Robots and Empire (Page 59)

Perhaps if the room were so perfectly acoustic that every sound could be heard, the audience had to be silent or the noise and confusion would be intolerable. Then, once the custom of silence was established and audience noise became a taboo, anything but silence would become unthinkable. – Except where the impulse to mutter "Quackenbush" became irresistible, she supposed.

Gladia realized that her thinking was growing muddy and her eyes were closing. She sat upright with a small jerk. The people of the planet were trying to honor her and if she fell asleep during the proceedings, that would surely be an intolerable insult. She tried to keep herself awake by listening, but that seemed to make her sleepier. She bit the inside of her cheeks instead and breathed deeply.

Three officials spoke, one after the other, with semimerciful semibrevity, and then Gladia jolted wide awake (Had she been actually dozing despite all her efforts – with thousands of pairs of eyes on her?) as the spotlight fell just to her left and D.G. rose to speak, standing in front of his chair.

He seemed completely at ease, with his thumbs hooked in his belt.

"Men and women of Baleyworld," he began. "Officials, lawgivers, honored leaders, and fellow planetfolk, you have heard something of what happened on Solaria. You know that we were completely successful. You know that Lady Gladia of Aurora contributed to that success. It is time now to present some of the details to you and to all my fellow planetfolk who are watching on hypervision."

He proceeded to describe the events in modified form and Gladia found herself dryly amused at the nature of the modifications. He passed over his own discomfiture at the hands of a humanoid robot lightly. Giskard was never mentioned; Daneel’s role was minimized; and Gladia’s heavily emphasized. The incident became a duel between two women – Gladia, and Landaree – and it was the courage and sense of authority of Gladia that had won out.

Finally, D.G. said, "And now Lady Gladia, Solarian by birth, Auroran by citizenship, but Baleyworlder by deed – " (There was strong applause at the last, the loudest Gladia had yet heard, for the earlier speakers had been but tepidly received.)

D.G. raised his hands for silence and it came at once. He then concluded, " – will now address you."

Gladia found the spotlight on herself and turned to D.G. in sudden panic. There was applause in her ears and D.G., too, was clapping his hands. Under the cover of the applause, he leaned toward her and whispered, "You love them all, you want peace, and since you’re not a legislator, you’re unused to long speeches of small content. Say that, then sit down."

She looked at him uncompirehendingly, far too nervous to have heard what he said.

She rose and found herself staring at endless tiers of people.

39

Gladia felt very small (not for the first time in her life, to be sure) as she faced the stage. The men on the stage were all taller than she was and so were the other three women. She felt that even though they were all sitting and she was standing, they still towered over her. As for the audience, winch was waiting now in almost menacing silence, those who composed it were, she felt quite certain, one and all larger than her in every dimension.

She took a deep breath and said, "Friends – " but it came out in a thin, breathless whistle. She cleared her throat (in what seemed a thunderous rasp) and tried again.

"Friends!" This time there was a certain normality to the sound. "You are all descended from Earthpeople, every one of you. I am descended from Earthpeople. There are no human beings anywhere on all the inhabited worlds whether Spacer worlds, Settler worlds, or Earth itself – that are not either Earthpeople by birth or Earthpeople by descent. All other differences fade to nothing in the face of that enormous fact."

Her eyes flickered leftward to look at D.G. and she found that he was smiling very slightly and that one eyelid trembled as though it were about to wink.

She went on. "That should be our guide in every thought and act. I thank you all for thinking of me as a fellow human being and for welcoming me among you without regard to any other classification in which you might have been tempted to place me. Because of that, and in the hope that the day will soon come when sixteen billion human beings, living in love and peace, will consider themselves as just that and nothing more – or less – I think of you not merely as friends but as kinsmen and kinswomen."

There was an outbreak of applause that thundered in upon her and Gladia half-closed her eyes in relief. She remained standing to let it continue and bathe her in its welcome indication that she had spoken well and – what was more – enough. When it began to fade, she smiled, bowed to right and left, and began to sit down.

And then a voice came out of the audience. "Why don’t you speak in Solarian?"

She froze halfway, to her seat and looked, in shock, at D.G.

He shook his head slightly and mouthed soundlessly: "Ignore it." He gestured as unobtrusively as possible that she seat herself.

She stared – at him for a second or two, then realized what an ungainly sight she must present, with her posterior protruding in the unfinished process of seating herself. She straightened at once and flashed a smile at the audience as she turned her head slowly from side to side. For the first time she became aware of objects in the rear whose glistening lenses focused upon her.

Of course! D.G. had mentioned that the proceedings were being watched via hyperwave. Yet it scarcely seemed to matter now. She had spoken and had been applauded and she was facing the audience she could see, erect and without, nervousness. What could the unseen addition matter?

She said, still smiling, "I consider that a friendly question. You want me to show you my accomplishments. How many want me to speak as a Solarian might? Don’t hesitate. Raise your right hands."