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9
THE VILLAGES OF TWEN-CEN SUBURBIA
Sometime during the cruise Daneel and Giskard goofed up again. Nothing life threatening or anything. They simply set some coordinates and misread the odd zero and ended up back on Earth again when they'd meant to be going to Galaxia, a large tropical planet with a famously starry sky and several moons, more towards the Galaxy’s centre, where people liked to lie on their backs on the grass looking up at this and making out constellations or going for night river cruises along its swampy jungle-fringed rivers and hearing massive croaking frogs and chirring cicadas and smelling the hot cloying perfume of great multicoloured flowering creepers.
Never mind. The passengers were mostly habitually so stoned or inebriated or hung-over or worn out by doing it all night and generally full of the joys of whacking it up on a luxury Spacecruiser that they generally were pretty laid-back about it all. Any planet would do really. They’d just do Galaxia after instead.
Earth still hung on to its caves of steel however, more foetid and fuggy than ever. Elijah contacted who was to be his great-great-greet-grandson also called Ben, who thought he wanted to leave the caves and start afresh outside. He said his sister Jess would like to come too, they were so bored with being cooped up and outside sounded so lovely and fresh with its naked sun. It hadn’t changed a great deal, maybe a few more ‘quaint’ repro villages with robot ducks in a pond on the green and surrounded by preserved bits of real countryside had sprung up, and some ‘old-style’ farms complete with robot animals: cows and sheep and sheepdogs and chickens and even a humaniform stereotype bad-tempered farmer, made on Earth under Auroran licence.
The fields were still the same old grid layout, worked by agricultural robots, ‘agribots’, which looked like old-style tractors quaintly complete with (humaniform) driver. Little Bigham had become – horror of horrors – a dormitory town with huge dreary housing estates or ‘neo-tudor’ executive and luxury housing developments trying to look like bits of Old America Suburbicus. “Humanity does not change much” Daneel sighed. “No verily it does not”. Sounding like SirMadam here.
There was excursions by exceedingly cushy glass-roofed charabancs so that the more sightseeing people on the cruise could see what this was all about: steel caves, dormitory towns, housing estates, towerblocks, mean streets with terrace back-to-backs. They mostly weren’t impressed but that was the whole point: to see how unimpressively twen-cen Western Earth humanity had averagely lived and how they didn’t seem to have the imagination to pull themselves out of this either so that even today they continued to live in this same old weary way. Some of the ships passengers, like Elijah, had agoraphobia and wouldn’t go out at all or wouldn’t leave the coaches.
Elijah, comfortably with Daneel’s arm round him, did go out though. Little Bigham was now, like of historic old, full of oiky (human) teenagers, hanging out round the square’s fountain and generally being offputting. The mossy house where the old dear that Elijah and Daneel had solved a mystery for long ago was now a hotel with unsympathetic added-on wings and a golf-course where brash self-made former sales-reps went on packages. The Inn where Daneel and Elijah had stayed was still there though but much prinked up with musak and slot machines and serving scampi and chicken-in-a-basket, more like a Berni Inn that a characterful old village hostelry.
“Humanity regresses”, Giskard sighed.
“Oh verily it does” agreed Elijah, sounding like Daneel.
They’d gone into the bar but it was so tedious and the musak so bad (playing ‘The Funky Chicken’ song for gossake!) that they came out again and looked for somewhere else - only there wasn’t anywhere else except a tedious Starbucks café trying to be trendy with one of those terrible clattery human-operated capuchino makers right out on the counter that they hadn't the sensitivity to site out-of-earshot in the kitchen instead - as they would’ve in a civilized place, ie Aurora. Or at least have agile-handed concisely-motored robots operating it instead!
Even the bus services was much reduced. “Used to be one every ten minutes from outside the City” Elijah remembred. Now they were lucky if there was one an hour. The square was clogged with cars, quite a few of which were decidedly old-style with their slam-doors! Quel horreur. In the end, in disgust, they returned to the welcoming interior of the coach, Elijah having managed to find a typically monoculture One-Stop shop (with no robots, just heavy-handed annoying human checkout operatives) where he could buy a turgid pasty to eat in the coach, which gave him indigestion afterwards.
“We will not go back there again”, he announced and burped. “No verily no”.
“At least,” Giskard said, “nobody said” – putting on silly voice – “’oh look, a grey robot!’ or any such crap.”
“Maybe you should dye yourself a different colour,” Daneel said mock-fatuously. He pulled a self-parodical face. “Yeah, I know…. Only trying to be helpful. Forget it”.
“Oh I will, don’t worry,” Giskard loftily said. “Forget it, that is. And coloured robots are so naff”.
They settled back into their reclinable seats and Elijah unwound his great long fleecy scarf. He still went outside swathed in his trenchcoat and waterproof trilby and the scarf wound round his head and often over most of his face. To show solidarity Daneel would wear a similar scarf wound so and for a joke so did Giskard. “Bloody hell, we look like terrorists now”, Daneel said, lustrous dark-lashed eyes looking out as if from a fortress from between the folds of the scarf. They’d bought these off a market stall, Elijah keen to find a nice long one and could only find these, covered in teddy bears, ladybirds, or Noddy and Big Ears – a current fad then. Elijah had the teddy bear one (the least silly for the self-conscious human though it was a rather hideous tangerine colour) and Giskard the bright yellow Noddy and Big Ears one (“In for a penny, in for a pound! Let ‘em laugh!”) which left the jazzy black-and-red-and-white ladybird one for Daneel (“ Well that’s what I am really, all said and done”). Elijah was getting more used to Outside and its huge naked sky and sun and horizons but still found it hard to go out on his own.
THE GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-GREAT GRANCHILDREN
Jess and Ben, the children of Elijah’s great-great-great grandson – also named Elijah - were a bit scared of Outside too, when it came down to it. They seemed nice enough kids really and got on well with the robots despite the Earth City
“Its really unfair” Ben said, a bit tearfully once.”If I want to dress in nice clothes and not play horrible games and show affection you get really ragged. Whereas Jess can wear her hair short and play football and hug her girlfriends and nobody thinks anything of it – or not enough to be mean about it. And Jess certainly doesn’t give a damn!”.
Elijah was sympathetic to Ben. He realized he too had subdued certain inclinations and feelings just so as not to be laughed at or pilloried – or, worse, beaten up. He had, out of habit, hidden behind a masculine dour exterior because he’d never questioned it before because it hadn’t occurred to him before, because, being a male, it had been conditioned out of him from the outset.
“I hate the Medievalists!” Ben confessed to his great-great-great-great grandad. “they just seem to be everything horrible. Even the ones who said they just want to go Outside and back to nature and all that are really stern about, well things like being manly and self-sacrificing. It seems like girls don't need to be anything but what they are already. Jess is really popular and admired for not being girlie and submissive”.
“Oh gawd and jehosephat!” Elijah groaned. “They’re not still bellyaching around are they those Medievalists! I call them the root of quite a few evils. Like war and machismo and sexism and gangs and most other thingsism. OK fine to want to go Outside and into nature if that’s what they want – and now I can see some point to that. Living in the caves is horrible and unnatural and makes one ill. And it took a robot to make me realize that”.
“Daneel’s incredible isn’t – he. If one must call – him - that. Well it’s better than ‘it’ I s’pose”, Ben said. “And somehow – wierdly – I don’t really want to call him ‘she’ either. Like as if I’m more comf’table with – with the sort of ‘he’ that Daneel is”.
“Very well put!”, Elijah approved and Ben was pleased. He’d felt a little nervous of Elijah at first; he’d looked as if he’d be too masculine and unsympathetic and impatient – which he could be, to some people. “Yes” Elijah now said. “I can freely admit that I too love the sort of ‘he’ that Daneel is. I wish I could find another possesive pronoun for it - but there isn’t one.”
Jess came back. “It’s so scary Outside. So huge!”She ran to Elijah wanting to be cuddled. Elijah obliged but secretly felt Jess took advantage of being female a bit too much. She automatically assumed she would be loved, sympathised with, protected and provided for. And yet she kicked up if anyone (particularly a male) told her what to do or sounded in the least bit sexist. “Most of us are scared by Outside”, Elijah told her. “I’m the biggest coward there is!”. He grinned and looked almost impish. “But Daneel is my protector and lover”.
Jess looked a bit shocked. Elijah was a man and yet he talked like a woman. As if he were Daneel’s girlfriend or something. Kind of weird. Daneel was nice but he never seemed taken in by any feminine wiles – well he too was somehow like a woman. A strong one though! And not a bit effeminate: quite steely at times, and extremely capable. Gender-blind really. As Elijah was. Elijah called himself a heretic, proudly and loudly. Although he looked so masculine and no-frills, really at times he almost behaved like one of these daffy ‘flower-children’: the early breakaway splintergroup of the Medievalists who’d ‘gone Outside’ and, with robots to do the heavy boring work, now lived in hippie-style communes mostly in remote mountainous areas or on islands.
Ben and Jess had to also get used to a humanized metallo robot as Giskard was. Some more heresy here – no Earth robot came within light years of Giskard, who swore and smoked and riposted and seemed to do exactly what he wanted. And yet he had a robot’s refinement; he did have the three laws but was clever enough to, when necessary, as a last resort, logic his way round these. Both Daneel and Giskard, like Elijah, were shrewd and could be quite unrobotically tart tongued, outspoken, even brusque, at times and had short fuses for what they saw as wrongs: ‘illogicality’ or ‘unreasonableness’ which usually meant wastefulness and gratuitousness and bigotry - and definitely for things like bullying and sexism and homophobia and colour prejudice! Their pozzies wuld fizz and their eyes glint (or flash) and they would fix the mal-doer with a steely stare and the latter would wish they were somewhere else. But Giskard and Daneel were wholly decent and good in the best sense. As robots they completely lacked spite or malice or any real impatience or pettyness and would never patronise or partake in gratuitous sport or play cat-and-mouse at someone else's expense (or not a good person’s expense!). And they never ever postured or posed. With Daneel and Giskard what you saw is what you got. One got to feeling completely safe with them. Ben adored them and could see why Elijah did too. Jess liked them too as they were amusing and novel though occasionally they told her off a bit if she got too wily and took too many advantages or got too pushy or sat on her gentler brother too much. But they certainly didn’t mind her not being girlie so that was a bonus. Sometimes Jess’s parents would moan just a little bit that she didn’t like wearing dresses and wanted to wear her hair short and preferred playing football and climbing things to playing with dolls and quiet games with other girls her age.
Jess and Ben’s parents, Elijah and Becky Baley, had doubts at first, letting their children visit the space shuttle, or going Outside at all, and mixing so freely with robots – and Spacers at that. But they decided that their forebear Elijah was pretty down-to-earth and really quite safe and reliable after all – despite his obvious relationship with Daneel - and not a callow flibbertygibbit or kinky, and they got to being quite impressed with Daneel and Giskard too – who were actually real characters, not just robots.
One or two of their relative were shocked though and lay down the law and fumed a bit and said it was disgraceful, all this Outside and robots and whathaveyou, and one fulminated about Elijah and Daneel’s relationship which was not only with a robot but ‘someone’ who mostly passed ‘himself’ as a male (and a rebellious one at that) but wore fashionable unisex and had all this swishy long hair so clearly fancied ‘himself’ as a female too! Another thought that Ben was getting too much affection from Elijah and the robots and would turn into a sissy, if not an outright homosexual. Mr and Mrs Baley worried just a little about this too but they did also see that Ben was coming out of himself too and was a bit more assertive and generally confident than before. Maybe with just a bit more of that he would grow to be more how they saw a ‘real’ boy to be and would stop being conscious of what he was wearing or not wanting to have his hair cut. He might even start liking sport too. Mr Baley’s brother and Mrs Baleys father continued to grumble however about Ben ‘turning into one of those queerdos’ if he wasn't watched.
Elijah laughed when he heard of this. It was really too funny and old-fashioned - but not fun if you had to live with this sort of attitude. He offered to go and meet Mr Baley’s brother and Mrs Baley's father and let them see for themselves how showing affection and talking about being scared and sad was a positive benefit and in no way turned a boy into a homosexual etc etc, and did he, Elijah, in any way appear effeminate or kinky?
Well…no. But, well what about this obviously close and affectionate realitionship with a (mostly) male being, - who was also a robot, but that wasn’t quite the point at this moment? Naturally Elijah didn’t give a flying whatsit if they thought him kinky or whatever; he knew he damn well wasn’t effeminate at any rate, as was not Daneel either in the slightest.
And – though Elijah (diplomatically!) didn’t actually voice this to the Baley relatives when he met them at a party – would it really matter if Ben was, or did become a, homosexual? It was all so petty and bigoted; two things Elijah had no patience with and no intention of ever having any patience with!
“What completely fucking boring sounding people they are,” was Daneel and Giskard’s verdict when they talked about this one evening as they relaxed in the shuttle’s Lounge after supper and after Ben and Jess had gone home. “What a big yawn!” and “If I were human I would be seriously pissed off by this. As it is my pozzies are fizzing!” That was an expression the robots used when they saw anything to be just plain illogical or unreasonable – and so therefore wrong. “The parents are OK though. There’s a chance with them, that they could become more open minded”.
Some of the Cruiseship's passengers had been to the notorious Spacer-funded and –built leisuredome, Sunset Boulvard, just outside the west of the City, and had got high on dope, drunk on booze, indigestion from rich eating, half-deafened by a rock concert (probaby humaniform), lost and won in the casinos and the gaming arcades, and blown away by sex with the sexbots in the Spacer run brothels. Some had ventured Outside and some had been pleasantly surprised by this and had enjoyed the views and the sunset and the fresh air.
Maybe this mistaken trip to Earth hadn't been such a bad thing after all, in fact it had been a good thing really and maybe it would help one little boy Ben Baley to realize that did it matter a fuck if he ‘turned into’ a homosexual or simply liked nice clothes and wearing his hair long and not liking sports. He’d tried to learn some self-defence (and some attitude!) from Elijah, Daneel and Giskard - what you felt inside about yourself and being OK with this didn’t mean that certain others would agree, and what's more would still show their dis-agreement in violent ways. For a male who disliked fighting and violence, upsetting but sadly true.
“At least” Elijah said, “They’ve finally banned conscription. Now that must be the cruellest thing you could do to a sensitive male!” Elijah, and Daneel and Giskard had thoroughly read up on Human History and had shuddered (or fizzed) at the sheer inhumanity of this. “Illogical but oh so human”, Daneel groaned. “Which means oh so male.”
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