Asimov's Future History Volume 4 (34 page)

“Have such robots been developed yet?”

Klorissa shook her head. “I’m afraid not. Dr. Delmarre and Leebig had been working hard on some experimental models.”

“Did Dr. Delmarre have some of the models sent out to his estate? Was he a good enough roboticist to conduct tests himself?”

“Oh yes. He tested robots frequently.”

“Do you know that he had a robot with him when he was murdered?”

“I’ve been told so.”

“Do you know what kind of a model it was?”

“You’ll have to ask Leebig. As I told you, he’s the roboticist who worked with Dr. Delmarre.”

“You know nothing about it?”

“Not a thing.”

“If you think of anything, let me know.”

“I will. And don’t think new robot models are all that Dr. Delmarre was interested in. Dr. Delmarre used to say the time would come when unfertilized ova would be stored in banks at liquid-air temperatures and utilized for artificial insemination. In that way, eugenic principles could be truly applied and we could get rid of the last vestige of any need for seeing. I’m not sure that I quite go along with him so far, but he was a man of advanced notions; a very good Solarian.”

She added quickly, “Do you want to go outside? The five through eight group are encouraged to take part in outdoor play and you could see them in action.”

Baley said cautiously, “I’ll try that. I may have to come back inside on rather short notice.”

“Oh yes, I forgot. Maybe you’d rather not go out at all?”

“No.” Baley forced a smile. “I’m trying to grow accustomed to the outdoors.”

The wind was hard to bear. It made breathing difficult. It wasn’t cold, in a direct physical sense, but the feel of it, the feel of his clothes moving against his body, gave Baley a kind of chill.

His teeth chattered when he tried to talk and he had to force his words out in little bits. It hurt his eyes to look so far at a horizon so hazy green and blue and there was only limited relief when he looked at the pathway immediately before his toes. Above all, he avoided looking up at the empty blue, empty, that is, but for the piled-up white of occasional clouds and the glare of the naked sun.

And yet he could fight off the urge to run, to return to enclosure.

He passed a tree, following Klorissa by some ten paces, and he reached out a cautious hand to touch it. It was rough and hard to the touch. Frondy leaves moved and rustled overhead, but he did not raise his eyes to look at them. A living tree!

Klorissa called out. “How do you feel?”

“All right.”

“You can see a group of youngsters from here,” she said. “They’re involved in some kind of game. The robots organize the games and see to it that the little animals don’t kick each other’s eyes out. With personal presence you can do just that, you know.”

Baley raised his eyes slowly, running his glance along the cement of the pathway out to the grass and down the slope, farther and farther out–very carefully–ready to snap back to his toes if he grew frightened–feeling with his eyes..

There were the small figures of boys and girls racing madly about, uncaring that they raced at the very outer rim of a world with nothing but air and space above them. The glitter of an occasional robot moved nimbly among them. The noise of the children was a far off incoherent squeaking in the air.

“They love it,” said Klorissa. “Pushing and pulling and squabbling and falling down and getting up and just generally contacting. Skies above! How do children ever manage to grow up?”

“What are those older children doing?” asked Baley. He pointed at a group of isolated youngsters standing to one side.

“They’re viewing. They’re not in a state of personal presence. By viewing, they can walk together, talk together, race together, play together. Anything except physical contact.”

“Where do children go when they leave here?”

“To estates of their own. The number of deaths is, on the average, equal to the number of graduations.”

“To their parents’ estates?”

“Skies above, no! It would be an amazing coincidence, wouldn’t it, to have a parent die just as a child is of age. No, the children take any one that falls vacant. I don’t know that any of them would be particularly happy, anyway, living in a mansion that once belonged to their parents, supposing, of course, they knew who their parents were.”

“Don’t they?”

She raised her eyebrows. “Why should they?”

“Don’t parents visit their children here?”

“What a mind you have. Why should they want to?”

Baley said, “Do you mind if I clear up a point for myself? Is it bad manners to ask a person if they have had children?”

“It’s an intimate question, wouldn’t you say?”

“In a way.”

“I’m hardened. Children are my business. Other people aren’t.”

Baley said, “Have you any children?”

Klorissa’s Adam’s apple made a soft but clearly visible motion in her throat as she swallowed. “I deserve that, I suppose. And you deserve an answer. I haven’t.”

“Are you married?”

“Yes, and I have an estate of my own and I would be there but for the emergency here. I’m just not confident of being able to control all the robots if I’m not here in person.”

She turned away unhappily, and then pointed. “Now there’s one of them gone tumbling and of course he’s crying.”

A robot was running with great space devouring strides.

Kiorissa said, “He’ll be picked up and cuddled and if there’s any

real damage, I’ll be called in.” She added nervously, “I hope I don’t have to be.”

Baley took a deep breath. He noted three trees forming a small triangle fifty feet to the left. He walked in that direction, the grass soft and loathsome under his shoes, disgusting in its softness (like walking through corrupting flesh, and he nearly retched at the thought).

He was among them, his back against one trunk. It was almost like being surrounded by imperfect walls. The sun was only a wavering series of glitters through the leaves, so disconnected as almost to be robbed of horror.

Klorissa faced him from the path, then slowly shortened the distance by half.

“Mind if I stay here awhile?” asked Baley.

“Go ahead,” said Kiorissa.

Baley said, “Once the youngsters graduate out of the farm, how do you get them to court one another?”

“Court?”

“Get to know one another,” said Baley, vaguely wondering how the thought could be expressed safely, “so they can marry.”

“That’s not their problem,” said Klorissa. “They’re matched by gene analysis, usually when they are quite young. That’s the sensible way, isn’t it?”

“Are they always willing?”

“To be married? They never are! It’s a very traumatic process. At first they have to grow accustomed to one another, and a little bit of seeing each day, once the initial queasiness is gone, can do wonders.”

“What if they just don’t like their partner?”

“What? If the gene analysis indicates a partnership what difference does it–”

“I understand,” said Baley hastily. He thought of Earth and sighed.

Klorissa said, “Is there anything else you would like to know?”

Baley wondered if there were anything to be gained from a longer stay. He would not be sorry to be done with Klorissa and fetal engineering so that he might pass on to the next stage.

He had opened his mouth to say as much, when Klorissa called out at some object far off, “You, child, you there! What are you doing?” Then, over her shoulder: “Earthman! Baley! Watch out! Watch
out!
”

Baley scarcely heard her. He responded to the note of urgency in her voice. The nervous effort that held his emotions taut snapped wide and he flamed into panic. All the terror of the open air and the endless vault of heaven broke in upon him.

Baley gibbered. He heard himself mouth meaningless sounds and felt himself fall to his knees and slowly roll over to his side as though he were watching the process from a distance.

Also from a distance he heard the sighing hum piercing the air above him and ending with a sharp thwack.

Baley closed his eyes and his fingers clutched a thin tree root that skimmed the surface of the ground and his nails burrowed into dirt.

He opened his eyes (it must only have been moments after). Klorissa was scolding sharply at a youngster who remained at a distance. A robot, silent, stood closer to Klorissa. Baley had only time to notice the youngster held a stringed object in his hand before his eyes sheered away.

Breathing heavily, Baley struggled to his feet. He stared at the shaft of glistening metal that remained in the trunk of the tree against which he had been standing. He pulled at it and it came out readily. It had not penetrated far. He looked at the point but did not touch it. It was blunted, but it would have sufficed to tear his skin had he not dropped when he did.

It took him two tries to get his legs moving. He took a step toward Klorissa and called, “You. Youngster.”

Klorissa turned, her face flushed. She said, “It was an accident. Are you hurt?”

No! What is this thing?

“It’s an arrow. It is fired by a bow, which makes a taut string do the work.”

“Like this,” called the youngster impudently, and he shot another arrow into the air, then burst out laughing. He had light hair and a lithe body.

Klorissa said, “You will be disciplined. Now leave!”

“Wait, wait,” cried Baley. He rubbed his knee where a rock had caught and bruised him as he had fallen. “I have some questions. What is your name?”

“Bik,” he said carelessly.

“Did you shoot that arrow at me, Bik?”

“That’s right,” said the boy.

“Do you realize you would have hit me if I hadn’t been warned in time to duck?”

Bik shrugged. “I was aiming to hit.”

Klorissa spoke hurriedly. “You must let me explain. Archery is an encouraged sport. It is competitive without requiring contact. We have contests among the boys using viewing only. Now I’m afraid some of the boys will aim at robots. It amuses them and it doesn’t hurt the robots. I’m the only adult human on the estate and when the boy saw you, he must have assumed you were a robot.”

Baley listened. His mind was clearing, and the natural dourness of his long face intensified. He said, “Bik, did you think I was a robot?”

“No,” said the youngster. “You’re an Earthman.”

“All right. Go now.”

Bik turned and raced off whistling. Baley turned to the robot. “You! How did the youngster know I was an Earthman, or weren’t you with him when he shot?”

“I was with him, master. I told him you were an Earthman.”

“Did you tell him what an Earthman was?”

“Yes, master.”

“What is an Earthman?”

“An inferior sort of human that ought not to be allowed on Solaria because he breeds disease, master.”

“And who told you that, boy?”

The robot maintained silence.

Baley said, “Do you know who told you?”

“I do not, master. It is in my memory store.”

“So you told the boy I was a disease breeding inferior and he immediately shot at me. Why didn’t you stop him?”

“I would have, master. I would not have allowed harm to come to a human, even an Earthman. He moved too quickly and I was not fast enough.”

“Perhaps you thought I was just an Earthman, not completely a human, and hesitated a bit.”

“No, master.”

It was said with quiet calm, but Baley’s lips quirked grimly. The robot might deny it in all faith, but Baley felt that was exactly the factor involved.

Baley said, “What were you doing with the boy?”

“I was carrying his arrows, master.”

“May I see them?”

He held out his hand. The robot approached and delivered a dozen of them. Baley put the original arrow, the one that had hit the tree, carefully at his feet, and looked the others over one by one. He handed them back and lifted the original arrow again.

He said, “Why did you give this particular arrow to the boy?”

“No reason, master. He had asked for an arrow some time earlier and this was the one my hand touched first. He looked about for a target, then noticed you and asked who the strange human was. I explained–”

“I know what you explained. This arrow you handed him is the only one with gray vanes at the rear. The others have black vanes.”

The robot simply stared.

Baley said, “Did you guide the youngster here?”

“We walked randomly, master.”

The Earthman looked through the gap between two trees through which the arrow had hurled itself toward its mark. He said, “Would it happen, by any chance, that this youngster, Bik, was the best archer you have here?”

The robot bent his head. “He is the best, master.”

Klorissa gaped. “How did you ever come to guess that?”

“It follows,” said Baley dryly. “Now please observe this gray-vaned arrow and the others. The gray-vaned arrow is the only one that seems oily at the point. I’ll risk melodrama, ma’am, by saying that your warning saved my life. This arrow that missed me is poisoned.”

13: A Roboticist Is Confronted

K
LORISSA
SAID
, “I
MPOSSIBLE
! Skies above, absolutely impossible!”

“Above or below or any way you wish it. Is there an animal on the farm that’s expendable? Get it and scratch it with the arrow and see what happens.”

“But why should anyone want to–”

Baley said harshly, “I know why. The question is, who?”

“No one.”

Baley felt the dizziness returning and he grew savage. He threw the arrow at her and she eyed the spot where it fell.

“Pick it up,” Baley cried, “and if you don’t want to test it, destroy it. Leave it there and you’ll have an accident if the children get at it.”

She picked it up hurriedly, holding it between forefinger and thumb.

Baley ran for the nearest entrance to the building and Klorissa was still holding the arrow, gingerly, when she followed him back indoors.

Baley felt a certain measure of equanimity return with the comfort of enclosure. He said, “Who poisoned the arrow?”

“I can’t imagine.”