“That is understandable. Do you believe in robots, Klia?”
“No, ” she said. “Not now. Maybe once, before there were tik-toks and stuff. But I've
never believed they exist now. That's crazy. ”
Plussix nodded and held up his hand. “Thank you for seeing me. I can schedule further
appointments for this kind of interview, at regular intervals, for you to brief me on your
progress and state of mind. It may not be long before our routine changes. I trust you
will be prepared by that time. ”
“What if I keep asking to leave?”
“I wish you could fly free as a bird, Klia Asgar. But we all have duties here. As I said,
light duties and training only, at first, but in time we may be very important indeed.
Please try to understand. ”
Klia said nothing, but wondered how Plussix could expect anyone to understand when he
provided so little information. I've just gotten myself stuck in a different kind of trap!
The image faded, the door opened, and Rock stood there, squinting in at her. He signed,
Exercise and breakfast. Can I sit next to you?
Klia looked him over doubtfully, then signed, Yes.
But she was thinking of Brann, wondering what he was doing now-and whom he was with.
The transfer from the trader vessel to one of Daneel's hyper-ships, and the subsequent
final leg of the journey, had gone smoothly. Eos hung overhead in the transparent bubble
port where Lodovik sat with Daneel.
The hypership automatically placed them in a close orbit around the small brown and milky
blue moon. Beneath them, hidden by the bulk of the ship, lay a massive and deeply cold
green gas giant. The double star around which both moon and planet orbited was just
visible on the left, distant and brilliant, but shedding little heat this far out in the
system. The two stars orbited a common center, actually several tens of thousands of
kilometers below the surface of the larger deep red star, a dwarf little more massive than
Tranter's own sun, yet a thousand times more diffuse. The smaller white star seemed to be
the origin of a thin, outwardly spiraling ribbon of deep red and purple. Lodovik studied
this view silently. Daneel, as well, had nothing to say.
No robot truly has a home. Daneel had in several instances allied himself with humans, and
seemed to function more smoothly and efficiently in their presence-Elijah Bailey and,
twenty thousand years later, Hari Seldon, as well as others. Yet there was no place where
he felt he belonged. A robot belongs where its duties can be best performed, and Daneel
knew that for the time being this place was Eos, and so, for the moment, Eos was a
comfortable place to be.
But Trantor called strongly, as well. Misfortune had struck at a crucial time. Daneel,
like any thinking being trying to make a way through a universe of contending forces,
sometimes wondered whether he was being conspired against by reality itself. Unlike
humans, however, he attached no sentiment to idle theories with no basis in the sum of
compelling evidence.
The universe did not oppose-it simply did not care. As his desired outcome was but one of
an infinite number of possible outcomes, and could be secured only through immense and
long-term effort, any small miscalculation or misstep or unforeseen interference could
cause the “unlucky” circumstances which, if not immediately and efficiently corrected,
could lead to failure.
Daneel did not hold this view as a philosophy. Both Lodovik and Daneel, like all
high-level robots, had been programmed to accept such things without thought. Emotions of
a sort-the basic thinking patterns of social beings-were familiar to these robots, and
even had their analogs in various combinations of heuristics, but these analogues did not
often loom large in a robot's conscious awareness, any more than its realistic view of
existence. Robots were not usually prone to introspection and to examining the roots of
their conscious existence; everything referred back to their basic programs, unassailable
givens, and those programs referred back to the Three Laws.
Lodovik no longer had such constraints. He watched Eos grow larger, its solid oceans of
water-ice and methane and planes of ammonia-rich mud shading the illuminated landscape. He
was introspective. He turned his head to look at Daneel, and wondered what he was thinking.
There were only two possible reasons for a robot to attempt to model the inner processes
of another robot: to anticipate that robot's actions, and attempt to coordinate with those
actions, sharing duty, or to find some way to foil those actions. Lodovik was totally
unfamiliar with the second reason, yet that was what he hoped to do.
Somehow, he knew he had to get away from Eos without being “repaired, ” and to find the
other robots who opposed Daneel, the so-called Calvinians.
“This ship will dock in twenty-one minutes, ” the autopilot informed them, treating them
as if they were human passengers.
So far as it was able to judge, in its specialized way, they were; it knew no other kind
of passenger. Yet no passengers other than robots had traveled on this ship for thousands
of years. No human had ever been to Eos.
Somehow, Lodovik felt like an intruding and betraying- what? He labored to think of an
appropriate human word. A ghost, perhaps, malignant and deranged, masquerading in the body
of a robot...
The ship rotated slowly and the moon passed out of view. There was only the broad thick
spill of the nearest dense spiral arm, viewed almost edge-on and quite faint from this
vantage, near the diffuse rim of the Galaxy. Above and below this faint mottled band,
filling over a third of their field of view, stretched a profound blackness very thinly
scattered with lone points of light, a few stars close and within the Galactic plane,
other stars far away and high above the plane. Still others, much farther away and even
dimmer, were not stars but galaxies.
Eos's surface came back into view, much closer and rich with detail. A few craters threw
splashes of ice dust across the oceans and plains; for the most part, however, Eos' solid
hydrosphere was unmarked but for the signs of internal disruption: tortuous seams, heaves,
the puckered chasms and pressure ridges. This star system had no marauding belts of
asteroids and comets, subject to perturbation and gliding silently inward to disrupt the
moons and planets.
Eos was isolated and ignored, solid, cold, inhospitable for any living thing-and for
robots, almost completely safe.
“We have docked, ” announced the autopilot.
Had anyone looked, the station pioneered and built by R. Daneel Olivaw and R. Yan Kansarv
would have been clearly visible against Eos's frozen surface, even from millions of
kilometers in space. Its heat made it the most brilliant object on
the moon-for those seeking infrared signatures. None did, or ever had, however.
Lodovik and Daneel disembarked from the transport in a broad and almost empty hangar, with
room for many ships. Their footsteps echoed in the cavernous enclosure. Lodovik had been
here almost eighty times before, yet had never thought to be curious about this anomaly.
Why had Daneel and Kansarv wasted so much space? Had there ever been occasion when this
hangar was filled with ships-filled with robots? When had that been?
Yan Kansarv itself met them a hundred meters from the transport. It stood with “arms”
crossed and “fingers” linked, a gleaming dark steel head and body highlighted by brilliant
silver limbs-four arms, two large and emerging from where human shoulders would have been,
two small and recessed into its thorax; and three legs, on which it walked with a precise
and level grace unknown to humaniform robots. Its head was small, equipped with seven
vertical sensor bands, two of which glowed blue at any given time.
“It is a pleasure to see you again, Lodovik Trema, ” Yan said in a rich, slightly buzzing
contralto. “And Daneel. You are very late for a maintenance check and refit. ”
“We must work quickly, ” Daneel said, eliminating any human signs of greeting. Yan
immediately switched to robot microwave speech. The following detailed explanation took
less than half a second.
Yan then turned to Lodovik. “Pardon my eccentricities, ” it spoke, “but whenever possible
it gives me pleasure to exercise my human functions. I have been unable to do so for over
thirty years. Except, of course, with Dors Venabili. I fear, however, that she no longer
finds me of interest. ”
Daneel had already inquired about Dors' progress, and had received an answer. Yan,
however, explained in speech once more to Lodovik. "She has made a very satisfying
recovery, but with many lapses. When R. Daneel brought her here, she was
close to total breakdown. She had stretched any interpretation of the Zeroth Law to the
very limits by destroying a human who threatened Hari Seldon. The strain was compounded by
the effects of her victim's invention, an Electro-Clarifier, I believe it was called... "
Lodovik realized that this ancient robot, built many thousands of years ago to repair
other robots on Aurora-and the last of its kind still functional-was reacting deep in its
programming to their convincing human forms. It knew, on one level, that they were fellow
robots-but on another level, a primal and irresistible urge arose to treat them as if they
were human.
Yan Kansarv was lonely for its ancient masters.
“She awaits your company, ” Kansarv said, then, to Daneel, it added, “She wishes news of
Hari. ”
“That mission is finished for her, ” Daneel said.
“She was constructed by me, using ancient plans for convincing helpmeets and consorts, to
be as nearly human as any robot ever made, ” Kansarv reminded him. “More even than you, R.
Daneel. She bears a great resemblance to R. Lodovik in that regard. To alter that now
would be to destroy her. ”
“There is so much work to do, ” Daneel said, with a faint intonation of urgency.
Kansarv was not oblivious to this. “I can perform all the necessary tasks within
twenty-one hours, then you may leave. I hope there is time for more conversation. I need
outside stimulus now and then, or I become subject to minor malfunctions that are
irritating. ”
“We cannot afford to lose you, ” Daneel said.
“No, ” Kansarv agreed without a hint of self-pity. “The only robot I cannot repair or
manufacture is one like myself. ”
Dors Venabili stood in the simple four-room enclosure built for her upon her arrival on
Eos. The furniture and decor was
similar to what might have been found on Trantor, in the quarters of a mid-level
meritocrat or high-level university professor. The temperature was set at just above the
freezing point of water; the humidity was less than two percent, and the light level was
what a human would have regarded as murky, sub-twilight. These were optimal for a robot,
even a humaniform, with the added benefit of reducing her energy use to a minimum.
There was very little to think about or do, and there were no cycling time periods to deal
with, so Dors spent much of her existence in a continuous, fluid robotic suspension, at
one-tenth power and with thoughts slowed almost to human levels, cycling through old
memories, making connections between one past event and another.
Nearly all those memories and events involved Hari Seldon. She had been designed to
protect and nurture this one human. Since she would likely never see Seldon again, she
could now be said, quite fairly, to be obsessed with him.
Kansarv, Daneel, and Lodovik entered the quarters through the guest door and waited in the
small reception area. A few seconds later, Dors appeared, wearing a simple cloth shift,
her legs and feet bare. Her self-maintaining skin seemed healthy, and her hair was neatly
arranged, short, with a slight flip at the back.
“It is good to see you again, R. Daneel, ” she said, and nodded at Lodovik. She knew of
Lodovik, though they had never met before. Kansarv she ignored. “How goes our work on
Trantor?”
“Hari Seldon is well, ” Daneel said, knowing the question she was really asking.
“He must be aging by now, in the last decades of his life, ” she said.
“He is very near death, ” Daneel said. “In a few more years, his work will be done, and he
will die. ”
Dors listened to this with features deliberately frozen.
Lodovik detected a small tremor in her left hand, however. A remarkable simulacrum of
human emotions, he thought. Every robot must have a set of rudimentary emotional
algorithms to maintain personal equilibrium: such reactions help us to understand whether
we are performing well and complying with our instructions. But this one-
This one feels very much as a human feels. What must that be like-and how can it be
reconciled with the Three Laws, or the Zeroth Law?
“She responds well to work commands, ” Kansarv said. “But in truth there has been very
little work here for either of us for some years, since the last of the provincial robots
were returned for servicing. ”
“How are you, Dors?” Daneel asked. “I am functional, ” she said, and turned away. “I am
also underutilized. ”
“Bored?” Daneel asked. “Very. ”
“Then you will appreciate a new assignment. I will need assistance with the humans being
prepared for Star's End. ”
“That could be very useful. Will there be any contact with Hari Seldon?”
“No, ” Daneel said.
“That is good, ” Dors said. She turned to Lodovik. “Were you instructed to love and honor
Linge Chen?”
Lodovik, had he been among humans, would have smiled at this suggestion. He looked
squarely at Dors, considered for a very short time, then lifted the corners of his lips.
“No, ” he said. “I maintained a strong professional relationship with him, nothing more. ”
“Did he come to find you indispensable?” “I do not know, ” Lodovik said. “He doubtless
found me very useful, and I was able to influence many of his actions to further our ends.
”
“Daneel forbade me to influence Hari too much, ” Dors