57

Mandamus was not aware of developments on Solaria when he returned some months later from an extended third trip to Earth.

On his first trip, six years before, Amadiro had managed, with some difficulty, to have him sent as an accredited emissary from Aurora to discuss some trifling matter of an overstepping into Spacer territory by Trader vessels. He had endured the ceremony and bureaucratic ennui and it quickly became clear that as such an emissary his mobility was limited. That didn't matter, for he learned what he had come to learn.

He had returned with the news. "I doubt, Dr. Amadiro, that there will be any problem at all. There is no way, no possible way, in which the Earth officials can control either entry or exit. Every year many millions of Settlers visit Earth from any of dozens of worlds and every year as many millions of visiting Settlers leave for home again. Every Settler seems to feel that life is not complete unless he or she periodically breathes the air of Earth and treads its crowded underground spaces. It's a search for roots, I imagine. They don't seem to feel the absolute nightmare that existence on Earth is."

"I know about it, Mandamus," said Amadiro wearily.

"Only intellectually, sir. You can't truly understand it until you experience it. Once you do, you'll find that none of your 'knowing' will prepare you in the least for the reality. Why anyone should want to go back, once gone - "

"Our ancestors certainly didn't want to go back, once they had left the planet."

"No," said Mandamus, "but interstellar flight was not then as advanced as it is now. It used to take months then and the hyperspatial Jump was a tricky thing. Now it takes merely days and the Jumps are routine and never go wrong. If it were as easy to return to Earth in our ancestors time as it is now, I wonder if we would have broken away as we did.

"Let's not philosophize, Mandamus. Proceed to the point."

"Certainly. In addition to the coming and going of endless streams of Settlers, millions of Earthmen each year head out as emigrants to one or another of the Settler worlds. Some return almost at once, having failed to adapt. Others make new homes but come back particularly frequently to visit. There's no way of keeping track of exits and entrances and Earth doesn't even try. To attempt to set up systematic methods for identifying and keeping track of visitors might stem the flow and Earth is very aware that each visitor brings money with him. The tourist trade - if we want to call it that - is currently Earth's most profitable industry."

"You are saying, I suppose, that we can get the humanoid robots into Earth without trouble."

"With no trouble at all. There's no question in my mind as to that. Now that we have them properly programmed, we can send them to Earth in half a dozen batches with forged papers. We can't do anything about their robotic respect and awe of human beings, but that may not give them away. It will be interpreted as the usual Settler respect and awe for the ancestral planet. - But, then, I strongly suspect we don't have to drop them into one of the City airports. The vast spaces between Cities are virtually untenanted except by primitive work-robots and the incoming ships would go unnoticed - or at least disregarded."

"Too risky, I think," said Amadiro.

58

Two batches of humanoid robots were sent to Earth and these mingled with the Earth people of the City before finding their way outward into the blank areas between and communicating with Aurora on shielded hyperbeam.

Mandamus said (he had thought about it deeply and had hesitated long), "I will have to go again, Sir. I can't be positive they've found the right spot."

"Are you sure you know the right spot, Mandamus?" asked Amadiro, sardonically.

"I have delved into Earth's ancient history thoroughly, sir. I know I can find it."

"I don't think I can persuade the Council to send a warship with you."

"No, I wouldn't want that. It would be worse than useless. I want a one-person vessel, with just enough power to get there and back."

And in that way, Mandamus made his second visit to Earth, dropping down into a region outside one of the smaller Cities. With mingled relief and satisfaction, he found several of the robots in the right place and remained with them to view their work, to give a few orders in connection with that work, and to make some fine adjustments in their programming.

And then, under the uninterested glance of a few primitive Earth-formed agricultural robots, Mandamus made for the nearby City.

It was a calculated risk and Mandamus, no fearless hero, could feel his heart thudding uncomfortably within his chest.

But it went well. There was some surprise shown by the gate warden when a human being presented himself at the gate, showing all signs of having spent a considerable time in the open.

Mandamus had papers identifying him as a Settler, however, and the warden shrugged. Settlers didn't mind the open and it was far from unheard of for them to take small excursions through the fields and woods that lay about the unimpressive upper layers of a City that jutted above the ground.

The warden gave but a cursory glance at his papers and no one else asked for them at all. Mandamus's off-Earth accent (as weakly Auroran as he could make it) was accepted without comment and, as nearly, as he could tell, no one wondered whether he might be a Spacer. But, then, why should they? The days when the Spacers held a permanent outpost on Earth was two centuries in the past and official emissaries from the Spacer worlds were few and - of late growing steadily fewer. The provincial Earthpeople might not even remember that Spacers existed.

Mandamus was a little concerned that the thin, transparent gloves he always wore might be noted or that his nose plugs would be remarked upon, but neither event took place. No restrictions were placed on his travels around the City or to other Cities. He had enough money for that and money spoke loudly on Earth (and, to tell the truth, even on Spacer worlds).

He grew accustomed to having no robot dog his heels and when he met with some of Aurora's own humanoid robots in this City or that, he had to explain to them quite firmly that they must not dog his heels. He listened to their reports, gave them any instructions they seemed to require, and made arrangements for further robot shipments out-of-City. Eventually, he found his way back to his ship and left.

He was not challenged on his way, out, any more than he had been on his way in.

"Actually," he said thoughtfully to Amadiro, "these Earthpeople are not really barbarians."

"Aren't they, though?"

"In their own world, they behave in quite a human fashion. In fact, there is something winning in their friendliness."

"Are you beginning to regret the task you're engaged in?"

"It does give me a grisly feeling as I wander among them thinking that they don't know what is going to happen to them. I can't make myself enjoy what I'm doing."

"Of course you can, Mandamus. Think of the fact that once the job is done, you will be sure of a post as the head of the Institute before very much time has elapsed. That will sweeten the job for you."

And Amadiro kept a close eye on Mandamus thereafter.

59

On Mandamus's third trip, much of his earlier uneasiness had worn off and he could carry himself almost as though he were an Earthman. The project was proceeding slowly but dead center along the projected line of progress.

He had experienced no health problems on his earlier visits, but on this third one - no doubt due to his overconfidence - he must have exposed himself to something or other. At least, for a time he had an alarming drippiness of the nose, accompanied by a cough.

A visit to one of the City dispensaries resulted in a gamma globulin injection that relieved the condition at once, but he found the dispensary more frightening than the illness. Everyone there, he knew, was likely to be ill with something contagious or to be in close contact with those who were ill.

But now, at last, he was back in the quiet orderliness of Aurora and incredibly thankful to be so. He was listening to Amadiro's account of the Solarian crisis.

"Have you heard nothing of it at all?" demanded Amadiro.

Mandamus shook his head. "Nothing, sir. Earth is an incredibly provincial world. Eight hundred Cities with a total of eight billion people - all interested in nothing but the eight hundred Cities with a total of eight billion people. You would think that Settlers existed only to visit Earth and that Spacers did not exist at all. Indeed, the news reports in any one City deal about ninety percent of the time with that City alone. Earth is an enclosed, claustrophilic world, mentally as well as physically."

"And yet you say they are not barbarian."

"Claustrophilia isn't necessarily barbarism. In their own terms, they are civilized."

"In their own terms! - But never mind. The problem at the moment is Solaria. Not one of the Spacer worlds will move. The principle of noninterference is paramount and they insist that Solaria's internal problems are for Solaria alone. Our own Chairman is as inert as any other, even though Fastolfe is dead and his palsied hand no longer rests on us all. I can do nothing by myself - until such time as I am Chairman."

Mandamus said, "How can they suppose Solaria to have internal problems that may not be interfered with when the Solarians are gone?"

Amadiro said sardonically, "How is it you see the folly of it at once and they don't? - They say there is no hard evidence that the Solarians are totally gone and as long as they - or even some of them - might be on the world, there is no right for any other Spacer world to intrude uninvited."

"How do they explain the absence of radiational activity?"

"They say that the Solarians may have moved underground or that they may have developed a technological advance of some sort that obviates radiation leakage. They also say that the Solarians were not seen to leave and that they have absolutely nowhere to go to. Of course, they were not seen leaving because no one was watching."

Mandamus said, "How do they argue that the Solarians have nowhere to go to? There are many empty worlds."

"The argument is that the Solarians cannot live without their incredible crowds of robots and they can't take those robots with them. If they came here, for instance, how, many robots do you suppose we could allot to them - if any?"

"And what is your argument against that?"

"I haven't any. Still, whether they are gone or not, the situation is strange and puzzling and it is incredible that no one will move to investigate it. I've warned everyone, just as strenuously as I can, that inertia and apathy will be the end of us; that as soon as the Settler worlds become aware of the fact that Solaria was - or might be - empty, they would have no hesitation in investigating the matter. Those swarmers have a mindless curiosity that I wish we had some share in. They will, without thinking twice, risk their lives if some profit lures them on."

"What profit in this case, Dr. Amadiro?"

"If the Solarians are gone, they have, perforce, left almost all their robots behind. They are - or were - particularly ingenious roboticists and the Settlers, for all their hatred of robots, will not hesitate to appropriate them and ship them to us for good Space credits. In fact, they have announced this.

"Two Settler ships have already landed on Solaria. We have sent a protest over this, but they will surely disregard the protest and, just as surely, we will do nothing further. Quite the contrary. Some of the Spacer worlds are sending out quiet queries as to the nature of the robots that might be salvaged and what their prices would be."

"Perhaps just as well," said Mandamus quietly.

"Just as well that we're behaving exactly as the Settler propagandists say we will? That we act as though we are degenerating and turning into soft pulps of decadence?"

"Why repeat their buzz words, sir? The fact is that we are quiet and civilized and have not yet been touched where it hurts. If we were, we would fight back strongly enough and, I'm sure, smash them. We still far outstrip them technologically."

"But the damage to ourselves will not be exactly pleasurable."

"Which means that we must not be too ready to go to war. If Solaria is deserted and the Settlers wish to plunder it, perhaps we ought to let them. After all, I predict that we will be all set to make our move within months."

A rather hungry and ferocious look came over Amadiro's face. "Months?"

"I'm sure of it. So the first thing we must do is to avoid being provoked. We will ruin everything if we move toward a conflict there is no need to fight and undergo damage even if we win - that we don't need to suffer. After all, in a little while, we are going to win totally, without fighting and without damage. - Poor Earth!"

"If you're going to be sorry for them," said Amadiro with spurious lightness, "perhaps you'll do nothing to them."

"On the contrary," said Mandamus coolly. "It's precisely because I fully intend to do something to them - and know that it will be done - that I am sorry for them. You will be Chairman!"

"And you will be the head of the Institute."

"A small post in comparison to yours."

"And after I die?" said Amadiro in half a snarl.

"I do not look that far ahead."

"I am quite - " began Amadiro, but was interrupted by the steady buzz of the message unit. Without looking and quite automatically, Amadiro placed his hand at the EXIT slot. He looked at the thin strip of paper that emerged and a slow smile appeared on his lips.

"The two Settler ships that landed on Solaria - " he said.

"Yes, sir?" asked Mandamus, frowning.

"Destroyed! Both destroyed!"

"How?"

"In an explosive blaze of radiation, easily detected from space. You see what it means? The Solarians have not left after all and the weakest of our worlds can easily handle Settler ships. It is a bloody nose for the Settlers and not something they'll forget. - Here, Mandamus, read for yourself."

Mandamus pushed the paper aside. "But that doesn't necessarily mean that the Solarians are still on the planet. They may merely have booby-trapped it somehow."

"What is the difference? Personal attack or booby-trap, the ships were destroyed."

"This time they were caught by surprise. What about next time, when they are prepared? And what if they consider the event a deliberate Spacer attack?"

"We will reply that the Solarians were merely defending themselves against a deliberate Settler invasion."

"But, sir, are you suggesting a battle of words? What if the Settlers don't bother talking, but consider the destruction of their ships an act of war and retaliate at once?"

"Why should they?"

"Because they are as insane as we can be once pride is hurt; more so, since they have a greater background of violence."

"They will be beaten."

"You yourself admit they will inflict unacceptable damage upon us, even if they are beaten."

"What would you have me do? Aurora did not destroy those ships."

"Persuade the Chairman to make it quite plain that Aurora had nothing to do with it, that none of the Spacer worlds had anything to do with it, that the blame for the action rests on Solaria alone."

"And abandon Solaria? That would be a cowardly act."

Mandamus blazed into excitement. "Dr. Amadiro, have you never heard of anything called a strategic retreat? Persuade the Spacer worlds to back off for only a little while on some plausible pretext. It is only a matter of some months till our plan on Earth comes to fruition. It may be hard for everyone else to back off and be apologetic to the Spacers, for they don't know what is coming - but we do. In fact, you and I, with our special knowledge, can look upon this event as a gift from what used to be called the gods. Let the Settlers remain preoccupied with Solaria while their destruction is prepared - all unobserved by them - on Earth. - Or would you prefer us to be ruined on the very brink of final victory?"

Amadiro found himself flinching before the direct glare of the other's deep-set eyes.

60

Amadiro had never had a worse time than during the period following the destruction of the Settler ships. The Chairman, fortunately, could be persuaded to follow a policy of what Amadiro termed "masterful yielding." The phrase caught the Chairman's imagination, even though it was an oxymoron. Besides, the Chairman was good at masterful yielding.

The rest of the Council was harder to handle. The exasperated Amadiro exhausted himself in picturing the horrors of war and the necessity of choosing the proper moment to strike - and not the improper one - if war there must be. He invented novel plausibilities for why the moment was not yet and used them in discussions with the leaders of the other Spacer Worlds. Aurora's natural hegemony had to be exercised to the utmost to get them to yield.

But when Captain D.G. Baley arrived with his ship and his demand, Amadiro felt he could do no more. It was too much.

"It is altogether impossible," said Amadiro. "Are we to allow him to land on Aurora with his beard, his ridiculous clothing, his incomprehensible accent? Am I expected to ask the Council to agree to hand over a Spacer woman to him? It would be an act absolutely unprecedented in our history. A Spacer woman!"

Mandamus said dryly, "You have always referred to that particular Spacer woman as 'the Solarian woman.'"

"She is 'the Solarian woman' to us, but she will be considered a Spacer woman once a Settler is involved. If his ship lands on Solaria, as he suggests it will, it may be destroyed as the others were, together with him and the woman. I may then be accused by my enemies, with some color of justification, of murder - and my political career may not survive that."

Mandamus said, "Think, instead, of the fact that we have labored nearly seven years in order to arrange the final destruction of Earth and that we are now only a few months from the completion of the project. Shall we risk war now and, at a stroke, ruin everything we've done when we are so close to final victory?"

Amadiro shook his head. "It isn't as though I have a choice in the matter, my friend. The Council wouldn't follow me if I try to argue them into surrendering the woman to a Settler. And the mere fact that I have suggested it will be used against me. My political career will be shaken and we may then have a war in addition. Besides, the thought of a Spacer woman dying in service to a Settler is unbearable."

"One would suppose you were fond of the Solarian woman."

"You know I am not. With all my heart I wish she had died twenty decades ago, but not this way, not on a Settler ship. But I should remember that she is an ancestress of yours in the fifth generation."

Mandamus looked a bit more dour than he usually did. "Of what consequence is that to me? I am a Spacer individual, conscious of myself and of my society. I am not an ancestor-worshiping member of a tribal conglomerate."

For a moment, Mandamus fell silent and his thin face took on a look of intense concentration. "Dr. Amadiro," he said, "could you not explain to the Council that this ancestress of mine is being taken, not as a Spacer hostage but only because her unique knowledge of Solaria, where she spent her childhood and youth, could make her an essential part of the exploration and that this exploration might even be helpful to us, as well as to the Settlers? After all, in truth, wouldn't it be desirable for us to know what those miserable Solarians are up to? The woman will presumably bring back a report of the events - if she survives."

Amadiro thrust out his lower lip. "That might work if the woman went on board voluntarily, if she made it clear that she understood the importance of the work and wished to perform her patriotic duty. To put her on board ship by force, though, is unthinkable."

"Well, then, suppose I were to see this ancestress of mine and try to persuade her to get on the ship willingly; and suppose, also, that you speak to this Settler captain by hyperwave and tell them he can land on Aurora and have the woman if he can persuade her to go with him willingly or, at least, say that she'll go with him willingly, whether she does or not."

"I suppose we can't lose by making the effort, but I don't see how we can win."

Yet to Amadiro's surprise, they did win. He had listened with astonishment as Mandamus told him the details.

"I brought up the matter of the humanoid robots," Mandamus said, "and it's clear she knew nothing about them, from which I deduced Fastolfe had known nothing about them. It has been one of those things that nagged at me. Then I talked a great deal about my ancestry in such a way as to force her to talk of that Earthman Elijah Baley."

"What about him?" said Amadiro harshly.

"Nothing, except that she talked about him and remembered. This Settler who wants her is a descendant of Baley and I thought it might influence her to consider the Settler's request more favorably than she might otherwise have done."

In any case, it had worked and for a few days Amadiro felt a relief from the almost continuous pressure that had plagued him from the start of the Solarian crisis.

But only for a very few days.

61

One point that worked to Amadiro's advantage at this time was that he had not seen Vasilia, thus far, during the Solarian crisis.

It would certainly not have been an appropriate time to see her. He did not wish to be annoyed by her petty concern over a robot she claimed as her own - with total disregard for the legalities of the situation - at a time when a true crisis exercised his every nerve and thought. Nor did he wish to expose himself to the kind of quarrel that might easily arise between her and Mandamus over the question of which was eventually to preside over the Robotics Institute.

In any case, he had about come to the decision that Mandamus ought to be his successor. Throughout the Solarian crisis, he had kept his eye fixed on what was important. Even when Amadiro himself had felt shaken, Mandamus had remained icily calm. It was Mandamus who thought it conceivable that the Solarian woman might accompany the Settler captain voluntarily and it was he who maneuvered her into doing so.

And if his plan for the destruction of Earth worked itself out as it should - as it must - then Amadiro could see Mandamus succeeding as Council Chairman eventually. It would even be just, thought Amadiro, in a rare burst of selflessness.

On this particular evening, in consequence, he did not so much as expend a thought upon Vasilia. He left the Institute with a small squad of robots seeing him safely to his ground-car. That ground-car, driven by one robot and with two more in the backseat with him, passed quietly through a twilit and chilly rain and brought him to his establishment, where two more robots ushered him indoors. And all this time he did not think of Vasilia.

To find her sitting in his living room, then, in front of his hyperwave set, watching an intricate robot ballet, with several of Amadiro's robots in their niches and two of her own robots behind her chair, struck him at first not as much with the anger of violated privacy, as with pure surprise.

It took some time for him to control his breathing well enough to be able to speak and then his anger arose and he said harshly, "What are you doing here? How did you get in?"

Vasilia was calm enough. Amadiro's appearance was, after all, entirely expected. "What I'm doing here," she said, "is waiting to see you. Getting in was not difficult. Your robots know my appearance very well and they know my standing at the Institute. Why shouldn't they allow me to enter if I assure them I have an appointment with you?"

"Which you haven't. You have violated my privacy."

"Not really. There's a limit to how much trust you can squeeze out of someone else's robots. Look at them. They have never once taken their eyes from me. If I had wanted to disturb your belongings, look through your papers, take advantage of your absence in any way, I assure you I could not have. My two robots are no match against them."

"Do you know," said Amadiro, bitterly, "that you have acted in a thoroughly un-Spacer fashion. You are despicable and I will not forget this."

Vasilia seemed to blanch slightly at the adjectives. She said in a low, hard voice, "I hope you don't forget it, Kelden, for I've done what I've done for you - and if I reacted as I should to your foul mouth, I would leave now and let you continue for the rest of your life to be the defeated man you have been for the past twenty decades."

"I will not remain a defeated man - whatever you do."

Vasilia said, "You sound as though you believe that, but, you see, you do not know what I know. I must tell you that without my intervention you will remain defeated. I don't care what scheme you have in mind. I don't care what this thin-lipped, acid-faced Mandamus has cooked up for you - "

"Why do you mention him?" said Amadiro quickly.

"Because I wish to," - said Vasilia with a touch of contempt. "Whatever he has done or thinks he is doing - and don't be frightened, for I haven't any idea what that might be - it won't work. I may not know anything else about it, but I do know it won't work."

"You're babbling idiocies," said Amadiro.

"You had better listen to these idiocies, Kelden, if you don't want everything to fall into ruin. Not just you, but possibly the Spacer worlds, one and all. Still, you may not want to listen to me. It's your choice." Which, then, is it to be?"

"Why should I listen to you? What possible reason is there for me to listen to you?"

"For one thing, I told you the Solarians were preparing to leave their world. If you had listened to me then, you would not have been caught so by surprise when they did."

"The Solarian crisis will yet turn to our advantage."

"No, it will not," said Vasilia. "You may think it will, but it won't. It will destroy you - no matter what you are doing to meet the emergency - unless you are willing to let me have my say."

Amadiro's lips were white and were trembling slightly. The two centuries of defeat Vasilia had mentioned had had a lasting effect upon him and the Solarian crisis had not helped, so he lacked the inner strength to order his robots to see her out, as he should have. He said sullenly, "Well, then, put it in brief."

"You would not believe what I have to say if I did, so let me do it my own way. You can stop me at any time, but then you will destroy the Spacer worlds. Of course, they will last my time and it won't be I who will go down in History - Settler history, by the way - as the greatest failure on record. Shall I speak?"

Amadiro folded into a chair. "Speak, then, and when you are through - leave."

"I intend to, Kelden, unless, of course, you ask me - very politely - to stay and help you. Shall I start?"

Amadiro said nothing and Vasilia began, "I told you that during my stay on Solaria I became aware of some very peculiar positronic pathway patterns they had designed, pathways that struck me - very forcefully - as representing attempts at producing telepathic robots. Now, why should I have thought that?"

Amadiro said bitterly, "I cannot tell what pathological drives may power your thinking."

Vasilia brushed that aside with a grimace. "Thank you, Kelden. - I've spent some months thinking about that, since I was acute enough to think the matter involved not pathology but some subliminal memory. My mind went back to my childhood when Fastolfe, whom I then considered my father, in one of his generous moods - he would experiment now and then with generous moods, you understand - gave me a robot of my own."

"Giskard again?" muttered Amadiro with impatience.

"Yes, Giskard. Giskard, always. I was in my teenage years and I already had the instinct of a roboticist or, I should say, I was born with the instinct. I had as yet very little mathematics, but I had a grasp of patterns. With the passing of scores of decades, my knowledge of mathematics steadily improved, but I don't think I have advanced very far in my feeling for patterns. My father would say, 'Little Vas' - he also experimented in loving diminutives to see how that would affect me - 'you have a genius for patterns.' I think I did - "

Amadiro said, "Spare me. I'll concede your genius. Meanwhile, I have not yet had my dinner, do you know that?"

"Well," said Vasilia sharply, "order your dinner and invite me to join you."

Amadiro, frowning, raised his arm perfunctorily and made a quick sign. The quiet motion of robots at work made itself evident at once.

Vasilia said, "I would play with pathway patterns for Giskard. I would come to Fastolfe - my father, as I then thought of him - and I would show him a pattern. He might shake his head and laugh and say, 'If you add that to poor Giskard's brain, he will no longer be able to talk and he will be in a great deal of pain.' I remember asking if Giskard could really feel pain and my father said, 'We don't know what he would feel, but he would act as we would act if we were in a great deal of pain, so we might as well say he would feel pain.'"

"Or else I would take one of my patterns to him and he would smile indulgently and say, 'Well, that won't hurt him, Little Vas, and it might be interesting to try.'"

"And I would. Sometimes I would take it out again and sometimes I would leave it. I was not simply fiddling with Giskard for the sadistic joy of it, as I imagine I might have been tempted to do if I were someone other than myself. The fact is, I was very fond of Giskard and I had no desire to harm him. When it seemed to me that one of my improvements - I always thought of them as improvements - made Giskard speak more freely or react more quickly or more interestingly - and seemed to do no harm - I would let it stay.

"And then one day - "

A robot standing at Amadiro's elbow would not have dared to interrupt a guest unless a true emergency existed, but Amadiro had no difficulty in understanding the significance of the waiting. He said, "Is dinner ready?"

"Yes, sir," said the robot.

Amadiro gestured rather impatiently in Vasilia's direction. "You are invited to have dinner with me."

They walked into Amadiro's dining room, which Vasilia had never entered before. Amadiro was, after all, a private person and was notorious for his neglect of the social amenities. He had been told more than once that he would succeed better in politics if he entertained in his home and he had always smiled politely and said, "Too high a price."

It was perhaps because of his failure to entertain, thought Vasilia, that there was no sign of originality or creativity in the furnishings. Nothing could be plainer than the table, the dishes, and the cutlery. As for the walls, they were merely flat colored vertical planes. Put together, in rather dampened one's appetite, she thought.

The soup they began with a clear bouillon was as plain as the furniture and Vasilia began to dispose of it without enthusiasm.

Amadiro said, "My dear Vasilia, you see, I am being patient. I have no objection to having you write your autobiography if you wish. But is it really your plan to recite several chapters of it to me? If it is, I must tell you bluntly that I'm not really interested."

Vasilia said, "You will become extremely interested in just a little while. Still, if you're really enamored of failure and want to continue to achieve nothing you wish to achieve, simply say so. I will then eat in silence and leave. Is that what you wish?"

Amadiro sighed. "Well, go on, Vasilia."

Vasilia said, "And then one day I came up with a pattern more elaborate, more pleasant, and more enticing than I had ever seen before or, in all truth, than I have ever seen since. I would have loved to show it to my father, but he was away at some meeting or other on one of the other worlds.

"I didn't know when he'd be back and I put aside my pattern, but each day I would look at it with more interest and more fascination. Finally, I could wait no longer. I simply could not. It seemed so beautiful that I thought it ludicrous to suppose it could do harm. I was only an infant in my second decade and had not yet completely outgrown irresponsibility, so I modified Giskard's brain by incorporating the pattern into it.

"And it did no harm. That was immediately obvious. He responded to me with perfect ease and - it seemed to me was far quicker in understanding and much more intelligent than he had been. I found him far more fascinating and lovable than before.

"I was delighted and yet I was nervous, too. What I had done - modifying Giskard without clearing it with Fastolfe was strictly against the rules Fastolfe had set for me and I knew that well. Yet clearly, I was not going to undo what I had done. When I had modified Giskard's brain, I excused it to myself by saying that it would only be for a little while and that I would then neutralize the modification. Once the modification had been made, however, it became quite clear to me that I would not neutralize it. I was simply not going to do that. In fact, I never modified Giskard again, for fear of disturbing what I had just done.

"Nor did I ever tell Fastolfe what I had done. I destroyed all record of the marvelous pattern I had devised and Fastolfe never found out that Giskard had been modified without his knowledge. Never!

"And then we went our separate ways, Fastolfe and I, and Fastolfe would not give up Giskard. I screamed that he was mine and that I loved him, but Fastolfe's kindly benevolence, of which he made such a parade all his life - that business of loving all things, great and small - was never allowed to stand in the way of his own desires. I received other robots I cared nothing for, but he kept Giskard for himself.

"And when he died, he left Giskard to the Solarian woman - a last bitter slap at me."

Amadiro had only managed to get halfway through the salmon mousse. "If all this is intended to advance your case of having Giskard's ownership transferred from the Solarian woman to yourself, it won't help. I have already explained to you why I cannot set aside Fastolfe's will."

"There's something more to it than that, Kelden," said Vasilia. "A great deal more. Infinitely more. Do you want me to stop now?"

Amadiro stretched his lips into a rueful grin. "Having listened to so much of this, I will play the madman and listen to more."

"You would play the madman if you did not, for I now come to the point. - I have never stopped thinking of Giskard and of the cruelty and injustice of my having been deprived of him, but somehow I never thought of that pattern with which I had modified him with no one's knowledge but my own. I am quite certain I could not have reproduced that pattern if I had tried and from what I can now remember it was like nothing else I have ever seen in robotics until I saw, briefly, something like that pattern during my stay on Solaria.

"The Solarian pattern seemed familiar to me, but I didn't know why. It took some weeks of intense thought before I dredged out of some well-hidden part of my unconscious mind the slippery thought of that pattern I had dreamed out of nothing twenty-five decades ago.

"Even though I can't remember my pattern exactly, I know that the Solarian pattern was a whiff of it and no more. It was just the barest suggestion of something I had captured in miraculously complex symmetry. But I looked at the Solarian pattern with the experience I had gained in twenty-five decades of deep immersion in robotics theory and it suggested telepathy to me. If that simple, scarcely interesting pattern suggested it, what must my original have meant - the thing I invented as a child and have never recaptured since?"

Amadiro said, "You keep saying that you're coming to the point, Vasilia. Would I be completely unreasonable if I asked you to stop moaning and reminiscing and simply set out that point in a simple, declarative sentence?"

Vasilia said, "Gladly. What I am telling you, Kelden, is that, without my ever knowing it, I converted Giskard into a telepathic robot and that he has been one ever since."

62

Amadiro looked at Vasilia for a long time and, because the story seemed to have come to an end, he returned to the salmon mousse and ate some of it thoughtfully.

He then said, "Impossible! Do you take me for an idiot?"

"I take you for a failure," said Vasilia. "I don't say Giskard can read conversations in minds, that he can transmit and receive words or ideas. Perhaps that is impossible, even in theory. But I am quite certain he can detect emotions and the general set of mental activity and perhaps can even modify it."

Amadiro shook his head violently. "Impossible!"

"Impossible? Think a while. Twenty decades ago, you had almost achieved your aims. Fastolfe was at your mercy, Chairman Horder was your ally. What happened? Why did everything go wrong?"

"The Earthman - " Amadiro began, choking at the memory.

"The Earthman," Vasilia mimicked. "The Earthman. Or was it the Solarian woman? It was neither! Neither! It was Giskard, who was there all the time. Sensing. Adjusting."

"Why should he be interested? He is a robot."

"A robot loyal to his master, to Fastolfe. By the First Law, he had to see to it that Fastolfe came to no harm and, being telepathic, he could not interpret that as signifying physical harm only. He knew that if Fastolfe could not have his way, could not encourage the settlement of the habitable worlds of the Galaxy, he would undergo profound disappointment - and - that would be 'harm' in Giskard's telepathic Universe. He could not let that happen and he intervened to keep it from happening."

"No, no, no," said Amadiro in disgust. "You want that to be so, out of some wild, romantic longing, but that doesn't make it so. I remember too well what happened. It was the Earthman. It needs no telepathic robot to explain the events."

"And what has happened since, Kelden?" demanded Vasilia. "In twenty decades, have you ever managed to win out over Fastolfe? With all the facts in your favor, with the obvious bankruptcy of Fastolfe's policy, have you ever been able to dispose of a majority in the Council? Have you ever been able to sway the Chairman to the point where you could possess real power?

"How do you explain that, Kelden? In all those twenty decades, the Earthman has not been on Aurora. He has been dead for over sixteen decades, his miserably short life running out in eight decades or so. Yet you continue to fail - you have an unbroken record of failure. Even now that Fastolfe is dead, have you managed to profit completely from the broken pieces of his coalition or do you, find that success still seems to elude you?

"What is it that remains? The Earthman is gone. Fastolfe is gone. It is Giskard who has worked against you all this time - and Giskard remains. He is as loyal now to the Solarian woman as he was to Fastolfe and the Solarian woman has no cause to love you, I think."

Amadiro's face twisted into a mask of anger and frustration. "It's not so. None of this is so. You're imagining things."

Vasilia remained quite cool. "No, I'm not. I'm explaining things. I've explained things you haven't been able to explain. Or have you an alternate explanation? - And I can give you the cure. Transfer ownership of Giskard from the Solarian woman to me and, quite suddenly, events will begin to twist themselves to your benefit."

"No," said Amadiro. "They are moving to my benefit already."

"You may think so, but they won't, as long as Giskard is working against you. No matter how close you come to winning, no matter how sure of victory you become, it will all melt away as long as you don't have Giskard on your side. That happened twenty decades ago; it will happen now."

Amadiro's face suddenly cleared. He said, "Well, come to think of it, though I don't have Giskard and neither do you, it doesn't matter, for I can show you that Giskard is not telepathic. If Giskard were telepathic, as you say, if he had the ability to order affairs to his own liking or to the liking of the human being who is his owner, then why would he have allowed the Solarian woman to be taken to what will probably be her death?"

"Her death? What are you talking about, Kelden?"

"Are you aware, Vasilia, that two Settler ships have been destroyed on Solaria? Or have you been doing nothing lately but dreaming of patterns and of the brave days of childhood when you were modifying your pet robot?"

"Sarcasm doesn't become you, Kelden. I have heard about the Settler ships on the news. What of them?"

"A third Settler ship is going out to investigate. It may be destroyed, too."

"Possibly. On the other hand, it would take precautions."

"It did. It demanded and received the Solarian woman, feeling that she knows the planet well enough to enable them to avoid destruction."

Vasilia said, "That's scarcely likely, since she hasn't been there in twenty decades."

"Right! The chances are, then, that she'll die with them. It would mean nothing to me personally. I would be delighted to have her dead and, I think, so would you. And, putting that to one side, it would give us good grounds for complaint to the Settler worlds and it would make it difficult for them to argue that the destruction of the ships is a deliberate action on the part of Aurora. Would we destroy one of our own? - Now the question is, Vasilia, why would Giskard, if he had the powers you claim he has - and the loyalties - allow the Solarian woman to volunteer to be taken to what is very likely to be her death?"

Vasilia was taken aback. "Did she go of her own free will?"

"Absolutely. She was perfectly willing. It would have been politically impossible to force her to do so against her will."

"But I don't understand."

"There is nothing to understand except that Giskard is merely a robot."

For a moment, Vasilia froze in her seat, one hand to her chin. Then she said slowly, "They don't allow robots on Settler worlds or on Settler ships. That means she went alone. Without robots."

"Well, no, of course not. They had to accept personal robots if they expected to get her willingly. They took along that man-mimic robot Daneel and the other was - he paused and brought out the word with a hiss - Giskard. Who else? So this miracle robot of your fantasy goes to his destruction as well. He could no more - "

His voice faded away. Vasilia was on her feet, eyes blazing, face suffused with color.

"You mean Giskard went? He's off this world and on a Settler ship? Kelden, you may have ruined us all!"

63

Neither finished the meal.

Vasilia walked hastily out of the dining room and disappeared into the Personal. Amadiro, struggling to remain coldly logical, shouted to her through the closed door, perfectly aware that it damaged his dignity to do so.

He called out, "It's all the stronger an indication that Giskard is no more than a robot. Why should he be willing to go to Solaria to face destruction with his owner?"

Eventually, the sound of running water and splashing ceased and Vasilia emerged with her face freshly washed and almost frozen in its grip on calmness.

She said, "You really don't understand, do you? You amaze me, Kelden. Think it through. Giskard can never be in danger, as long as he can influence human minds, can he? Nor can the Solarian woman, as long as Giskard devotes himself to her. The Settler who carried off the Solarian woman must have found out, on interviewing her, that she had not been on Solaria in twenty decades, so he can't really have continued to believe, after that, that she could do him much good. With her he took Giskard, but he didn't know that Giskard could do him good, either - or could he have known that?"

She thought a while and then said slowly, "No, there is no way he could have known it. If, in more than twenty decades, no one has penetrated the fact that Giskard has mental abilities, then Giskard is clearly interested in having no one guess it - and if that is so, then no one can possibly have guessed it."

Amadiro said spitefully, "You claim to have worked it out."

Vasilia said, "I had special knowledge, Kelden, and even so it was not till now that I saw the obvious - and then only because of the hint on Solaria. Giskard must have darkened my mind in that respect, too, or I would have seen it long ago. I wonder if Fastolfe knew - "

"How much easier," said Amadiro restlessly, "to accept the simple fact that Giskard is simply a robot."

"You will walk the easy road to ruin, Kelden, but I don't think I will let you do that, no matter how much you want to. - What it amounts to is that the Settler came for the Solarian woman and took her along, even though he discovered she would be of little - if any - use to him. And the Solarian woman volunteered to go, even though she must dread being on a Settler ship along with diseased barbarians - and even though her destruction on Solaria must have seemed to her a very likely consequence.

"It seems to me, then, that this is all the work of Giskard, who forced the Settler to continue to demand the Solarian woman against reason and forced the Solarian woman to accede to the request against reason."

Amadiro, said, "But why? May I ask that simple question? Why?"

"I suppose, Kelden, that Giskard felt it was important to get away from Aurora. - Could he have guessed that I was on the point, of learning his secret? If so, he may well have been uncertain of his present ability to tamper with me. I am, after all, a skilled roboticist. Besides, he would remember that he was once mine and a robot does not easily ignore the demands of loyalty. The only way, perhaps, that he felt he could keep the Solarian woman secure was to move himself away from my influence."

She looked up at Amadiro and said firmly, "Kelden, we must get him back. We can't let him work at promoting the Settler cause in the safe haven of a Settler world. He did enough damage right here among us. We must get him back and you must make me his legal owner. I can handle him, I assure you, and make him work for us. Remember! I am the only one who can handle him."

Amadiro said, "I do not see any reason to worry. In the very likely case that he is a mere robot, he will be destroyed on Solaria and we will be rid of both him and the Solarian woman. In the unlikely case that he is what you say he is, he won't be destroyed on Solaria, but then he will have to return to Aurora. After all, the Solarian woman, though she is not an Auroran by birth, has lived on Aurora far too long to be able to face life among the barbarians - and when she insists on returning to civilization, Giskard will have no alternative but to return with her."

Vasilia said, "After all this, Kelden, you still don't understand Giskard's abilities. If he feels it important to remain away from Aurora, he can easily adjust the Solarian woman's emotions in such a way as to make her stand life on a Settler world, just as he made her willing to board a Settler ship."

"Well, then, if necessary, we can simply escort that Settler ship - with the Solarian woman and with Giskard - back to Aurora."

"How do you propose to do that?"

"It can be done. We are not fools here on Aurora, for all that it seems clearly your opinion that you yourself are the only rational person on the planet. The Settler ship is going to Solaria to investigate the destruction of the earlier two ships, but I hope you don't think we intend to depend upon its good offices or even upon those of the Solarian woman. We are sending two of our warships to Solaria and we do not expect that they will have trouble if there are Solarians still on the planet, they may be able to destroy primitive Settler ships, but they won't be able to touch an Auroran vessel of war. If, then, the Settler ship, through some magic on the part of Giskard - "

"Not magic," Vasilia interrupted tartly. "Mental influence."

"If, then, the Settler ship, for whatever reason, should be able to rise from the surface of Solaria, our ships will cut them off and politely ask for the delivery of the Solarian woman and her robots. Failing that, they will insist that the Settler ship accompany our ship to Aurora. There will be no hostility about it. Our ship will merely be escorting an Auroran national to her home world. Once the Solarian woman and her two robots disembark in Aurora, the Settler ship will then be able to proceed at will to its own destination."

Vasilia nodded wearily at this. "It sounds good, Kelden, but do you know what I suspect will happen?"

"What, Vasilia?"

"It is my opinion that the Settler ship will rise from the surface of Solaria, but that our warships won't. Whatever is on Solaria can be countered by Giskard, but, I fear, by nothing else."

"If that happens," said Amadiro with a grim smile, "then I'll admit there may be something, after all, to your fantasy. - But it won't happen."

64

The next morning Vasilia's chief personal robot, delicately designed to appear female, came to Vasilia's bedside. Vasilia stirred and, without opening her eyes, said, "What is it, Nadila?" (There was no need to open her eyes. In many decades, no one had ever approached her bedside but Nadila.)

Nadila said softly, "Madam, you are desired at the Institute by Dr. Amadiro."

Vasilia's eyes flew open. "What time is it?"

"It is 05:17, madam."

"Before sunrise?" Vasilia was indignant.

"Yes, madam."

"When does he want me?"

"Now, madam."

"Why?"

"His robots have not informed us, madam, but they say it is important."

Vasilia threw aside the bed sheets. "I will have breakfast first, Nadila, and a shower before that. Inform Amadiro's robots to take visitors' niches and wait. If they urge speed, remind them they are in my establishment."

Vasilia, annoyed, did not hasten unduly. If anything, her toilette was more painstaking than usual and her breakfast more leisurely. (She was not ordinarily one to spend much time over either.) The news, which she watched, gave no indication of anything that might explain Amadiro's call.

By the time the ground-car (containing herself and four robots - two of Amadiro's and two of her own) had brought her to the Institute, the sun was making its appearance over the horizon Amadiro looked up and said, "You are finally here, then."

The walls of his office were still glowing, though their light was no longer needed.

"I'm sorry," said Vasilia stiffly. "I quite realize that sunrise is a terribly late hour at which to begin work."

"No games, Vasilia, please. Very soon I will have to be at the Council chamber. The Chairman has been up longer than I have. - Vasilia, I apologize, quite humbly, for doubting you."

"The Settler ship has lifted off safely, then."

"Yes. And one of our ships has been destroyed, as you predicted. - The fact has not been publicized yet, but the news will leak out eventually, of course."

Vasilia's eyes widened. She had predicted this outcome with a bit more in the way of outward confidence than she had felt, but clearly this was not the time to say so. What she did say was "Then you accept the fact that Giskard has extraordinary powers."

Cautiously, Amadiro said, "I don't consider the matter to be mathematically proven, but I'm willing to accept it pending further information. What I want to know is what we ought to do next. The Council knows nothing of Giskard and I do not propose to tell them."

"I'm glad your thinking is clear to that extend, Kelden."

"But you're the one who understands Giskard and you can best tell what ought to be done. What do I tell the Council, then, and how do I explain the action without giving away the whole truth?"

"It depends. Now that the Settler ship has left Solaria, where is it going? Can we tell? After all, if it is returning now to Aurora, we need do nothing but prepare for its arrival."

"It is not coming to Aurora," said Amadiro emphatically. "You were right here, too, it seems. Giskard - assuming he is running the show - seems determined to stay away. We have intercepted the ship's messages to, its own world. Encoded, of course, but there isn't a Settler code we haven't broken - "

"I suspect they've broken ours, too. I wonder why everyone won't agree to send messages in the clear and save a lot of trouble."

Amadiro shrugged it away. "Never mind that. The point is that the Settler ship is going back to its own planet."

"With the Solarian woman and the robots?"

"Of course."

"You're sure of that? They haven't been left on Solaria?"

"We're sure of that," said Amadiro impatiently. "Apparently, 'the Solarian woman' was responsible for their getting off the surface."

"She? In what way?"

"We don't yet know."

Vasilia said, "It had to be Giskard. He made it appear to be the Solarian woman."

"And what do we do now?"

"We must get Giskard back."

"Yes, but I can't very well persuade the Council to risk an interstellar crisis over the return of a robot."

"You don't, Kelden. You ask for the return of the Solarian woman, something we certainly have a right to request. And do you think for one moment she would return without her robots? Or that Giskard will allow the Solarian woman to return without him? Or that the Settler world would want to keep the robots if the Solarian woman returns? Ask for her. Firmly. She's an Auroran citizen, lent out for a job on Solaria, which is done, and she must now be returned forthwith. Make it belligerent, as though it were a threat of war."

"We can't risk war, Vasilia."

"You won't risk it. Giskard can't take an action that might lead directly to war. If the Settler leaders resist and become belligerent in their return, Giskard will perforce make the necessary modifications in the attitude of the Settler leaders so as to have the Solarian woman returned peaceably to Aurora. And he himself will, of course, have to return with her."

Amadiro said drearily, "And once he's back, he will alter us, I suppose, and we will forget his powers, and disregard him, and he will still be able to follow his own plan whatever it is."

Vasilia leaned her head back and laughed. "Not a chance. I know Giskard, you see, and I can handle him. Just bring him back and persuade the Council to disregard Fastolfe's will - it can be done and you can do it - and to assign Giskard to me. He will then be working for us; Aurora will rule the Galaxy, you will spend the remaining decades of your life as Chairman of the Council; and I will succeed you as the head of the Robotics Institute."

"Are you sure it will work out that way?"

"Absolutely. Just send the message and make it strong and I will guarantee all the rest - victory for the Spacers, and ourselves, defeat for Earth and the Settlers."