Foundation and Earth

"We must be presented as robots. It's not afraid of robots. And it's never seen a human being, maybe can't even conceive of them."

Pelorat said, "I don't know if I can think of the right expression. I don't know the archaic word for 'robot.' "

"Say 'robot,' then, Pel. If that doesn't work, say 'iron thing.' Say whatever you can."

Slowly, word by word, Pelorat spoke archaically. The child looked at him, frowning intensely, as though trying to understand.

Trevize said, "You might as well ask it how to get out, while you're at it."

Bliss said, "No. Not yet. Confidence first, then information."

The child, looking now at Pelorat, slowly released its hold on the robot and spoke in a high-pitched musical voice.

Pelorat said anxiously, "It's speaking too quickly for me."

Bliss said, "Ask it to repeat more slowly. I'm doing my best to calm it and remove its fears."

Pelorat, listening again to the child, said, "I think it's asking what made Jemby stop. Jemby must be the robot."

"Check and make sure, Pel."

Pelorat spoke, then listened, and said, "Yes, Jemby is the robot. The child calls itself Fallom."

"Good!" Bliss smiled at the child, a luminous, happy smile, pointed to it, and said, "Fallom. Good Fallom. Brave Fallom." She placed a hand on her chest and said, "Bliss."

The child smiled. It looked very attractive when it smiled. "Bliss," it said, hissing the "s" a bit imperfectly.

Trevize said, "Bliss, if you can activate the robot, Jemby, it might be able to tell us what we want to know. Pelorat can speak to it as easily as to the child."

"No," said Bliss. "That would be wrong. The robot's first duty is to protect the child. If it is activated and instantly becomes aware of us, aware of strange human beings, it may as instantly attack us. No strange human beings belong here. If I am then forced to inactivate it, it can give us no information, and the child, faced with a second inactivation of the only parent it knows-Well, I just won't do it."

"But we were told," said Pelorat mildly, "that robots can't harm human beings."

"So we were," said Bliss, "but we were not told what kind of robots these Solarians have designed. And even if this robot were designed to do no harm, it would have to make a choice between its child, or the nearest thing to a child it can have, and three objects whom it might not even recognize as human beings, merely as illegal intruders. Naturally, it would choose the child and attack us."

She turned to the child again. "Fallow," she said, "Bliss." She pointed, "Pel-Trev."

"Pel. Trev," said the child obediently.

She came closer to the child, her hands reaching toward it slowly. It watched her, then took a step backward.

"Calm, Fallom," said Bliss. "Good, Fallom. Touch, Fallom. Nice, Fallom."

It took a step toward her, and Bliss sighed. "Good, Fallom."

She touched Fallom's bare arm, for it wore, as its parent had, only a long robe, open in front, and with a loincloth beneath. The touch was gentle. She removed her arm, waited, and made contact again, stroking softly.

The child's eyes half-closed under the strong, calming effect of Bliss's mind.

Bliss's hands moved up slowly, softly, scarcely touching, to the child's shoulders, its neck, its ears, then under its long brown hair to a point just above and behind its ears.

Her hands dropped away then, and she said, "The transducer-lobes are still small. The cranial bone hasn't developed yet. There's just a tough layer of skin there, which will eventually expand outward and be fenced in with bone after the lobes have fully grown. Which means it can't, at the present time, control the estate or even activate its own personal robot. Ask it how old it is, Pel."

Pelorat said, after an exchange, "It's fourteen years old, if I understand it rightly."

Trevize said, "It looks more like eleven."

Bliss said, "The length of the years used on this world may not correspond closely to Standard Galactic Years. Besides, Spacers are supposed to have extended lifetimes and, if the Solarians are like the other Spacers in this, they may also have extended developmental periods. We can't go by years, after all."

Trevize said, with an impatient click of his tongue, "Enough anthropology. We must get to the surface and since we are dealing with a child, we may be wasting our time uselessly. It may not know the route to the surface. It may not ever have been on the surface."

Bliss said, "Pel!"

Pelorat knew what she meant and there followed the longest conversation he had yet had with Fallom.

Finally, he said, "The child knows what the sun is. It says it's seen it. I think it's seen trees. It didn't act as though it were sure what the word meant-or at least what the word I used meant-"

"Yes, Janov," said Trevize, "but do get to the point."

"I told Fallow that if it could get us out to the surface, that might make it possible for us to activate the robot. Actually, I said we would activate the robot. Do you suppose we might?"

Trevize said, "We'll worry about that later. Did it say it would guide us?"