Robots and Empire (Page 10)
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"I don’t now. This is too sudden for thought."
"Or even impulse?" He waited, then he said, "Truthfully, Gladia, how are you getting along with Santirix?"
She looked at him wildly, as though not understanding the reason for the change of subject – then understanding. She said, "We get along well together."
"Are you happy?"
"I am – not unhappy."
"That doesn’t sound like ecstasy."
"How long can ecstasy last, even if it were ecstasy?"
"Do you plan to have children someday?"
"Yes," she said.
"Are you planning a change in marital status?"
She shook her head firmly. "Not yet."
"Then, my dear Gladia, if you want advice from a rather tired man, who feels uncomfortably old – refuse the invitation. I remember what little you told me after Baley had left Aurora and, to tell you the truth, I was able to deduce more from that than you perhaps think. If you see him, you may find it all disappointing, not living up to the deepening and mellowing glow of reminiscence; or, if it is not disappointing, worse yet, for it will disrupt a perhaps rather fragile contentment, which you will then not be able to repair.
Gladia, who had been vaguely thinking precisely that, found the proposition needed only to be placed into words to be rejected.
She said, "No, Han, I must see him, but I’m afraid to do it alone. Would you come with me?"
Fastolfe smiled wearily. "I was not invited, Gladia. And if I were, I would in any case be forced to refuse. There is an important vote coming up in the Council. Affairs of state, you know, from which I can’t absent myself."
"Poor Han!"
"Yes, indeed, poor me. But you can’t go alone. As far as I know, you can’t pilot a ship."
"Oh! Well, I thought I’d be taken up by – "
"Commercial carrier?" Fastolfe shook his head. "Quite impossible. For you – to visit and board an Earth ship in orbit openly, as would be unavoidable if you used commercial carrier, would require special permission and that would take weeks. If you don’t want to go, Gladia, you needn’t put it on the basis of not wishing to see him. If the paperwork and red tape involved would take weeks, I’m sure he can’t wait that long."
"But I do want to see him," said Gladia, now determined.
"In that case, you can take my private space vessel and Daneel can take you up there. He can handle the controls very well indeed and he is as anxious to see Baley as you are. We just won’t report the trip."
"But you’ll get into trouble, Han."
"Perhaps no one will find out – or they’ll pretend not to find out. And if anyone makes trouble, I will just have to handle it."
Gladia’s head bowed in a moment of thought and then she said, "If you don’t mind, I will be selfish and chance your having trouble, Han. I want to go."
"Then you’ll go."
6
It was a small ship, smaller than Gladia had imagined; cozy in a way, but frightening in another way. It was small enough, after all, to lack any provision for pseudo-gravity and the sensation of weightlessness, while constantly nudging at her to indulge in amusing gymnastics, just as constantly reminded her that she was in an abnormal environment.
She was a Spacer. There were over five billion Spacers spread over fifty worlds, all of them proud of the name. Yet how many of those who called themselves Spacers were really space travelers? Very few. Perhaps eighty percent of them never left the world of their birth. Even of the remaining twenty percent, hardly any passed through space more than two or three times.
Certainly, she herself was no Spacer in the literal sense of the word, she thought gloomily. Once (once!) she had traveled through space and that was from Solaria to Aurora seven years before. Now she was entering space a second time on a small private space yacht for a short trip just beyond the atmosphere, a paltry hundred thousand kilometers, with one other person – not even a person – for company.
She cast another glance at Daneel in the small pilot room. She could just see a portion of him, where he sat at the controls.
She had never been anywhere with only one robot within call. There had always been hundreds – thousands – at her disposal on Solaria. On Aurora, there were routinely dozens, if not scores. Here there was but one.
She said, "Daneel!"
He did not allow his attention to wander from the controls. "Yes, Madam Gladia?"
"Are you pleased that you will be seeing Elijah Baley again?"
"I am not certain, Madam Gladia, how best to describe my inner state. It may be that it is analogous to what a human being would describe as being pleased."
"But you must feel something."
"I feel as though I can make decisions more rapidly than I can ordinarily; my responses seem to come more easily; my movements seem to require less energy. I might interpret it generally as a sensation of well-being. At least I have heard human beings use that word and feel that what it is intended to describe is something that is analogous to the sensations I now experience."
Gladia said, "But what if I were to say I wanted to see him alone?"
"Then that would be arranged."
"Even though that meant you wouldn’t see him?"
"Yes, madam."
"Wouldn’t you then feel disappointed? I mean, wouldn’t you have a sensation that was the opposite of wellbeing? Your decisions would come less rapidly, your responses less easily, your movements would require more energy and so on."
"No, Madam Gladia, for I would have a feeling of well being at fulfilling your orders."
"Your own pleasant feeling is Third Law, and fulfilling my orders is Second Law, and Second Law takes precedence. Is that it?"
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