Robots and Empire (Page 38)

"I’m sure you won’t," said Oser, "but the crew has its opinions and an unhappy crew makes for a dangerous voyage."

6. THE CREW

24

Gladia stood on the soil of Solaria. She smelled the vegetation – not quite the odors of Aurora – and at once she crossed the gap of twenty decades.

Nothing, she knew, could bring back associations in the way that odors could. Not sights, not sounds.

Just that faint, unique smell brought back childhood, the freedom of running about, with a dozen robots watching her carefully – the excitement of seeing other children sometimes, coming to a halt, staring shyly, approaching one another a half-step at a time, reaching out to touch, and then a robot saying, "Enough, Miss Gladia," and being led away – looking over the shoulder at the other child, with whom there was another set of attendant robots in charge.

She remembered the day that she was told that only by holovision would she see other human beings thereafter.

"Seeing." Viewing, she was told – not seeing. The robots said as though it were a word they must not say, so that they had to whisper it. She could see them, but they were not human.

It was not so bad at first. The images she could talk to were three-dimensional, free-moving. They could talk, run, turn cartwheels if they wished – but they could not be felt. And then she was told that she could actually see someone whom she had often viewed and whom she had liked. He was a grown man, quite a bit older than she was, though he looked quite young, as one did on Solaria. She would have permission to continue to see him – if she wished whenever necessary.

She wished. She remembered how it was – exactly how it was on that first day. She was tongue-tied and so was he. They circled each other, afraid to touch. – But it was marriage.

Of course it was. And then they met again – seeing, viewing, because it was marriage. They would finally touch each other. They were supposed to.

It was the most exciting day of her life – until it took place.

Fiercely, Gladia stopped her thoughts. Of what use to go on? She so warm and eager; he so cold and withdrawn. He continued to be cold. When he came to see her, at fixed intervals, for the rites that might (or might not) succeed in impregnating her, it was with such clear revulsion that she was soon longing for him to forget. But he was a man duty and he never forgot.

Then came the time, years of dragging unhappiness later, when she found him dead, his skull crushed, and herself as the only possible suspect. Elijah Baley had saved her then and she had been taken away from Solaria and sent to Aurora.

Now she was back, smelling Solaria.

Nothing else was familiar. The house in the distance bore no resemblance to anything she remembered even faintly. In twenty decades it had been modified, torn down, rebuilt. She could not even gain any sense of familiarity with the ground itself.

She found herself reaching backward to touch the Settler ship that had brought her to this world that smelled like home but was home in no other way – just to touch something that was familiar by comparison.

Daneel, who stood next to her in the shadow of the ship, said, "Do you see the robots, Madam Gladia?"

There were a group of them, a hundred yards away, amid the trees of an orchard, watching solemnly, motionlessly, shining in the sun with the grayish well-polished metal finish Gladia remembered Solarian robots to have.

She said, "I do, Daneel."

"Is there anything familiar about them, madam?"

"Not at all. They seem to be new models. I can’t remember them and I’m sure they can’t remember me. If D.G. was expecting anything hopeful to come of my supposed familiarity with the robots on my estate, he will have to be disappointed."

Giskard said, "They do not seem to be doing anything, madam."

Gladia said, "That is understandable. We’re intruders and they’ve come to observe us and to report on us in accordance with what must be standing orders. They have no one now to report to, however, and can merely silently observe. Without further orders, I presume they will do no more than that, but they won’t cease doing so, either."

Daneel said, "It might be well, Madam Gladia, if we retired to our quarters on board ship. The captain is, I believe, supervising the construction of defenses and is not ready to go exploring yet. I suspect he will not approve your having left your quarters without his specific permission."

Gladia said haughtily, "I’m not going to delay stepping out onto the surface of my own world just to suit his whim."

"I understand, but members of the crew are engaged in the vicinity and I believe that some note your presence here."

"And are approaching," said Giskard. "If you would avoid infection – "

"I’m prepared," said Gladia. "Nose plugs and gloves."

Gladia did not understand the nature of the structures being put up on the flat ground about the ship. For the most part, the crewmen, absorbed in the construction, had not seen Gladia and her two companions, standing as they were in the shadows. (It was the warm season on this portion of Solaria, which had a tendency to grow warmer – and on other occasions, colder – than Aurora did, since the Solarian day was nearly six hours longer than the Auroran day.)

The crewmen approaching were five in number and one of them, the tallest and largest, pointed in the direction of Gladia. The other four looked, remained standing for a while as though merely curious, and then, at a gesture from the first, approached again, changing their angle slightly so as to head directly for the Auroran three.

Gladia watched them silently and with her eyebrows raised in contempt. Daneel and Giskard waited impassively.

Giskard said in a low voice to Daneel, "I do not know where the captain is. I cannot distinguish him from the crowd of crewmen in whose midst he must be."