Robots and Empire

38

As they walked into the building, they removed their coveralls and handed them to attendants. Daneel and Giskard removed theirs, too, and the attendants cast sharp glances at the latter, approaching him gingerly.

Gladia adjusted her nose plugs nervously. She had never before been in the presence of large crowds of short-lived human beings - short-lived in part, she knew (or had always been told), because they carried in their bodies chronic infections and hordes of parasites.

She whispered, "Will I get back my own coverall?"

"You will wear no one else's," said D.G. "They will be kept safe and radiation-sterilized."

Gladia looked about cautiously. Somehow she felt that even optical contact might be dangerous.

"Who are those people?" She indicated several people who wore brightly colored clothing and were obviously armed.

"Security guards, madam," said D.G.

"Even here? In a government building?"

"Absolutely. And when we're on the platform, there will be a force-field curtain dividing us from the audience."

"Don't you trust your own legislature?"

D.G. half-smiled. "Not entirely. This is a raw world still and we go our own ways. We haven't had all the edges knocked off and we don't have robots watching over us. Then, too, we've got militant minority parties; we've got our war hawks."

"What are war hawks?"

Most of the Baleyworlders had their coveralls removed now and were helping themselves to drinks. There was a buzz of conversation in the air and many people stared at Gladia, but no one came over to speak to her. Indeed, it was clear to Gladia that there was a circle of avoidance about her.

D.G. noticed her glance from side to side and interpreted it correctly. "They've been told," he said, "that you would appreciate a little elbow room. I think they understand your fear of infection."

"They don't find it insulting, I hope."

"They may, but you've got something that is clearly a robot with you and most Baleyworlders don't want that kind of infection. The war hawks, particularly."

"You haven't told me what they are."

"I will if there's time. You and I and others on the platform will have to move in a little while. - Most Settlers think that, in time, the Galaxy will be theirs, that the Spacers cannot and will not compete successfully in the race for expansion. We also know it will take time. We won't see it. Our children probably won't. It may take a thousand years, for all we know. The war hawks don't want to wait. They want it settled now."

"They want war?"

"They don't say that, precisely. And they don't call themselves war hawks. That's what we sensible people call them. They call themselves Earth Supremacists. After all, it's hard to argue with people who announce they are in favor of Earth being supreme. We all favor that, but most of us don't necessarily expect it to happen tomorrow and are not ferociously upset that it won't."

"And these war hawks may attack me? Physically?"

D.G. gestured for her to move forward. "I think we'll have to get moving, madam. They're getting us into line. No, I don't think you'll really be attacked, but it's always best to be cautious."

Gladia held back as D.G. indicated her place in line.

"Not without Daneel and Giskard, D.G. I'm still not going anywhere without them. Not even onto the platform. Not after what you just told me about the war hawks."

"You're asking a lot, my lady."

"On the contrary, D.G. I'm not asking for anything. Take me home right now - with my robots."

Gladia watched tensely as D.G. approached a small group of officials. He made a half-bow, arms in downward pointing diagonals. It was what Gladia suspected to be a Baleyworlder gesture of respect.

She did not hear what D.G. was saying, but a painful and quite involuntary fantasy passed through her mind. If there was any attempt to separate her from her robots against her will, Daneel and Giskard would surely do what they could to prevent it. They would move too quickly and precisely to really hurt anyone - but the security guards would use their weapons at once. "

She would have to prevent that at all costs - pretend she was separating from Daneel and Giskard voluntarily and ask them to wait behind for her. How could she do that? She had never been entirely without robots in her life. How could she feel safe without them? And yet what other way out of the dilemma offered itself?

D.G. returned. "Your status as heroine, my lady, is a useful bargaining chip. And, of course, I am a persuasive fellow. Your robots may go with you. They will sit on the platform behind you, but there will be no spotlight upon them. And, for the sake of the Ancestor, my lady, don't call attention to them. Don't even look at them."

Gladia sighed with relief. "You're a good fellow, D.G.," she said shakily. "Thank you."

She took her place near the head of the line, D.G. at her left, Daneel and Giskard behind her, and behind them a long tail of officials of both sexes.

A woman Settler, carrying a staff that seemed to be a symbol of office, having surveyed the line carefully, nodded, moved forward to the head of the line, then walked on. Everyone followed.

Gladia became aware of music in simple and rather repetitive march rhythm up ahead and wondered if she were supposed to march in some choreographed fashion. (Customs vary infinitely and irrationally from world to world, she told herself.)

Looking out of the corner of her eye, she noticed D.G. ambling forward in an indifferent way. He was almost slouching. She pursed her lips disapprovingly and walked rhythmically, head erect, spine stiff. In the absence of direction, she was going to march the way she wanted to.

They came out upon a stage and, as they did so, chairs rose smoothly from recesses in the floor. The line split up, but D.G. caught her sleeve lightly and she accompanied him. The two robots followed her.

She stood in front of the seat that D.G. quietly pointed to. The music grew loud, but the light was not quite as bright as it had been. And then, after what seemed an almost interminable wait, she felt D.G.'s touch pressing lightly downward. She sat and so did they all.

She was aware of the faint shimmer of the force-field curtain and beyond that an audience of several thousand. Every seat was filled in an amphitheater that sloped steeply upward. All were dressed in dull colors, browns and blacks, both sexes alike (as nearly as she could tell them apart). The security guards in the aisles stood out in their green and crimson uniforms. No doubt it lent them instant recognition. (Though, Gladia thought, it must make them instant targets as well.)

She turned to D.G. and said in a low voice, "You people have an enormous legislature."

D.G. shrugged slightly. "I think everyone in the governmental apparatus is here, with mates and guests. A tribute to your popularity, my lady."

She cast a glance over the audience from right to left and back and tried at the extreme of the arc to catch sight, out of the corner of her eye, of either Daneel or Giskard - just to be sure they were there. And then she thought, rebelliously, that nothing would happen because of a quick glance and deliberately turned her head. They were there. She also caught D.G., rolling his eyes upward in exasperation.

She started suddenly as a spotlight fell upon one of the persons on the stage, while the rest of the room dimmed further into shadowy insubstantiality.

The spotlighted figure rose and began to speak. His voice was not terribly loud, but Gladia could hear a very faint reverberation bouncing back from the far walls. It must penetrate every cranny of the large hall, she thought. Was it some form of amplification by a device so unobtrusive that she did not see it or was there a particularly clever acoustical shape to the hall? She did not know, but she encouraged her puzzled speculation to continue, for it relieved her, for a while, of the necessity of having to listen to what was being said.

At one point she heard a soft call of "Quackenbush" from some undetermined point in the audience. But for the perfect acoustics (if that was what it was), it would probably have gone unheard.

The word meant nothing to her, but from the soft, brief titter of laughter that swept the audience, she suspected it was a vulgarism. The sound quenched itself almost at once and Gladia rather admired the depth of the silence that followed.

Perhaps if the room were so perfectly acoustic that every sound could be heard, the audience had to be silent or the noise and confusion would be intolerable. Then, once the custom of silence was established and audience noise became a taboo, anything but silence would become unthinkable. - Except where the impulse to mutter "Quackenbush" became irresistible, she supposed.

Gladia realized that her thinking was growing muddy and her eyes were closing. She sat upright with a small jerk. The people of the planet were trying to honor her and if she fell asleep during the proceedings, that would surely be an intolerable insult. She tried to keep herself awake by listening, but that seemed to make her sleepier. She bit the inside of her cheeks instead and breathed deeply.

Three officials spoke, one after the other, with semimerciful semibrevity, and then Gladia jolted wide awake (Had she been actually dozing despite all her efforts - with thousands of pairs of eyes on her?) as the spotlight fell just to her left and D.G. rose to speak, standing in front of his chair.

He seemed completely at ease, with his thumbs hooked in his belt.

"Men and women of Baleyworld," he began. "Officials, lawgivers, honored leaders, and fellow planetfolk, you have heard something of what happened on Solaria. You know that we were completely successful. You know that Lady Gladia of Aurora contributed to that success. It is time now to present some of the details to you and to all my fellow planetfolk who are watching on hypervision."

He proceeded to describe the events in modified form and Gladia found herself dryly amused at the nature of the modifications. He passed over his own discomfiture at the hands of a humanoid robot lightly. Giskard was never mentioned; Daneel's role was minimized; and Gladia's heavily emphasized. The incident became a duel between two women - Gladia, and Landaree - and it was the courage and sense of authority of Gladia that had won out.

Finally, D.G. said, "And now Lady Gladia, Solarian by birth, Auroran by citizenship, but Baleyworlder by deed - " (There was strong applause at the last, the loudest Gladia had yet heard, for the earlier speakers had been but tepidly received.)

D.G. raised his hands for silence and it came at once. He then concluded, " - will now address you."

Gladia found the spotlight on herself and turned to D.G. in sudden panic. There was applause in her ears and D.G., too, was clapping his hands. Under the cover of the applause, he leaned toward her and whispered, "You love them all, you want peace, and since you're not a legislator, you're unused to long speeches of small content. Say that, then sit down."

She looked at him uncompirehendingly, far too nervous to have heard what he said.

She rose and found herself staring at endless tiers of people.

39

Gladia felt very small (not for the first time in her life, to be sure) as she faced the stage. The men on the stage were all taller than she was and so were the other three women. She felt that even though they were all sitting and she was standing, they still towered over her. As for the audience, winch was waiting now in almost menacing silence, those who composed it were, she felt quite certain, one and all larger than her in every dimension.

She took a deep breath and said, "Friends - " but it came out in a thin, breathless whistle. She cleared her throat (in what seemed a thunderous rasp) and tried again.

"Friends!" This time there was a certain normality to the sound. "You are all descended from Earthpeople, every one of you. I am descended from Earthpeople. There are no human beings anywhere on all the inhabited worlds whether Spacer worlds, Settler worlds, or Earth itself - that are not either Earthpeople by birth or Earthpeople by descent. All other differences fade to nothing in the face of that enormous fact."

Her eyes flickered leftward to look at D.G. and she found that he was smiling very slightly and that one eyelid trembled as though it were about to wink.

She went on. "That should be our guide in every thought and act. I thank you all for thinking of me as a fellow human being and for welcoming me among you without regard to any other classification in which you might have been tempted to place me. Because of that, and in the hope that the day will soon come when sixteen billion human beings, living in love and peace, will consider themselves as just that and nothing more - or less - I think of you not merely as friends but as kinsmen and kinswomen."

There was an outbreak of applause that thundered in upon her and Gladia half-closed her eyes in relief. She remained standing to let it continue and bathe her in its welcome indication that she had spoken well and - what was more - enough. When it began to fade, she smiled, bowed to right and left, and began to sit down.

And then a voice came out of the audience. "Why don't you speak in Solarian?"

She froze halfway, to her seat and looked, in shock, at D.G.

He shook his head slightly and mouthed soundlessly: "Ignore it." He gestured as unobtrusively as possible that she seat herself.

She stared - at him for a second or two, then realized what an ungainly sight she must present, with her posterior protruding in the unfinished process of seating herself. She straightened at once and flashed a smile at the audience as she turned her head slowly from side to side. For the first time she became aware of objects in the rear whose glistening lenses focused upon her.

Of course! D.G. had mentioned that the proceedings were being watched via hyperwave. Yet it scarcely seemed to matter now. She had spoken and had been applauded and she was facing the audience she could see, erect and without, nervousness. What could the unseen addition matter?

She said, still smiling, "I consider that a friendly question. You want me to show you my accomplishments. How many want me to speak as a Solarian might? Don't hesitate. Raise your right hands."

A few right arms went up.

Gladia said, "The humanoid robot on Solaria heard me speak Solarian. That was what defeated it in the end. Come let me see everyone who would like a demonstration."

More right arms went up and, in a moment, the audience became a sea of upraised arms. Gladia felt a hand tweaking at her pants leg and, with a rapid movement, she brushed it away.

"Very well. You may lower your arms now, kinsmen and kinswomen. Understand that what I speak now is Galactic Standard, which is your language, too. I, however, am speaking it as an Auroran would and I know you all understand me even though the way I pronounce my words may well strike you as amusing and my choice of words may on occasion puzzle you a bit. You'll notice that my way of speaking has notes to it and goes up and down almost as though I were singing my words. This always sounds ridiculous to anyone not an Auroran, even to other Spacers.

"On the other hand, if I slip into the Solarian way of speaking as I am now doing, you will notice at once that the notes stop and that it becomes throaty with r's that just about neverrr let go - especially if therrre is no 'rrrr' anywherrrre on the vocal panoramarrrm."

There was a burst of laughter from the audience and Gladia confronted it with a serious expression on her face. Finally, she held up her arms and made a cutting movement downward and outward and the laughter stopped.

"However," she said, "I will probably never go to Solaria again, so I will have no occasion to use the Solarian dialect any further. And the good Captain Baley" - she turned and made a half-bow in his direction, noting that there was a distinct outbreak, of perspiration on his brow - "informs me there is no telling when I'll be going back to Aurora, so I may have to drop the Auroran dialect as well. My only choice, then, will be to speak the Baleyworld dialect, which I shall at once begin to practice."

She hooked the fingers of each hand into an invisible belt, stretched her chest outward, pulled her chin downward, put on D.G.'s unselfconscious grin, and said, in a gravelly attempt at baritone, "Men and women of Baleyworld, officials, lawgivers, honored leaders, and fellow planetfolk and that should include everyone, except, perhaps, dishonored leaders - " She did her best to include the glottal stops and the flat "a's" and carefully pronounced the "h" of "honored" and "dishonored" in what was almost a gasp.

The laughter was still louder this time and more prolonged and Gladia allowed herself to smile and to wait calmly while it went on and on. After all, she was persuading them to laugh at themselves.

And when things were quiet again, she said simply, in an unexaggerated version of the Auroran dialect, "Every dialect is amusing - or peculiar - to those who are not accustomed to it and it tends to mark off human beings into separate - and frequently mutually unfriendly - groups. Dialects, however, are only languages of the tongue. Instead of those, you and I and every other human being on every inhabited world should listen to the language of the heart and there are no dialects to that. That language - if we will only listen - rings out the same in all of us."

That was it. She was ready to sit down again, but another question sounded. It was a woman's voice this time.

"How old are you?"

Now D.G. forced a low growl between his teeth. "Sit down, madam! Ignore the question."

Gladia turned to face D.G. He had half-risen. The others on the stage, as nearly as she could see them in the dimness outside the spotlight, were tensely leaning toward her.

She turned back to the audience and cried out ringingly,

"The people here on the stage want me to sit down. How many of you out there want me to sit down? - I find you are silent. - How many want me to stand here and answer the question honestly?"

There was sharp applause and cries of "Answer! Answer!"

Gladia said, "The voice of the people! I'm sorry, D.G. and all the rest of you, but I am commanded to speak."

She looked up at the spotlight, squinting, and shouted, "I don't know who controls the lights, but light the auditorium and turn off the spotlight. I don't care what it does to the hyperwave cameras. Just make sure the sound is going out accurately. No one will care if I look dim, as long as they can hear me. Right?"

"Right!" came the multivoiced answer. Then "Lights! Lights!"

Someone on the stage signaled in a distraught manner and the audience was bathed in light.

"Much better," said Gladia. "Now I can see you all, my kinspeople. I would like, particularly, to see the woman who asked the question, the one who wants to know my age. I would like to speak to her directly. Don't be backward or shy. If you have the courage to ask the question, you should have the courage to ask it openly."

She waited and finally a woman rose in the middle distance. Her dark hair was pulled back tightly, the color of her skin was a light brown, and her clothing, worn tightly to emphasize a slim figure, was in shades of darker brown.

She said, just a bit stridently, "I'm not afraid to stand up. And I'm not afraid to ask the question again. How old are you?"

Gladia faced her calmly and found herself even welcoming the confrontation. (How was this possible? Throughout her first three decades, she had been carefully trained to find the real presence of even one human being intolerable. Now look at her - facing thousands without a tremble. She was vaguely astonished and entirely pleased.)

Gladia said, "Please remain standing, madam, and let us talk together. How shall we measure age? In elapsed years since birth?"

The woman said with composure "My name is Sindra Lambid. I'm a member of the legislature and therefore one of Captain Baley's 'lawgivers' and 'honored leaders.' I hope 'honored,' at any rate." (There was a ripple of laughter as the audience seemed to grow increasingly good-natured.) "To answer your question, I think that the number of Galactic Standard Years that have elapsed since birth is the usual definition of a person's age. Thus, I am fifty-four years old. How old are you? How about just giving us a figure?"

"I will do so. Since my birth, two hundred and thirty-three Galactic Standard Years have come and gone, so that I am over twenty-three decades old - or a little more than four times as old as you are." Gladia held herself straight and she knew that her small, slim figure and the dim light made her look extraordinarily childlike at that moment.

There was a confused babble from the audience and something of a groan from her left. A quick glance in that direction showed her that D.G. had his hand to his forehead.

Gladia said, "But that is an entirely passive way of measuring time lapse. It is a measure of quantity that takes no account of quality. My life has been spent quietly, one might say dully. I have drifted through a set routine, shielded from all untoward events by a smoothly functioning social system that left no room for either change or experimentation and by my robots, who stood between me and misadventure of any kind.

"Only twice in my life have I experienced the breath of excitement and both times tragedy was involved. When I was thirty-three, younger in years than many of you who are now listening to me, there was a time - not a long one - during which a murder accusation hung over me. Two years later, there was another period of time - not long during which I was involved in another murder. On both those occasions, Plainclothesman Elijah Baley, was at my side. I believe most of you - or perhaps all of you - are familiar with the story as given in the account written by Elijah Baley's son.

"I should now add a third occasion for, this last month, I have faced a great deal of excitement, reaching its climax with my being required to stand up before you all, something which is entirely different from anything I have ever done in all my long life. And I must admit it is only your own good nature and kind acceptance of me that makes it possible.

"Consider, each of you, the contrast of all this with your own lives. You are pioneers and you live on a pioneer world. This world has been growing all your lives and will continue to grow. This world is anything but settled down and each day is - and must be - an adventure. The very climate is an adventure. You have first cold, then heat, then cold again. It is a climate rich in wind and storms and sudden change. At no time can you sit back and let time pass drowsily in a world that changes gently or not at all.

"Many Baleyworlders are Traders or can choose to be Traders and can then spend half their time scouring the space lanes. And if ever this world grows tame, many of its inhabitants can choose to transfer their sphere of activities to another less-developed world or join an expedition that will find a suitable world that has not yet felt the step of human beings and take their share in shaping it and seeding it and making it fit for human occupancy.

"Measure the length of life by events and deeds, accomplishments and excitements, and I am a child, younger than any of you. The large number of my years has served merely to bore and weary me; the smaller number of yours to enrich and excite you. - So tell me again, Madam Lambid, how old are you?"

Lambid smiled. "Fifty-four good years, Madam Gladia."

She sat down and again the applause welled up and continued. Under cover of that, D.G. said hoarsely, "Lady Gladia, who taught you how to handle an audience like this?"

"No one," she whispered back. "I never tried before."

"But quit while you're ahead. The person now getting to his feet is our leading war hawk. There's no need to face him. Say you are tired and sit down. We will tackle Old Man Bistervan ourselves."

"But I'm not tired," said Gladia. "I'm enjoying myself."

The man now facing her from her extreme right but rather near the stage was a tall, vigorous man with shaggy white eyebrows hanging over his eyes. His thinning hair was also white and his garments were a somber black, relieved by a white stripe running down each sleeve and trouser leg, as though setting sharp limits to his body.

His voice was deep and musical. "My name," he said, "is Tomas Bistervan and I'm known to many as the Old Man, largely, I think, because they wish I were and that I would not delay too long in dying. I do not know how to address you because you do not seem to have a family name and because I do not know you well enough to use your given name. To be honest, I do not wish to know you that well.

"Apparently, you helped save a Baleyworld ship on your world against the booby traps and weapons set up by your people and we are thanking you for that. In return, you have delivered some pious nonsense about friendship and kinship. Pure hypocrisy!

"When have your people felt kin to us? When have the Spacers felt any relationship to Earth and its people? Certainly, you Spacers are descended from Earthmen. We don't forget that. Nor do we forget that you have forgotten it. For well over twenty decades, the Spacers controlled the Galaxy and treated Earthpeople as though they were hateful, shortlived, diseased animals. Now that we are growing strong, you hold out the hand of friendship, but that hand has a glove on it, as your hands do. You try to remember not to turn up your nose at us, but the nose, even if not turned up, has plugs in it. Well? Am I correct?"

Gladia held up her hands. "It may be," she said, "that the audience here in this room - and, even more so, the audience outside the room that sees me, via hyperwave - is not aware that I am wearing gloves. They are not obtrusive, but they are there. I do not deny that. And, I have nose plugs that filter out dust and microorgamsms without too much interference with breathing. And I am careful to spray my throat periodically. And I wash perhaps a bit more than the requirements of cleanliness alone make necessary. I deny none of it.

"But this is the result of my shortcomings, not yours. My immune system is not strong. My life has been too comfortable and I have been exposed to too little. That was not my deliberate choice, but I must pay the penalty for it. If any of you were in my unfortunate position, what would you do? In particular, Mr. Bistervan, what would you do?"

Bistervan said grimly, "I would do as you do and I would consider it a sign of weakness, a sign that I was unfit and unadjusted to life and that I therefore ought to make way for those who are strong. Woman, don't speak of kinship to us. You are no kin of mine. You are of those who persecuted and tried to destroy us when you were strong and who come whining to us when you are weak."

There was a stir in the audience - and by no means a friendly one - but Bistervan held his ground firmly.

Gladia said softly, "Do you remember the evil we did when we were strong?"

Bistervan said, - "Don't fear that we will forget. It is in our minds every day."

"Good! Because now you know what to avoid. You have learned that when the strong oppress the weak, that is wrong. Therefore, when the table turns and when you are strong and we are weak, you will not be oppressive."

"Ah, yes. I have heard the argument. When you were strong, you never heard of morality, but now that you are weak, you preach it earnestly."

"In your case, though, when you were weak, you knew all about morality and were appalled by the behavior of the strong - and now that you are strong, you forget morality. Surely it is better that the immoral learn morality through adversity than that the moral forget morality in prosperity."

"We will give what we received," said Bistervan, holding up his clenched fist.

"You should give what you would have liked to receive," said Gladia, holding out her arms, as though embracing. "Since everyone can think of some past injustice to avenge, what you are saying, my friend, is that it is right for the strong to oppress the weak. And when you say that, you justify the Spacers of the past and should therefore have no complaint of the present. What I say is that oppression was wrong when we practiced it in the past and that it will be equally wrong when you practice it in the future. We cannot change the past, unfortunately, but we can still decide on what the future shall be."

Gladia paused. When Bistervan did not answer immediately, she called out, "How many want a new Galaxy, not the bad old Galaxy endlessly repeated?"

The applause began, but Bistervan threw his arms up and shouted in stentorian fashion, "Wait! Wait! Don't be fools! Stop!"

There was a slow quieting and Bistervan said, "Do you suppose this woman believes what she is saying? Do you suppose the Spacers intend us any good whatever? They still think they are strong, and they still despise us, and they intend to destroy us - if we don't destroy them first. This woman comes here and, like fools, we greet her and make much of her. Well, put her words to the test. Let any of you apply for permission to visit a Spacer world and see if you can. Or if you have a world behind you and can use threats, as Captain Baley did, so that you are allowed to land on the world, how will you be treated? Ask the captain if he was treated like kin.

"This woman is a hypocrite, in spite of all her words - no, because of them. They are the spoken advertisements of her hypocrisy. She moans and whines about her inadequate immune system and says that she must protect herself against the danger of infection. Of course, she doesn't do this because she thinks we are foul and diseased. That thought, I suppose, never occurs to her.

"She whines of her passive life, protected from mischance and misfortune by a too-settled society and a too solicitous crowd of robots. How she must hate that.

"But what endangers her here? What mischance does she feel will befall her on our planet? Yet she has brought two robots with her. In this hall, we meet in order to honor her and make much of her, yet she brought her two robots even here. They are there on the platform with her. Now that the room is generally lit, you can see them. One is an imitation human being and its name is R. Daneel Olivaw. Another is a shameless robot, openly metallic in structure, and its name is R. Giskard Reventlov. Greet them, my fellow Baleyworlders. They are this woman's kinfolk."

"Checkmate!" groaned D.G. in a whisper.

"Not yet," said Gladia.

There were craning necks in the audience, as if a sudden itch had affected them all, and the word "Robots" ran across the length and breadth of the hall in thousands of intakes of breath.

"You can see them without trouble," Gladia's voice rang out. "Daneel, Giskard, stand up."

The two robots rose at once behind her.

"Step to either side of me," she said, "so that my body does not block the view. - Not that my body is large enough to do much blocking, in any case.

"Now let me make a few things clear to all of you. These two robots did not come with me in order to service me. Yes, they help run my establishment on Aurora, along with fifty-one other robots, and I do no work for myself that I wish a robot to do for me. That is the custom on the world on which I live.

"Robots vary in complexity, ability, and intelligence and these two rate very high in those respects. Daneel, in particular, is, in my opinion, the robot, of all robots, whose intelligence most nearly approximates the human in those areas where comparison is possible.

"I have brought only Daneel and Giskard with me, but they perform no great services for me. If you are interested, I dress myself, bathe myself, use my own utensils when I eat, and walk without being carried.

"Do I use them for personal protection? No. They protect me, yes, but they equally well protect anyone else who needs protection. On Solaria, just recently, Daneel did what he could to protect Captain Baley and was ready to give up his existence to protect me. Without him, the ship could not have been saved.

"And I certainly need no protection on this platform. After all, there is a force field stretched across the stage that is ample protection. It is not there at my request, but it is there and it supplies all the protection I need.

"Then why are my robots here with me?

"Those of you who know the story of Elijah Baley, who freed Earth of its Spacer overlords, who initiated the new policy of settlement, and whose son led the first human being to Baleyworld - why else is it called that? - know that well before he knew me, Elijah Baley worked with Daneel. He worked with him on Earth, on Solaria, and on Aurora - on each of his great cases. To Daneel, Elijah Baley was always 'Partner Elijah.' I don't know if that fact appears in his biography, but you may safely take my word for it. And although Elijah Baley, as an Earthman, began with a strong distrust of Daneel, a friendship between them developed. When Elijah Baley was dying, here on this planet over sixteen decades ago, when it was just a cluster of prefabricated houses surrounded by garden patches, it was not his son who was with him in his last moment. Nor was it I" (For a treacherous moment, she thought her voice would not hold steady.) "He sent for Daneel and he held on to life until Daneel arrived.

"Yes, this is Daneel's second visit to this planet. I was with him, but I remained in orbit." (Steady!) "It was Daneel alone who made planetfall, Daneel who received his last words. - Well, does this mean nothing to you?"

Her voice rose a notch as she shook her fists in the air. "Must I tell you this? Don't you already know it? Here is the robot that Elijah Baley loved. Yes, loved. I wanted to see Elijah before he died, to say good-bye to him; but he wanted Daneel - and this is Daneel. This is the very one.

"And this other is Giskard, who knew Elijah only on Aurora, but who managed to save Elijah's life there.

"Without these two robots, Elijah Baley would not have achieved his goal. The Spacer worlds would still be supreme, the Settler worlds would not exist, and none of you would be here. I know that. You know that. I wonder if Mr. Tomas Bistervan knows that?

"Daneel and Giskard are honored names on this world. They are used commonly by the descendants of Elijah Baley at his request. I have arrived on a ship the captain of which is named Daneel Giskard Baley. How many, I wonder, among the people I face now - in person and via hyperwave bear the name of Daneel or Giskard? Well, these robots behind me are the robots those names commemorate. And are they to be denounced by Tomas Bistervan?"

The growing murmur among the audience was becoming loud and Gladia lifted her arms imploringly. "One moment. One moment. Let me finish. I have not told you why I brought these two robots."

There was immediate silence.

"These two robots," Gladia said, "have never forgotten Elijah Baley, anymore than I have forgotten him. The passing decades have not in the least dimmed those memories. When I was ready to step on to Captain Baley's ship, when I knew that I might visit Baleyworld, how could I refuse to take Daneel and Giskard with me? They wanted to see the planet that Elijah Baley had made possible, the planet on which he passed his old age and on which he died.

"Yes, they are robots, but they are intelligent robots who served Elijah Baley faithfully and well. It is not enough to have respect for all human beings; one must have respect for all intelligent beings. So I brought them here." Then, in a final outcry that demanded a response, "DID I DO WRONG?"

She received her response. A gigantic cry of "NO!" resounded throughout the hall and everyone was on his or her feet, clapping, stamping, roaring, screaming - on... and on... and on.

Gladia watched, smiling, and, as the noise continued endlessly, became aware of two things. First, she was wet with perspiration. Second, she was happier than she had ever been in her life.

It, was as though all her life, she had waited for this moment - the moment when she, having been brought up in isolation, could finally learn, after twenty-three decades, that she could face crowds, and move them, and bend them to her will.

She listened to the unwearying, noisy response - on... and on... and on...

40

It was a considerable time later - how long she had no way of telling - that Gladia finally came to herself.

There had first been unending noise, the solid wedge of security people herding her through the crowd, the plunge into endless tunnels that seemed to sink deeper and deeper into the ground.

She lost contact with D.G. early and was not sure that Daneel and Giskard were safely with her. She wanted to ask for them, but only faceless, people surrounded her. She thought distantly that the robots had to be with her, for they would resist separation and she would hear the tumult if an attempt were made.

When she finally reached a room, the two robots were there with her. She didn't know precisely where she was, but the room was fairly large and clean. It was poor stuff compared to her home on Aurora, but compared to the shipboard cabin it was quite luxurious.

"You will be safe here, madam," said the last of the guards as he left. "If you need anything, just let us know." He indicated a device on a small table next to the bed.

She stared at it, but by the time she turned back to ask what it was and how it worked, he was gone.

Oh, well, she thought, I'll get by.

"Giskard," she said wearily, "find out which of those doors leads to the bathroom and find out how the shower works. What I must have now is a shower."

She sat down gingerly, aware that she was damp and unwilling to saturate the chair with her perspiration. She was beginning to ache with the unnatural rigidity of her position when Giskard emerged.

"Madam, the shower is running," he said, "and the temperature is adjusted. There is a solid material which I believe is soap and a primitive sort of toweling material, along with various other articles that may be useful."

"Thank you, Giskard," said Gladia, quite aware that despite her grandiloquence on the manner in which robots such as Giskard did not perform menial service, that is precisely what she had required him to do. But circumstances alter cases.

If she had never needed a shower, it seemed to her, as badly as now, she had also never enjoyed one as much. She remained in it much longer than she had to and when it was over it didn't even occur to her to wonder if the towels had been in any way irradiated to sterility until after she had dried herself - and by that time it was too late.

She rummaged about among the material Giskard had laid out for her - powder, deodorant, comb, toothpaste, hair dryer - but she could not locate anything that would serve as a toothbrush. She finally gave up and used her finger, which she found most unsatisfactory. There was no hairbrush and that too was unsatisfactory. She scrubbed the comb with soap before using it, but cringed away from it just the same. She found a garment that looked as though it were suitable for wearing to bed. It smelled clean, but it hung far too loosely, she decided.

Daneel said quietly, "Madam, the captain wishes to know if he may see you."

"I suppose so," said Gladia, still rummaging for alternate nightwear. "Let him in."

D.G. looked tired and even haggard, but when she turned to greet him, he smiled wearily at her and said, "It is hard to believe that you are over twenty-three decades old."

"What? In this thing?"

"Mat helps. It's semitransparent. - Or didn't you know?"

She looked down at the nightgown uncertainly, then said, "Good, if it amuses you, but I have been alive, just the same, for two and a third centuries."

"No one would guess it to look at you. You must have been very beautiful in your youth."

"I have never been told so, D.G. Quiet charm, I always believed, was the most I could aspire to. - In any case, how do I use that instrument?"

"The call box? Just touch the patch on the right side and someone will ask if you can be served and you can carry on from there."

"Good. I will need a toothbrush, a hairbrush, and clothing."

"The toothbrush and hairbrush I will see that you get. As for clothing, that has been thought of. You have a clothes bag hanging in your closet. You'll find it contains the best in Baleyworld fashion, which may not appeal to you, of course. And I won't guarantee they'll fit you. Most Baleyworld women are taller than you and certainly wider and thicker. - But it doesn't matter. I think you'll remain in seclusion for quite a while."

"Why?"

"Well, my lady. It seems you delivered a speech this past evening and, as I recall, you would not sit down, though I suggested you do that more than once."

"It seemed quite successful to me, D.G."

"It was. It was a howling success." D.G. smiled broadly and scratched the right side of his beard as though considering the word very carefully. "However, success has its penalties too. Right now, I should say you are the most famous person on Baleyworld and every Baleyworlder wants to see you and touch you. If we take you out anywhere, it will mean an instant riot. At least, until things cool down. We can't be sure how long that will take.

"Then, too, you had even the war hawks yelling for you, but in the cold light of tomorrow, when the hypnotism and hysteria dies down, they're going to be furious. If Old Man Bistervan didn't actually consider killing you outright after your talk, then by tomorrow he will certainly have it as the ambition of his life to murder you by slow torture. And there are people, of his party who might conceivably try to oblige the Old Man in this small whim of his.

"That's why you're here, my lady. That's why this room, this floor, this entire hotel is being watched - by I don't know how many platoons of security people, among whom, I hope, are no cryptowar hawks. And because I have been so closely associated with you in this hero-and-heroine game, I'm penned up here, too, and can't get out."

"Oh," said Gladia blankly. "I'm sorry about that. You can't see your family, then."

D.G. shrugged. "Traders don't really have much in the way of family."

"Your woman friend, then."

"She'll survive. - Probably better than I will." He cast his eyes on Gladia speculatively.

Gladia said evenly, "Don't even think it, Captain."

D.G.'s eyebrows rose. "There's no way I can be prevented from thinking it, but I won't do anything, madam."

Gladia said, "How long do you think I will stay here? Seriously."

"It depends on the Directory."

"The Directory?"

"Our five-fold executive board, madam. Five people" - he held up his hand, with the fingers spread apart - "each serving five years in staggered fashion, with one replacement each year, plus special elections in case of death or disability. This supplies continuity and reduces the danger of one-person rule. It also means that every decision must be argued out and that takes time, sometimes more time than we can afford."

"I should think," said Gladia, "that if one of the five were a determined and forceful individual - "

"That he could impose his views on the others. Things like that have happened at times, but these times are not one of those times - if you know what I mean. The Senior Director is Genovus Pandaral. There's nothing evil about him, but he's indecisive - and sometimes that's the same thing. I talked him into allowing your robots on the stage with you and that turned out to be a bad idea. Score one against both of us."

"But why was it a bad idea? The people were pleased."

"Too pleased, my lady. We wanted you to be our pet Spacer heroine and help keep public opinion cool so that we wouldn't launch a premature war. You were good on longevity; you had them cheering short life. But then you had them cheering robots and we don't want that. For that matter, we're not so keen on the public cheering the notion of kinship with the Spacers."

"You don't want premature war, but you don't want premature peace, either. Is that it?"

"Very well put, madam."

"But, then, what do you want?"

"We want the Galaxy, the whole Galaxy. We want to settle and populate every habitable planet in it and establish nothing less than a Galactic Empire. And we don't want the Spacers to interfere. They can remain on their own worlds and live in peace as they please, but they must not interfere."

"But then you'll be penning them up on their fifty worlds, as we penned up Earthpeople on Earth for so many years. The same old injustice. You're as bad as Bistervan."

"The situations are different. Earthpeople were penned up in defiance of their expansive potential. You Spacers have no such potential. You took the path of longevity and robots and the potential vanished. You don't even have fifty worlds any longer. Solaria has been abandoned. The others will go, too, in time. The Settlers have no interest in pushing the Spacers along the path to extinction, but why should we interfere with their voluntary choice to do so? Your speech tended to interfere with that."

"I'm glad. What did you think I would say?"

"I told you. Peace and love and sit down. You could have finished in about one minute."

Gladia said angrily, "I can't believe you expected anything so foolish of me. What did you take me for?

"For what you took yourself - for someone frightened to death of speaking. How did we know that you were a madwoman who could, in half an hour, persuade the Baleyworlders to howl in favor of what for lifetimes we have been persuading them to howl against? But talk will get us nowhere" - he rose heavily to his feet - "I want a shower, too, and I had better get a night's sleep - if I can. See you tomorrow.

"But when do we find out what the Directors will decide to do with me?"

"When they find out, which may not be soon. Good night, madam."

41

"I have made a discovery," said Giskard, his voice carrying no shade of emotion. "I have made it because, for the first time in my existence, I faced thousands of human beings. Had I done this two centuries ago, I would have made the discovery then. Had I never faced so many at once, then I would never have made the discovery at all.

"Consider, then, how many vital points I might easily grasp, but never have and never will, simply because the proper conditions for it will never come my way. I remain ignorant except where circumstance helps me and I cannot count on circumstance."

Daneel said, "I did not think, friend Giskard, that Lady Gladia, with her long-sustained way of life, could face thousands with equanimity. I did not think she would be able to speak at all. When it turned out that she could, I assumed you had adjusted her and that you had discovered that it could be done without harming her. Was that your discovery?"

Giskard said, "Friend Daneel, actually all I dared do was loosen a very few strands of inhibition, only enough to allow her to speak a few words, so that she might be heard."

"But she did far more than that."

"After this microscopic adjustment, I turned to the multiplicity of minds I faced in the audience. I had never experienced so many, any more than Lady Gladia had, and I was as taken aback as she was. I found, at first, that I could do nothing in the vast mental interlockingness that beat in upon me. I felt helpless."

"And then I noted small friendlinesses, curiosities, interests - I cannot describe them in words - with a color of sympathy for Lady Gladia about them. I played with what I could find that had this color of sympathy, tightening and thickening them just slightly. I wanted some small response in Lady Gladia's favor that might encourage her, that might make it unnecessary for me to be tempted to tamper further with Lady Gladia's mind. That was all I did. I do not know how many threads of the proper color I handled. Not many."

Daneel said, "And what then, friend Giskard?"

"I found, friend Daneel, that I had begun something that was autocatalytic. Each thread I strengthened, strengthened a nearby thread of the same kind and the two together strengthened several others nearby. I had to do nothing further. Small stirs, small sounds, and small glances that seemed to approve of what Lady Gladia said encouraged still others.

"Then I found something stranger yet. All these little indications of approval, which I could detect only because the minds were open to me, Lady Gladia must have also detected in some manner, for further inhibitions in her mind fell without my touching them. She began to speak faster, more confidently, and the audience responded better than ever - without my doing anything. And in the end, there was hysteria, a storm, a tempest of mental - thunder and lightning so intense that I had to close my mind to it or it would have overloaded my circuits."

"Never, in all my existence, had I encountered anything like that and yet it started with no more modification introduced by me in all that crowd than I have, in the past, introduced among a mere handful of people. I suspect, in fact, that the effect spread beyond the audience sensible to my mind - to the greater audience reached via hyperwave."

Daneel said, "I do not see how this can be, friend Giskard."

"Nor I, friend Daneel. I am not human. I do not directly experience the possession of a human mind with all its complexities and contradictions, so I do not grasp the mechanisms by which they respond. But, apparently, crowds are more easily managed than individuals. It seems paradoxical. Much weight takes more effort to move than little weight. Much energy takes more effort to counter than little energy. Much distance takes longer to traverse than little distance. Why, then, should many people, be easier to sway than few? You think like a human being, friend Daneel. Can you explain?"

Daneel said, "You yourself, friend Giskard, said that it was an autocatalytic effect, a matter of contagion. A single spark of flame may end by burning down a forest."

Giskard paused and seemed deep in thought. Then he said, "It is not reason that is contagious but emotion. Madam Gladia chose arguments she felt would move her audience's feelings. She did not attempt to reason with them. It may be, then, that the larger the crowd, the more easily they are swayed by emotion rather than by reason.

"Since emotions are few and reasons are many, the behavior of a crowd can be more easily predicted than the behavior of one person can. And that, in turn, means that if laws are to be developed that enable the current of history to be predicted, then one must deal with large populations, the larger the better. That might itself be the First Law of Psychohistory, the key to the study of Humanics. Yet - "

"Yes?"

"It strikes me that it has taken me so long to understand this only because I am not a human being. A human being would, perhaps, instinctively understand his own mind well enough to know how to handle others like himself. Madam Gladia, with no experience at all in addressing huge crowds, carried off the matter, expertly. How much better off we would be if we had someone like Elijah Baley with us.

"Friend Daneel, are you not thinking of him?"

Daneel said, "Can you see his image in my mind? That is surprising, friend Giskard."

"I do not see him, friend Daneel. I cannot receive your thoughts. But I can sense emotions and mood - and your mind has a texture which, by past experience, I know to be associated with Elijah Baley."

"Madam Gladia made mention of the fact that I was the last to see Partner Elijah alive, so I listen again, in memory, to that moment. I think again of what he said."

"Why, friend Daneel?"

"I search for the meaning. I feel it was important."

"How could what he said have meaning beyond the import of the words? Had there been hidden meaning, Elijah Baley would have expressed it."

"Perhaps," said Daneel slowly, "Partner Elijah did not himself understand the significance of what he was saying."