Foundation and Earth

45.

Pelorat’s surprise was as great as that of Trevize, but there was an obvious element of pleasure in it, too.

“Isn’t that strange?” he said.

Trevize turned to him and said, with more than a touch of asperity in his voice, “It’s not strange. It’s gibberish.”

Pelorat said, “Not gibberish at all. It’s Galactic, but very archaic. I catch a few words. I could probably understand it easily if it were written down. It’s the pronunciation that’s the real puzzle.”

“Well, what did it say?”

“I think it told you it didn’t understand what you said.”

Bliss said, “I can’t tell what it said, but what I sense is puzzlement, which fits. That is, if I can trust my analysis of robotic emotion—or if there is such a thing as robotic emotion.”

Speaking very slowly, and with difficulty, Pelorat said something, and the three robots ducked their head in unison.

“What was that?” said Trevize.

Pelorat said, “I said I couldn’t speak well, but I would try. I asked for a little time. Dear me, old chap, this is fearfully interesting.”

“Fearfully disappointing,” muttered Trevize.

“You see,” said Pelorat, “every habitable planet in the Galaxy manages to work out its own variety of Galactic so that there are a million dialects that are sometimes barely intercomprehensible, but they’re all pulled together by the development of Galactic Standard. Assuming this world to have been isolated for twenty thousand years, the language would ordinarily drift so far from that of the rest of the Galaxy as to be an entirely different language. That it isn’t may be because the world has a social system that depends upon robots which can only understand the language as spoken in the fashion in which they were programmed. Rather than keep reprogramming, the language remained static and we now have what is to us merely a very archaic form of Galactic.”

“There’s an example,” said Trevize, “of how a robotized society can be held static and made to turn degenerate.”

“But, my dear fellow,” protested Pelorat, “keeping a language relatively unchanged is not necessarily a sign of degeneration. There are advantages to it. Documents preserved for centuries and millennia retain their meaning and give greater longevity and authority to historical records. In the rest of the Galaxy, the language of Imperial edicts of the time of Hari Seldon already begins to sound quaint.”

“And do you know this archaic Galactic?”

“Not to say know, Golan. It’s just that in studying ancient myths and legends I’ve picked up the trick of it. The vocabulary is not entirely different, but it is inflected differently, and there are idiomatic expressions we don’t use any longer and, as I have said, the pronunciation is totally changed. I can act as interpreter, but not as a very good one.”

Trevize heaved a tremulous sigh. “A small stroke of good fortune is better than none. Carry on, Janov.”

Pelorat turned to the robots, waited a moment, then looked back at Trevize. “What am I supposed to say?”

“Let’s go all the way. Ask them where Earth is.”

Pelorat said the words one at a time, with exaggerated gestures of his hands.

The robots looked at each other and made a few sounds. The middle one then spoke to Pelorat, who replied while moving his hands apart as though he were stretching a length of rubber. The robot responded by spacing his words as carefully as Pelorat had.

Pelorat said to Trevize, “I’m not sure I’m getting across what I mean by ‘Earth.’ I suspect they think I’m referring to some region on their planet and they say they don’t know of any such region.”

“Do they use the name of this planet, Janov?”

“The closest I can come to what I think they are using as the name is ‘Solaria.’?”

“Have you ever heard of it in your legends?”

“No—any more than I had ever heard of Aurora.”

“Well, ask them if there is any place named Earth in the sky—among the stars. Point upward.”

Again an exchange, and finally Pelorat turned and said, “All I can get from them, Golan, is that there are no places in the sky.”

Bliss said, “Ask those robots how old they are; or rather, how long they have been functioning.”

“I don’t know how to say ‘functioning,’?” said Pelorat, shaking his head. In fact, I’m not sure if I can say ‘how old.’ I’m not a very good interpreter.”

“Do the best you can, Pel dear,” said Bliss.

And after several exchanges, Pelorat said, “They’ve been functioning for twenty-six years.”

“Twenty-six years,” muttered Trevize in disgust. “They’re hardly older than you are, Bliss.”

Bliss said, with sudden pride, “It so happens—”

“I know. You’re Gaia, which is thousands of years old. —In any case, these robots cannot talk about Earth from personal experience, and their memory-banks clearly do not include anything not necessary to their functioning. So they know nothing about astronomy.”

Pelorat said, “There may be other robots somewhere on the planet that are primordial, perhaps.”

“I doubt it,” said Trevize, “but ask them, if you can find the words for it, Janov.”

This time there was quite a long conversation and Pelorat eventually broke it off with a flushed face and a clear air of frustration.

“Golan,” he said, “I don’t understand part of what they’re trying to say, but I gather that the older robots are used for manual labor and don’t know anything. If this robot were a human, I’d say he spoke of the older robots with contempt. These three are house robots, they say, and are not allowed to grow old before being replaced. They’re the ones who really know things—their words, not mine.”

“They don’t know much,” growled Trevize. “At least of the things we want to know.”

“I now regret,” said Pelorat, “that we left Aurora so hurriedly. If we had found a robot survivor there, and we surely would have, since the very first one I encountered still had a spark of life left in it, they would know of Earth through personal memory.”

“Provided their memories were intact, Janov,” said Trevize. “We can always go back there and, if we have to, dog packs or not, we will. —But if these robots are only a couple of decades old, there must be those who manufacture them, and the manufacturers must be human, I should think.” He turned to Bliss. “Are you sure you sensed—”

But she raised a hand to stop him and there was a strained and intent look on her face. “Coming now,” she said, in a low voice.

Trevize turned his face toward the rise and there, first appearing from behind it, and then striding toward them, was the unmistakable figure of a human being. His complexion was pale and his hair light and long, standing out slightly from the sides of his head. His face was grave but quite young in appearance. His bare arms and legs were not particularly muscled.

The robots stepped aside for him, and he advanced till he stood in their midst.

He then spoke in a clear, pleasant voice and his words, although used archaically, were in Galactic Standard, and easily understood.

“Greetings, wanderers from space,” he said. “What would you with my robots?”

46.

Trevize did not cover himself with glory. He said foolishly, “You speak Galactic?”

The Solarian said, with a grim smile, “And why not, since I am not mute?”

“But these?” Trevize gestured toward the robots.