Linge Chen leaned forward slightly, acknowledging the proctor’s statement, then leaned back. He did not look at Hari or anyone else in the courtroom. His regal bearing, Hari decided, would do credit to a clothing-store mannequin.
“Let these proceedings begin,” the Chief Commissioner said in a quiet voice, delicately melodious, sibilants emphasized ever so aristocratically.
Hari settled in with a barely audible sigh.
55.
Klia had never been more frightened. She stood in the old dusty long chamber, listening to the murmurs from the group at the opposite end. Brann stood three paces away, his back stiff and shoulders hunched, as if he, too, were waiting for an ax to fall.
Finally Kallusin broke away from the group and approached them. “Come meet your benefactor,” he said to them.
Klia shook her head and stared at the group with wide eyes.
“They won’t bite,” Kallusin said with a slight smile. “They’re robots.”
“So are you,” Klia said. “How can you look so human? How can you smile?” She shot her questions at Kallusin like accusations.
“I was made to look human, and to mimic in my poor way both wit and style,” he replied. “There were real artists in those days. But there’s one who’s even more of a work of art than I am, and another who is older than either of us.”
“Plussix,” she said with a shudder.
Brann stepped to one side and shoved between her and Kallusin. Klia looked up at his bulk with questioning eyes. Are they all robots? Is everyone on Trantor a robot-but me? Or am lone, too?
“We have to get used to all this,” Brann said. “It won’t do anybody any good if you force us.”
“Of course not,” Kallusin said, and his smile faded, to be replaced by an alert blankness that was neither kindly nor threatening. He turned to Klia. “It’s very important that you understand. You could help us avert a major catastrophe-a human catastrophe.”
“Robots used to be servants,” she said. “Like tiktoks before I was born.”
“Yes,” Kallusin said.
“How can they be in charge of anything?”
“Because humans rejected us, long ago, but not before a very bad problem arose among us.”
“Who-robots? A problem among the robots?” Brann asked.
“Plussix will explain. There can be no better testimony than from Plussix. He was functioning at the time.”
“Did he…go wrong?” Klia asked. “Is he an Eternal?”
“Let him explain,” Kallusin said patiently, and urged her to walk forward, toward the others.
Klia noticed the man they had rescued in the Agora of Vendors. He looked over his shoulder at them and gave her a smile. He seemed friendly enough; his face was so unattractive she wondered why anyone could have ever made a robot like him.
To fool us. To walk among us undetected.
She shivered again and wrapped her arms around herself. This room was what the woman on the cart had been looking for-this room, and the robots inside it.
She and Brann were the only humans here.
“All right,” she said, and drew herself together. They did not want to kill her, not yet. And they weren’t threatening her to make her do what they wanted. Not yet. Robots seemed to be more subtle and patient than most of the humans she had known.
She looked up at Brann. “Are you human?” she asked him.
“You know I am,” he said.
“Let’s do it, then. Let’s go hear what the machines have to say.”
Plussix had not appeared to her in his actual shape for obvious reasons. He-it-was the only robot that looked like a robot, and a rather interesting look it was-steel with a lovely silvery-satin finish, and glowing green eyes. His limbs were slender and graceful, their joints marked by barely perceptible fine lines that could themselves orient in different directions-fluid and adaptable.
“You’re beautiful,” she told him grudgingly, as they stood less than three meters from each other.
“Thank you, Mistress.”
“How old are you?”
“I am twenty thousand years old,” Plussix said.
Klia’s heart sank. She could not find any words to express her astonishment-older than the Empire!-so she said nothing.
“Now they’ll have to kill us,” Brann said with what he hoped was passing for a brave grin. But his words made Klia’s stomach flip and her knees wobble.
“We will not kill you,” Plussix said. “It is not within our capacity to kill humans. There are some robots who believe killing humans, our onetime masters and creators, is permissible for the greater good. We are not among them. We are handicapped by this, but it is our nature.”
“I am not so constrained,” Lodovik said. “But I have no wish to break any of the Three Laws.”
Klia stared unhappily at Lodovik. “Spare me the details. I don’t understand any of this.”
“As with nearly all humans alive today, you are ignorant of history,” Plussix said. “Most do not care. This is because of brain fever.”
“I had brain fever,” Klia said. “It nearly killed me.”
“So did I,” said Brann.
“So have nearly all the high mentalics, the persuaders, we have gathered and cared for here,” Plussix said. “Like you, they suffered extreme cases, and it is possible that many potential mentalics died. Brain fever was created by humans in the time of my construction to handicap other human societies to which they were politically opposed. Like many attempts at biological warfare, it backfired-it became pandemic, and perhaps coincidentally, perhaps not, allowed the Empire to exist with little intellectual turmoil for thousands of years. Though nearly all children get ill, about a fourth of them-those with a mental potential above a certain level-is more severely affected. Curiosity and intellectual ability are blunted just enough to level out social development. The majority do not experience a loss of mental skill-perhaps because their skills are general, and they are never given to bouts of genius.”
“I still don’t understand why they wanted to make us sick,” Klia said, her face creased by a stubborn frown.
“The intent was not to make you sick, but to prevent certain societies from ever flourishing.”
“My curiosity has never been dulled,” Brann said.
“Nor mine,” Klia added. “I don’t feel stupid, but I was very sick.”
“I am pleased to hear that,” Plussix said, then added, as diplomatically as possible, “but there is no way of knowing what your intellectual capacity would have been had you never caught brain fever. What is apparent is that your severe bout increased other talents.”
The ancient robot invited them to step into another room of the long chamber. This room had a one-way window view of the warehouse district. They looked out over the bellying arched roofs to the layered-wall dwellings of the citizen neighborhoods beyond. The dome ceil was in particularly sad shape in this part of the municipality, with many dark gaps and flickering panels.
Klia sat on a dusty couch and patted the place next to her, for Brann. Kallusin stood just behind them, and the ugly robot stood by the window, watching them with interest. I’d like to talk with him-it. His face is ugly, but he looks very friendly. It. Whatever!
“You don’t feel like humans,” she said after a moment’s silence.
“You would have noticed this sooner or later,” Plussix said. “It is the difference that Vara Liso can detect, as well.”
“Is she the woman who was chasing him?” Klia pointed to the ugly humaniform robot.
“Yes.”
“She’s the woman who was after me, wasn’t she?”
“Yes,” Plussix said. Its joints made small shhshhing noises as he moved. It was pretty, but it was also noisy. It sounded worn-out, like old bearings in machinery.
“There’s all kinds of stuff going on, isn’t there? Stuff I don’t know about.”
“Yes,” Plussix said, and lowered itself to a boxy plastic chair.
“Explain it to me,” she said. “Do you want to hear?” she asked Brann. Then, in an aside, with a grimace, “Even if they have to kill us?”