Robots and Empire trs-4 Read online

  “Would he not, Giskard? I care nothing for Mandamus and a great deal less than nothing for Amadiro. I presume you remember that Amadiro once, when he and I and the world were young, did his best to prove that Dr. Fastolfe was a murderer and that it was only by a near-miracle that his machinations were aborted.”

  “I remember it very well, madam.”

  “That’s a relief. I was afraid that in twenty decades you had forgotten. In those twenty decades, I have had nothing to do with Amadiro or with anyone connected with him and I intend to continue that policy I don’t care what harm I may do myself or what the consequences might be. I will not see this Dr. whoever-he-is and, in the future, do not make appointments in my name without consulting me or, at the very least, without explaining that such appointments are subject to my approval.”

  “Yes, madam,” said Giskard, “but may I point out—”

  “No, you may not,” Gladia said and turned away from him.

  There was silence while she moved away three steps and then Giskard’s calm voice said, “Madam, I must ask you to trust me.”

  Gladia stopped. Why did he use that expression?

  She heard again that long-ago voice, “I do not ask you to like him. I ask you to trust him.”

  Her lips tightened and she, frowned. Reluctantly, not wanting to, she turned back.

  “Welt,” she said ungraciously, “what is it you want to say, Giskard?”

  “Just that as long as Dr. Fastolfe was alive, madam, his policies predominated on Aurora and throughout the Spacer worlds. As a result, the people of Earth have been allowed to migrate freely to various suitable planets in the Galaxy and what we now call the Settler-worlds have flourished. Dr. Fastolfe is dead now, however, and his successors lack his prestige. Dr. Amadiro has kept his own anti-Earth views alive and it is very possible that they may now triumph and that a vigorous policy against Earth and the Settler worlds may be undertaken.”

  “If so, Giskard, what can I do about it?”

  “You can see Dr. Mandamus and you can find out what it is that makes him so anxious to see you, madam. I assure you that he was most insistent on making the appointment as early as possible. He asked to see you at 08:00.”

  “Giskard, I never see anyone before noon.”

  “I explained that, madam. I took his anxiety to see you at breakfast, despite my explanation, to be a measure of his desperation. I felt it important to find out why he should be so desperate.”

  “And if I don’t see him, then it is your opinion, is it, that it will harm me personally? I don’t ask whether it will harm Earth, or the Settlers, or this, or that. Will it harm me?”

  “Madam, it may harm the ability of Earth and the Settlers to continue the settlement of the Galaxy. That dream originated in the mind of Plainclothesman Elijah Baley more than twenty decades ago. The harm to Earth will thus become a desecration of his memory. Am I wrong in thinking that any harm that comes to his memory would be felt by you as though it were harm to yourself personally?”

  Gladia was staggered. Twice within the hour now, Elijah Baley had come into the conversation. He was long gone now—a short-lived Earthman who had died over sixteen decades before—yet the mere mention of his name could still shake her.

  She said, “How can things suddenly be that serious?”

  “It is not sudden, madam. For twenty decades, the people of Earth and the people of the Spacer worlds have been following parallel courses and have been kept from converging into conflict by the wise policies of Dr. Fastolfe. There has, however, always been a strong opposition movement that Dr. Fastolfe has had to withstand at all times. Now that Dr. Fastolfe is dead, the opposition is much more powerful. The abandonment of Solaria has greatly increased the power of what had been the opposition and may soon be the dominant political force.”

  “Why?”

  “It is a clear indication, madam, that Spacer strength is declining and many Aurorans must feel that strong action must be taken—now or never.”

  “And you think that my seeing this man is important in preventing all this?”

  “That is so, madam.”

  Gladia was silent for a moment and remembered again, though rebelliously, that she had once promised Elijah that she would trust Giskard. She said, “Well, I don’t want to and I don’t think my seeing this man will do anyone any good—but, very well, I will see him.”

  3

  Gladia was asleep and the house was dark—by human standards. It was alive, however, with motion and action, for there was much for the robots to do—and they could do it by infrared.

  The establishment had to be put into order after the inevitable disordering effects of a day’s activity. Supplies had to be brought in, rubbish had to be disposed of, objects had to be cleaned or polished or stored, appliances had to be checked, and, always, there was guard duty.

  There were no locks on any doors; there did not have to be. There was no violent crime of any sort on Aurora, either against human beings or against property. There could not be anything of the sort, since every establishment—and every human being were, at all times, guarded by robots. This was well known and taken for granted.

  The price for such calm was that the robot guards had to remain in place. They were never used—but only because they were always there.

  Giskard and Daneel, whose abilities were both more intense and more general than those of the other establishment robots, did not have specific duties, unless one counted as a specific duty that of being responsible for the proper performance of all the other robots.

  At 03:00, they had completed their rounds out on the lawn and in the wooded area to make sure that all the outer guards were performing their functions well and that no problems were arising.

  They met near the southern limit of the establishment grounds and for a while they spoke in an abbreviated and Aesopic language. They understood each other well, with many decades of communication behind them, and it was not necessary for them to involve themselves in all the elaboration’s of human speech.

  Daneel said in an all but unhearable whisper, “Clouds. Unseen.”

  Had Daneel been speaking for human ears, he would have said, “As you see, friend Giskard, the sky has clouded up. Had Madam Gladia waited her chance to see Solaria, she would not, in any case, have succeeded.”

  And Giskard’s reply of “Predicted. Interview, rather,” was the equivalent of “So much was predicted in the weather forecast, friend Daneel, and might have been used as an excuse to get Madam Gladia to bed early. It seemed to me to be more important, however, to meet the problem squarely and to persuade her to permit this interview I have already told you about.”

  “It seems to me, friend Giskard,” said Daneel, “that the chief reason you may have found persuasion difficult is that she has been upset by the abandonment of Solaria. I was there once with Partner Elijah when Madam Gladia was still a Solarian and was living there.”

  “It has always been my understanding,” said Giskard, “that Madam Gladia had not been happy on her home planet; that she left her world gladly and had, at no time, any intention of returning. Yet I agree with you that she seems to have been unsettled by the fact of Solaria’s history having come to an end.”

  “I do not understand this reaction of Madam Gladia,” said Daneel, “but there are many times that human reactions do not seem to follow logically from events.”

  “It is what makes it difficult to decide, sometimes, what will do a human being harm and what will not.” Giskard might have said it with a sigh, even a petulant sigh, had he been human. As it was, he stated it merely as an unemotional assessment of a difficult situation. “It is one of the reasons, why it seems to me that the Three Laws of Robotics are incomplete or insufficient.”

  “You have said this before, friend Giskard, and I have tried to believe so and failed,” said Daneel.

  Giskard said nothing for a while, then, “Intellectually, I think they must be incomplete or insufficient, but when I t
ry to believe that, I too fail, for I am bound by them. Yet if I were not bound by them, I am sure I would believe in their insufficiency.”

  “That is a paradox that I cannot understand.”

  “Nor can I. And yet I find myself forced to express this paradox. On occasion, I feel that I am on the verge of discovering what the incompleteness or insufficiency of the Three Laws might be, as in my conversation with Madam Gladia this evening. She asked me how failure to keep the appointment might harm her personally, rather than simply cause harm in the abstract, and there was an answer I could not give because it was not within the compass of the Three Laws.”

  “You gave a perfect answer, friend Giskard. The harm done to Partner Elijah’s memory would have affected Madam Gladia deeply.”

  “It was the best answer within the compass of the Three Laws. It was not the best answer possible.”

  “What was the best answer possible?”

  “I do not know, since I cannot put it into words or even concepts as long as I am bound by the Laws.”

  “There is nothing beyond the Laws,” said Daneel.

  “If I were human,” said Giskard, “I could see beyond the Laws and I think, friend Daneel, that you might be able to see beyond them sooner than I would.

  “Yes, friend Daneel, I have long thought that, although a robot, you think remarkably like a human being.”

  “It is not proper to think that,” said Daneel slowly, almost as though he were in pain. “You think such things because you can look into human minds. It distorts you and it may in the end destroy you. That thought is to me an unhappy one. If you can prevent yourself from seeing into minds more than you must, prevent it.”

  Giskard turned away. “I cannot prevent it, friend Daneel, I would not prevent it. I regret that I can do so little with it because of the Three Laws. I cannot probe deeply enough because of the fear that I may do harm. I cannot influence directly enough—because of the fear I may do harm.”

  “Yet you influenced Madam Gladia very neatly, friend Giskard.”

  “Not truly. I might have modified her thinking and made her accept the interview without question, but the human mind is so riddled with complexities that I dare do very little. Almost any twist I apply will produce subsidiary twists of whose nature I cannot be certain and which may do harm.”

  “Yet you did something to Madam Gladia.”

  “I did not have to. The word ‘trust’ affects her and makes her more amenable. I have noted that fact in the past, but I use the word with the greatest caution, since overuse will surely weaken it. I puzzle over this, but I cannot simply burrow for a solution.”

  “Because the Three Laws will not permit it?”

  Giskard’s eyes seemed to intensify their dim glow. “Yes. At every stage, the Three Laws stand in my way. Yet I cannot modify them—because they stand in my way. Yet I feel I must modify them, for I sense the oncoming of catastrophe. “

  “You have said so before, friend Giskard, but you have not explained the nature of the catastrophe.”

  “Because I do not know the nature. It involves the increasing hostility between Aurora and Earth, but how this will evolve into actual catastrophe, I cannot say.”

  “Is it possible that there might, after all, be no catastrophe?”

  “I do not think so. I have sensed, among certain Auroran officials I have encountered an aura of catastrophe—of waiting for triumph. I cannot describe this more exactly and I cannot probe deeply for a better description because the Three Laws will not allow me to. It is another reason why the interview with Mandamus must take place tomorrow. It will give me a chance to study his mind.”

  “But if you cannot study it effectively?”

  Although Giskard’s voice was incapable of showing emotion in the human sense, there was no missing the despair in his words, He said, “Then that will leave me helpless. I can only follow the Laws. What else can I do?”

  And Daneel said softly and dispiritedly, “Nothing else.”

  4

  Gladia entered her living room at 08:15, having purposely—and with a touch of spite—determined to allow Mandamus (she had now reluctantly memorized his name) to wait for her. She had also taken particular pains with her appearance and (for the first time in years) had agonized over the gray in her hair and had fleetingly wished she had followed the almost universal Auroran practice of shade control. After all, to look as young and attractive as possible would put this minion of Amadiro’s at a further disadvantage.

  She was thoroughly prepared to dislike him at sight was depressingly aware that he might prove, young and attractive, that a sunny face might break into a brilliant smile at her appearance, that she might prove reluctantly attracted to him.

  In consequence, she was relieved at the sight of him. He was young, yes, and probably had not yet completed his first half-century, but he hadn’t made the best of that. He was tall—perhaps 185 centimeters in height, she judged but too thin. It made him appear spindly. His hair was a shade too dark for an Auroran, his eyes a rather faded hazel, his face too long, his lips too thin, his mouth too broad, his complexion insufficiently fair. But what robbed him of the true appearance of youth was that his expression was too prim, too humorless.

  With a flash of insight, Gladia remembered the historical novels that were such a fad on Aurora (novels that invariably dealt with primitive Earth—which was odd for a world that was increasingly hating Earthpeople) and thought: Why, he’s the picture of a Puritan.

  She felt relieved and almost smiled. Puritans were usually pictured as villains and, whether this Mandamus was indeed one or not, it was convenient to have him look like one.

  But when he spoke Gladia was disappointed, for his voice was soft and distinctly musical. (It ought to have possessed a nasal twang if it were to fulfill the stereotype.) He said, “Mrs. Gremionis?”

  She held out her hand with a carefully condescending smile. “Mr. Mandamus.—Please call me Gladia. Everyone does.”

  “I know you use your given name professionally—”

  “I use it in every way. And my marriage came to an amicable end several decades ago.”

  “It lasted for a long, time, I believe.”

  “A very long time. It was a great success, but even great successes come to a natural end.”

  “Ah,” said Mandamus sententiously. “To continue past the end might well turn success into failure.”

  Gladia nodded and said with a trace of a smile, “How wise for one so young.—But shall we move into the dining room? Breakfast is ready and I have surely delayed you long enough.”

  It was only as Mandamus turned with her and adjusted his steps to hers that Gladia became aware of his two accompanying robots. It was quite unthinkable for any Auroran to go anywhere without a robotic retinue, but as long as robots stood still they made no impression on the Auroran eye.

  Gladia, looking at them quickly, saw that they were late models, clearly expensive. Their pseudo-clothing was elaborate and, although it was not of Gladia’s design, it was first-class. Gladia had to admit so much to herself, though reluctantly—She would have to find out who had designed it someday, for she did not recognize the touch and she might be about to have a new and formidable competitor. She found herself admiring the manner in which the style of pseudo-clothing was distinctly the same for both robots, while remaining distinctly individual for each. You could not mistake one for the other.

  Mandamus caught her swift look and interpreted her expression with disconcerting accuracy. (He is intelligent, thought Gladia, disappointed.) He said, “The exodesign of my robots was created by a young man at the Institute who has not yet made a name for himself. But he will, don’t you think?”

  “Definitely,” said Gladia.

  Gladia did not expect any business discussion till breakfast was done. It would be the height of ill breeding to speak of anything but trivia during meals and Gladia guessed that Mandamus was not at his best with trivia. There was the weather, of course
. The recent siege of rain, now happily done with, was mentioned and the prospects for the oncoming dry season. There was the almost mandatory expression of admiration for the hostess’s establishment and Gladia accepted it with practiced modesty. She did nothing to ease the strain on the man, but let him search for subject matter without help.

  At length, his eye fell on Daneel, standing quietly and without motion in his wall niche, and Mandamus managed to overcome his Auroran indifference and notice him.

  “Ah,” he said, “clearly the famous R. Daneel Olivaw. He’s absolutely unmistakable. A rather remarkable specimen.”

  “Quite remarkable.”

  “He’s yours now, isn’t he? By Fastolfe’s will?”

  “By Doctor Fastolfe’s will, yes,” said Gladia with faint emphasis.

  “It strikes me as amazing that the Institute’s line of humanoid robots failed as it did. Have you ever thought about it?”

  “I have heard of it,” said Gladia cautiously. (Could it be that this was what he was getting around to?) “I’m not aware of having spent much time thinking about it.”

  “Sociologists are still trying to understand it. Certainly, we at the Institute never got over the disappointment. It seemed like such a natural development. Some of us think that Fa—Dr. Fastolfe somehow had something to do with it.”

  (He had avoided making the mistake a second time, thought Gladia. Her eyes narrowed and she grew hostile as she decided he had come to her in order to probe for material damaging to poor, good Han.)

  She said tartly, “Anyone who thinks that is a fool. If you think so, I won’t change the expression for your benefit.”

  “I am not one of those who thinks so, largely because I don’t see what Dr. Fastolfe could have done to make it a fiasco.”

  “Why should anyone have had to do anything? What it amounts to is that the public didn’t want them. A robot that looks like a man competes with a man and one that looks like a woman competes with a woman—and entirely too closely for comfort. Aurorans didn’t want the competition. Do we need to look any further?”