its position in the seasonal year if, for any reason, such information is desired. And this is true on any world, where conversion to and from the local days is also as easily possible. And, of course, Partner Elijah, any robot can do the same and can guide human activity where the seasonal year or local time is relevant. The advantage of metricized units is that it supplies humanity with a unified chronometry that involves little more than decimal point shifts.”

  It bothered Baley that the books he viewed made none of this clear. But then, from his own knowledge of Earth’s history, he knew that, at one time, the lunar month had been the key to the calendar and that there had come a time when, for ease of chronometry, the lunar month came to be ignored and was never missed. Yet if he had given books on Earth to some stranger, that stranger would have very likely found n~mention of the lunar month or any historical change in calendars. Dates would have been given without explanation.

  What else would be given without explanation?

  How far could he rely, then, on the knowledge he was gaining? He would have to ask questions constantly, take nothing for granted.

  There would be so many opportunities to miss the obvious, so many chances to misunderstand, so many ways of taking the wrong path.

  11.

  AURORA FILLED HIS vision now when he used the astrosimulator and it looked like Earth. (Baley had never seen Earth in the same way, but there had been photographs in astronomy texts and he had seen those.)

  Well, what Baley saw on Aurora were the same cloud patterns, the same glimpse of desert areas, the same large stretches of day and night, the same pattern of twinkling light in the expanse of the night hemisphere as the photographs showed on Earth’s globe.

  Baley watched raptly and thought: What if, for some reason, he had been taken into space, told he was being brought to Aurora, and was in reality being returned to Earth for some reason–for some subtle and insane reason. How could he tell the difference before landing?

  Was there reason to be suspicious? Daneel had carefully told him that the constellations were the same in the sky of both planets, but wouldn’t that be naturally so for planets circling neighboring stars? The gross appearance of both planets from space was identical, but wouldn’t that be expected if both were habitable and comfortably suited to human life?

  Was there any reason to suppose such a farfetched deception would be played upon him? What purpose would it serve? And yet why shouldn’t it be made to appear farfetched and useless? If there were an obvious reason to do such a thing, he would have seen through it at once.

  Would Daneel be party to such a conspiracy? Surely not, if he were a human being. But he was only a robot; might there not be a way to order him to behave appropriately?

  There was no way of coming to a decision. Baley found himself watching for glimpses of continental outlines that he could recognize as Earthly or as non-Earthly. That would be the telling test–except that it didn’t work.

  The glimpses that came and went hazily through the clouds were of no use to him. He was not sufficiently knowledgeable about Earth’s geography. What he really knew of Earth were its underground Cities, its caves of steel.

  The bits of coastline he saw were unfamiliar to him–whether Aurora or Earth, he did not know.

  Why this uncertainty, anyway? When he had gone to Solaria, he had never doubted his, destination; he had never suspected that they might be bringing him back to Earth.–Ah, but then he had gone on a clear-cut mission in which there was reasonable chance for success. Now he felt there was no chance at all.

  Perhaps it was, then, that he wanted to be returned to Earth and was building a false conspiracy in his mind so that he could imagine it possible.

  The uncertainty in his mind had come to have a life of its own. He couldn’t let go. He found himself watching Aurora with an almost mad intensity, unable to come back to the cabin-reality.

  Aurora was moving, turning slowly–He had watched long enough to see that. While he had been viewing space, everything had seemed motionless, like a painted backdrop, a silent and static pattern of dots of light, with, later on, a small half-circle included. Was it the motionlessness that had enabled him to be nonagoraphobic?

  But now he could see Aurora moving and he realized that the ship was spiraling down in the final stage before landing. The clouds were bellying upward–No, not the clouds; the ship was spiraling downward. The ship was moving. He was moving. He was suddenly aware of his own existence. He was hurtling downward through the clouds.

  He was falling, unguarded, through thin air toward solid ground.

  His throat constricted; it was becoming very hard to breathe. He told himself desperately: You are enclosed. The walls of the ship are around you.

  But he sensed no walls.

  He thought: Even without considering the walls, you are still enclosed. You are wrapped in skin.

  But he sensed no skin.

  The sensation was worse than simple nakedness–he was an unaccompanied personality, the essence of identity totally uncovered, a living point, a singularity surrounded by an open and infinite world, and he was falling.

  He wanted to close off the vision, contract his fist upon the control-edge, but nothing happened. His nerve-endings had so abnormalized that the automatic contraction at an effort of will did not work. He had no will. Eyes would not close, fist would not contract. He was caught and hypnotized by terror, frightened into immobility.

  All he sensed before him were clouds, white–not quite white–off-white–a slight golden-orange cast–And all turned to gray–and he was drowning. He could not breathe. He struggled desperately to open his clogged throat, to cal! to Daneel for help–He could make no sound–

  12.

  BALEY WAS BREATHING as though he had just breasted the tape at the end of a long race. The room was askew and there was a hard surface under his left elbow.

  He realized he was on the floor.

  Giskard was on his knees beside him, his robot’s hand (firm but somewhat cold) closed on Baley’s right fist. The door to the cabin, visible to Baley just beyond Giskard’s shoulder, stood ajar.

  Baley knew, without asking, what had happened. Giskard had seized that helpless human hand and clenched it upon the control-edge to end the astrosimulation. Otherwise–

  Daneel was there as well, his face close to Baley’s, with a look on it that might well have been pain.

  He said, “You said nothing, Partner Elijah. Had I been more quickly aware of your discomfort–”

  Baley tried to gesture that he understood, that it did not matter. He was still unable to speak.

  The two robots waited until Baley made a feeble movement to get up. Arms were under him at once, lifting him. He was placed in a chair and the control was gently taken away from him by Giskard.

  Giskard said, “We will be landing soon. You will have no further need of the astrosimulator, I believe.”

  Daneel added gravely, “It would be best to remove it, in any case.”

  Baley said, “Wait!” His voice was a hoarse whisper and he was not sure the word could be made out. He drew a deep breath, cleared his throat feebly, and said again, “Wait!”–and then, “Giskard.”

  Giskard turned back. “Sir?”

  Baley did not speak at once. Now that Giskard knew he was wanted, he would wait a lengthy interval,
perhaps indefinitely. Baley tried to gather his scattered wits. Agoraphobia or not, there still remained his uncertainty about their destination. That had existed first and it might well have intensified the agoraphobia.

  He had to find out. Giskard would not lie. A robot could not lie–unless very carefully instructed to do so. And why instruct Giskard? It was Daneel who was his companion, who was to be in his company at all times. If there was lying to be done, that would be Daneel’s job. Giskard was merely a fetcher and carrier, a guard at the door. Surely there was no need to undergo the task of carefully instructing him in the web of lies.

  “Giskard!” said Baley, almost normally now.

  “Sir?”

  “We are about to land, are we?”

  “In a little less than two hours, sir.”

  That was two metric hours, thought Baley. More than two real hours? Less? It didn’t matter. It would only confuse. Forget it.

  Baley said, as sharply as he could manage, “Tell me right now the name of the planet we are about to land on.”

  A human being, if he had answered at all, would have done so only after a pause–and then with an air of considerable surprise.

  Giskard answered at once, with a flat and uninflected assertion, “It is Aurora, sir?”

  “How do you know?”

  “It is our destination. Then, too, it could not be Earth, for in-stance, since Aurora’s sun, Tau Ceti, is only ninety percent the mass of Earth’s sun. Tau Ceti is a little cooler, therefore, and its light has a distinct orange tinge to fresh and unaccustomed Earth eyes. You may have already seen the characteristic color of Aurora’s sun in the reflection upon the upper surface of the cloud bank. You will certainly see it in the appearance of the landscape–until your eyes grow accustomed to it.”

  Baley’s eyes left Giskard’s impassive face. He had noticed the color difference, Baley thought, and had attached no importance to it. A bad error.

  “You may go, Giskard.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Baley turned bitterly to Daneel. “I’ve made a fool of myself, Daneel.”

  “I gather you wondered if perhaps we were deceiving you and taking you somewhere that was not Aurora. Did you have a reason for suspecting this, Partner Elijah?”

  “None. It may have been the result of the uneasiness that arose from subliminal agoraphobia. Staring at seemingly motionless space, I felt no perceptible illness, but it may have lain just under the surface, creating a gathering uneasiness.”

  “The fault was ours, Partner Elijah. Knowing of your dislike for open spaces, it was wrong to subject you to astrosimulation or, having done so, to subject you to no closer supervision.”

  Baley shook his head in annoyance. “Don’t say that, Daneel. I have supervision enough. The question in my mind is how closely I am to be supervised on Aurora itself.”

  Daneel said, “Partner Elijah, it seems to me it will be difficult to allow you free access to Aurora and Aurorans.”

  “That is just what I must be allowed, nevertheless. If I’m to get to the truth of this case of roboticide, I must be free to seek information directly on the site–and from the people involved.”

  Baley was, by now, feeling quite himself though a bit weary. Embarrassingly enough, the intense experience he had passed through left him with a keen desire for a pipe of tobacco, something he thought he had done away with altogether better than a year before. He could feel the taste and odor of the tobacco smoke making its way through his throat and nose.

  He would, he knew, have to make do with the memory. On Aurora, he would on no account be allowed to smoke. There was no tobacco on any of the Spacer worlds and, if he had had any on him to begin with, it would have been removed and destroyed.

  Daneel said, “Partner Elijah, this must be discussed with Dr. Fastolfe once we land. I have no power to make any decisions in this matter.”

  “Fm aware of that, Daneel, but how do I speak to Fastolfe? Through the equivalent of an astrosimulator? With controls in my hand?”

  “Not at all, Partner Elijah. You will speak face-to-face. He plans to meet you at the spaceport.”

  13.

  BALEY LISTENED FOR the noises of landing. He did not know what they might be, of course. He did not know the mechanism of the ship, how many men and women it carried, what they would have to do in the process of landing, what in the way of noise would be involved.

  Shouts? Rumbles? A dim vibration?

  He heard nothing.

  Daneel said, “You seem to be under tension, Partner Elijah. I would prefer that you did not wait to tell me of any discomfort you might feel. I must help you at the very moment you are, for any reason, unhappy.”

  There was a faint stress on the word “must.”

  Baley thought absently: The First Law drives him. He surely suffered as much in his way as I suffered in mine when I collapsed and he did not foresee it in time. A forbidden imbalance of positronic potentials may have no meaning to me, but it may produce in him the same discomfort and the same reaction as acute pain would to me.

  He thought further: How can I tell what exists inside the pseudoskin and pseudoconsciousness of a robot, any more than Daneel can tell what exists inside me.

  And then, feeling remorse at having thought of Daneel as a robot, Baley looked into the other’s gentle eyes (when did he start thinking of their expression as gentle?) and said, “I would tell you of any discomfort at once. There is none. I am merely trying to hear any noise that might tell me of the progress of the landing procedure, Partner Daneel.”

  “Thank you, Partner Elijah,” said Daneel gravely. He bowed his head slightly and went on, “There should be no discomfort in the landing. You will feel acceleration, but that will be minimal, for this room will yield, to a certain extent, in the direction of the acceleration. The temperature may go up, but not more than two degrees Celsius. As for sonic effects, there may be a low hiss as we pass through the thickening atmosphere. Will any of this disturb you?”

  “It shouldn’t. What does disturb mc is not being free to participate in the landing. I would like to know about such things. I do not want to be imprisoned and to be kept from the experience.”

  “You have already discovered, Partner Elijah, that the nature of the experience does not suit your temperament.”

  “And how am I to get over that, Daneel?,” he said strenuously. “That is not enough reason to keep mc here?”

  “Partner Elijah, I have already explained that you are kept here for your own safety.”

  Baley shook his head in clear disgust. “I have thought of that and I say it’s nonsense. My chances of straightening out this mess are so small, with all the restrictions being placed on me and with the difficulty I will have in understanding anything about Aurora, that I don’t think anyone in his right mind would bother to take the trouble to try to stop me. And if they did, why bother attacking me personally? Why not sabotage the ship? If we imagine ourselves to be facing no-holds-barred villains, they should find a ship–and the people aboard it–and you and Giskard–and myself, of course–to be a small price to pay.”

  “This has, in point of fact, been considered, Partner Elijah. The ship has been carefully studied. Any signs of sabotage would be detected.”

  “Are you sure? One hundred percent certain?”

  “Nothing of this sort can be absolutely certain. Giskard and I were comfortable, however, with the thought that the certainty was quite high and that we might proceed with minimal expectation of disaster.”

  “And if you were wrong?”

  Something like a small sign of spasm crossed Daneel’s face, as though he were being asked to consider something that interfered with the smooth working of the positronic pathways in his brain. He said, “But we have not been wrong.”

  “You cannot say that. We arc approaching the landing and that is sure to be the danger moment. In fact, at this point there is no need to sabotage the ship. My personal danger is greatest now–right now. I can’t hide i
n this room if I’m to disembark at Aurora. I will have to pass through the ship and be within reach of others. Have you taken precautions to keep the landing safe?” (He was being petty–striking out at Daneel needlessly because he was chafing at his long imprisonment–and at the indignity of his moment of collapse.)

  But Daneel said calmly, “We have, Partner Elijah. And, incidentally, we have landed. We arc now resting on the surface of Aurora.”

  For a moment, Baley was bewildered. He looked around wildly, but of course there was nothing to see but an enclosing room. He had felt and heard nothing of what Daneel had described. None of the acceleration, or heat, or wind whistle.–Or had Daneel deliberately brought up the matter of his personal danger once again, in order to make sure he would not think of other unsettling–but minor–matters.

  Baley said, “And yet there’s still the matter of getting off the ship. How do I do that without being vulnerable to possible enemies?”

  Daneel walked to one wall and touched a spot upon it. The wall promptly split in two, the two halves moving apart. Baley found himself looking into a long cylinder, a tunnel.

  Giskard had entered the room at that moment from the other side and said, “Sir, the three of us will move through the exit tube. Others have it under observation from without. At the other end of the tube, Dr. Fastolfe is waiting.”

  “We have taken every precaution,” said Daneel.

  Baley muttered, “My apologies, Daneel–Giskard.” He moved into the exit tube somberly. Every effort to assure that precautions had been taken also assured him that those precautions were thought necessary.

  Baley liked to think he was no coward, but he was on a strange planet, with no way of telling friend from enemy, with no way of taking comfort in anything familiar (except, of course, Daneel). At crucial moments, he thought with a shiver, he would be without enclosure to warm him and to give him relief.

  4: Fastolfe

  14.

  DR. HAN FASTOLFE was indeed waiting–and smiling. He was tall and thin, with light brown hair that was not very thick, and there were, of course, his ears. It was the cars that Baley remembered, even after three years. Large ears, standing away from his head, giving him a vaguely humorous appearance, a pleasant homeliness. It was the ears that made Baley smile, rather than Fastolfe’s welcome.