Isaac Asimov: The Robots of Dawn

“I know. But, what I want to say, Dad, is that I appreciate you. And this time when you come back, you’ll get that from everybody and not just from me.”

Baley felt himself melting. He nodded rapidly, put a hand on his son’s shoulder, and muttered, “Thanks. Take care of yourself—and your mother—while I’m gone.”

He walked away, not looking back. He had told Ben that he was going to Aurora to discuss the settlement, project if that were so, he might come back in triumph. As it was—

He thought: I’ll come back in disgrace if I come back at all.

It was Baley’s third time on a spaceship and the passage of two years had in no way dimmed his memory of the first two times. He knew exactly what to expect.

There would be the isolation the fact that no one would see him or have anything to do with him, with the exception (perhaps) of a robot. There would be the constant medical treatment—the fumigation and sterilization. (No other way of putting it.) There would be the attempt to make him fit to approach the disease-conscious Spacers who thought of Earthpeople as walking bags of multifarious infections.

There would be differences, too, however. He would not, this time, be quite so afraid of the process. Surely the feeling of loss at being out of the womb would be less dreadful.

He would be prepared for the wider surroundings. This time he told himself boldly (but with a small knot in his stomach, for all that), he might even be able to insist on being given a view of space.

Would it look different from photographs of the night sky as seen from Outside? He wondered.

He remembered his first view of a planetarium dome (safely within the City, of course). It had given him no sensation of being Outside, no discomfort at all.

Then there were the two times—no, three—that he had been in the open at night and saw the real stars in the real dome of the sky. That had been far less impressive than the planetarium dome had been, but there had been a coot wind each time and a feeling of distance, which made it more frightening than the dome—but less frightening than daytime, for the darkness was a comforting wall about him.

Would, then, the sight of the stars through a spaceship viewing window seem more like a planetarium or more like Earth’s night sky? Or would it be a different sensation altogether?

He concentrated on that, as though to wash out the thought of leaving Jessie, Ben, and the City.

With nothing less than bravado, he refused the car and insisted on walking the short distance from the gate to the ship in the company of the robot who had come for him. It was just a roofed-over arcade, after all.

The passage was slightly curved and he looked back while he could still see Ben at the other end. He lifted his hand casually, as though he were taking the Expressway to Trenton, and Ben waved both arms wildly, holding up the first two fingers of each hand outspread in the ancient symbol of victory.

Victory? A useless gesture, Baley was certain.

He switched to another thought that might serve to fill, and occupy him. What would it be like to board a spaceship by day, with the sun shining brightly on its metal and with himself and the others who were boarding all exposed to the Outside.

How would it feel to be entirely aware of a tiny cylindrical world, one that would detach itself from the infinitely larger world to which it was temporarily attached and that would then lose itself in an Outside, infinitely larger than any Outside on, Earth, until after an endless stretch of Nothingness it would find another—

He held himself grimly to a steady walk, letting no change in expression show—or so he thought, at least. The robot at his sidle, however, brought him to a halt.

“Are you ill, sir?” (Not “master,” merely “sir.” It was an Auroran robot.)

“I’m all right, boy,” said Baley hoarsely. “Move on.”

He kept his eyes turned to the ground and did not lift them again till the ship itself was towering above him.

An Auroran ship!

He was sure of that. Outlined by a warm spotlight, it soared taller, more gracefully, and yet more powerfully than the Solarian ships had.

Baley moved inside and the comparison remained in favor of Aurora. His room was larger than the ones two years before had been: more luxurious, more comfortable.

He knew exactly what was coming and removed all his clothes without hesitation. (Perhaps they would be disintegrated by plasma torch. Certainly, he would not get them back on returning to Earth—if he returned. He hadn’t the first time.)

He would receive no other clothes till he had been thoroughly bathed, examined, dosed, and injected. He almost welcomed the humiliating, procedures imposed on him. After all, it served to keep his mind off what was taking place. He was scarcely aware of the initial acceleration and scarcely had time to think of the moment during which he left Earth and entered space.

When he was finally dressed again, he surveyed the results unhappily in a mirror. The material, whatever it was, was smooth, and reflective and shifted color with any change in angle. The trouser legs hugged his ankles and were, in turn, covered by the tops of shoes that molded themselves softly to his feet. The sleeves of his blouse hugged his wrists and his hands were covered by thin, transparent gloves. The top of the blouse covered his neck and an attached hood could, if desired, cover his head. He was being so covered, not for his own comfort, he knew, but to reduce his danger to the Spacers.

He thought, as he looked at the outfit, that he should feel uncomfortably enclosed, uncomfortably hot, uncomfortably damp. But he did not. He wasn’t, to his enormous relief, even sweating.

He made the reasonable deduction. He said to the robot that had walked him to the ship and was still, with him, “Boy, are these clothes temperature-controlled?”

The robot said, “Indeed they are, sir. It is all-weather cloth and is considered very desirable. It is also exceedingly expensive. Few on Aurora are in a position to wear it.”

“That so? Jehoshaphat!”

He stared at the robot. It seemed a fairly primitive model, not very much different from Earth models, in fact. Still, there was a certain subtlety of expression that Earth models lacked’. It could change expression in a limited way” for instance. It had smiled very slightly when it indicated that Baley had been given that which few on Aurora could afford.

The structure of its body resembled metal and yet had the look of something woven, something shifting slightly with movement, something with, colors that matched and contrasted pleasingly. In short, unless one looked very closely and steadily, the robot, though definitely nonhumaniform, seemed to be wearing clothing.

Baley said, “What ought I to call you, boy?”

“I am Giskard, sir.”

“R. Giskard?”

“If you wish, sir.”

“Do you have a library on this ship?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Can you get me book-films on Aurora?”

“What kind, sir?”

“Histories—political science—geographies—anything that will let me know about the planet.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And a viewer.”

“Yes, sir.

The robot left through the double door and Baley nodded grimly to himself. On his trip to Solaria, it had never occurred to him to spend the useless time crossing space in learning something useful. He had come along a bit in the last two years.

He tried the door the robot had just passed through. It was locked and utterly without give. He would have been enormously surprised at anything else.

He investigated the room. There was a hyperwave screen. He handled the controls idly, received a blast of music, managed to lower the volume eventually, and, listened with disapproval. Tinkly and discordant. The instruments of the orchestra seemed vaguely distorted,