Isaac Asimov - Robots and Empire

“I should now add a third occasion for, this last month, I have faced a great deal of excitement, reaching its climax with my being required to stand up before you all, something which is entirely different from anything I have ever done in all my long life. And I must admit it is only your own good nature and kind acceptance of me that makes it possible.

“Consider, each of you, the contrast of all this with your own lives. You are pioneers and you live on a pioneer world. This world has been growing all your lives and will continue to grow. This world is anything but settled down and each day is—and must be—an adventure. The very climate is an adventure. You have first cold, then heat, then cold again. It is a climate rich in wind and storms and sudden change. At no time can you sit back and let time pass drowsily in a world that changes gently or not at all.

“Many Baleyworlders are Traders or can choose to be Traders and can then spend half their time scouring the space lanes. And if ever this world grows tame, many of its inhabitants can choose to transfer their sphere of activities to another less-developed world or join an expedition that will find a suitable world that has not yet felt the step of human beings and take their share in shaping it and seeding it and making it fit for human occupancy.

“Measure the length of life by events and deeds, accomplishments and excitements, and I am a child, younger than any of you. The large number of my years has served merely to bore and weary me; the smaller number of yours to enrich and excite you.—So tell me again, Madam Lambid, how old are you?”

Lambid smiled. “Fifty-four good years, Madam Gladia.”

She sat down and again the applause welled up and continued. Under cover of that, D.G. said hoarsely, “Lady Gladia, who taught you how to handle an audience like this?”

“No one,” she whispered back. “I never tried before.”

“But quit while you’re ahead. The person now getting to his feet is our leading war hawk. There’s no need to face him. Say you are tired and sit down. We will tackle Old Man Bistervan ourselves.”

“But I’m not tired,” said Gladia. “I’m enjoying myself.”

The man now facing her from her extreme right but rather near the stage was a tall, vigorous man with shaggy white eyebrows hanging over his eyes. His thinning hair was also white and his garments were a somber black, relieved by a white stripe running down each sleeve and trouser leg, as though setting sharp limits to his body.

His voice was deep and musical. “My name,” he said, “is Tomas Bistervan and I’m known to many as the Old Man, largely, I think, because they wish I were and that I would not delay too long in dying. I do not know how to address you because you do not seem to have a family name and because I do not know you well enough to use your given name. To be honest, I do not wish to know you that well.

“Apparently, you helped save a Baleyworld ship on your world against the booby traps and weapons set up by your people and we are thanking you for that. In return, you have delivered some pious nonsense about friendship and kinship. Pure hypocrisy!

“When have your people felt kin to us? When have the Spacers felt any relationship to Earth and its people? Certainly, you Spacers are descended from Earthmen. We don’t forget that. Nor do we forget that you have forgotten it. For well over twenty decades, the Spacers controlled the Galaxy and treated Earthpeople as though they were hateful, shortlived, diseased animals. Now that we are growing strong, you hold out the hand of friendship, but that hand has a glove on it, as your hands do. You try to remember not to turn up your nose at us, but the nose, even if not turned up, has plugs in it. Well? Am I correct?”

Gladia held up her hands. “It may be,” she said, “that the audience here in this room—and, even more so, the audience outside the room that sees me, via hyperwave—is not aware that I am wearing gloves. They are not obtrusive, but they are there. I do not deny that. And, I have nose plugs that filter out dust and microorgamsms without too much interference with breathing. And I am careful to spray my throat periodically. And I wash perhaps a bit more than the requirements of cleanliness alone make necessary. I deny none of it.

“But this is the result of my shortcomings, not yours. My immune system is not strong. My life has been too comfortable and I have been exposed to too little. That was not my deliberate choice, but I must pay the penalty for it. If any of you were in my unfortunate position, what would you do? In particular, Mr. Bistervan, what would you do?”

Bistervan said grimly, “I would do as you do and I would consider it a sign of weakness, a sign that I was unfit and unadjusted to life and that I therefore ought to make way for those who are strong. Woman, don’t speak of kinship to us. You are no kin of mine. You are of those who persecuted and tried to destroy us when you were strong and who come whining to us when you are weak.”

There was a stir in the audience—and by no means a friendly one—but Bistervan held his ground firmly.

Gladia said softly, “Do you remember the evil we did when we were strong?”

Bistervan said,—“Don’t fear that we will forget. It is in our minds every day.”

“Good! Because now you know what to avoid. You have learned that when the strong oppress the weak, that is wrong. Therefore, when the table turns and when you are strong and we are weak, you will not be oppressive.”

“Ah, yes. I have heard the argument. When you were strong, you never heard of morality, but now that you are weak, you preach it earnestly.”

“In your case, though, when you were weak, you knew all about morality and were appalled by the behavior of the strong—and now that you are strong, you forget morality. Surely it is better that the immoral learn morality through adversity than that the moral forget morality in prosperity.”

“We will give what we received,” said Bistervan, holding up his clenched fist.

“You should give what you would have liked to receive,” said Gladia, holding out her arms, as though embracing. “Since everyone can think of some past injustice to avenge, what you are saying, my friend, is that it is right for the strong to oppress the weak. And when you say that, you justify the Spacers of the past and should therefore have no complaint of the present. What I say is that oppression was wrong when we practiced it in the past and that it will be equally wrong when you practice it in the future. We cannot change the past, unfortunately, but we can still decide on what the future shall be.”

Gladia paused. When Bistervan did not answer immediately, she called out, “How many want a new Galaxy, not the bad old Galaxy endlessly repeated?”

The applause began, but Bistervan threw his arms up and shouted in stentorian fashion, “Wait! Wait! Don’t be fools! Stop!”

There was a slow quieting and Bistervan said, “Do you suppose this woman believes what she is saying? Do you suppose the Spacers intend us any good whatever? They still think they are strong, and they still despise us, and they intend to destroy us—if we don’t destroy them first. This woman comes here and, like fools, we greet her and make much of her. Well, put her words to the test. Let any of you apply for permission to visit a Spacer world and see if you can. Or if you have a world behind you and can use threats, as Captain Baley did, so that you are allowed to land on the world, how will you be treated? Ask the captain if he was treated like kin.

“This woman is a hypocrite, in spite of all her words—no, because of them. They are the spoken advertisements of her hypocrisy. She moans and whines about her inadequate immune system and says that she must protect herself against the danger of infection. Of course, she doesn’t do this because she thinks we are foul and diseased. That thought, I suppose, never occurs to her.