Isaac Asimov - Robots and Empire

Amadiro said drearily, “And once he’s back, he will alter us, I suppose, and we will forget his powers, and disregard him, and he will still be able to follow his own plan whatever it is.”

Vasilia leaned her head back and laughed. “Not a chance. I know Giskard, you see, and I can handle him. Just bring him back and persuade the Council to disregard Fastolfe’s will—it can be done and you can do it—and to assign Giskard to me. He will then be working for us; Aurora will rule the Galaxy, you will spend the remaining decades of your life as Chairman of the Council; and I will succeed you as the head of the Robotics Institute.”

“Are you sure it will work out that way?”

“Absolutely. Just send the message and make it strong and I will guarantee all the rest—victory for the Spacers, and ourselves, defeat for Earth and the Settlers.”

Gladia watched Aurora’s globe on the screen. Its cloud cover seemed caught in mid-swirl along the thick crescent that was shining in the light of its sun.

“Surely we’re not that close,” she said.

D.G. smiled. “By no means. We’re seeing it through a rather good lens. It’s still several days away, counting the spiral approach. If we ever get an antigravitic drive, which the physicists keep dreaming about but seem helpless to bring about, spaceflight will become really simple and fast. As it is, our Jumps can only deliver us safely to a rather goodish distance from a planetary mass.”

“It’s odd,” said Gladia thoughtfully.

“What is, madam?”

“When we went to Solaria, I thought to myself. ‘I’m going home,’ but when I landed I found that I wasn’t home at all. Now we’re going to Aurora and I thought to myself, ‘Now I’m going home,’ and yet—that world down there isn’t home, either.”

“Where is home, then, madam?”

“I’m beginning to wonder.—But why do you persist in calling me ‘madam’?”

D.G. looked surprised. “Do you prefer ‘Lady Gladia,’ Lady Gladia?”

“That’s also mock respect. Do you feel that way about me?”

“Mock respect? Certainly not. But how else does a Seater address a Spacer? I’m trying to be polite and to conform to your customs—to do what makes you feel comfortable.”

“But it doesn’t make me feel comfortable. Just call me Gladia. I’ve suggested it before. After all, I call you ‘D.G.’”

“And that suits me fine, although in front of my officers and men, I would prefer to have you address me as ‘Captain,’ and I will call you ‘madam.’” Discipline must be maintained.”

“Yes, of course,” said Gladia absently, staring at Aurora again. “I have no home.”

She whirled toward D.G., “Is it possible that you might take me to Earth, D.G.?”

“Possible,” said D.G., smiling. “You might not want to go—Gladia.”

“I think I want to go,” said Gladia, “unless I lose my courage.”

“Infection does exist,” said D.G., “and that’s what Spacers fear, isn’t it?”

“Too much, perhaps. After all, I knew your Ancestor and wasn’t infected. I have been on this ship and have survived. Look, you’re near me right now. I was even on your world, with thousands crowding near me. I think I’ve worked up a certain amount of resistance.”

“I must tell you, Gladia, that Earth is a thousand times as crowded as Baleyworld.”

“Even so,” said Gladia, her voice warming, “I’ve changed my mind completely—about many things. I’ve told you there was nothing left to live for after twenty-three decades and it turns out there is. What happened to me on Baleyworld—that talk I gave, the way it moved people—was something new, something I’d never imagined. It was like being born all over, starting again at the first decade. It seems to me now that, even if Earth kills me, it would be worth it, for I would die young and trying and fighting death, not old and weary and welcoming it.”

“Well!” said D.G., lifting his arms in a mock-heroic gesture, “you sound like a hyperwave historical. Have you ever watched them on Aurora?”

“Of course. They’re very popular.”

“Are you rehearsing for one, Gladia, or do you really mean what you say?”

Gladia laughed. “I suppose I do sound rather silly, D.G but the funny thing is that I do mean it—if I don’t lose my courage.”

“In that case, we’ll do it. We’ll go to Earth. I don’t think they’ll consider you worth a war, especially if you report fully on events on Solaria, as they want you to, and if you give your word of honor as a Spacer woman—if you do things like that—to return.”

“But I won’t.”

“But you may want to someday.—And now, my lady, I mean, Gladia—it is always a pleasure to speak with you, but I’m always tempted to spend too much time at it and I am certain I am needed in the control room. If I’m not and they can do without me, then I’d rather they didn’t find out.”

“Was that your doing, friend Giskard?”

“To what is it that you refer, friend Daneel?”

“Lady Gladia is anxious to go to Earth and even perhaps not to return. That is a desire so antithetical to what a Spacer such as she would want that I cannot help but suspect that you did something to her mind to make her feel so.”

Giskard said, “I did not touch her.—It is difficult enough to tamper with any human being within the cage of the Three Laws. To tamper with the mind of the particular individual for whose safety one is directly responsible is more difficult still.”

“Then why does she wish to go to Earth?”

“Her experiences on Baleyworld have changed her point of view considerably. She has a mission—that of ensuring peace in the Galaxy—and bums to work at it.”

“In that case, friend Giskard, would it not be better to do what you can to persuade the captain, in your own fashion, to go to Earth directly?”

“That would create difficulties. The Auroran authorities are so insistent on Lady Gladia being returned to Aurora that it would be better to do so, at least temporarily.”

“Yet it could be dangerous to do so,” said Daneel.

“Then you still think, friend Daneel, that it is I whom they want to retain because they have learned of my abilities?”

“I see no other reason for their insistence on Lady Gladia’s return.”

Giskard said, “Thinking like a man has its pitfalls, I see. It becomes possible to suppose difficulties that cannot exist. Even if someone on Aurora were to suspect the existence of my abilities, it is with those abilities that I would remove the suspicion. There is nothing to fear, friend Daneel.”

And Daneel said reluctantly, “As you say, friend Giskard.”

Gladia looked about thoughtfully, sending off the robots with a careless motion of her hand.

She looked at her hand, as she did so, almost as though she were seeing it for the first time. It had been the hand with which she had shaken the hand of each of the crewmen of the ship before getting into the small tender that took her and D.G. down to Aurora. When she promised to return, they had cheered her and Niss had bawled out, “We won’t leave without you, my lady.”

The cheering had pleased her enormously. Her robots served her endlessly, loyally, patiently, but they never cheered her.

D.G., watching her curiously, said, “Surely you are at home now, Gladia.”

“I am in my establishment,” she said in a low voice. “It has been my establishment since Dr. Fastolfe assigned it to me twenty decades ago and yet it feels strange to me.”

“It is strange to me,” said D.G. “I’d feel rather lost staying here alone.” He looked, about with a half-smile at, the ornate furnishings and the elaborately decorated walls.