Isaac Asimov - Robots and Empire

“If there’s a reason for it.”

“There will be,” said Mandwnus funnily. “Since these robots were designed for pioneering activities, may I assume they are equipped to explore a world and deal with primitive conditions?”

“That should be self-evident.”

“That’s perfect—but there may have to be some modifications. Do you suppose that Vasilia Fast—Aliena would be able to help me with that—if necessary? Obviously, she would be best-acquainted with the brain patterns.”

“Obviously. Still, I don’t know whether she would be willing to help you. I do know that it is physically impossible for her to do so at the moment, since she is not on Aurora.”

Mandamus looked surprised and displeased. “Where is she, then, Dr. Amadiro?”

Amadiro said, “You have seen these humaniforms and I do not wish to expose myself to these rather dismal surroundings. You have kept me waiting long enough and you must not complain if I keep you waiting now. If you have any further questions, let us deal with them in my office.”

Once in the office, Amadiro delayed things a while longer. “Wait here for me,” he said rather peremptorily and left.

Mandamus waited stiffly, sorting out his thoughts, wondering when Amadiro would return—or if he would. Was he to be arrested or simply ejected? Had Amadiro grown tired of waiting for the point?

Mandamus refused to believe that. He had gained a shrewd idea of Amadiro’s desperate desire for evening an old score. It seemed evident that Amadiro wouldn’t get tired of listening as long as there seemed the slightest chance that Mandamus would make revenge possible.

As he looked idly about Amadiro’s office, Mandamus found himself wondering whether there might be any information that might be of help to him in the computerized files almost immediately at hand. It would be useful not to have to depend directly on Amadiro for everything.

The thought was a useless one. Mandamus did not know the entry code for the files and, even if he did, there were several of Amadiro’s personal robots standing in their niches and they would stop him if he took a single step toward anything that was labeled in their minds as sensitive. Even his own robots would.

Amadiro was right. Robots were so useful and efficient—and incorruptible—as guards that the very concept of anything criminal, illegal, or simply underhanded did not occur to anyone. The tendency just atrophied—at least as against other Spacers.

He wondered how Settlers could manage without robots. Mandamus tried to imagine human personalities clashing, with no robotic bumpers to cushion the interaction, no robotic presence to give them a decent sense of security and to enforce—without their being consciously aware of it most of the time—a proper mode of morality.

It would be impossible for Settlers to be anything but barbarians under the circumstance and the Galaxy could not be left to them. Amadiro was right in that respect and had always been right, while Fastolfe was fantastically wrong.

Mandamus nodded, as though he had once again persuaded himself as to the correctness of what he was planning. He sighed and wished it were not necessary, then prepared to go over, once again, the line of reasoning that proved to him that it was necessary, when Amadiro strode in.

Amadiro was still an impressive figure, even though he was within a year of his twenty-eighth decade-day. He was very much what a Spacer ought to look like, except for the unfortunate shapelessness of his nose.

Amadiro said, “I’m sorry to have kept you waiting, but there was business I had to attend to. I am the head of this Institute and that entails responsibilities.”

Mandamus said, “Could you tell me where Dr. Vasilia Aliena is? I will then describe my project to you without delay.”

“Vasilia is on tour. She’s visiting each of the Spacer worlds to find out where they stand on robot research. She appears to think that, since the Robot Institute was founded to coordinate individual research on Aurora, interplanetary coordination would advance the cause even farther. A good idea, actually.”

Mandamus laughed, shortly and without humor. “They won’t tell her anything. I doubt any Spacer world wants to hand Aurora a more enormous lead than she already has.”

“Don’t be too sure. The Settler situation has disturbed us all.”

“Do you know where she is now?”

“We have her itinerary.”

“Get her back, Dr. Amadiro.”

Amadiro frowned. “I doubt I can do that easily. I believe she wants to be away from Aurora until her father dies.”

“Why?” asked Mandamus in surprise.

Amadiro shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t care.—But what I do know is that your time has run out. Do you understand? Get to the point or leave.” He pointed to the door grimly and Mandamus felt that the other’s patience would stretch no farther.

Mandamus said, “Very well. There is yet a third way in which Earth is unique.”

He talked easily and with due economy, as though he were going through an exposition that he had frequently rehearsed and polished for the very purpose of presenting it to Amadiro. And Amadiro found himself increasingly absorbed.

That was it! Amadiro first felt a huge sense of relief. He had been correct to gamble on the young man’s not being a crackpot. He was entirely sane.

Then came triumph. It would surely work. Of course, the young man’s view, as it was expounded, veered a bit from the path Amadiro felt it ought to follow, but that could be taken care of eventually. Modifications were always possible.

And when Mandamus was done, Amadiro said in a voice he strove to hold steady, “We won’t need Vasilia. There is appropriate expertise at the Institute to allow us to begin at once. Dr. Mandamus”—a note of formal respect entered Amadiro’s voice—“let this thing work out as planned and I cannot help but think it will—and you will be the head of the Institute when I am Chairman of the Council.”

Mandamus smiled narrowly and briefly, while Amadiro sat back in his chair and, just as briefly, allowed himself to look into the future with satisfaction and confidence, something he had not been able to do for twenty long and weary decades.

How long would it take? Decades? One decade? Part of a decade?

Not long. Not long. It must be hastened by all means so that he could live to see that old decision overturned and himself lord of Aurora—and therefore of the Spacer worlds—and therefore (with Earth and the Settler worlds doomed) even lord of the Galaxy before he died.

When Dr. Han Fastolfe died, seven years after Amadiro and Mandamus met and began their project, the hyperwave carried the news with explosive force to every corner of the occupied worlds. It merited the greatest attention everywhere.

In the Spacer worlds it was important because Fastolfe had been the most powerful man on Aurora and, therefore, in the Galaxy for over twenty decades. In the Settler worlds and on Earth, it was important because Fastolfe had been a friend insofar as a Spacer could be a friend—and the question now was whether Spacer policy would change and, if so, how.

The news came also to Vasilia Aliena and it was complicated by the bitterness that had tinged her relationship with her biological father almost from the beginning.

She had schooled herself to feel nothing when he died, yet she had not wanted to be on the same world that he was on at the time the event took place. She did not want the questions that would be leveled at her anywhere, but most frequently and insistently on Aurora.

The parent-child relationship among the Spacers was a weak and indifferent one at best. With long lives, that was a matter of course. Nor would anyone have been interested in Vasilia in that respect, but for the fact that Fastolfe was so continually prominent a party leader and Vasilia almost as prominent a partisan on the other side.