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SIR MADAM
“Well, welcome to Dirtside”, came the voice, once they’d – not quite perfectly well – landed just a bit bumpily on what looked like a good open space, this time with no cows or anything cluttering it up. “And who are you?”.
“I'm Daneel Olivaw, from the Good Ship Lollypop”. Daneel said.
“I’m Giskard Reventlov, from the Good Ship Lollypop”, Giskard said.
“Well, easy to miss the window I know. No harm done anyway, just a bit of time lost. Same with plotting coordinates – best to err on the cautious I always say.”
“What’s the robot situation on this planet?” Giskard asked practically.
“OK really. We have them to do all our boring dirty dangerous jobs and that, same as most places”.
“So they're not regularly beaten up on a drunken Saturday night?”
“No more than the usual gay, hippie or darkie man. Oh plain old-fashioned homophobia, machismo and racism – and anything inbetween – more or less thrives in these parts, besides yer average anti-robotism. Comes of having all those hetto Alpha males I always say”.
“Yeah. Boring, innit. You’d think they’d've bred them out by now. But no!”
“Breed like bloody rabbits they do, and some!”. The voice sounded disgusted now.
“What would you feel if I told you I was a robot?” Daneel said.
“I’d say har har, good joke. But why would you want to say you were a robot?”.
“Because I like a good joke. No, seriously – just suppose I was a robot….?”
“Well, I dunno. Why would you be?” Laughter in the voice.
“Why wouldn’t I be? You’re assuming that I’m a human”.
“Well – yes. What else could you be?”
“Well – a robot”.
A small silence, and then, “Are you? Are you – really…?”
“Would it upset you?”
“I don’t think so. It would be an unprecedented event, wouldn’t it really. So are you trying to tell me you’re a robot, then?”.
“Yes”.
“Well I don’t know what to say. You certainly don’t sound like one – or respond like one either. I mean you've got a sense of humour. What robot has that?”
“This one has learned to have that. One of the most essential things about seeming human. Nothing worse than a boring robot who never gets jokes and can’t be funny”.
“Well I’ll be buggered! And what about the other one with you? Giskard? Don’t tell me he’s a robot too, har har”.
“Well, if you see my mugshot I’m pretty obvious”, Giskard said. “Don’t need to go through all that am-I-aren’t-I malarky, me. La Dando here often has to resort to some pretty nifty skin-tricks to prove it”.
“Ah – so you're one of those humi - humanforms or whatever-they-call-it ones. Made in the United Spacer Planets around, oh was it a few hundred years ago…?”.
“Humaniform,” Daneel said. “And, yeah, you got it. Aurora
“Oh, I say, can you switch on your videocam. Nice as you sound I suppose I’d better see who I'm talking to”.
“Ooh I wouldn’t do that” quipped Daneel. “You might get a nasty shock”.
“Oh - and I suppose I’d better formally introduce myself too. I’m SirMadam and I live here, and you have kind of landed in my grounds”.
“Really? Galaxies! So this isn’t a Spaceport…?”
“Shite – um, Space! We are sorry – um, SirMadam. We’ve made a royal balls-up— oh! I mean - a terrible mistake. We’ll prepare to leave immediately”.
“What’s the problem? It’s a big enough back yard, so you’re not in the way or anything . Most of my friends, unless they’re on foot, arrive that way”.
Daneel and Giskard fumbled round a bit. It was Elijah who accidently found the right switch (“What’s this do…?”) and the huge two-way holoscreen flared into life and showed a human being.
Who didn’t look like either sex really but nuts what the heck. And who swayed back in his or her chair as if – gobsmacked. “Oh I say – you are both GORGEOUS!”
The two robots, as was their way, accepted the compliment gracefully.
“You did land with a bit of a bump though. Are you all OK?”.
“We’ll survive. Hope we haven't damaged anything in your grounds”, Daneel said.
“Only a bit of grass. You might've left a bit of a hole but hey. My robots will sort that out”.
“Well this is cool”, Daneel said.”So we’ve wound up at someone’s private estate. Have you got a nice house?”
“You could say.”
“Well this is an improvement. Last planet we leanded on was a blasted BNP dump, full of shite— um, dastardly skinheads who tried to beat us up – of course.”
“But that is terrible. Were any of you hurt?”
“No” Daneel said.”Because I went as a female. So I could protect my human partner as well as several other humans from the ship. But there was a terrible brawl – mostly amongst the human men of course—“
“I told you these hetto Alphas – or Hettys as we call them – caused problems. Wherever you get planets with men who aren’t – who are – who haven’t been…you know…well, there's problems”.
“My sentiments exactly,” Daneel said.
“And mine”, put in Giskard “Space knows why. I'm only a metallo so why should I mind. But I do”.
“He’s very empathic”, Daneel said. “Caught that off me”.
“You sound so sympathetic and caring – like you really do care”.
“I try to”, said both robots.
“Would you like to see our ship”, Giskard asked.
“I would indeed”.
“We’ll try and find out how to open it up.” Daneel said. “Our Sentity is off-sick so can’t help us at the moment”.
“So we’re acting in. If that’s how it’s said”.
“Which is why this crate has bump-landed in your backyard. We’re really sorry”.
“You‘re telling me!” sighed Elijah.
“Is Elijah male?”
Daneel turned to Elijah. “This nice human of neither sex is asking if you’re male”.
“You’d better tell it – her? him? – yes, I suppose”, Elijah said.
“He says he is”, said Daneel.
“Has he not been Done?”, the voice asked, sounding a bit concerned..
“’Elijah, have you not been Done?’”, Daneel said. “Well, guess that’s for the good man himself to say. I think it was before it could be Done – wasn’t it Lijey friend? The technique only became perfected in the last four hundred years”.
“It came from the planet Solaria”, Giskard added. “Where they got really into that kind of thing and so developed the finest techniques. Clever, huh. Certainly makes for fewer crappy wars and other such shit that human men got up to—“
“Giskard!” Daneel reproved. “Language!”
“A fine one to talk!. Ahem – I do apologize SirMadam”. Giskard sounded truly respectful here. “Our simu-circuits have become so humanized they forget to be robotic”.
“Oh don’t worry about – ahem, language. It’s a novelty: hearing a robot swear!”.
“It is rather funny isn’t it. We certainly find it so. Call us bilingual why not”, Daneel said. He started hunting on the console for possible right switches.
“Oh gawd you have become human haven’t you. Cocking up all over the place”, Giskard grumbled.
“Well you’re hardly better. I think you like pretending to be human so you can cock up”.
“Could say, could say, makes for a change. Uh, terribly sorry about all this, SirMadam. As we said, we’re acting in”.
And then R.Robbie spoke for the first time in some time. “If I might be so presumptuous as to mention…. I think you might find it is that switch – that bright pink one - that would open the Airlock. Along with the lime green switch just in case. And possibly the saffron yellow one – just in case too”.
And it was.
Daneel and Giskard felt their pleasuretronics surge as the outside beckoned and their sensors picked up sweet outside air, and they knew this to be right and proper and this set off their feelings of pleasure. The scenery was magnificent and they pointed out things with delight. “Trees”. “Flowers”. “Grass”.”Sky”. “Clouds”. “View”. Even “Rain!” for this was what it was doing right now. In sheets.
Under a huge rainbow coloured umbrella Sir Madam was crossing the grass. Now they could see that a large dip had been hollowed-out on his immaculate striped lawn – even with their advanced anti-grav shuttle ship. “Shit, our lousy driving there!” Giskard sighed. “We must try to have the ship’s robots put this right”, Daneel agreed.
“If we can order them”, Giskard said. “Mind you I’ve done a fair spot of gardening myself”.
“Yeah, back home. I used to mow the lawn remember”, Daneel said “On the old Fly-Mo motor mower”.
“Hey that funny old thing”, Giskard remembered “Old antique twen-cen gizmo”.
They stood and looked out at the wet green lush scenery. It was gorgeous – and just like back home! A veritable paradise. How happy Giskard and Daneel felt that they had been originally programmed by the sensitive Han Fastolfe so they too could appreciate it just like humans.
“And remember how I refused to cut anything back or dead-head the roses”.Daneel went on, “because I thought it was hurting them. And – they looked so pretty too. Guess I'd been programmed to appreciate nature in all its natural glory – so cutting anything brought my first Law into action and gave me a neurosis”.
“Yeah”, Giskard agreed. “In the end they had to get a simpler robot to do the cutting. Though you managed the grass OK”.
“Yeah, funny that. I suppose it didn’t look like a flower or leaves or a tree or something – it was just something all-over. Bit like how some humans are getting to be – har har”.
“Har har. Of course”.
“Of course that could be the Zeroth Law working. Yunno, seeing something as homogenous, rather than individual”.
“Which can come in useful at times.”, Daneel said. “But I can now deduce is not always an admirable thing. Not since getting to know Lijey. Ever the individual”.
Daneel and Giskard these last few centuries were speaking to each other in humanese rather than robotese – human speech had a zillion time more permutations and conveying of ideas and concepts and so on than robotese which was really only an elaborate computer language. As Giskard and Daneel’s awareness and learning grew and grew and grew, so did they managed to outgrow robotese as a means of conversational conveyance, and only used this for when they needed to synchonize with each other during some crisis (usually human!).
SirMadam and his colourful brolly had now reached the bottom of the stair-ramp. He now ascended until he was face to face with the two robots, at which instant he almost dropped his brolly and gasped.
“Oh my Lord! I am confronted with two most heavenly visions to which the stars in the sky cannot compare; No fair maiden – be that as it may – could ever compete. Would that I, a humble human, be fit to stand before thees, and do look with mine own eyes apon such heavenlyness, for whom the very sun itself must dim and the entire Galaxy come to a standstill…”
Daneel bowed his head – as this seemed most fitting in the presence of one such as SirMadam who looked amazingly and puzzlingly familiar somehow. Giskard too bowed. “How very kind of you, dear SirMadam”, Daneel said, taking the human’s hand, “but I am really only a mere Auroran humaniform, very ordinary in looks. Quite average and boring I assure you”.
“Ordinary! Boring! How could you abnegate such wonderousness, which must be indeed the first wonder of the Galaxy as well as the second and the third and so on”. And SirMadam put out a hand and ran it down Daneel’s glossy burnished hair. “Ah! The most sublime texture, strong and yet silken – might you be modelled on the most ideal Eurasian physiogamy, my dear”.
“I think I am. My maker Roj Nemunnah Sarton was of Russian, Turkomen, Sephardic and Irish descent – that’s why my hair was made reddish; Roj loved his old Irish great-granny. I guess my nose and cheekbones are Turkic and my brows, eyes and skin Sephardic – and what's left must be Russian though I can’t make out which. Perhaps it’s my Nureyev mouth and chin, though he was a Tartar I believe”.
“Indeed he was. A wondrous creature to behold. But a thousand times less so than you nonetheless”. SirMadam drank in Daneel a while more, his hand running down Daneel’s arm, eulogized some more about silks and satins over pliant flesh and taut musculature before turning to Giskard.
“I”, said Giskard, “am only a old tin lizzie – as they rudely say on some planets. Originally meaning a grotty old car or something”.
“Hardly that!” SirMadam cried. “Grotty? Why you are perfection in metallism – a veritable work of art of the most supreme order – when were you made by the way?”
“Oh about 500 or so years ago”.
“Ah, when robotics reached its peak, its pinnacle, its epicurean heights. To be never surpassed, never bettered. Ah, my dear, you are – classique!” and SirMadam reached out and stroked Giskards cheek and then down his neck. “Like butter-soft suede! Like the most exquisite silk velour! And warm too! But with a subtle sheen so that the light does reflect most wonderfully and extraordinarily without any vulgar glitz, like on some cheaper models of robot which they did manufacture in the late thirty-four hundreds and which I most ardently refused to buy, insisting instead on off-the-peg designer-late-second-millenium – but still, none so divine as you”.
“Thank you my dear SirMadam. You are indeed a very very agreeable human. Come and have a nice cuppa with us – yes, I too am advanced enough to imbibe liquids of a solvent nature and have my own diet. Daneel however can knock back his liquor as good as any human, can’t you, dudess”.
“Yay for sure”, answered the dudess with a grin, and took SirMadam’s arm. SirMadam was truly delightfully most sexless, being neither threateningly too much of either sex which was balm for most of those humans on board the Good Ship Lollypop who just weren’t used to extreme-gender-specifics any longer. Even if they hadn’t gone to be Done they were just deeply acculturated to not having to worry about what a person’s sex was and the resultant fuss one had to make to accommodate whichever tedious sex that person might be. In extremis Male was threatening, and Female a nuisance in its need to be conceded to. Far better to be neither, in everybody’s unanimous opinion, even Elijah’s and he’d originated from Earth where such things had still mattered. “Like the bloody Ark
Elijah was now standing back in the ship’s entrance foyer, behind most everyone else. As Daneel and Giskard with SirMadam came along he stepped forward, half hesitantly in such a presence as SirMadam’s which was truly a presence. SirMadam was in a long robe and was rotund and very tall, well over six foot, even taller than Daneel and his face was both regal and cherubic. His dead-black hair was wound into a great bun atop his head, with bits hanging down. Slowly it dawned that indeed he resembled none other than a very renowned historic twen-cen pop star called George or something, famous for his gender bender dress sense.
Daneel slid his arm round Elijah’s shoulders and drew him close. “This is my dearest human friend and partner Elijah Baley. We are lovers of the very closest union and hate to be out of each other’s sight. If Giskard or Elijah weren’t here I would not want to function any longer”.
“And I too”, Giskard said, and put both arms round Daneel and Elijah. All three stood, leaning into each other in the most affectionate way. SirMadam wiped away a tear. And so did Elijah too.
“So touching!” whiffled SirMadam. “Dear Elijah, how pleased I am to see a fellow human so similarly moved. Many humans I can find to be so emotionally cold, narrow-minded and bigoted. Get to thinking, give me some jolly old robots any day”.
“W-Well I am a bit grumpy sometimes”, Elijah sniffled. “But – I try not to be. I think it’s because I’m a Earthman – or originally was. I’m a re-lifer. Earth got to being a right dump. All that damn Medieval sexism!”
“Oh dear, oh dearie dearie me, indeed, all that flaming awful terrible sexism”, cried SirMadam “How very terrible for you, poor Elijah. Such trials and tribulations, such trouble and strife – I take it you were married in the old heterosexual way….?
“Afraid I was” Elijah said ruefully. “Not that Jess my former wife was a bad female. Quite sensible really, not one of these terrors always whining to be” – puts on mimsy voice – “’treated like a laydee’ and all that cra— um, nonsense”.
“’All that crap’” you were sensibly going to say”, smiled SirMadam. Elijah reddened a little. “I like a bit of language. Can’t stand mealy-mouthedness and nicifying. Give me a bit of fucking good lip anyday!” Elijah, if not the two robots, jumped as his jaw dropped. “Yeah”, SirMadam laughed now. “gimme shit, gimme a whole crockful of it!”
Daneel and Giskard were laughing loudly. Elijah, after a minute, joined in.
“What wonderful laughs. Oh such joy!” cried SirMadam who looked to be very funloving indeed.
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