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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?"
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"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."
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"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. ShallI 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-"
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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." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]