Robots and Empire (Page 25)

She had been cast into imbalance by Mandamus’s claim of descent, that’s what it was. In a society where no one cared about descent or relationship except for medico-genetic reasons, its sudden intrusion into a conversation was bound to be upsetting. That and the repeated (but surely accidental) references to Elijah.

She decided she was finding excuses for herself and, in impatience, she tossed it all away. She had reacted badly and had babbled like a baby and that was all there was to it.

Now there was this Settler coming.

He was not an Earthman. He had not been born on Earth, she was sure, and it was quite possible that he had never even visited Earth. His people might have lived on a strange world she had never heard of and might have done so for generations.

That would make him a Spacer, she thought. Spacers were descended from Earthmen, too – centuries further back, but what did that matter? To be sure, Spacers were long lived and these Settlers must be short-lived, but how much of a distinction was that? Even a Spacer might die prematurely through some freak accident; she had once heard of a Spacer who had died a natural death before he was sixty. Why not, then, think of the next visitor as a Spacer with an unusual accent?

But it wasn’t that simple. No doubt the Settler did not feel himself to be a Spacer. It’s not what you are that counts, but what you feel yourself to be. So think of him as a Settler, not a Spacer.

Yet weren’t all human beings simply human beings no matter what name – you applied to them – Spacers, Settlers, Aurorans, Earthpeople. The proof of it was that robots could not do injury to any of them. Daneel would spring as quickly to the defense of the most ignorant Earthman as to the Chairman of the Auroran Council – and that meant –

She could feel herself drifting, actually relaxing into a shallow sleep when a sudden thought entered her mind and seemed to ricochet there.

Why was the Settler named Baley?

Her mind sharpened and snapped out of the welcoming coils of oblivion that had all but engulfed her.

Why Baley?

Perhaps it was simply a common name among the Settlers. After all, it was Elijah who had made it all possible and he had to be a hero to them as – as –

She could not think of an analogous hero to Aurorans. Who had led the expedition that first reached Aurora? Who had supervised the terraformation of the raw barely living world that Aurora had then been? She did not know.

Was her ignorance born of the fact that she had been brought up on Solaria – or was it that the Aurorans simply had no founding hero? After all, the first expedition to Aurora had consisted of mere Earthpeople. It was only in later generations, with lengthening life-spans, thanks to the adjustments of sophisticated bio-engineering, that Earthpeople had become Aurorans. And after that, why should Aurorans wish to make heroes of their despised predecessors?

But Settlers might make heroes of Earthpeople. They had not yet changed, perhaps. They might change eventually and then Elijah would be forgotten in embarrassment, but till then –

That must be it. Probably half the Settlers alive had adopted the Baley surname. Poor Elijah! Everyone crowding onto his shoulders and into his shadow. Poor Elijah – dear Elijah –

And she did fall asleep.

16

The sleep was too restless to restore her to calm, let alone good humor. She was scowling without knowing that she was – and had she seen herself in the mirror, she would have been taken aback by her middle-aged appearance.

Daneel, to whom Gladia was a human being, regardless of age, appearance, or mood, said, "Madam – " Gladia interrupted, with a small shiver. "Is the Settler here?"

She looked up at the clock ribbon on the wall and then made a quick gesture, in response to which Daneel at once adjusted the heat upward. (It had been a cool day and was going to be a cooler evening.) Daneel said, "He is, madam."

"Where have you put him?"

"In the main guest room, madam. Giskard is with him and the household robots are all within call."

"I hope they will have the judgment to find out what he expects to eat for lunch. I don’t know Settler cuisine. And I hope they can make some reasonable attempt to meet his requests."

"I am sure, madam, that Giskard will handle the matter competently."

Gladia was sure of that, too, but she merely snorted. At least it would have been a snort if Gladia were the sort of person who snorted. She didn’t think she was.

"I presume," she said, "he’s been in appropriate quarantine before being allowed to land."

"It would be inconceivable for him not to have been, madam."

She said, "Just the same, I’ll wear my gloves and my nose filter."

She stepped out of her bedroom, was distantly aware that there were household robots about her, and made the sign that would get her a new pair of gloves and a fresh nose filter. Every establishment had its own vocabulary of signs and every human member of an establishment cultivated those signs, learning to make them both rapidly and unnoticeably. A robot was expected to follow these unobtrusive orders of its human overlords as though it read minds; and it followed that a robot could not follow the orders of nonestablishment human beings except by careful speech.

Nothing would humiliate a human member of an establishment more than to have one of the robots of the establishment hesitate in fulfilling an order or, worse, fulfill it incorrectly. That would mean that the human being had fumbled a sign – or that the robot had.

Generally, Gladia knew, it was the human being who was at fault, but in virtually every case, this was not admitted. It was the robot who was handed over for an unnecessary response analysis or unfairly put up for sale. Gladia had always felt that she would never fall into that trap of wounded ego, yet if at that moment she had not received her gloves and nose filter, she would have –