Robots and Empire (Page 35)

"You reason, then, friend Daneel, that it will be a blow at Earth itself."

"Yes, friend Giskard. Earth contains the vast majority of the short-lived human beings; it is the perennial source of emigrants to the Settler worlds and is the chief raw material for the founding of new ones; it is the revered homeland of all the Settlers. If Earth were somehow destroyed, the Settler movement might never recover."

"But would not the Settler worlds then retaliate as strongly and as forcefully as they would if one of themselves were destroyed? That would seem to me to be inevitable."

"And to me, friend Giskard. Therefore, it seems to me that unless the Spacer worlds have gone insane, the blow would have to be a subtle one; one for which the Spacer worlds would seem to bear no responsibility."

"Why not such a subtle blow against the Settler worlds, which hold most of the actual war potential of the Earthpeople?"

"Either because the Spacers feel the blow against Earth would be more psychologically devastating or because the nature of the blow is such that it would work only against Earth and not against the Settler worlds. I suspect the latter, since Earth is a unique world and has a society that is not like that of any other world – Settler or, for that matter, Spacer."

"To summarize, then, friend Daneel, you come to the conclusion that the Spacers are planning a subtle blow against Earth that will destroy it without evidence of themselves as the cause, and one that would not work against any other world, and that they are not yet ready to launch that blow."

"Yes, friend Giskard, but they may soon be ready – and once they are ready, they will have to strike immediately. Any delay will increase the chance of some leak that will give them away."

"To deduce all this, friend Daneel, from the small indications we have is most praiseworthy. Now tell me the nature of the blow. What is it, precisely, that the Spacers plan?"

"I have come this far, friend Giskard, across very shaky ground, without being certain that my reasoning is entirely sound. But even if we suppose it is, I can go no further. I fear I do not know and cannot imagine what the nature of the blow might be."

Giskard said, "But we cannot take appropriate measures to counteract the blow and resolve the crisis until we know what its nature will be. If we must wait until the blow reveals itself by its results, it will then be too late to do anything."

Daneel said, "If any Spacer knows the nature of the forthcoming event, it would be Amadiro. Could you not force Amadiro to announce it publicly and thus alert the Settlers and make it unusable?"

"I could not do that, friend Daneel, without virtually destroying his mind. I doubt that I could hold it together long enough to allow him to make the announcement. I could not do such a thing."

"Perhaps, then," said Daneel, "we may console ourselves with the thought that my reasoning is wrong and that no blow against Earth is being prepared."

"No," said Giskard. "It is my feeling that you are right and that we must simply wait – helplessly."

22

Gladia waited, with an almost painful anticipation, for the conclusion of the final Jump. They would then be close enough to Solaria to make out its sun as a disk.

It would just be a disk, of course, a featureless circle of light, subdued to the point where it could be watched unblinkingly after that light had passed through the appropriate filter.

Its appearance would not be unique. All the stars that carried, among their planets, a habitable world in the human sense had a long list of property requirements that ended by making them all resemble one another. They were all single stars – all not much larger or smaller than the sun that shone on Earth – none too active, or too old, or too quiet, or too young, or too hot, or too cool, or too offbeat in chemical composition. All had sunspots and flares and prominences and all looked just about the same to the eye. It took careful spectroheliography to work out the details that made each star unique.

Nevertheless, when Gladia found herself staring at a circle of light that was absolutely nothing more than a circle of light to her, she found her eyes welling with tears. She had never given the sun a thought when she had lived on Solaria; it was just the eternal source of light and heat, rising and falling in a steady rhythm. When she had left Solaria, she had watched that sun disappear behind her with nothing but a feeling of thankfulness. She had no memory – of it that she valued.

Yet she was weeping silently. She was ashamed of herself for being so affected for no reason that she could explain, but that didn’t stop the weeping.

She made a stronger effort when the signal light gleamed. It had to be D.G. at the door; no one else would approach her cabin.

Daneel said, "Is he to enter, madam? You seem emotionally moved."

"Yes, I’m emotionally moved, Daneel, but let him in. I imagine it won’t come as a surprise to him."

Yet it did. At least, he entered with a smile on his bearded face – and that smile disappeared almost at once. He stepped back and said in a low voice, "I will return later."

"Stay!" said Gladia harshly. "This is nothing. A silly reaction of the moment." She sniffed and dabbed angrily at her eyes. "Why are you here?"

"I wanted to discuss Solaria with you. If we succeed with a microadjustment, we’ll land tomorrow. If you’re not quite up to a discussion now – "

"I am quite up to it. In fact, I have a question for you. Why is it we took dime Jumps to get here? One Jump would have been sufficient. One was sufficient when I was taken from Solaria to Aurora twenty decades ago. Surely the technique of space travel has not retrogressed since."