3438 words
10
RUNNING A TIGHT SHIP
Well the Cruise came to an end after six months but Giskard and Daneel, by dint of a bit of ‘mind influencing’ and misinformation infiltrated into computer systems, managed to hang on to the Good Ship Lollypop (In the process now of being rechristened the Good Ship Gaya) . The five mile long behemoth stayed in orbit at all times and had shuttles of various sizes, the largest of which could comfortably board-and-lodge around ten human passengers each but convey a maximum of fifty - which was the one they’d had when they accidently landed on SirMadam’s lawn. This shuttle had facilities such as a gym, a comfy Lounge with widescreen holotelly and computers with gaming and Galactanet connections, including ethermail, and a proper dining room, self-service kitchen and bar, and ten cabins with ensuite showers and loos.
Another thing our two robots learned to supervise was the cleanerbots. At first they'd been a bit lax with this and hadn’t got round to this little detail. Everything started getting a bit untidy; humans were such litterlouts and wasteful and slothful and slobby and five miles of spaceship getting untidy was a big job. Giskard and Daneel learned to keep up with this in the end - after all they’d taught themselves to be tidy in the end, with their ‘food’ and their smoking, and the acquiring of possessions like reading devices for books and magazines and CDs and DVDs and computers and clothes and karaoke and sofas and potted trees and playground equipment and go-karts - so now they had to do the same, hundred-fold, for a whole bunch of sloppy puking oversexed overindulgent sybaritic hedonistic debauched humans. Oh the joys!
In the end the Good Ship Lollypop-soon-to-be Gaya Aurora Aurora
There were, to Elijah’s delight, some mysteries to solve too so he could bring in his old workskills as a detective. One or two murders took place, due to mostly rivalries, revenges or drunkeness, same old story, planetside or shipboard. That was humans for you, the robots - no Three Laws jumping whatsoever - sighed. At the next planet they had to contact the Criminal Investigation Bureau and police and suchlike, and the bodies were identified and shipped home or buried. The odd robot got bumped off (again!).
Giskard and Daneel also had to organize fresh supplies of food and drink and metallo snacks and make sure the cookbots were up to date with the latest nouvelle fads and trends and picky diets and healthfoods whilst also catering to good old hefty Earthish traditions like - apart from chips chips chips – steak and kidney, fish and chips, and shepherd’s and fish pies, curries and stir-fries and kebabs and paellas and pasta and pizza and chicken (fried, roasted or casseroled), and baked beans, bangers and mash, and fish fingers and peas and tomato ketchup, and fry ups, with eggs and black pudding and specialty sausages and bacon and mushrooms, and steak and hamburgers and onions and pakoras and tempura, and gallons and gallons and gallons of beer and wine, spirits and liquiers, and choice of soft drinks, teas and coffee, and horlicks, and tons and tons and tons of gateaux and icecream and patiserie and baklawas and burfis and good old Earthish cream teas and pasties, sausage rolls, butties….and loopaper for the old-fashioned Earther passengers. People were allowed to bring in their own dope and whathaveyou but hard stuff was limited, and actual dealing-and-supplying was forbidden (one had to stop somewhere!).
The metallo snacks came in every known flavour under every galactic sun. There were both solids and liquids and the most advanced robots who were designed to ingest and programmed to feel pleasure from this made full use of these. As they also did with Stimulk, the native Auroran weed.
Sometimes too the ship had to be redecorated so Daneel and Giskard got in hoards of (mostly robot) pianters and decoraters and carpenters and unholsterers and floor layers. Then fixtures and fittings and gadgets and gizmos, the casinos and the gaming arcades, all had to be overhauled and renovated and upgraded or replaced. Loos and showers had to work perfectly so these too were gone over. Bed linen to be checked for signs of wear or stains. And of course every holoscreen and computer terminal and broadband connection and ethermail had to work bang on – or else! And the gym equipment and adventure playground equipment and fairground equipment and the water-sports arena and the skating-rinks and the trampolines and the transport scooters and the racing go-karts and the freefall rooms all had to be 100% safe. And the coaches and campervans for the excursions had to be in perfect working order and not break down and their (often humaniform) drivers reliable. Ditto the shuttle pilots (called drivers, jokingly). And the PA systems in the concert halls and karaoke café-bars had to work and indeed the whole ship’s communications and computer network systems, spot-on. Most of the staff were robots and humaniforms naturally and Daneel and Giskard had to learn to order them whilst seeming to be human, using the names of the former ship’s captain and of the entrepreneur who had started up the cruise business in the first place.
Oh, and the ship and the shuttles had to start. And not break down or run out of fuel. Yay.
Giskard and Daneel really did very well. Dulcie Witherspoon, the former ship’s captain, her mind subtly stroked by Daneel and Giskard so that she couldn’t remember ever being a ship’s captain, now just wafted around enjoying herself, thinking she was one of the cruise passengers. For Phoebe Tuttle and Ilse Bryan-Brown the two entrepreneurs ditto, only Giskard and Daneel needed her to remember how to run a cruise business in case there was anything they hadn't thought of. Occasionally they had sex with the two robots. Dear old Sammy was put out to grass, ie he was fondly looked after by Daneel and Giskard who had him as a pet; ditto some other old robots past their prime. Giskard and Daneel thought it cruel (and wasteful and therefore illogical) as well as disloyal to immediately chuck them onto the scrapheap - ie deactivate them and return their ‘carcass’ to a suitable salvage outlet, planetside. It was a huge ship, so plenty of room for old robots to knock around for a while and be fondly kept. Eventually though, when it got a bit cluttered, Daneel and Giskard would have to make themselves gently and irrevocably deactivate some oldster (though never Sammy).
Giskard and Daneel also loved mingling incognito in the ship with the passengers even partaking in any activities or entertainment, and seeing how people liked or disliked things or where things might be going wrong or were not working or anything like that.
The middle two miles of the ship was a great recreational parkland and fairground, and lush gardens with holo fountains and waterfalls. Though there were real lakes too, and a realistic false sun that rose and set in a realistic false blue sky on a twenty-four hour cycle. Tirelessly the parkkeeping robots cleared litter, mopped up sick, broke up fights, helped you find your way, worked in the park cafés. There were racetracks, circling another part of the ship, so that speed freaks could get rid of adrenalin and compete compete compete, and make a huge amount of noise away from everyone else.
“And anyway what human wants a nannybot arsing around them when all they want to have is FUN. Reckon that creates more harm than not”. Daneel said during one of their evening relaxings after supper and before Elijah had gone off to bed. “However, for this little one,” Daneel fondly and gently poked Elijah, “I will be a fuss bot extraordinaire”. Daneel was going to the gym and on runs in one of the parks with Elijah who was starting to put on weight from all the good living, eating and drinking. “Don’t want to spoil this nice new body do we”. Elijah grumbled but he was grateful really; he just didn’t do exercise naturally – new body he might have but it was still the same old Elijah inside it. Daneel also made sure he at least sometimes tried to eat healthily. “Naughty food at weekends only”. The ship kept a 24 / 7 diurnal timetable. Elijah howled. Seven days without a good oily buttery treat or a chocolate or a proper drink! So Daneel relented and said he could scoff midweek to break the monotony. So Elijah was kept down to within his body mass index. But of course he had pretty good sex with Daneel too so that make up for quite a bit. Oh life was pretty good now.
When they arrived at a planet they often stayed for a good week sometimes so that sights could be seen. Many people loved to get out into the fresh air and countryside and would camp out overnights. The shuttles waited for nobody. If someone failed to turn up at take-off time without good reason the shuttles would give them five minutes grace before just leaving! So this kept people on their toes even the most recalcitrant. There was no excuse really, everyone had a mobile phone and the average planet had 100% wifi communications. People – as well as Daneel and Giskard and the advanced robots - also loved shopping and there was always stocking-up of supplies to be done. Passengers came and went too as they could be on different length cruise times, or just decided they wanted to leave at the next planet.
Sometiems they landed just to see how awful a planet was – Beeniper planet being one. A habitat that was just a reconstituted 1970s Brixton or Toxteth or Gorbals or Litherland or New Manchester or New Birmingham was a must-see, complete with skinheads and yobs and the homeless selling The Big Issue, which was actually a good magazine, and desolate housing estates and shopping malls and Berni Inns and Butlins and HomeBase and Blackpool and ohmegod a veritable host of other tasteless attractions for the fascinated. Even seriously bad food like re-fried fish and flabby chips, ersatz ‘curry’ and sausages that were more lilkly to be mashed up bits of offal and fried in lard and dodgy ice cream which hadn't seen a dairy product in its life and cheap Cadburys chocolate and dreggy tea and instant coffee and chemical-filled soft drinks which gave some people stomach upsets and the runs was all part of the experience. Most people returned gratefully to the ship and its excellent cuisine, all freshly and hygenically prepared (by robots). Giskard and Daneel had very good taste indeed and would not countenance anything that was off. They would ingest and pass their sensors over anything suspect and it would be jettisoned forwith. There was not a single incidence of E.coli or salmonella poisoning aboard the Good Ship Lollypop-now-Gaya and its reputation spread across the Galaxy.
“We should really be rescuing all those terrible places”, Daneel and Giskard would say, referring to the awful planets with their broken societies. “Make it possible for them to have nothing but fresh wholesome food instead of that crap. Get rid of those terrible housing estates and towerblocks and back-to-back terraces and let every single person have the choice of a detached house with a garden if they wanted. Get rid of those crapulous state schools with their horrible classes and give every person the choice to learn the way that best suits their temprament: home learning, online learning, where they might learn something for a change . Make hospitals places that people don’t end up dead or stressed out – give everyone a choice of having their own room and perhaps a chance to recover. And ban supermarkets so that small shops thrive. Abolish any make of car over 100 years old. Make the trains and buses run properly and affordably. Enough? “
“Kill off the yobs and dangerous dogs for a start”, Elijah said with relish and pretended to strafe with an imaginary blaster.
“Well the remaining ones, yes. Reckon they can’t be helped by now. Hardened brutes. Both canine and human”.
“Improve the planet and one might get better people on it. Look at Aurora
“Time to infiltrate some computer networks wethinks. And stroke a few minds”.
And this is how it began. Easypeasy when really you’re a superduper computer yourself: hacking’s a doddle, and mind-stroking, with care, a challenge. But so satisfying. One mustn't set out to derange the mind or completely blank it out. Just nudge a few existing tendancies in certain directions; make it in a person’s best interest to be or not to be a certain way. (Own best interest was a Must!). Hardened minds were impossible: once set in stone a yob is always a yob. Best blanked out so that one’s left with no memories whatsoever. It takes skill, concentration and agility to not derange a mind, it’s not something that can be done with a single swoop. And crucially one must never be obvious or let it be known that you were trying to do what you were trying to do: in other words, organize humans without them ever realizing it; make them think they've done it themselves and nearly always in their own best interests. It was a long slow business taking many years, decades even; cruising round and round all the planets in the galaxy, back and forth, to and fro…
CONFESSION
Sometimes Elijah travelled with them, sometimes he stayed behind planetside but often missed Daneel and Giskard, and Daneel in particular like a sharp ache. He’d tried to make a life on one of the new villages on Earth or on some planet where he had descendants but he couldn’t settle. He just wasn’t cut out to play grandpa, however many greats there were after it. He wouldn’t go back into the caves of steel though – that would be regressing which would depress him even more. Sometimes he got so lonesome he just booked a passage and took off to some planet that he knew Giskard and Daneel would be arriving at to do their ministrations.
“It’s no good” he said, when they were in Giskard and Daneel’s quarters (the old Captains’) “I can’t settle. Even detectiving’s lost its charm. Guess I’m – lonely…” he shot a glance at Daneel, still so beautiful like a shining he-goddess /she-god, the visual epitome of unselfconscious boho-elegance and glamour. Plus superb intelligence. And – believe it or not – compassion. Which seemed to the human Elijah as genuine as any fellow human’s. Elijah now looked away to stare at the floor instead. “I’ve tried to – meet someone, perhaps even marry again…” He grimaced. “But I can’t get interested! I go with someone at times…and it fizzles out. My heart’s not in it. I’m only around forty again when last time I'd been married to Jessie for ten years, and Ben was born.” And then, “Oh shit, Daneel! It’s you and only you that I want. Not just anybody”.
Mournfully he sat, hunched, chin in hand, the old doleful-faced Elijah. And then, in unison, his and Daneel’s arms were winding round each other and they were falling back onto the sofa into their old comfy way and why bother to try for anything else when this is the one and only way.
“I tried” Elijah said, looking up at the ceiling. “And it failed. I just got so bored. Now it’s as if I can see colours again”. Depression ebbed, and gradualy contentment took its place. (Daneel stroking his mind….? Josaphat, who cared! It was now that mattered). Now he lay with his face nested into Daneel's neck, smelling almost like a subconscious ether the musky pheromones incapsulated into Daneel’s skin and hair. He dozed a little and still Daneel was there, a warm cacoon, so pliant and velvet soft that nobody could've even guessed at the silicone-titanium skeleton that went to make up Daneel’s inner structure. Little coppery vellus hairs lay silkenly against fudge-golden skin on Daneel's forearms, glinting softly on the smooth undulations of toned musculature.
“I feel I could, with you, go back to my old detective work. It was hopeless on my own again”.
Daneel now stroked Elijah's hair. “So now you’ve proven it, Lije. Life on Earth, or trying to meet someone else, or being grandpa, just didn’t work. I didn’t want to influence you or hold you back. You're human and I’m robot. It had to come from you – dearest friend,” – these last words were like a caress.
Elijah sniffled a little. “Well it is now! You’re the most beautiful thing in the whole galaxy. Yet completely lacking in vanity or conceit. No human comes near to that. Men are too aggressive; women too manipulative.” He caressed any bit of Daneel he could find. “Josephat, Daneel, I don’t know how I ever felt I needed to ‘prove it’ by staying away. Trying to ‘find myself’! I didn’t really – I did it on autopilot. Without conviction. Waiting for a good enough reason not to go on with it any longer. How damn stupid can one get.” He grumbled on and wound his arms tighter round Daneel, half rolling on top of him as if he’d never let him go. This time he wouldn’t. He pulled a face as he remembered the dating and mating and outings he’d tried with women . He’d soon realized he didn't fancy human men – well they were male weren’t they and Elijah wasn’t into men in that way. Not men. But he seemed unable to really fancy women either - or they bored him when all’s said and done. He was honest enough to realize that the bored ‘problem’ was his; some of the women had been quite nice really: intelligent, amusing and quite fancyable which is why he’d sought them out in the first place. But he’d felt no stirrings as a man ‘should’ have, or it just went limp on him. He found he had nothing real to say to them either; nothing in common, no points of reference, no shared dry pithy sense of humour. They seemed too ‘social’, too callow. Too vain and too vainglorious; too aware of being female and privileged – or so it seemed to him . He’d found himself yawning and forgetting to cover this up which probably didn’t go down too well with one or two of them. (Sod it Lije, you’re just not a woman’s man either). One, not surprisingly, had somewhat objected when he’d sunk to actually looking at his watch, during an evening out – for which he had been paying too!. Oh the typicalness. Even sex with women was damned too much hard work: all that manoeuvring above them, wondering if you were too heavy for them, whilst they mostly just comfortably lay, clutching your buttocks or sticking their nails into your back or waiting for you to provide for them or whatever. Elijah, grumbling on, said as much to Daneel, that most unique of beings, his confessional, who laughed, kissed Elijah’s forehead, and said, “I can see if I were human I would find being male both very very boring but also very very stressful. It’s all sounds such hard work! – doubly so as women developed feminism, on top of being female to start with".
Link to next Chapter 11: http://nanowrimo2011ataleoftworobots.blogspot.com/2011/08/chapter-11.html
Link to next Chapter 11: http://nanowrimo2011ataleoftworobots.blogspot.com/2011/08/chapter-11.html
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