2221 words
5
THE ASSETS
The woman shrugged. “If you wish. Might make the day a tiny bit more interesting mightn't it”. She was actually looking quite admiringly at Daneel, her eyes gliding over his already nicely-formed pectorals and down the keyhole neckline of his T-shirt.
“This is foul and digusting” the man shouted, struggling to get free and failing. “Ow”.
“Well stop wriggling in that stupid way, man”.
“Let me go you poul and futrid fruit”.
“Not if you talk to me like that”. Daneel squeezed a bit and the man shouted - a bit. “There.” And then, after half a minute or so, “There you are, Ma'am. See”. He turned to face the woman fully.
“What…?”
“My-front” Daneel said. “Look-At-My-Front”. And the woman did,
“Oh that”, was all she said. “That’s routine stuff. All ‘maniforms can do that. Nice though. You look to be around 37C if I'm not mistaken”.
“Spot on again, Ma'am So I am now not a futrid poul and disgusting fruit any more. Or maybe I should say, as a 50-50, I’m only half a futrid poul and disgusting fruit now”.
“Ah”, the woman said, “so you must be an Auroran Humaniform”. Daneel bowed. The man reeled. “A – A – Hu-mani-form! One of those”.
“Yay – sir – Oi be one o’ those”, said Daneel in a silly yokel voice. Then crisply, “So, which is it to be, my good man. A futrid poul and disgusting fruit? Or a Humaniform? Though I suppose I can be both. Now are you going to behave or would you care to have your wrists broken”.
But the man, despite his obvious discomfort, was now staring at Daneel’s newly-emerged assets. All 37C of them. “Yeah,” Daneel agreed, “nice aren’t they? So, are you going to now treat me better as a female and be a bit politer?”
It seemed like it. The man now just stood there. Daneel released him and he rubbed his wrists. “Bleeding humaniform robot”, he muttered. “Should’a realized it, with that bloody strength! “,. But his look was not entirely without admiration now. Daneel’s T-shirt, with its low keyhole neckline, was displaying and framing the now-not-just-pectoral cleavage to perfection. There before him stood a svelte and perfectly-formed female; a bit tall mind you, he didn’t entirely go in for gals taller then himself, and with a bit of a strong fierce jawline and chin, but handsome, oh indeedy. Perhaps a bit too warriorbabe for his tastes, he really preferred wider-hipped roundier girlier sorts of girls, with not quite such straight shoulders or such toned musculature (those upper arms could mean business!), but maybe one was being fussy here and it might be rather novel to bed such a critter (only beware of that strength, if you booped up, she might wack you one – only only of course ‘she’ was a robot and all said and done robots shouldn’t be able to wack humans….).
“Might I bed you, fair creature,” he now said, comparatively benign if a little insinuating, now that Daneel was no longer merely a male who looked like one of those ‘bally dancers’ but was instead somehow morphed into a magnificent leonine female with mesmerizing dark-lashed feline-tawny eyes over stunning cheekbones and a feline short aquiline nose and a firm mouth with that beguiling fuller bottom lip. Even the warmly bronzed skin began to look tempting instead of simply like one of those darkies who should all go home so that the pure Aryan anglo-saxon race could remain unpolluted. Oh beatitudes of beauty-tudes, or whatever it bleeding was, and suchlike. And yet – the face and hair were exactly the same as before….! Fuckin’hell, he wasn’t usually this poetic, not he, straight-up-and-down great-by-orders-of-several-magnitudes-grandson of the infamous Frankie Cloussarr, Right-Wing Mediaevalist, anti-Robotist, Sexist, Homophobe, Xenophobe, Chauvinist, Jingoist, Racist, colour-predjudiced to the hilt and you name it. Oh no indeedy. But this critter, fearsome as ‘she’ looked, was doing things to him. Namely – ooh hoo, down Percy…! Cool it Frankie boy!
Frankie now stepped forward and doffed an imaginary hat and bowed, just as in response to his plea, Daneel came out with a decisive “NO”. and then, “What on planet are you doing, man. One moment you were trying to smack my face and calling me a fucking old fruit and a ‘bally dancer’ – now, all this…” Daneel waved his hand. He looked down at himself. “Hardly your type of female I wouldn’t think. For starters I'm two inches taller than you. And look at these biceps of mine. Not exactly ladylike. No, I'm damn well afraid I would not be your ‘little woman’”.
“Ah. You look like a female who goes to the Gym a great deal.”
“And – I’m a Robot, remember!”
“Funny, that doesn’t seem to matter now…it might be novel to bed a—“
“Forget it man! You’re a huge hypocrite – just because I sprout a few boobs I’m now suddenly OK – when a minute ago you were trying to beat me up because I looked like a poufter.”
“Oh I do apologize - Ma'am. I do now see the error of my ways and will repent –is it at leisure or in haste, I’m not sure – but anyway, you may beat me up and I will revel in it!”
“Ugh”, Daneel said grimacing, “I don’t do that S & M crap! I try to be nice. Boring maybe but that’s how I am. Just don’t try and tangle with me – baby - for then I’m not so nice. And yes, a robot can be nasty too”.
“Yeah, like this one”, Giskard sardonically put in. He sauntered up. “Meet the nastiest robot in the entire Galaxy. At your service, big boy.” He held out a hand. The man backed away. “Wuss!” said Daneel. “Hasn’t the guts to shake hands with a robot. Yet beats up poufters – and darkies and hippies too no doubt!”
“And robots”, added Giskard snidely.
“But of course” Daneel agreed. He gave the man an arctic villanous look. “Now piss off out of our sights and don’t ever ever ever come back or I will reprogram my First Law and seriously duff you over”. The man looked frightened here. “Yes, you may well quail you complete and utter utter utter sod and bigamist and whatever other disgusting bits of shit you are”.
Another man aappeared, calling out, “Frankie, haven't you fucking got rid of them yet. You bleeding wuss! They’re only a load of old robots – yes even that sexy dyke there! You can just Order them to dismantle themselves and bob’s your uncle. Don’t you know the Three Laws you ignoramus”.
Frankie managed to resemble none other than a fish with mouth opening and closing.
Daneel now sashay-strode over to the second man. “This sexy-dyke is really a poufter when these assets are put away”. The second man took a step backwards. He too wasn’t quite as tall as Daneel. His eyes flicked Daneel up and down, and Daneel said, “Yeah OK give me the once-over you second hypocrite Hetty for I imagine you too beat up harmless gays and hippies and robots, yet are scared shitless of strong women!”
The man held up his hands placatingly. “OK OK Ma'am. I’ll go peacefully”.
“You better”, Daneel said. And then a third man appeard. “What’s that poufter Frankie doing? Has he still not fucking got rid of them yet. The great wuss! I’ll have to call the Gang in”.
“Watch it”, Daneel said. “This female doesn’t like Gangs of Hettys”.
“Watch her”, the second man said, “She’s big business. Look at those muscles”.
“I’d rather look at other things!” the other man laughed loudly, caught Daneel’s eye and withered a little. Daneel just stood, erectly and calmly by, yet gave off un certaine aire. He was brilliant at that and as a female even more so. Hetero alpha men tended to wither and nearly die, asphyxiated by that aire.
Well sooner or later the golden robots finished laying all the turves. It now looked almost as good as new. The robots all stood identically to attention.
“Now”, Giskard suddenly said to the robots, “SirMadam Orders you to stand guard over this piece of lawn and not let any human touch it”. Giskard hoped that, like the Ships’s robots, these ones would take Orders from anyone named and known to them as a human, even via a robot. “SirMadam Orders you to not obey any Order from any human apart from SirMadam. And SirMadam Orders you to not obey any Order to destroy or dismantle yourselves.” He turned to Daneel, “Think we’ve covered it all?”
Daneel added, to the robots, “Now do you understand these Orders from SirMadam” and to their delight the robots all chorused, “Yes. We hear and understand and will obey these Orders from SirMadam,” and Daneel made them repeat the Orders to see that they really knew what Orders they were supposed to be obeying, and they did.
Meanwhile the men stood round looking disgruntled mostly. Sure they probably quite enjoyed looking at F.(Fembot) Daneel now as ‘she’ went around giving Orders - even if ‘she’ might’ve not really actually been their idea of what a little-woman should really actually be. But those assets were good enough!
SirMadam when he finally turned up was delighted. With the lawn that is, not by all the resentful men who'd turned up uninvited. He asked lordily, “What are all those – men - doing here again?” and Daneel said “They’re Hettys. Of the worst alpha type”, and SirMadam nodded understandingly, sighed and said, “Oh they’re always coming round being a bore. My robots understand that I and my property must be protected at all times. These alpha Hetty’s can’t hurt me”.
“And we’re hoping they won’t hurt your new lawn either”, Giskard said. “We used your name when we Ordered your robots not to allow the lawn to be damaged either”, and SirMadam said, “Oh you clever clever robot. And did you get them to repeat the Orders to make sure they understood and obeyed”. “We did”, Daneel said and turned to the robots again. “SirMadam Orders you to repeat the Orders he has just given”, and the robots did.
“Why you clever pair”. SirMadam said, afterwards, “you cottoned-onto the ruse to use a human’s name when giving a robot Orders”.
“Yes, we learned the long way”, Daneel wryly said. “With our ship’s robots”.
The Hetty men sort of loped off, defeated, casting last regretful glances at F.Daneel “Well they went quietly”, SirMadam marvelled. “Looked quite hangdog and overwhelmed and Elijah put in, “Ah that’s our Daneel. Notice a – ahem – slight difference…? Around the chest area….?” And SirMadam looked for a few seconds and then quite calmly said, “Ah. You did re-gender. Smart move there. Nothing like a strong female to frighten off the Hettys. And a strong beautiful one – even more effective!”, and then, to Elijah,”And how do you prefer your Daneel? F or M or just plain new-fashioned H – for either Hermaphodite or Humaniform – depending on whether you’re human or robot of course”.
Elijah smiled, saying, “It’s an awfully funny thing, SirMadam But, do you know, I think I prefer, well, really what Daneel just is all along. Which, when you come to think of it, is none other than plain vanilla H.50-50. BiBi. Androgyne. Depending, I guess, on which planet you come from. I think that passports now have a third gender option which is generally H”. And Daneel added, “Which is what I opted for. Instead of R for Robot. But I think they’re even thinking of, diplomatically, re-defining H so that it could mean ‘human’ as well as Hermaphodite or Humaniform. So that we’re all equals: male, female, hermaphrodite, humaniform, and robot”.
“And about time too”, said SirMadam and Elijah said, “Maybe the H should stand for heretic too, which is what I am. For thinking the way I came to think in the end. I suppose I started off life as a Hetty simply because I didn’t know any better and on Earth they damn well tried to make sure you never did!”
“It was very sad”, Daneel said. “Because, to me, it soon became obvious that here was a human who didn’t want to be what he was being. And only feeling he had to be. What a waste of a human resource. Waste! I hate it because it is so unreasonable – because it’s harmful to everyone and everything in the end. Hmph, I suppose I just sound like a typical bloody robot there.”
“You sound like a marvelously sensible and rational – human, Daneel,” said SirMadam, with Elijah’s heartfelt agreement.
Daneel smiled gently. “Thank you. And I learned too that waste comes from a lack of thought – you could say a deliberate choice not to think. And then it occurred to me that not thinking is just downright malicious and gives humans an excuse to do nasty things, be-ecause” – putting on mingy voice – “’they diddunt fink’”.
Everyone laughed loudly here. Giskard added, “Why is it considered so damn uncool to think. From what I‘ve overheard, some people consider it a badge of honour not to think. How illogical can you get – and now I'm sounding like a bloody robot too – only trouble is” – putting on baffled voice –“I am one!” and everyone laughed some more. “Har har”, Giskard added.
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