Asimov's Future History Volume 4 (61 page)

“Well, with fifty-seven robots, I imagine you can spare two. I feel the less guilty at your having sent Giskard and Daneel to escort mc to Aurora.”

“It was no casual choice, I assure you, Mr. Baley. Giskard is my majordomo and my right hand. He has been with me all my adult life.”

“Yet you sent him on the trip to get mc. I am honored,” said Baley.

“It is a measure of your importance, Mr. Baley. Giskard is the most reliable of my robots, strong and sturdy.”

Baley’s eye flickered toward Daneel and Fastolfe added, “I don’t include my friend Daneel in these calculations. He is not my servant, but an achievement of which I have the weakness to be extremely proud. He is the first of his class and, while Dr. Roj Nemennuh Sarton was his designer and mode!, the man who–”

He paused delicately, but Baley nodded brusquely and said, “I understand.”

He did not require the phrase to be completed with a reference to Sarton’s murder on Earth.

“While Sarton supervised the actual construction,” Fastolfe went on, “it was I whose theoretical calculations made Daneel possible.”

Fastolfe smiled at Daneel, who bowed his head in acknowledgment.

Baley said, “There was Jander, too.”

“Yes.” Fastolfe shook his head and looked downcast. “I should perhaps have kept him with me, as I do Daneel. But he
was
my second humaniform and that makes a difference. It is Daneel who is my first-born, so to speak–a special case.”

“And you construct no more humaniform robots now?”

“No more. But come,” said Fastolfe, rubbing his hands. “We must have our lunch.–I do not think, Mr. Baley, that on Earth the population is accustomed to what I might term natural food. We are having shrimp salad, together with bread and cheese, milk, if you wish, or any of an assortment of fruit juices. It’s all very simple. Ice cream for dessert.”

“All traditional Earth dishes,” said Baley, “which exist now in their original form only in Earth’s ancient literature.”

“None of it is entirely common here on Aurora, but I didn’t think it made sense to subject you to our own version of gourmet dining, which involves food items and spices of Auroran varieties. The taste would have to be acquired.”

He rose. ‘Please come with me, Mr. Baley. There will just be the two of us and we will not stand on ceremony or indulge in unnecessary dining ritual.”

“Thank you,” said Baley. “I accept that as a kindness. I have relieved the tedium of the trip here by a rather intensive viewing of material relating to Aurora and I know that proper politeness requires many aspects to a ceremonial meal that I would dread.”

“You need not dread.”

Baley said, “Could we break ceremony even to the extent of talking business over the meal, Dr. Fastolfe? I must not lose time unnecessarily.”

“I sympathize with that point of view. We will indeed talk business and I imagine I can rely on you to say nothing to anyone concerning that lapse. I would not want to be expelled from polite society.” He chuckled, then said, “Though I should not laugh. It is nothing to laugh at. Losing time may be more than an inconvenience alone. It could easily be fatal.”

16.

T
HE
ROOM
THAT
Baley left was a spare one: several chairs, a chest of drawers, something that looked like a piano but had brass valves in the place of keys, some abstract designs on the walls that seemed to shimmer with light. The floor was a smooth checkerboard of several shades of brown, perhaps designed to be reminiscent of wood, and although it shone with highlights as though freshly waxed, it did not feel slippery underfoot.

The dining room, though it had the same floor, was like it in no other way. It was a long rectangular room, overburdened with decoration. It contained six large square tables that were clearly modules that could be assembled in various fashions. A bar was to be found along one short wall, with gleaming bottles of various colors standing before a curved mirror that seemed to lend a nearly infinite extension to the room it reflected. Along the other short wall were four recesses, in each of which a robot waited.

Both long walls were mosaics, in which the colors slowly changed. One was a planetary scene, though Baley could not tell if it were Aurora, or another planet, or something completely imaginary. At one end there was a wheat field (or something of that sort) filled with elaborate farm machinery, all robot-controlled. As one’s eye traveled along the length of the wall, that gave way to scattered human habitations, becoming, at the other end, what Baley felt to be the Auroran version of a City.

The other long wall was astronomical. A planet, blue-white, lit by a distant sun, reflected light in such a manner that not the closest examination could free one from the thought that it was slowly rotating. The stars that surrounded it–some faint, some bright–seemed also to be changing their patterns, though when the eye concentrated on some small grouping and remained fixed there, the stars seemed immobile.

Baley found it all confusing and repellent.

Fastolfe said, “Rather a work of art, Mr. Baley. Far too expensive to be worth it, though, but Fanya would have it.–Fanya is my current partner.”

“Will she be joining us, Dr. Fastolfe?”

“No, Mr. Baley. As I said, just the two of us. For the duration, I have asked her to remain in her own quarters. I do not want to subject her to this problem we have. You understand, I hope?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Come. Please take your scat.”

One of the tables was set with dishes, cups, and elaborate cutlery, not all of which were familiar to Baley. In the center was a tall, somewhat tapering cylinder that looked as though it might be a gigantic chess pawn made out of a gray rocky material.

Baley, as he sat down, could not resist reaching toward it and touching it with a finger.

Fastolfe smiled. “It’s a spicer. It possesses simple controls that allows one to use it to deliver a fixed amount of any of a dozen different condiments on any portion of a dish. To do it properly, one picks it up and performs rather intricate evolutions that are meaningless in themselves but that are much valued by fashionable Aurorans as symbols of the grace and delicacy with which meals should be served. When I was younger, I could, with my thumb and two fingers, do the triple genuflection and produce salt as the spicer struck my palm. Now if I tried it, I’d run a good risk of braining my guest. I trust you won’t mind if I do not try.”

“I urge you not to try, Dr. Fastolfe.”

A robot placed the salad on the table, another brought a tray of fruit juices, a third brought the bread and cheese, a fourth adjusted the napkins. All four operated in close coordination, weaving in and out without collision or any sign of difficulty. Baley watched them in astonishment.

They ended, without any apparent sign of prearrangements, one at each side of the table. They stepped back in unison, bowed in unison, turned in unison, and returned to the recesses along the wall at the far end of the room. Baley was suddenly aware of Daneel and Giskard in the room as well. He had not seen them come in. They waited in two recesses that had somehow appeared along the wall with the wheat field. Daneel was the closer.

Fastolfe said, “Now that they’ve gone–” He paused and shook his head slowly in rueful conclusion. “Except that they haven’t. Ordinarily, it is customary for the robots to leave before lunch actually begins. Robots do not eat, while human beings do. It therefore makes sense that those who eat do so and that those who do not leave. And it has ended by becoming one more ritual. It would be quite unthinkable to eat until the robots left. In this case, though–”

“They have not left,” said Baley.

“No. I felt that security came before etiquette and I felt that, not being an Auroran, you would not mind.”

Baley waited for Fastolfe to make the first move. Fastolfe lifted a fork, so did Baley. Fastolfe made use of it, moving slowly and allowing Baley to see exactly what he was doing.

Baley bit cautiously into a shrimp and found it delightful. He recognized the taste, which was like the shrimp paste produced on Earth but enormously more subtle and rich. He chewed slowly and, for a while, despite his anxiety to get on with the investigation while dining, he found it quite unthinkable to do anything but give his full attention to the lunch.

It was, in fact, Fastolfe who made the first move. “Shouldn’t we make a beginning on the problem, Mr. Baley?”

Baley felt himself flush slightly. “Yes. By all means. I ask your pardon. Your Auroran food caught mc by surprise, so that it was difficult for me to think of anything else.–The problem, Dr. Fastolfe, is of your making, isn’t it?”

“Why do you say that?”

“Someone has committed roboticide in a manner that requires great expertise–as I have been told.”

“Roboticide? An amusing term.” Fastolfe smiled. “Of course, I understand what you mean by it.–You have been told correctly; the manner requires
enormous
expertise.”

“And only you have the expertise to carry it out–as I have been told.”

“You have been told correctly there, too.”

“And even you yourself admit–in fact, you insist–that only you could have put Jander into a mental freeze-out.”

“I maintain what is, after all, the truth, Mr. Baley. It would do me no good to lie, even if I could bring myself to do so. It is notorious that I am the outstanding theoretical roboticist in all the Fifty Worlds.”

“Nevertheless, Dr. Fastolfe, might not the second-best theoretical roboticist in all the worlds–or the third-best, or even the fifteenth-best–nevertheless possess the necessary ability to commit the deed? Does it really require all the ability of the very best?”

Fastolfe said calmly, “In my opinion, it really requires all the ability of the very best. Indeed, again in my opinion, I, myself, could only accomplish the task on one of my good days. Remember that the best brains in robotics–including mine–have specifically labored to design positronic brains that could
not
be driven into mental freeze-out.”

“Are you certain of all that? Really certain?’

“Completely.”

“And you stated so publicly?”

“Of course. There was a public inquiry, my dear Earthman. I was asked the questions you arc now asking and I answered truthfully. It is an Auroran custom to do so.”

Baley said, “I do not, at the moment, question that you were convinced you were answering truthfully. But might you not have been swayed by a natural pride in yourself? That might also be typically Auroran, might it not?”

“You mean that my anxiety to be considered the best would make me willingly put myself in a position where everyone would be forced to conclude I had mentally frozen Jander?”

“I picture you, somehow, as content to have your political and social status destroyed, provided your scientific reputation remained intact.”

“I see. You have an interesting way of thinking, Mr. Baley. This would not have occurred to me. Given a choice between admitting I was second-best and admitting I was guilty of, to use your phrase, a roboticide, you are of the opinion I would knowingly accept the latter.”

“No, Dr. Fastolfe, I do not wish to present the matter quite so simplistically. Might it not be that you deceive yourself into thinking you are the greatest of all roboticists and that you are completely unrivaled, clinging to that at all costs, because you unconsciously–unconsciously, Dr. Fastolfe–realize that, in fact, you are being overtaken–or have even already been overtaken–by others.”

Fastolfe laughed, but there was an edge of annoyance in it. “Not so, Mr. Baley. Quite wrong.”

“Think, Dr. Fastolfe! Arc you certain that none of your roboticist colleagues can approach you in brilliance?”

“There are only a few who are capable of dealing at all with humaniform robots. Daneel’s construction created virtually a new profession for which there is not even a name–humaniformicists, perhaps. Of the theoretical roboticists on Aurora, not one, except for myself, understands the workings of Daneel’s positronic brain. Dr. Sarton did, but he is dead–and he did not understand it as well as I do. The basic theory is
mine.”

“It may have been yours to begin with, but surely you can’t expect to maintain exclusive ownership. Has no one learned the theory?”

Fastolfe shook his head firmly. “Not one. I have taught no one and I defy any other living roboticist to have developed the theory on his own.”

Baley said, with a touch of irritation, “Might there not be a bright young man, fresh out of the university, who is cleverer than anyone yet realizes, who–”

“No,
Mr. Baley, no. I would have known such a young man. He would have passed through my laboratories. He would have worked with me. At the moment, no such young man exists. Eventually, one will; perhaps many will. At the moment,
none!”

“If you died, then, the new science dies with you?”

“I am only a hundred and sixty-five years old. That’s metric years, of course, so it is only a hundred and twenty-four of your Earth years, more or less. I am still quite young by Auroran standards and there is no medical reason why my life should be considered even half over. It is not entirely unusual to reach an age of four hundred years–metric years. There is yet plenty of time to teach.”

They had finished eating, but neither man made any move to leave the table. Nor did any robot approach to clear it. It was as though they were transfixed into immobility by the intensity of the back and forth flow of talk.

Baley’s eyes narrowed. He said, “Dr. Fastolfe, two years ago I was on Solaria. There I was given the clear impression that the Solarians were, on the whole, the most skilled roboticists in all the worlds.”

“On the whole, that’s probably true.”

“And not one of them could have done the deed?”

“Not one, Mr. Baley. Their skill is with robots who are, at best, no more advanced than my poor, reliable Giskard. The Solarians know nothing of the construction of humaniform robots.”

“How can you be sure of that?”

“Since you were on Solaria, Mr. Baley, you know very well that Solarians can approach each other with only the greatest of difficulty, that they interact by trimensional viewing–except where sexual contact is absolutely required. Do you think that any of them would dream of designing a robot so human in appearance that it would activate their neuroses? They would so avoid the possibility of approaching him, since he would look so human, that they could make no reasonable use of him.”