Robots and Empire

The lights dimmed to nearly nothing and Gladia was aware of the star field on the viewing panel, with the stars brighter and more thickly spread than in Aurora’s sky.

“Is that a telescopic view?” she asked in a hushed voice.

“Slightly. Low-power—Fifteen seconds.” He counted backward. There was a shift in the star field and a bright star was now nearly centered. D.G. touched another contact and said, “We’re well outside the planetary plane. Good! A little risky. We should have been farther from the Auroran star before Jumping, but we were in a slight hurry. That’s the sun.”

“That bright star, you mean?”

“Yes.—What do you think of it?”

Gladia said, a little puzzled over what sort of response he expected, “It’s bright.”

He pushed another contact and the view dimmed perceptibly. “Yes—and it won’t do your eyes any good if you stare at it. But it’s not the brightness that counts. It’s just a star in appearance—but think of it. That was the original sun. That was the star whose light shone down on a planet that was the only planet on which human beings existed. It shone down on a planet on which human beings were slowly evolving. It shone down on a planet on which life formed billions of years ago, life that would develop into human beings. There are 300 billion stars in the Galaxy and 100 billion galaxies in the Universe and there is only one of all those stars that presided over the human birth and that is the star.”

Gladia was about to say: “Well, some star had to be the star,” but she thought better of it. “Very impressive,” she said rather weakly.

“It’s not merely impressive,” said D.G., his eyes shadowed in the dimness, “There’s not a Settler in the Galaxy who doesn’t consider that star his own. The radiation of the stars that shine down on our various home planets is borrowed radiation—rented radiation that we make use of. There—right there—is the real radiation that gave us life. It is that star and the planet that circles it—Earth—that holds us all together in a tight bond. If we shared nothing else, we would share that light on the screen and it would be enough.—You Spacers have forgotten it and that is why you fall apart from each other and that is why you will not, in the long run, survive.”

“There is room for us all, Captain,” said Gladia softly.

“Yes, of course. I wouldn’t do anything to force non survival on Spacers. I just believe that that is what will happen and it might not happen if Spacers would give up their irritating certainty of superiority, their robots, and their self-absorption in long life.”

“Is that how you see me, D.G.?” asked Gladia.

D.G. said, “You’ve had your moments. You’ve improved, though. I’ll give you that.”

“Thank you,” she replied with evident irony. “And though you may find it hard to believe, Settlers have their prideful arrogance, too. But you’ve also improved and I’ll give you that.”

D.G. laughed. “With all that I’m kindly giving you and you’re kindly giving me, this is liable to end as a lifelong enmity.”

“Scarcely,” said Gladia, laughing in her turn, and was a little surprised to find that his hand was resting on hers.—And a great deal surprised to find that she had not removed her hand.

76

Daneel said, “I am uneasy, friend Giskard, that Madam Gladia is not under our direct observation.”

“That is not needful on board this ship, friend Daneel. I detect no dangerous emotions and the captain is with her at the moment.—In addition, there would be advantages to her finding it comfortable to be without us, at least on occasion, while we are all on Earth. It is possible that you and I might have to take sudden action without wishing to have her presence and safety a complicating factor.”

“Then you manipulated her separation from us now?”

“Scarcely. Oddly enough, I found a strong tendency in her to imitate the Settler way of life in this respect. She has a subdued longing for independence, hampered chiefly by the feeling that she is violating Spacerhood in this. That is the best way in which I can describe it. The sensations and emotions are by no means easy to interpret, for I have never encountered it among Spacers before. So I merely loosened the Spacerhood inhibition by the merest touch.”

“Will she then no longer be willing to avail herself of our services, friend Giskard? That would disturb me.”

“It should not. If she should decide she wishes a life free of robots and will be happier so, it is what we will want for her, too. As it is, though, I am sure we will still be useful to her. This ship is a small and specialized habitat in which there is no great danger. She had a further feeling of security in the captain’s presence and that reduces her need for us. On Earth, she will still need us, though I trust not in quite so tight a fashion as on Aurora. As I have said, we may need greater flexibility of action once on Earth.”

“Can you yet guess, then, the nature of the crisis facing Earth? Do you know what it is we will have to do?”

Giskard said, “No, friend Daneel. I do not. It is you that have the gift of understanding. Is there something, perhaps, that you see?”

Daneel remained silent for a while. Then he said, “I have had thoughts.”

“What, then, are your thoughts?”

“You told me at the Robotics Institute, you remember, just before Lady Vasilia entered the room in which Madam Gladia lay sleeping, that Dr. Amadiro had had two intense flashes of anxiety. The first came at the mention of the nuclear intensifier, the second at the statement that Madam Gladia was going to Earth. It seems to me that the two must be co

“Your mind tells me you are not satisfied with that thought. Why not, friend Daneel?”

“A nuclear intensifier hastens the fusion processes that happen to be already in progress, by means of a stream of W particles. I asked myself, therefore, whether Dr. Amadiro plans to use one or more nuclear intensifiers to explode the microfusion reactors that supply Earth with energy. The nuclear explosions so induced would involve destruction through heat and mechanical force, through dust and radioactive products that would be thrown into the atmosphere. Even if this did not suffice to damage Earth mortally, the destruction of Earth’s energy supply would surely lead to the long-term collapse of Earth’s civilization.”

Giskard said somberly, “That is a horrifying thought and would seem to be an almost certain answer to the nature of the crisis we seek. Why are you not satisfied, then?”

“I have taken the liberty of using the ship’s computer to obtain information concerning the planet Earth. The computer is, as one might expect on a Settler ship, rich in such information. It seems that Earth is the one human world that does not use microfusion reactors as a large-scale source of energy. It uses direct solar energy almost entirely, with solar power stations all among the gestational orbit. There is nothing for a nuclear intensifier to do, except to destroy small devices—spaceships, occasional buildings. The damage might not be negligible, but it would not threaten Earth’s existence.”

“It may well be, friend Daneel, that Amadiro has some device that would destroy the solar power generators.”

“If so, why did he react to the mention of nuclear intensifiers? There is no way they can serve against solar power generators.”

Giskard nodded slowly. “That is a good point. And, to make another, if Dr. Amadiro was so horrified at the thought of our going to Earth, why did he make no effort to have us stopped while we were still on Aurora? Or if he only discovered our flight after we had left orbit, why did he not have an Auroran vessel intercept us before we made the Jump to Earth? Can it be that we are on a completely wrong track, that somewhere we have made a serious misstep that—”