Then it looked back and crooked a finger languidly. “Come. Follow me. All three of you. I will tell you a story that may not interest you, but that interests me.” It continued to walk forward leisurely.
Trevize remained in place for a while, uncertain as to the best course of action. Bliss walked forward, however, and the pressure of her arm led Pelorat forward as well. Eventually, Trevize moved; the alternative was to be left standing alone with the robots.
Bliss said lightly, “If Bander will be so kind as to tell the story that may not interest us—”
Bander turned and looked intently at Bliss as though he were truly aware of her for the first time. “You are the feminine half-human,” he said, “aren’t you? The lesser half?”
“The smaller half, Bander. Yes.”
“These other two are masculine half-humans, then?”
“So they are.”
“Have you had your child yet, feminine?”
“My name, Bander, is Bliss. I have not yet had a child. This is Trevize. This is Pel.”
“And which of these two masculines is to assist you when it is your time? Or will it be both? Or neither?”
“Pel will assist me, Bander.”
Bander turned his attention to Pelorat. “You have white hair, I see.”
Pelorat said, “I have.”
“Was it always that color?”
“No, Bander, it became so with age.”
“And how old are you?”
“I am fifty-two years old, Bander,” Pelorat said, then added hastily, “That’s Galactic Standard Years.”
Bander continued to walk (toward the distant mansion, Trevize assumed), but more slowly. It said, “I don’t know how long a Galactic Standard Year is, but it can’t be very different from our year. And how old will you be when you die, Pel?”
“I can’t say. I may live thirty more years.”
“Eighty-two years, then. Short-lived, and divided in halves. Unbelievable, and yet my distant ancestors were like you and lived on Earth. —But some of them left Earth to establish new worlds around other stars, wonderful worlds, well organized, and many.”
Trevize said loudly, “Not many. Fifty.”
Bander turned a lofty eye on Trevize. There seemed less humor in it now. “Trevize. That’s your name.”
“Golan Trevize in full. I say there were fifty Spacer worlds.
“Do you know, then, the story that I wish to tell you?” said Bander softly.
“If the story is that there were once fifty Spacer worlds, we know it.”
“We count not in numbers only, little half-human,” said Bander. “We count the quality, too. There were fifty, but such a fifty that not all your millions could make up one of them. And Solaria was the fiftieth and, therefore, the best. Solaria was as far beyond the other Spacer worlds, as they were beyond Earth.
“We of Solaria alone learned how life was to be lived. We did not herd and flock like animals, as they did on Earth, as they did on other worlds, as they did even on the other Spacer worlds. We lived each alone, with robots to help us, viewing each other electronically as often as we wished, but coming within natural sight of one another only rarely. It is many years since I have gazed at human beings as I now gaze at you but, then, you are only half- humans and your presence, therefore, does not limit my freedom any more than a cow would limit it, or a robot.
“Yet we were once half-human, too. No matter how we perfected our freedom; no matter how we developed as solitary masters over countless robots; the freedom was never absolute. In order to produce young there had to be two individuals in co-operation. It was possible, of course, to contribute sperm cells and egg cells, to have the fertilization process and the consequent embryonic growth take place artificially in automated fashion. It was possible for the infant to live adequately under robotic care. It could all be done, but the half-humans would not give up the pleasure that went with biological impregnation. Perverse emotional attachments would develop in consequence and freedom vanished. Do you see that that had to be changed?”
Trevize said, “No, Bander, because we do not measure freedom by your standards.”
“That is because you do not know what freedom is. You have never lived but in swarms, and you know no way of life but to be constantly forced, in even the smallest things, to bend your wills to those of others or, which is equally vile, to spend your days struggling to force others to bend their wills to yours. Where is any possible freedom there? Freedom is nothing if it is not to live as you wish! Exactly as you wish!
“Then came the time when the Earthpeople began to swarm outward once more, when their clinging crowds again swirled through space. The other Spacers, who did not flock as the Earthpeople did, but who flocked nevertheless, if to a lesser degree, tried to compete.
“We Solarians did not. We foresaw inevitable failure in swarming. We moved underground and broke off all contact with the rest of the Galaxy. We were determined to remain ourselves at all costs. We developed suitable robots and weapons to protect our apparently empty surface, and they did the job admirably. Ships came and were destroyed, and stopped coming. The planet was considered deserted, and was forgotten, as we hoped it would be.
“And meanwhile, underground, we worked to solve our problems. We adjusted our genes gingerly, delicately. We had failures, but some successes, and we capitalized on the successes. It took us many centuries, but we finally became whole human beings, incorporating both the masculine and feminine principles in one body, supplying our own complete pleasure at will, and producing, when we wished, fertilized eggs for development under skilled robotic care.”
“Hermaphrodites,” said Pelorat.
“Is that what it is called in your language?” asked Bander indifferently. “I have never heard the word.”
“Hermaphroditism stops evolution dead in its tracks,” said Trevize. “Each child is the genetic duplicate of its hermaphroditic parent.”
“Come,” said Bander, “you treat evolution as a hit-and-miss affair. We can design our children if we wish. We can change and adjust the genes and, on occasion, we do. —But we are almost at my dwelling. Let us enter. It grows late in the day. The sun already fails to give its warmth adequately and we will be more comfortable indoors.”
They passed through a door that had no locks of any kind but that opened as they approached and closed behind them as they passed through. There were no windows, but as they entered a cavernous room, the walls glowed to luminous life and brightened. The floor seemed bare, but was soft and springy to the touch. In each of the four corners of the room, a robot stood motionless.
“That wall,” said Bander, pointing to the wall opposite the door—a wall that seemed no different in any way from the other three—“is my vision-screen. The world opens before me through that screen but it in no way limits my freedom for I cannot be compelled to use it.”
Trevize said, “Nor can you compel another to use his if you wish to see him through that screen and he does not.”
“Compel?” said Bander haughtily. “Let another do as it pleases, if it is but content that I do as I please. Please note that we do not use gendered pronouns in referring to each other.”
There was one chair in the room, facing the vision-screen, and Bander sat down in it.
Trevize looked about, as though expecting additional chairs to spring from the floor. “May we sit, too?” he said.
“If you wish,” said Bander.
Bliss, smiling, sat down on the floor. Pelorat sat down beside her. Trevize stubbornly continued to stand.
Bliss said, “Tell me, Bander, how many human beings live on this planet?”
“Say Solarians, half-human Bliss. The phrase ‘human being’ is contaminated by the fact that half-humans call themselves that. We might call ourselves whole-humans, but that is clumsy. Solarian is the proper term.”
“How many Solarians, then, live on this planet?”
“I am not certain. We do not count ourselves. Perhaps twelve hundred.”
