Isaac Asimov - Robots and Empire

Gladia was about to speak, but D.G. intervened hastily, “Or, if it seems more convenient, for me to stay with you wherever you go—for all my life, if possible.—If it’s all right with you.”

Gladia said softly, “I’m a Spacer. You’re a Settler.”

“Who cares, Gladia? Do you?”

“I mean, there’s no question of children. I’ve had mine.”

“What difference does that make to me! There’s no danger of the name Baley dying out.”

“I have a task of my own. I intend to bring peace to the Galaxy.”

“I’ll help you.”

“And your trading? Will you give up your chance to be rich?”

“We’ll do some together. Just enough to keep my crew happy and to help me support you in your task as peacebringer.”

“Life will be dull for you, D.G.”

“Will it? It seems to me that since you joined me it’s been too exciting.”

“And you’ll probably insist on my giving up my robots.”

D.G. looked distressed. “Is that why you’ve been trying to talk me out of this? I wouldn’t mind your keeping the two of them—even Daneel and his small lecherous smile but if we’re going to live among Settlers—”

“Then I suppose I’ll have to try to find the courage to do it.”

She laughed, gently and so did D.G. He held out his arms to her and she placed her hands in his.

She said, “You’re mad. I’m mad. But everything has been so strange since the evening I looked up at the sky in Aurora and, tried to find Solaria’s sun that I suppose being mad is the only possible response to things.”

“What you’ve just said isn’t only mad,” said D.G., “it’s crazy, but that’s the way I want you to be.” He hesitated. “No, I’ll wait. I’ll shave my beard before I try to kiss you. That will lower the chances of infection.”

“No, don’t! I’m curious about how it might feel.”

And she promptly found out.

Commander Lisiform strode back and forth across the length of his cabin. He said, “There was no use losing the ship. No use at all.”

His political adviser sat quietly in his chair. His eyes did not bother to follow the agitated and rapid to-and-fro movement of the other. “Yes, of course,” he said.

“What have the barbarians to lose? They only live a few decades, in any case. Life means nothing to them.”

“Yes, of course.”

“Still, I’ve never seen or heard of a Settler ship doing that. It may be a new—fanatical tactic and we have no defense against it. What if they send drone ships against us, with shields up and full momentum but no human beings aboard?”

“We might robotify our ships entirely.”

“That wouldn’t help. We couldn’t afford to lose the ship. What we need is the shield knife they keep talking about. Something that will slice through a shield.”

“Then they’ll develop one, too, and we will have to devise a knife-proof shield, and so will they, and it will be a standoff again at a higher level.”

“We need something completely new, then.”

“Well,” said the adviser, “maybe something will turn up. Your mission wasn’t primarily the matter of the Solarian woman and her robots, was it? It would have been pleasant if we could have forced them out of the Settler ship, but that was secondary, wasn’t it?”

“The Council isn’t going to like it, just the same.”

“It’s my job to take care of that. The important fact is that Amadiro and Mandamus left the ship and are on their way to Earth in a good speedy ferry.”

“Well, yes.”

“And you not only distracted the Settler ship but delayed it as well. That means Amadiro and Mandamus not only left the ship unnoticed, but they will be on Earth before our barbarian captain will.”

“I suppose so. But what of that?”

“I wonder. If it were only Mandamus, I would dismiss the matter. He’s of no consequence. But Amadiro? To abandon the political wars back home at a difficult time and come to Earth? Something absolutely crucial must be going on here.”

“What?” The commander seemed annoyed that he should be so nearly—and so all-but-fatally—involved in something of which he understood nothing.

“I haven’t any idea.”

“Do you suppose it might be secret negotiations at the highest level for some sort of overall modification of the peace settlement Fastolfe had negotiated?”

The adviser smiled. “Peace settlement? If you think that, you don’t know our Dr. Amadiro. He wouldn’t travel to Earth in order to modify a clause or two in a peace settlement. What he’s after is a Galaxy without Settlers and if he comes to Earth—well, all I can say is that I wouldn’t like to be in the shoes of the Settler barbarians at this time.”

“I trust, friend Giskard,” said Daneel, “that Madam Gladia is not uneasy at being without us. Can you tell at her distance?”

“I can detect her mind faintly but unmistakably, friend Daneel. She is with the captain and there is a distinct overlay of excitement and joy.”

“Excellent, friend Giskard.”

“Less excellent for myself, friend Daneel. I find myself in a state of some disorder. I have been under a great strain.”

“It distresses me to hear that, friend Giskard. May I ask the reason?”

“We have been here for some time while the captain negotiated with the Auroran ship.”

“Yes, but the Auroran ship is now gone, apparently, so that the captain seems to have negotiated to good effect.”

“He has done so in a manner of which you were apparently not aware. I was—to an extent. Though the captain was not here with us, I had little trouble sensing his mind. It exuded overwhelming tension and suspense and underneath that a gathering and strengthening sense of loss.”

“Loss, friend Giskard? Were you able to determine of what that loss might consist?”

“I cannot describe my method of analysis of such things, but the loss did not seem to be the type of loss I have, in the past associated with generalities or with inanimate objects. It had the touch—that is not the word, but there is no other that fits even vaguely—of the loss of a specific person.

“Lady Gladia.”

“Yes.”

“That would be natural, friend Giskard. He was faced with the possibility of having to give her up to the Auroran vessel.”

“It was too intense for that. Too wailing.”

“Too wailing?”

“It is the only word I can think of in this connection. There was a stressful mourning associated with the sense of loss. It was not as though Lady Gladia would move elsewhere and be unavailable for that reason. That might, after all, be corrected at some future time. It was as though Lady Gladia would cease existing—would die—and be forever unavailable.”

“He felt, then, that the Aurorans would kill her? Surely that is not possible.”

“Indeed, not possible. And that is not it. I felt a thread of a sense of personal responsibility associated with the deep, deep fear of loss. I searched other minds on board ship and, putting it all together, I came to the suspicion that the captain was deliberately charging his ship into the Auroran vessel.”

“That, too, is not possible, friend Giskard,” said Daneel in a low voice.

“I had to accept it. My first impulse was to alter the captain’s emotional makeup in such a way as to force him to change course, but I could not. His mind was so firmly set, so saturated with determination and—despite the suspense, tension, and dread of loss—so filled with confidence of success—”

“How could there be at once a dread of loss through death and a feeling of confidence of success?”

“Friend Daneel, I have given up marveling at the capacity of the human mind to maintain two opposing emotions simultaneously. I merely accept it. In this case, to have attempted to alter the captain’s mind to the point of turning the ship from its course would have killed him. I could not do that.”