Isaac Asimov - Robots and Empire

“No, not yet. First, we’re walking toward a group of robots. You see them, I hope.”

“Yes, I do, but they’re not doing anything.”

“No, they’re not. There were many more robots present when we first landed. Most of them have gone, but these remain. Why?”

“If we ask them, they’ll tell us.”

“ You will ask them, Lady Gladia.”

“They’ll answer you, D.G., as readily as they’ll answer me. We’re equally human.”

D.G. stopped short and the other two stopped with him. He turned to Gladia and said, smiling, “My dear Lady Gladia, equally human? A Spacer and a Settler? Whatever has come over you?”

“We are equally human to a robot,” she said waspishly.

“And please don’t play games. I did not play the game of Spacer and Earthman with your Ancestor.”

D.G.’s smile vanished. “That’s true. My apologies, my lady. I shall try to control my sense of the sardonic for, after all, on this world we are allies.”

He said, a moment later, “Now, madam, what I want you to do is to find out what orders the robots have been given—if any; if there are any robots that might, by some chance, know you; if there are any human beings on the estate or on the world; or anything else it occurs to you to ask. They shouldn’t be dangerous; they’re robots and you’re human; they can’t hurt you. To be sure,” he added, remembering, “your Daneel rather manhandled Niss, but that was under conditions that don’t apply here. And Daneel may go with you.”

Respectfully, Daneel said, “I would in any case accompany Lady Gladia, Captain. That is my function.”

“Giskard’s function, too, I imagine,” said D.G., “and yet he’s wandered off.”

“For a purpose, Captain, that he discussed with me and that we agreed was an essential way of protecting Lady Gladia.”

“Very well. You two move forward. I’ll cover you both.”

He drew the weapon on his right hip. “If I call out ‘Drop,’ the two of you fall down instantly. This thing does not play favorites.”

“Please don’t use it as anything but a last resort, D.G.,” said Gladia. “There would scarcely be an occasion to against robots. Come, Daneel!”

Off she went, stepping forward rapidly and firmly toward the group of about a dozen robots that were standing just in front of a line of low bushes with the morning sun reflecting in glints here and there from their burnished exteriors.

The robots did not retreat, nor did they advance. They remained calmly in place. Gladia counted them. Eleven in plain sight. There might be others, possibly, that were unseen.

They were designed Solaria-fashion. Very polished. Very smooth. No illusion of clothing and not much realism. They were almost like—mathematical abstractions of the human body, with no two of them quite alike.

She had the feeling that they were by no means as flexible or complex as Auroran robots but were more single mindedly adapted to specific tasks.

She stopped at least four meters from the line of robots and Daneel (she sensed) stopped as soon as she did and remained less than a meter behind. He was close enough to interfere at once in case of need, but was far enough back to make it clear that she was the dominant spokesperson of the pair. The robots before her, she was certain, viewed Daneel as a human being, but she also knew that Daneel was too conscious of himself as a robot to presume upon the misconception of other robots.

Gladia said, “Which one of you will speak with me?”

There was a brief period of silence, as though an unspoken conference were taking place. Then one robot took a step forward. “Madam, I will speak.”

“Do you have a name?”

“No, madam. I have only a serial number.”

“How long have you been operational?”

“I have been operational twenty-nine years, madam.”

“Has anyone else in this group been operational for longer?”

“No, madam. It is why I, rather than another, am speaking.”

“How many robots are employed on this estate?”

“I do not have that figure, madam.”

“Roughly.”

“Perhaps ten thousand, madam.”

“Have any been operational for longer than twenty decades?”

“The agricultural robots some who may, madam.”

“And the household robots?”

“They have not been operational long, madam—The masters prefer new-model robots.”

Gladia nodded, turned to Daneel, and said, “That makes sense. It was so in my day, too.”

She turned back to the robot. “To whom does this estate belong?”

“It is the Zoberlon Estate, madam.”

“How long has it belonged to the Zoberlon family?”

“Longer, madam, than I have been operational. I do not know how much longer, but the information can be obtained.”

“To whom did it belong before the Zoberlons took possession?”

“I do not know, madam, but the information can be obtained.”

“Have you ever heard of the Delmarre family?”

“No, madam.”

Gladia turned to Daneel and said, rather ruefully, “I’m trying to lead the robot, little by little, as Elijah might once have done, but I don’t think I know how to do it properly.”

“On the contrary, Lady Gladia,” said Daneel gravely, “it seems to me you have established much. It is not likely that any robot on this estate, except perhaps for a few of the agriculturals, would have any memory of you. Would you have encountered any of the agriculturals in your time?”

Gladia shook her head. “Never! I don’t recall seeing any of them even in the distance.”

“It is clear, then, that you are not known on this estate.”

“Exactly. And poor D.G. has brought us along for nothing. If he expected any good of me, he has failed.”

“To know the truth is always useful, madam. Not to be known is, in this case, less useful than to be known, but not to know whether one is known or not would be less useful still. Are there not, perhaps, other points on which you might elicit information?”

“Yes, let’s see—” For a few seconds, she was lost in thought, then she said softly, “It’s odd. When I speak to robots, I speak with a pronounced Solarian accent, yet I do not speak so to you.”

Daneel said, “It is not surprising, Lady Gladia. The robots speak with such an accent, for they are Solarian. That brings back the days of your youth and you speak, automatically, as you spoke then. You are at once yourself, however, when you turn to me because I am part of your present world.”

A slow smile appeared on Gladia’s face and she said, “You reason more and more like a human being, Daneel.”

She turned back to the robots and was keenly aware of the peacefulness of the surroundings. The sky was an almost unmarked blue, except for a thin line of clouds on the western horizon (indicating that it might turn cloudy in the afternoon). There was the sound of rustling leaves in a light wind, the whirring of insects, a lonely birdcall. No sound of human beings. There might be many robots about, but they worked silently. There weren’t the exuberant sounds of human beings that she had grown accustomed to (painfully, at first) on Aurora.

But now back on Solaria, she found the peace wonderful. It had not been all bad on Solaria. She had to admit it.

She said to the robot quickly, with a note of compulsion, edging her voice, “Where are your masters?”

It was useless, however, to try to hurry or alarm a robot or to catch it off-guard. It said, without any sign of perturbation. “They are gone, madam.”

“Where have they gone?”

“I don’t know, madam. I was not told.”

“Which of you knows?”

There was a complete silence.