Isaac Asimov - Robots and Empire

He said, “I presume it will vanish altogether.”

“It will.”

D.G. wadded what was left of his napkin and placed it on the arm of the chair. A robot, in response to Gladia’s quick and unobtrusive gesture, removed it.

Gladia had deposited her own napkin in the appropriate receptacle on the table. Holding it was unmannerly and could be excused only by D.G.’s evident unfamiliarity with civilized custom. “There are some who think it has a polluting effect on the atmosphere, but there is a gentle draft that carries the residue upward and traps it in filters. I doubt that it will give us any trouble.—But you ignore my question, sir.”

D.G. said, “I don’t intend to ignore your question, my lady. I am not trying to force you to be a Solarian. I merely point out that you were born on Solaria and spent your early decades there and therefore you might reasonably be considered a Solarian, after a fashion at least.—Do you know that Solaria has been abandoned?”

“So I have heard. Yes.”

“Do you feel anything about that?”

“I am an Auroran and have been one for twenty decades.”

“That is a non sequitur.”

“A what?” She could make nothing of the last sound at all.

“It has not connection with my question.”

“A non sequitur, you mean. You said a nonsense quitter.”

D.G. smiled. “Very well. Let’s quit the nonsense. I ask you if you feel anything about the death of Solaria and you tell me you’re an Auroran. Do you maintain that is an answer? A born Auroran might feel badly at the death of a sister world. How do you feel about it?”

Gladia said icily, “It doesn’t matter. Why are you interested?”

“I’ll explain. We—I mean the Traders of the Settler worlds—are interested because there is business to be done, profits to be made, and a world to be gained. Solaria is already terraformed; it is a comfortable world; you Spacers seem to have no need or desire for it. Why would we not settle it?”

“Because it’s not yours.”

“Madam, is it yours that you object? Has Aurora any more claim to it than Baleyworld has? Can’t we suppose that an empty world belongs to whoever is pleased to settle it?”

“Have you settled it?”

“No—because it’s not empty—”

“Do you mean the Solarians have not entirely left?” Gladia said quickly.

D.G.’s smile returned and broadened into a grin. “You’re excited at the thought.—Even though you’re an Auroran.”

Gladia’s face twisted into a frown at once. “Answer my question.”

D.G. shrugged. “There were only some five thousand Solarians on the world just before it was abandoned, according to our best estimates. The population had been declining for years. But even five thousand—can we be sure that all are gone? However, that’s not the point. Even if the Solarians were indeed all gone, the planet would not be empty. There are, upon it, some two hundred million or more robots—masterless robots—some of them among the most advanced in the Galaxy. Presumably, those Solarians who left took some robots with them—it’s hard to imagine Spacers doing without robots altogether.” (He looked about, smiling, at the robots in their niches within the room.) “However, they can’t possibly have taken forty thousand robots apiece.”

Gladia said, “Well, then, since your Settler worlds are so purely robot-free and wish to stay so, I presume, you can’t settle Solaria.”

“That’s right. Not until the robots are gone and that is where Traders such as myself come in.”

“In what way?”

“We don’t want a robot society, but we don’t mind touching robots and dealing with them in the way of business. We don’t have a superstitious fear of the things. We just know that a robot society is bound to decay. The Spacers have carefully made that plain to us by example. So that while we don’t want to live with this robotic poison, we are perfectly willing to sell it to Spacers for a substantial sum—if they are so foolish as to want such a society—”

“Do you think Spacers will buy them?”

“I’m sure they will. They will welcome the elegant models that the Solarians manufacture. It’s well known that they were the leading robot designers in the Galaxy, even though the late Dr. Fastolfe is said to have been unparalleled in the field, despite the fact that he was an Auroran.—Besides, even though we would charge a substantial sum, that sum would still be considerably less than the robots are worth. Spacers, and Traders would both profit—the secret of successful trade.

“The Spacers wouldn’t buy robots from Settlers,” said Gladia with evident contempt.

D.G. had a Trader’s way of ignoring such nonessentials as anger or contempt. It was business that counted. He said, “Of course they would. Offer them advanced robots at halfprice and why should they turn them down? Where business is to be done, you would be surprised how unimportant questions of ideology become.”

“I think you’ll be the one to be surprised. Try to sell your robots and you’ll see.”

“Would that I could, my lady. Try to sell them, that is. I have none on hand.”

“Why not?”

“Because none have been collected. Two separate trading vessels have landed on Solaria, each capable of storing some twenty-five robots. Had they succeeded, whole fleets of trading vessels would have followed them and I dare say we would have continued to do business for decades—and then have settled the world.”

“But they didn’t succeed. Why not?”

“Because both ships were destroyed on the surface of the planet and, as far as we can tell, all the crewmen are dead.”

“Equipment failure?”

“Nonsense. Both landed safely; they were not wrecked. Their last reports were that Spacers were approaching whether Solarians or natives of other Spacer worlds, we don’t know. We can only assume that the Spacers attacked without warning.”

“That’s impossible!”

“Is it?”

“Of course it’s impossible. What would be the motive?”

“To keep us off the world, I would say.”

“If they wished to do that,” said Gladia, “they would merely have had to announce that the world was occupied.”

“They might find it more pleasant to kill a few Settlers. At least, that’s what many of our people think and there is pressure to settle the matter by sending a few warships to Solaria and establishing a military base on the planet.”

“That would be dangerous.”

“Certainly. It could lead to war. Some of our fire-eaters look forward to that. Perhaps some Spacers look forward to that, too, and have destroyed the two ships merely to provoke hostilities.”

Gladia sat there amazed. There had been no hint of strained relations between Spacers and Settlers on any of the news programs.

She said, “Surely it’s possible to discuss the matter. Have your people approached the Spacer Federation?”

“A thoroughly unimportant body, but we have. We’ve also approached the Auroran Council.”

“And?”

“The Spacers deny everything. They suggest that the potential profits in the Solarian robot trade are so high that Traders, who are interested only in money—as though they themselves are not—would fight each other over the matter. Apparently, they would have us believe the two ships destroyed each other, each hoping to monopolize the trade for their own world.”

“The two ships were from I two different worlds, then?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t you think, then, that there might indeed have been a fight between them?”

“I don’t think it’s likely, but I will admit it’s possible. There have been no outright conflicts between the Settler worlds, but there have been some pretty strenuous disputes. All have been settled through arbitration by Earth. Still, it is indeed a fact that the Settler worlds might, in a pinch, not hang together when multibillion-dollar trade is at stake. That’s why war is not such a good idea for us and why something will have to be done to discourage the hotheads. That’s where we come in.”