Robots and Empire (Page 37)

"And once we’re approximately there, can you make use of landmarks for greater precision – if we skim the Solarian surface?"

"By seacoasts and rivers, you mean?"

"Yes."

"I think I can."

"Good! And meanwhile, see if you can remember the names and appearances of any of your robots. It may prove the difference between living and dying."

23

D.G. Baley seemed a different person with his officers. The broad smile was not evident, nor the easy indifference to danger. He sat, poring over the charts, with a look of intense concentration on his face.

He said, "If the woman is correct, we’ve got the estate pinned down within narrow limits – and if we move into the flying mode, we should get it exactly before too long."

"Wasteful of energy, Captain," muttered Jamin Oser, who was second-in-command. He was tall and, like D.G., well bearded. The beard was russet-colored, as were his eyebrows, which arched over bright blue eyes. He looked rather old, but one got the impression that this was due to experience rather than years.

"Can’t help it," said D.G. "If we had the antigravity that the technos keep promising us just this side of eternity, it would be different." He stared at the chart again and said, "She says it would be along this river about sixty kilometers upstream from where it runs into this larger one. If she is correct."

"You keep doubting it," said Chandrus Nadirhaba, whose insigne showed him to be Navigator and responsible for bringing the ship down in the correct spot – or, in any case, the indicated spot. His dark skin and neat mustache accentuated the handsome strength of his face.

"She’s recalling a situation over a time gap of twenty decades," said D.G. "What details would you remember of a site you haven’t seen for just three decades? She’s not a robot. She may have forgotten."

"Then what was the point of bringing her?" muttered Oser. "And the other one and the robot? It unsettles the crew and I don’t exactly like it, either."

D.G. looked up, eyebrows bunching together. He said in a low voice, "It doesn’t matter on this ship what you don’t like or what the crew doesn’t like, mister. I have the responsibility and I make the decisions. We’re all liable to be dead within six hours of landing unless that woman can save us."

Nadirhaba said coolly, "If we die, we die. We wouldn’t be Traders if we didn’t know that sudden death was the other side of big profits. And for this mission, we’re all volunteers. Just the same, it doesn’t hurt to know where the death’s coming from, Captain. If you’ve figured it out, does it have to be a secret?"

"No, it doesn’t. The Solarians are supposed to have left, but suppose a couple of hundred stayed quietly behind just to watch the store, so to speak."

"Not so secret," said D.G. "Solaria is littered with robots. That’s the whole reason Settler ships landed on the world in the first place. Each remaining Solarian might have a trillion robots at his disposal. An enormous army."

Eban Kalaya was in charge of communications. So far he had said nothing, aware as he was of his Junior status, which seemed further marked by the fact that he was the only one of the four officers present without facial hair of any kind. Now he ventured a remark. "Robots," he said, "cannot injure human beings."

"So we are told," said D.G. dryly, "but what do we know about robots? What we do know is that two ships have been destroyed and about a hundred human beings – good Settlers all – have been killed on widely separated parts of a world littered with robots. How could it have been done except by robots? We don’t, know what kind of orders a Solarian might give robots or by what tricks the so-called First Law of Robotics might be circumvented.

"So we," he went on, "have to do a little circumventing of our own. As best as we can tell from the reports reaching us from the other ships before they were destroyed, all the men on board ship debarked on landing. It was an empty world after all and they wanted to stretch their legs, breathe fresh air, and look over the robots they had come to get. Their ships were unprotected and they themselves unready when the attack came.

"That won’t happen this time. I’m getting off, but the rest of you are going to stay on board the ship or, in its near vicinity."

Nadirhaba’s dark eyes glared disapproval. "Why you, Captain? If you need someone to act as bait, anyone, else can be spared more easily than you can be."

"I appreciate the thought, Navigator," said D.G., "but I will not be alone. Coming with me well be the Spacer woman and her companions. She is the one who is essential. She may know some of the robots; at any rate, some may know her. I am hoping that though the robots may have been ordered to attack us, they won’t attack her."

"You mean they’ll remember Ol’ Missy and fall to their knees," said Nadirhaba dryly.

"If you want to put it that way. That’s why I brought her and that’s why we’ve landed on her estate. And I’ve got to be with her because I’m the one who knows her – somewhat – and I’ve got to see that she behaves. Once we have survived by using her as a shield and in that way have learned exactly what we’re facing, we can proceed on our own. We won’t need her any more."

Oser said, "And then what do we do with her? Jettison her into space?"

D.G. roared, "We take her back to Aurora!"

Oser said, "I’m bound to tell you, Captain, that the crew would consider that a wasteful and unnecessary trip. They will feel that we can simply leave her on this blasted world. It’s where she comes from, after all."

"Yes," said D.G. "That will be the day, won’t it, when I take orders from the crew."