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This ship will dock in twenty-one minutes, the autopilot informed them,
treating them as if they were human passengers.
So far as it was able to judge, in its specialized way, they were; it knew no
other kind of passenger. Yet no passengers other than robots had traveled on
this ship for thousands of years. No human had ever been to Eos.
Somehow, Lodovik felt like an intruding and betraying--what? He labored to
think of an appropriate human word. A ghost, perhaps, malignant and deranged,
masquerading in the body of a robot...
The ship rotated slowly and the moon passed out of view. There was only the
broad thick spill of the nearest dense spiral arm, viewed almost edge-on and
quite faint from this vantage, near the diffuse rim of the Galaxy. Above and
below this faint mottled band, filling over a third of their field of view,
stretched a profound blackness very thinly scattered with lone points of
light, a few stars close and within the
Galactic plane, other stars far away and high above the plane. Still others,
much farther away and even dimmer, were not stars but galaxies.
Eos s surface came back into view, much closer and rich with detail. A few
craters threw splashes of ice dust across the oceans and plains; for the most
part, however, Eos solid hydrosphere was unmarked but for the signs of
internal disruption: tortuous seams, heaves, the puckered chasms and pressure
ridges. This star system had no marauding belts of asteroids and comets,
subject to perturbation and gliding silently inward to disrupt the moons and
planets.
Eos was isolated and ignored, solid, cold, inhospitable for any living
thing--and for robots, almost
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completely safe.
We have docked, announced the autopilot.
Had anyone looked, the station pioneered and built by R. Daneel Olivaw and R.
Yan Kansarv would have been clearly visible against Eos s frozen surface, even
from millions of kilometers in space. Its heat made it the most brilliant
object on the moon--for those seeking infrared signatures. None did, or ever
had, however.
Lodovik and Daneel disembarked from the transport in a broad and almost empty
hangar, with room for many ships. Their footsteps echoed in the cavernous
enclosure. Lodovik had been here almost eighty times before, yet had never
thought to be curious about this anomaly. Why had Daneel and
Kansarv wasted so much space? Had there ever been occasion when this hangar
was filled with ships--filled with robots? When had that been?
Yan Kansarv itself met them a hundred meters from the transport. It stood with
arms crossed and fingers linked, a gleaming dark steel head and body
highlighted by brilliant silver limbs--four arms, two large and emerging from
where human shoulders would have been, two small and recessed into its thorax;
and three legs, on which it walked with a precise and level grace unknown to
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humaniform robots.
Its head was small, equipped with seven vertical sensor bands, two of which
glowed blue at any given time.
It is a pleasure to see you again, Lodovik Trema, Yan said in a rich,
slightly buzzing contralto.
And Daneel. You are very late for a maintenance check and refit.
We must work quickly, Daneel said, eliminating any human signs of greeting.
Yan immediately switched to robot microwave speech. The following detailed
explanation took less than half a second.
Yan then turned to Lodovik. Pardon my eccentricities, it spoke, but
whenever possible it gives me pleasure to exercise my human functions. I have
been unable to do so for over thirty years. Except, of course, with Dors
Venabili. I fear, however, that she no longer finds me of interest.
Daneel had already inquired about Dors progress, and had received an answer.
Yan, however, explained in speech once more to Lodovik. She has made a very
satisfying recovery, but with many lapses. When R. Daneel brought her here,
she was close to total breakdown. She had stretched any interpretation of the
Zeroth Law to the very limits by destroying a human who threatened Hari
Seldon.
The strain was compounded by the effects of her victim s invention, an
Electro-Clarifier, I believe it was called...
Lodovik realized that this ancient robot, built many thousands of years ago to
repair other robots on Aurora--and the last of its kind still functional--was
reacting deep in its programming to their convincing human forms. It knew, on
one level, that they were fellow robots--but on another level, a primal and
irresistible urge arose to treat them as if they were human.
Yan Kansarv was lonely for its ancient masters.
She awaits your company, Kansarv said, then, to Daneel, it added, She
wishes news of Hari.
That mission is finished for her, Daneel said. She was constructed by me,
using ancient plans
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for convincing helpmeets and consorts, to be as nearly human as any robot ever
made, Kansarv reminded him. More even than you, R. Daneel. She bears a great
resemblance to R. Lodovik in that regard. To alter that now would be to
destroy her.
There is so much work to do, Daneel said, with a faint intonation of
urgency.
Kansarv was not oblivious to this. I can perform all the necessary tasks
within twenty-one hours, then you may leave. I hope there is time for more
conversation. I need outside stimulus now and then, or I become subject to
minor malfunctions that are irritating.
We cannot afford to lose you,
Daneel said.
No, Kansarv agreed without a hint of self-pity. The only robot I cannot
repair or manufacture is one like myself.
Dors Venabili stood in the simple four-room enclosure built for her upon her
arrival on Eos. The furniture and decor was similar to what might have been
found on Trantor, in the quarters of a mid-level meritocrat or high-level
university professor. The temperature was set at just above the freezing point
of water; the humidity was less than two percent, and the light level was what
a human would have regarded as murky, sub-twilight. These were optimal for a
robot, even a humaniform, with the added benefit of reducing her energy use to
a minimum.
There was very little to think about or do, and there were no cycling time
periods to deal with, so
Dors spent much of her existence in a continuous, fluid robotic suspension, at
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