Isaac Asimov - Robots and Empire

Slowly Quintana shook her head. “No. I can’t say it does. It’s certainly not a word you’ll find in a dictionary of Standard Galactic. I’m sorry, Daneel. It’s pleasant meeting you again, but I have a desk full of trivia to work through. You’ll excuse me.”

Daneel said, as though he hadn’t heard her, “I was told, madam, that ‘mile’ might be an archaic expression that refers to some ancient unit of length, one that is possibly longer than a kilometer.”

“That sounds totally irrelevant,” said Quintana, “even if true. What would a robot from Aurora know about archaic expressions and ancient—” She stopped abruptly. Her eyes widened and her face lost color.

She said, “Is it possible?”

“Is what possible, madam?” asked Daneel.

“There is a place,” said Quintana, half-lost in thought, “that is avoided by everyone—Earthpeople and Earth robots alike. If I wanted to be dramatic, I would say it was a place of ill omen. It is so ill-omened that is has been all but wiped out of conscious existence. It is not even included in maps. It is the quintessence of all that fission means. I remember coming across it in a very old reference film in my early days on this job. It was talked about constantly then as the site of an ‘incident’ that forever turned the minds of Earthpeople against fission as an energy source. The place is called Three Mile Island.”

Daneel said, “An isolated place then, absolutely isolated and free from any possible intrusion; the sort of place one would surely come across when working one’s way through ancient reference material on fission and would then recognize at once as an ideal base where absolute secrecy was required; and with a three-word name of which ‘mile’ is the second word. That must be the place, madam.—Could you tell us how to get there and could you arrange some way of allowing us to leave the City and be taken to Three Mile Island or its nearest possible vicinity?”

Quintana smiled. She seemed younger when she smiled. “Clearly, if you are dealing with an interesting case of interstellar espionage, you can’t afford to waste time, can you?”

“No. Indeed we cannot, madam.”

“Well, then, it comes within the purview of my duties to take a look at Three Mile Island. Why don’t I take you by air-car? I can handle an air-car.”

“Madam, your work load—”

“No one will touch it. It will still be here when I return.”

“But you would be leaving the City—”

“And if so? These are not old times. In the bad old days of Spacer domination, Earthpeople never left their Cities, it’s true, but we’ve been moving outward and settling the Galaxy for nearly twenty decades. There are still some of the less educated who maintain the old provincial attitude, but most of us have become quite mobile. There’s always the feeling, I suppose, that we might eventually join some Settler group. I myself don’t intend to, but I fly my own air-car frequently and five years ago I flew to Chicago and then, eventually, flew back.—Sit here. I’ll make the arrangements.”

She left, very much a whirlwind.

Daneel looked after her and murmured, “Friend Giskard, that, somehow, did not seem characteristic of her. Have you done something?”

Giskard said, “A bit. It seemed to me when we entered that the young woman who showed us in was attracted by your appearance. I was certain that there had been the same factor in Madam Quintana’s mind last night at the banquet, though I was too far from her and there were too many others in the room for me to be sure. Once our conversation with her began, however, the attraction was unmistakable. Little by little, I strengthened it and each time she suggested the interview might come to an end, she seemed less determined—and at no time did she seriously object to your continuing it. Finally, she suggested the air-car because, I believe, she had reached the point where she could not bear to lose the chance to be with you for a while longer.”

“This may complicate matters for me,” said Daneel thoughtfully.

“It is in a good cause,” said Giskard. “Think of it in terms of the Zeroth Law.” Somehow he gave the impression, in saying so, that he would be smiling—if his face allowed such an expression.

Quintana drew a sigh of relief as she landed the air-car on a concrete slab suitable for the purpose. Two robots approached at once for the obligatory examination of the vehicle and for repowering if necessary.

She looked out to the right, leaning across Daneel as she did so. “It is in that direction, several miles up the Susquehanna River. It’s a hot day, too.” She straightened, with some apparent reluctance, and smiled at Daneel. “That’s the worst of leaving the City. The environment is totally uncontrolled out here. Imagine allowing it to be this hot. Don’t you feel hot, Daneel?”

“I have an internal thermostat, madam, that is in good working order.”

“Wonderful. I wish I did. There are no roads into this area, Daneel. Nor are there any robots to guide you, for they never enter it. Nor do I know what might be the right place within the area, which is a sizable one. We might stumble all through the area without coming upon the base, even though we passed within five-hundred meters of it.”

“Not ‘we,’” madam. It is quite necessary for you to remain here. What follows might conceivably be dangerous and since you are without air-conditioning, the task might be more than you could easily bear, physically, even if it were not dangerous. Could you wait for us, madam? To have you do so would be important to me.”

“I will wait.”

“We may be some hours.”

“There are facilities of various sorts here and the small City of Harrisburg is not far.”

“In that case, madam, we must be on our way.”

He sprang lightly from the air-car and Giskard followed him. They set off northward. It was nearly noon and the bright summer sun sparkled from the polished portion of Giskard’s body.

Daneel said, “Any sign of mental activity you can detect will be those we want. There should be no one else for kilometers about.”

“Are you certain that we can stop them if we encounter them, friend Daneel?”

“No, friend Giskard, I am by no means certain—but we must.”

Levular Mandamus grunted and looked up at Amadiro with a tight smile on his thin face.

“Amazing,” he said, “and most satisfactory.”

Amadiro mopped his brow and cheeks with a piece of toweling and said, “What does that mean?”

“It means that every relay station is in working order.”

“Then you can initiate the intensification?”

“As soon as I calculate the proper degree of W particle concentration.”

“And how long will that take?”

“Fifteen minutes. Thirty.”

Amadiro watched with an air of intensifying grimness on his face until Mandamus said, “All right. I have it. It’s 2.72 on the arbitrary scale I have set up. That will give us fifteen decades before an upper equilibrium level win be reached that will be maintained without essential change, for millions of years thereafter. And that level will make certain that, at best, Earth can maintain a few scattered groups in areas that are relatively radiation-free. We’ll have only to wait and, in fifteen decades, a thoroughly disorganized group of Settler worlds will be meat, for our slicing.”

“I will not live fifteen more decades,” said Amadiro slowly.

“My personal regrets, sir,” said Mandamus dryly, “but we are now talking of Aurora and the Spacer worlds. There will be others who will carry on your task.”

“You, for instance?”

“You have promised me the headship of the Institute and as you see, I have earned it. From that political base, I may reasonably hope to become Chairman someday and I will carry through those policies that will be necessary to make certain of the final dissolution of the by-then anarchic worlds of the Settlers.”