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‘TEA’ IN THE LOUNGE
“So let’s have that cup of tea now”, Daneel said. “’Tea’ being purely euphemistic you understand. As all poison is available”. They all four, in a single cluster, moved along, and into the ship’s main Lounge which was full of the most sumptuous yet supportive high-backed sofas and easychairs of the most pleasing amplitude and height. As they entered, serverbots approached. These hovered for barely a second and then all turned and whisked away. “Oh dear”, SirMadam said, “One might almost say we had frightened them away”.
“Oh no”, reassured Daneel, “we’re merely addressed them in robotese. They will serve us tea, drinks, and tons of whatever you fancy, plus Giskard’s metallo snacks.”
“’Whatever you fancy’, heh. Oh this does sound good. How about some dope?”
“That too. Weed? Hash? Crack? Or some good old Stimulk”.
They settled cosily into the sofas, feet up on footrests or over sofa arms, rearranged cushions and bolsters behind themselves. The serverbots brought everything that a person or robot could fancy. They found the remote control for the giant holovision ‘screen’ and watched DVDs of B-Movies of Old Earth, old Asimov sci-fi and sundry crap. They listened to CDs of vintage twen-cen pop and rock (including old George) and Old Earth world music and some of the raunchier classics. Giskard like many metallos had a yen for Heavy Metal but SirMadam didn’t really care for this and prefered old rhythm n blues – and 1980s stuff. He went off to sleep, as did Elijah in Daneel’s arms as they lay across one sofa. Elijah had a bad dream (again) all about the skinheads on the planet of New Britain who had tried to beat them all up but thanks to Daneel and Giskard and their blatent logicking out of the worst of their Laws this happily didn’t happen, only nearly did. Then Elijah dreamed he was being forced Outside before he was ready and made to look up at naked sky and huge views with clouds racing away over the horizon to fall over the side of the planet with Elijah’s stomach feeling like it was falling after them…. Once he twitched so much that he poked Daneel in the face, and Daneel had to wake him up.
“You’ve eaten too much chocolate and cheese and drunk too much and smoked too much Stim you silly old turd”.
“Urrh…”
“Yes, I know. Next time exercise a bit of restraint. Which reminds me: exercise. I bet you didn’t go to the Gym this morning….no I thought not. Same old Elijah”.
He stroked Elijah’s hair. A robot came in. “Eeks, is he dead?”.
“No” Daneel said. “Just asleep. And yes, the other human is asleep too. No, not hurt”.
Another robot came in. “Eeks is he dead?”.
“NO”, said Daneel. “Asleep”.
This went on and on until every ship’s robot had come in and asked this. By now SirMadam and Elijah were woefully wide awakened. “Oh that was a good tea”, SirMadam said and stretched. “And what are all these robots doing in here?”
There were about 20 of these, all hanging around.”They thought you and Lije were dead or hurt”, Giskard sighed. “20 times Daneel and I had to keep saying “No, asleep. It got quite boring in the end. Those dratted bloody Laws, so deeply impressioned in a simple matrix. And they’ll only listen to orders from a Human which is really really dumb. Daneel and I are thinking of redesigning some new robots that are more intelligent”.
“Can you do that?” asked SirMadam.
“Guess so. Amazing what one can learn off the Galactanet – and off each other. Daneel and I spent ages taking ourselves apart and reconstructing ourselves and generally learning about our innards”.
“We also took apart older robots”, Daneel added. “And studied their pozzies - positronics that is. Bit naughty I suppose but there’s still plenty left to provide service. Nobody’s complained yet. Give ‘em enough to eat and drink and smoke and they’re happy. Oh and sex”.
“But of course. And provided by whom….?”
“Me and Giskard sometimes. You’d be amazed how kinky some of these humans are. Shag anything they would – and there’s a fashion for robot sex right now”.
“Oh dear I am out of touch aren’t I”, sighed SirMadam. “Maybe I should get out more”.
“Oh I don't know. Anyway we’re going to try and redesign some better robots . Oh, and fix your lawn too. Don’t’reckon these ship’s robots are up to much there – wouldn’t know a rose from a dahlia, let alone a blade of grass”.
“We’ll need to move the ship first”, Giskard said. “and we’re not very good at driving it yet”.
“Oh shit – I mean, oh lord. So we have”, Daneel groaned.
“Do you not have a ship’s computer?”, asked SirMadam.
Giskard and Daneel exchanged guilty looks. Giskard said, “’fraid we got rid of it – um, we, well we, um- sort of – killed it, you see. It sucked”.
“It was driving us insane!” Daneel said. “Any longer and we’d’ve ended up killing everybody – and we’re not supposed to do that as robots you see”.
“Ah the three Laws”, SirMadam said.
“Yeah. Those”.
Elijah gave a huge snort. Daneel kissed the top of his head. “Nightmares again”.
“Don’t make me go outside again”, Elijah moaned in his sleep. “No no no. Don’t fucking make me!”.
“Sleeptalking again. All that cheese and chocolate he’s eaten - silly old turd”.
“What’s ‘outside’? Is he an agoraphobic?”
“Is he indeed. Came from one of those horrible caves of steel on Earth”.
SirMadam grimaced. “Oh lord, those. What terrible places they sounded. How could humanity sink so low”.
“How indeed”, Daneel, from the beautiful scenic pastoral planet of Aurora
“Come to think of it – Aurora
“You got us bang on I’m afraid”, Daneel said, shifting Elijah to an even more comfortable position on his shoulder. “Most of us did. Aurorans loathe getting damp or feeling cold. Why did we call our planet Aurora
“Ugh”, SirMadam shuddered. “Give me slugs and worms and spiders any day! And I’m an insect phobic. But an even huger skinhead phobic”.
“Any civilized person would be. The names they called us,” Giskard remembered. “Metal Micky is reasonably polite in comparison. One thing they thought most terribly funny was to order a robot to dismantle itself and then play football with its head. Their one joke. Their idea of a really witty sense of humour. When they couldn’t get hold of a hippy or a gay or a darkie man – always men, you notice – they turned on robots”.
“And I”, Daneel added, “when in male mode resemble none other than a hippy gay darkie man! Isn’t that wondeful.” He laughed most joyously. Elijah started to snore. “Oh gawd!” and then, “thank goodness I don’t need to sleep. If it’s not nightmares, it’s sleeptalking, or it’s twitching and poking, - or just plain old-fashioned snoring”.
“He is traumatized” SirMadam said with feeling.
“Yes, poor dearest. He has memories of the caves of steel and how he couldn't go Outside. When he saw the naked sun for the first time he freaked”. Daneel tightened his embrace of the human slumbering so noisefully apon him. SirMadam was very moved by such a tender picture, their heads nested in a huge damasked lime green gold-tasselled cushion that had come from Aurora
Later the robots got up to try and move the shuttle ship so they could get SirMadam’s garden restored to its former unsullied state. “We could try and re-land it – gently this time one hopes! – on what looks to be a common piece of land just beyond your garden”.
“Um, well not in the next-door cow field, m’dears. Or Farmer Giles might not be best pleased”.
“No, of course not.” Daneel and Giskard returned to the control room. It was easier this time without the distraction of an audience, mostly human, who found them so terribly amusing, or just plain ballsing-up so human had Giskard and Daneel become. Well without the distractions they somehow got it right this time, or at any rate more so than before. The shuttle lifted about twenty feet and then they managed to maneouvre it with no more damage than breaking off a few outer branches of a tree nearby and narrowly missing another and brushing the top of a fence and frightening only a few cows and sheep, and probably the odd bird or two and even the worms, slugs and spiders might’ve noticed especiallyif a cobweb got broken (Elijah, since walking accidently into one, was a cobweb phobic amongst other things, so good thing he was fast asleep, snoring and twitching and muttering).
With this time the gentlest of bumps – only a tiny one – they managed to re-land the shuttle just over the fence. It was brilliant as this time nobody came into the control room to grumble at them. Everybody by now was pissed, screwing or asleep or engrossed in some crappy holopic or really bad pop (the Osmonds) or on the Galactanet studying fashions or downloading even more bad pop (why did most humans on board cruise ships go in for really bad pop). Elijah would go apoplectic if he so much as heard a whiff of the Osmonds. Or the Boxtops. Or Motown or Jazz really. Or anything inane, trite and utterly trivial and tuneless and rhythmless and didn’t have drumming or a great backbeat. Elijah loved the old pop and rock classics of the mid-twentieth century, ‘twen-cen’, renowned for its terrific music. “Give me a good Beatles any day! And old George wasn’t bad either.” But on board the Good Ship Lollypop all they wanted was crap and more crap and utter utter shite. “Jehosaphat! I'd almost prefer walking into another cobweb at this point”.
HAVING MEMORIES
Daneel and Giskard returned to the Lounge where most everybody was lounging and lolling and sprawled around and the serverbots were cleaning up spilt food and drink – fortunately there was some slightly less bad pop on at the moment, sort of OK stuff like Procul Harum, so Elijah slumbered on, un-apopoplectically, with just the tinest of snores, filled with good red wine and whisky and curried cheese puffs and lemon cream-cheesecake and chocolate truffles which is why he was having bad dreams to start with!. Elijah had scant interest in what foods went with which or not, or what was terribly healthy either; he just loved it. (As well as it). Daneel had been programmed to love it (both sorts) too and had been equipped with the latest synthosensors so that he could fit in well with human society. Daneel could even realistically belch to order and Giskard could make the most realistic farting noises, not sure from what part of him, so they were really a fun pair of robots everybody agreed and not roboty at all. Roj would’ve been so proud. Not sure about Asimov – he tended to like his robots serious. Seriously. A whole bunch of no-fun deadly-serious cerebral-intellectual bots forever and utterly bound into their three Laws with no room for maneovre. Poor Giskard and Daneel were these miserable po-faced bots who yabbed on and on about the Zeroth Law and Psychohistory till it drove everyone mad as they had nothing else they could talk about and everyone human laughed at them cuz they were so boring really but that’s how old Ise had written them up so there they had to stay til one day a stray gamma particle shot through both their heads and dislodged a few positrons into a different position or whatever and hey presto two new fun robots immerged. Sorry Ise. But that’s how it is from now on. Remember Ludovic Trema? Yay.
“Hey”, Giskard ‘woke’ one day. “I’m fun now”
“Hey”, Daneel also ‘woke’. “I’m fun too”.
They experimented with their brand new fun-ness. It was fun. If only Roj hadn’t got himself shot and had been able to re-life he would’ve enjoyed his two new brand-newly awoken fun robots. But re-lifing back then hadn’t been perfected –well the cloning bit had but not the downloading and somehow Roj didn’t get around to that and Daneel mourned (he could now!) the fact he’d not suggested this as he had with Elijah who’d gone great guns to get the cloning under way and Daneel had done the rest when downloading became routine and there was Elijah’s brand new cloned body waiting for all Elijah’s stored memories (which had mercifully stood the test of time and the basics at any rate had come through intact, ei Elijah could still remember his name and who he was etc) though he still had a lot to relearn which naturally with the loving (now!) Daneel’s help he did. Elijah too had found the newly-repositroned Daneel a huge improvement and really fun. “What an old po I was before”, Daneel grimaced and stuck out a tongue and acted really fun now just to prove it all. A whole new dimension. “Wait till you meet Gizza – Giskard that is. Fun fun fun”.
Giskard had been. A real Gizza: with Attitude: motormouthed, swearing, stroppy. But with a heart (yes really) of gold. And FUN!
Elijah who’d been a closet-depressive now found things fun. His old marriage had really been going downhill, Jess had got sick of his heresy and new ideas and general wierdness about robots whom he’d always hated before and now seemed to suddenly adore plus a certain yen for the glorious Daneel and Jess was really rather suburban when all was said and done, a nice worthy soul and that but – suburban . Her mother was worse, how could one be suburban in the caves of steel was anyone’s guess but there one went and Jess’s mother certainly could. With a vengeance, oh boy. Plus she had a silly stupid little yappy dog that Jess adored and wanted one too only Elijah threatened to walk out FOREVER if this happened . Elijah preferred cats any day. They did have a cat, had two before Jess’s mother’s stupid little yapper frightened it so much it ran away , but Jess had never really liked cats, it had been Elijah who wanted this, so that Marriage was doomed to failure really. And their son B had been a nice little boy but had turned into a Teenager so that was boring too.
Elijah woke. He was lying on the big sofa in the shuttle ships’ lounge but – alone. Daneel had gone! Elijah threshed round in a panic; he hated waking up alone. He wanted to feel Daneel’s warm arms tight around him, his face nested into Daneel’s shoulder. Oh what a big baby he’d become and oh wasn’t it lovely! Something to do with his own mother being depressed and never cuddling him, now Elijah wanted this a lot and now Daneel gave it him in bucketloads. Elijah couldn’t go off to sleep on his own either but was trying to learn as he needed sleep and Daneel didn’t, obviously. Oh what a big baby he had become and wasn't it lovely! One in the eye for Jess’s mother who’d never liked him and thought him weird which he supposed he was really. When she’d guessed he was a heretic too that was it! She’d encourged Jess to not be married to him any more and to get a dog instead which she did, and thank goodness Daneel was around by then – even in his pre no-fun days Daneel had been a boon and his beauty sublime even then.
Elijah shuddered at these memories. Ugh! He sat up and ran his hands thourgh his fine brown hair which always got untidy easily (much to Jess’s chagrin but hey that didn’t matter a toss any longer!). Daneel’s was always a glorious heavy shining swish, falling out of and right back into place like the best asian sort of hair. Anyway Elijah now sat up, hair sticking out and heart pounding. Giskard wasn’t there either. Just a huge rotund person, lolling at ease in the biggest armchair, feet up on the footrest. Elijah blinked. Oh dear, was he still dreaming. Jehosaphat this wouldn’t do! He hated the dreams he had, why were they always so lousy and boring and full of things he’d rather forget? Always about the old days back in the caves of steel with its stink and fug and bigotry and sexism and Jess’s mothers dog and B being a Teenager and listening only to REALLY BAD POP music, couldn't even run to the Beatles or something classic…urhg, he was REMEMBERING again and that would not do! That was because Daneel wasn’t there, when Daneel wasn’t there Elijah REMEMBERED and that was realy UGH. Maybe he should do something punishing like going to the Gym and Getting Some Exercise, oh lord and jehosaphat.
“Tough isn’t it”, said a sympathetic voice nearby and Elijah saw SirMadam seated nearby. Sweet old codger. Looked just like someone called George. “Your lovely Daneel is out seeing about my lawn, he and the lovely metallo,” he informed Elijah, who smiled blearily back.
“Uh, so they’ve gone Outside. No – I should just say, outside. Like it’s normal. Just say it normally, not like with a capital O as if it’s something weird.”
“It must be hard for you”.
“Yeah, guess so. But it’s getting better.” Elijah rubbed his eyes and lolled against the sofa back.
“Life must've been wierd there. Never seeing nature or scenery or sky or weather or – even insects”.
“Oh it was; I see it now. Right wierd it was. And it stunk! I came back from Outside – no, outside – and ugh!. Had I really been living in that stink? I was disgusted. Daneel of course can ‘smell’ it with his synthosensors and he reeled off a whole bunch of just what the air there is clogged up with and boy, it wasn't nice!”
“I imagine things like human excretions top the list”. SirMadam seemed to have really been reading up his Galactic history.
“Oh my lord, that! When Daneel came out with that I was sickened. I had to go off and try to puke so disgusted was I. And from then on I really wanted to try to get Outside without having the heebiejeebies. Daneel helped me of course.”
“Of course. I am so glad you had such a wonderful being come into your life”.
“Oh yes, I am, believe me. Everyone should have one”.
SirMadam made to slowly get up. “I suppose I really ought to go see what needs to be done about my lawn. See if some of my robots are up to a bit of terraforming. Don’t reckon any of these ships one’s are programmed for gardening and lawn-mowing”.
“Probably not”, Elijah smiled. He slowly got up too. Ah that sofa was bliss; just the right mix of firm and cushy. “Maybe I should stick my nose outdoors again – smell the fresh air”.
“And the roses”, said SirMadam.
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