Foundation and Earth (34 page)

Nothing looked in the least familiar; it seemed certain they were wandering through portions of the rambling underground mansion they had not passed through on the way in.

Trevize kept looking for corridors that led upward sharply, and he varied that by studying the ceilings for any sign of a trapdoor. Nothing of the sort appeared, and the frightened mind remained their only chance of getting out.

They walked through silence, except for the sound of their own steps; through darkness, except for the light in their immediate vicinity; through death, except for their own lives. Occasionally, they made out the shadowy bulk of a robot, sitting or standing in the dusk,
with no motion. Once they saw a robot lying on its side, with legs and arms in queer frozen positions. It had been caught off-balance, Trevize thought, at the moment when power had been turned off, and it had fallen. Bander, either alive or dead, could not affect the force of gravity. Perhaps all over the vast Bander estate, robots were standing and lying inactive and it would be that that would quickly be noted at the borders.

Or perhaps not, he thought suddenly. Solarians would know when one of their number would be dying of old age and physical decay. The world would be alerted and ready. Bander, however, had died suddenly, without possible foreknowledge, in the prime of its existence. Who would know? Who would expect? Who would be watching for inactivation?

But no (and Trevize thrust back optimism and consolation as dangerous lures into overconfidence). The Solarians would note the cessation of all activity on the Bander estate and take action at once. They all had too great an interest in the succession to estates to leave death to itself.

Pelorat murmured unhappily, “Ventilation has stopped. A place like this, underground, must be ventilated, and Bander supplied the power. Now it has stopped.”

“It doesn’t matter, Janov,” said Trevize. “We’ve got enough air down in this empty underground place to last us for years.”

“It’s close just the same. It’s psychologically bad.”

“Please, Janov, don’t get claustrophobic. —Bliss, are we any closer?”

“Much, Trevize,” she replied. “The sensation is stronger and I am clearer as to its location.”

She was stepping forward more surely, hesitating less at points of choice of direction.

“There! There!” she said. “I can sense it intensely.”

Trevize said dryly, “Even I can hear it now.”

All three stopped and, automatically, held their
breaths. They could hear a soft moaning, interspersed with gasping sobs.

They walked into a large room and, as the lights went on, they saw that, unlike all those they had hitherto seen, it was rich and colorful in furnishings.

In the center of the room was a robot, stooping slightly, its arms stretched out in what seemed an almost affectionate gesture and, of course, it was absolutely motionless.

Behind the robot was a flutter of garments. A round frightened eye edged to one side of it, and there was still the sound of a brokenhearted sobbing.

Trevize darted around the robot and, from the other side, a small figure shot out, shrieking. It stumbled, fell to the ground, and lay there, covering its eyes, kicking its legs in all directions, as though to ward off some threat from whatever angle it might approach, and shrieking, shrieking—

Bliss said, quite unnecessarily, “It’s a child!”

TREVIZE DREW BACK, PUZZLED. WHAT WAS A child doing here? Bander had been so proud of its absolute solitude, so insistent upon it.

Pelorat, less apt to fall back on iron reasoning in the face of an obscure event, seized upon the solution at once, and said, “I suppose this is the successor.”

“Bander’s child,” said Bliss, agreeing, “but too young, I think, to be a successor. The Solarians will have to find one elsewhere.”

She was gazing at the child, not in a fixed glare, but in a soft, mesmerizing way, and slowly the noise the child was making lessened. It opened its eyes and looked at Bliss in return. Its outcry was reduced to an occasional soft whimper.

Bliss made sounds of her own, now, soothing ones, broken words that made little sense in themselves but
were meant only to reinforce the calming effect of her thoughts. It was as though she were mentally fingering the child’s unfamiliar mind and seeking to even out its disheveled emotions.

Slowly, never taking its eyes off Bliss, the child got to its feet, stood there swaying a moment, then made a dash for the silent, frozen robot. It threw its arms about the sturdy robotic leg as though avid for the security of its touch.

Trevize said, “I suppose that the robot is its—nursemaid—or caretaker. I suppose a Solarian can’t care for another Solarian, not even a parent for a child.”

Pelorat said, “And I suppose the child is hermaphroditic.”

“It
would have to be,” said Trevize.

Bliss, still entirely preoccupied with the child, was approaching it slowly, hands held half upward, palms toward herself, as though emphasizing that there was no intention of seizing the small creature. The child was now silent, watching the approach, and holding on the more tightly to the robot.

Bliss said, “There, child—warm, child—soft, warm, comfortable, safe, child—safe—safe.”

She stopped and, without looking round, said in a low voice, “Pel, speak to it in its language. Tell it we’re robots come to take care of it because the power failed.”

“Robots!” said Pelorat, shocked.

“We must be presented as robots. It’s not afraid of robots. And it’s never seen a human being, maybe can’t even conceive of them.”

Pelorat said, “I don’t know if I can think of the right expression. I don’t know the archaic word for ‘robot.’ ”

“Say ‘robot,’ then, Pel. If that doesn’t work, say ‘iron thing.’ Say whatever you can.”

Slowly, word by word, Pelorat spoke archaically. The child looked at him, frowning intensely, as though trying to understand.

Trevize said, “You might as well ask it how to get out, while you’re at it.”

Bliss said, “No. Not yet. Confidence first, then information.”

The child, looking now at Pelorat, slowly released its hold on the robot and spoke in a high-pitched musical voice.

Pelorat said anxiously, “It’s speaking too quickly for me.”

Bliss said, “Ask it to repeat more slowly. I’m doing my best to calm it and remove its fears.”

Pelorat, listening again to the child, said, “I think it’s asking what made Jemby stop. Jemby must be the robot.”

“Check and make sure, Pel.”

Pelorat spoke, then listened, and said, “Yes, Jemby is the robot. The child calls itself Fallom.”

“Good!” Bliss smiled at the child, a luminous, happy smile, pointed to it, and said, “Fallom. Good Fallom. Brave Fallom.” She placed a hand on her chest and said, “Bliss.”

The child smiled. It looked very attractive when it smiled. “Bliss,” it said, hissing the “s” a bit imperfectly.

Trevize said, “Bliss, if you can activate the robot, Jemby, it might be able to tell us what we want to know. Pelorat can speak to it as easily as to the child.”

“No,” said Bliss. “That would be wrong. The robot’s first duty is to protect the child. If it is activated and instantly becomes aware of us, aware of strange human beings, it may as instantly attack us. No strange human beings belong here. If I am then forced to inactivate it, it can give us no information, and the child, faced with a second inactivation of the only parent it knows—Well, I just won’t do it.”

“But we were told,” said Pelorat mildly, “that robots can’t harm human beings.”

“So we were,” said Bliss, “but we were not told what kind of robots these Solarians have designed. And even if this robot were designed to do no harm, it would have to make a choice between its child, or the nearest thing to a child it can have, and three objects whom it might not even recognize as human beings, merely as illegal intruders. Naturally, it would choose the child and attack us.”

She turned to the child again. “Fallom,” she said, “Bliss.” She pointed, “Pel—Trev.”

“Pel. Trev,” said the child obediently.

She came closer to the child, her hands reaching toward it slowly. It watched her, then took a step backward.

“Calm, Fallom,” said Bliss. “Good, Fallom. Touch, Fallom. Nice, Fallom.”

It took a step toward her, and Bliss sighed. “Good, Fallom.”

She touched Fallom’s bare arm, for it wore, as its parent had, only a long robe, open in front, and with a loincloth beneath. The touch was gentle. She removed her arm, waited, and made contact again, stroking softly.

The child’s eyes half-closed under the strong, calming effect of Bliss’s mind.

Bliss’s hands moved up slowly, softly, scarcely touching, to the child’s shoulders, its neck, its ears, then under its long brown hair to a point just above and behind its ears.

Her hands dropped away then, and she said, “The transducer-lobes are still small. The cranial bone hasn’t developed yet. There’s just a tough layer of skin there, which will eventually expand outward and be fenced in with bone after the lobes have fully grown. —Which means it can’t, at the present time, control the estate or even activate its own personal robot. —Ask it how old it is, Pel.”

Pelorat said, after an exchange, “It’s fourteen years old, if I understand it rightly.”

Trevize said, “It looks more like eleven.”

Bliss said, “The length of the years used on this world may not correspond closely to Standard Galactic
Years. Besides, Spacers are supposed to have extended lifetimes and, if the Solarians are like the other Spacers in this, they may also have extended developmental periods. We can’t go by years, after all.”

Trevize said, with an impatient click of his tongue, “Enough anthropology. We must get to the surface and since we are dealing with a child, we may be wasting our time uselessly. It may not know the route to the surface. It may not ever have been on the surface.”

Bliss said, “Pel!”

Pelorat knew what she meant and there followed the longest conversation he had yet had with Fallom.

Finally, he said, “The child knows what the sun is. It says it’s seen it. I
think
it’s seen trees. It didn’t act as though it were sure what the word meant—or at least what the word
I
used meant—”

“Yes, Janov,” said Trevize, “but do get to the point.”

“I told Fallom that if it could get us out to the surface, that might make it possible for us to activate the robot. Actually, I said we
would
activate the robot. Do you suppose we might?”

Trevize said, “We’ll worry about that later. Did it say it would guide us?”

“Yes. I thought the child would be more anxious to do it, you see, if I made that promise. I suppose we’re running the risk of disappointing it—”

“Come,” said Trevize, “let’s get started. All this will be academic if we are caught underground.”

Pelorat said something to the child, who began to walk, then stopped and looked back at Bliss.

Bliss held out her hand and the two then walked hand in hand.

“I’m the new robot,” she said, smiling slightly.

“It seems reasonably happy over that,” said Trevize.

Fallom skipped along and, briefly, Trevize wondered if it were happy simply because Bliss had labored to make it so, or if, added to that, there was the excitement of visiting the surface and of having
three new robots, or whether it was excitement at the thought of having its Jemby foster-parent back. Not that it mattered—as long as the child led them.

There seemed no hesitation in the child’s progress. It turned without pause whenever there was a choice of paths. Did it really know where it was going, or was it all simply a matter of a child’s indifference? Was it simply playing a game with no clear end in sight?

But Trevize was aware, from the slight burden on his progress, that he was moving uphill, and the child, bouncing self-importantly forward, was pointing ahead and chattering.

Trevize looked at Pelorat, who cleared his throat and said, “I
think
what it’s saying is ‘doorway.’ ”

“I hope your thought is correct,” said Trevize.

The child broke away from Bliss, and was running now. It pointed to a portion of the flooring that seemed darker than the sections immediately neighboring it. The child stepped on it, jumping up and down a few times, and then turned with a clear expression of dismay, and spoke with shrill volubility.

Bliss said, with a grimace, “I’ll have to supply the power. —This is wearing me out.”

Her face reddened a bit and the lights dimmed, but a door opened just ahead of Fallom, who laughed in soprano delight.

The child ran out the door and the two men followed. Bliss came last, and looked back as the lights just inside darkened and the door closed. She then paused to catch her breath, looking rather worn out.

“Well,” said Pelorat, “we’re out. Where’s the ship?”

All of them stood bathed in the still luminous twilight.

Trevize muttered, “It seems to me that it was in that direction.”

“It seems so to me, too,” said Bliss. “Let’s walk,” and she held out her hand to Fallom.

There was no sound except those produced by the wind and by the motions and calls of living animals. At
one point they passed a robot standing motionless near the base of a tree, holding some object of uncertain purpose.

Pelorat took a step toward it out of apparent curiosity, but Trevize said, “Not our business, Janov. Move on.”

They passed another robot, at a greater distance, who had tumbled.

Trevize said, “There are robots littered over many kilometers in all directions, I suppose.” And then, triumphantly, “Ah, there’s the ship.”

They hastened their steps now, then stopped suddenly. Fallom raised its voice in an excited squeak.

On the ground near the ship was what appeared to be an air-vessel of primitive design, with a rotor that looked energy-wasteful, and fragile besides. Standing next to the air-vessel, and between the little party of Outworlders and their ship, stood four human figures.

“Too late,” said Trevize. “We wasted too much time. Now what?”

Pelorat said wonderingly, “Four Solarians? It can’t be. Surely they wouldn’t come into physical contact like that. Do you suppose those are holo-images?”