Foundation and Earth - Isaac Asimov [90]
“But?”
“But if there are robots still functioning on this world, they may have important information that we could use. They would be safer to deal with than human beings would be, since, from what I’ve heard, they must follow orders and can’t harm human beings.”
“So you’ve changed your plan and now you’re going to spend time on this world searching for robots.”
“I don’t want to, Bliss. It seems to me that robots can’t last twenty thousand years without maintenance. —Yet since you’ve seen one with a spark of activity still, it’s clear I can’t rely on my commonsense guesses about robots. I mustn’t lead out of ignorance. Robots may be more enduring than I imagine, or they may have a certain capacity for self-maintenance.”
Bliss said, “Listen to me, Trevize, and please keep this confidential.”
“Confidential?” said Trevize, raising his voice in surprise. “From whom?”
“Sh! From Pel, of course. Look, you don’t have to change your plans. You were right the first time. There are no functioning robots on this world. I detect nothing.”
“You detected that one, and one is as good as—”
“I did not detect that one. It was nonfunctioning; long nonfunctioning.”
“You said—”
“I know what I said. Pel thought he saw motion and heard sound. Pel is a romantic. He’s spent his working life gathering data, but that is a difficult way of making one’s mark in the scholarly world. He would dearly love to make an important discovery of his own. His finding of the word ‘Aurora’ was legitimate and made him happier than you can imagine. He wanted desperately to find more.”
Trevize said, “Are you telling me he wanted to make a discovery so badly he convinced himself he had come upon a functioning robot when he hadn’t?”
“What he came upon was a lump of rust containing no more consciousness than the rock against which it rested.”
“But you supported his story.”
“I could not bring myself to rob him of his discovery. He means so much to me.”
Trevize stared at her for a full minute; then he said, “Do you mind explaining why he means so much to you? I want to know. I really want to know. To you he must seem an elderly man with nothing romantic about him. He’s an Isolate, and you despise Isolates. You’re young and beautiful and there must be other parts of Gaia that have the bodies of vigorous and handsome young men. With them you can have a physical relationship that can resonate through Gaia and bring peaks of esctasy. So what do you see in Janov?”
Bliss looked at Trevize solemnly. “Don’t you love him?”
Trevize shrugged and said, “I’m fond of him. I suppose you could say, in a nonsexual way, that I love him.”
“You haven’t known him very long, Trevize. Why do you love him, in that nonsexual way of yours?”
Trevize found himself smiling without being aware of it. “He’s such an odd fellow. I honestly think that never in his life has he given a single thought to himself. He was ordered to go along with me, and he went. No objection. He wanted me to go to Trantor, but when I said I wanted to go to Gaia, he never argued. And now he’s come along with me in this search for Earth, though he must know it’s dangerous. I feel perfectly confident that if he had to sacrifice his life for me—or for anyone—he would, and without repining.”
“Would you give your life for him, Trevize?”
“I might, if I didn’t have time to think. If I did have time to think, I would hesitate and I might funk it. I’m not as good as he is. And because of that, I have this terrible urge to protect and keep him good. I don’t want the Galaxy to teach him not to be good. Do you understand? And I have to protect him from you particularly. I can’t bear the thought of you tossing him aside when whatever nonsense amuses you now is done with.”
“Yes, I thought you’d think something like that. Don’t you suppose I see in Pel what you see in him—and even more so, since I can contact his mind directly? Do I act as though I want to hurt him? Would I support his fantasy of having seen a functioning robot, if it weren’t that I couldn