Robots and Empire (Page 81)

The humanoid robot had been Fastolfe’s great trump card in those long-gone days when Amadiro had been within a millimeter of taking the game, trump card and all. Fastolfe had designed and built two humanoid robots (of which one still existed) and no one else could build any. The entire membership of the Robotics Institute, working together, could not build them.

All that Amadiro had salvaged out of his great defeat had been that trump card. Fastolfe had been forced to make public the nature of the humanoid design.

That meant humanoid robots could be built and were built and – behold – they were not wanted. The Aurorans would not have them in their society.

Amadiro’s mouth twisted in the remnant of remembered chagrin. The tale of the Solarian woman had somehow come to be known – the fact that she had had the use of Jander, one of Fastolfe’s two humanoid robots, and that the use had been sexual. Aurorans had no objection to such a situation in theory. When they stopped to think of it, however, Auroran women simply did not enjoy the thought of having to compete with robot women. Nor did Auroran men wish to compete with robot men.

The Institute had labored mightily to explain that the humanoid robots were not intended for Aurora itself, but were meant to serve as the initial wave of pioneers who would seed and adjust new habitable planets for Aurorans to occupy later, after they had been terraformed.

That, too, was rejected, as suspicion and objection fed on itself. Someone had called the humanoids "the entering wedge." The expression spread and the Institute was forced to give up.

Stubbornly, Amadiro had insisted on mothballing those which existed for possible future use – a use that had never yet materialized.

Why had there been this objection to the humanoids?

Amadiro felt a faint return of the irritation that had all but poisoned his life those n any decades ago. Fastolfe himself, though reluctant, had agreed to back the project and, to do him justice, had done so, though without quite the eloquence he devoted to those matters to which his heart was truly given. – But it had not helped.

And yet – and yet – if Mandamus now really had some project in mind that would work and would require the robots.

Amadiro had no great fondness for mystical cries of: "It was better so. It was meant to be." Yet it was only with an effort that he kept himself from thinking this, as the elevator took them down to a spot well below ground level the only place in Aurora that might be similar, in a tiny way, to Earth’s fabled Caves of Steel.

Mandamus stepped out of the elevator at Amadiro’s gesture and found himself in a dim corridor. It was chilly and there was a soft ventilating wind. He shivered slightly. Amadiro joined him. But a single robot followed each.

"Few people come here," Amadiro said matter-of-factly.

"How far underground are we?" asked Mandamus.

"About fifteen meters. There are a number of levels. It is on this one that the humanoid robots are stored."

Amadiro stopped a moment, as though in thought, then turned firmly to the left. "This way!"

"No directing signs?"

"As I said, few people come here. Those who do know where they should go to find what they need."

As he said that, they came to a door that looked solid and formidable in the dim light. On either side stood a robot. They were not humanoid.

Mandamus regarded them critically and said, "These are simple models."

"Very simple. You wouldn’t expect us to waste anything elaborate on the task of guarding a door." Amadiro raised his voice, but kept it impassive. "I am Kelden Amadiro."

The eyes of both robots glowed briefly. They turned outward, away from the door, which opened noiselessly, rising upward.

Amadiro directed the other through and, as he passed the robots, said calmly, "Leave it open and adjust the lighting to personal need."

Mandamus said, "I don’t suppose just anyone could enter here."

"Certainly not. Those robots recognize my appearance and voiceprint and require both before opening the door." Half to himself, he added, "No need for locks or keys or combinations anywhere on the Spacer worlds. The robots guard us faithfully and always."

"I had sometimes thought," said Mandamus broodingly, "that if an Auroran were to borrow one of those blasters that Settlers seem to carry with them wherever they go, there would be no locked doors for him. He could destroy robots in an instant, then go wherever he wished, do whatever he wanted."

Amadiro darted a fiery glance at the other. "But what Spacer would dream of using such weapons on a Spacer world? We live our lives without weapons and without violence. Don’t you understand that that is why I have devoted my life to the defeat and destruction of Earth and its poisoned brood. – Yes, we had violence once, but that was long ago, when the Spacer worlds were first established and we had not yet rid ourselves of the poison of the Earth from which we came, and before we had learned the value of robotic security.

"Aren’t peace and security worth fighting for? Worlds without violence! Worlds in which reason rules! Was it right for us to hand over scores of habitable worlds to short-lived barbarians who, as you say, carry blasters about with them everywhere?"

"And yet," murmured Mandamus, "are you ready to use violence to destroy Earth?"

"Violence briefly – and for a purpose – is the price we probably will have to pay for putting an end to violence forever.

"I am Spacer enough," said Mandamus, "to want even that violence minimized."

They had now entered a large and cavernous room and, as they entered, walls and ceiling came to life with diffuse and unglaring light.