Chapter 14

http://www.blogger.com/home?pli=1

1794 words

14

WHAT TO WEAR

They landed back in the Spaceport that Elijah had left only yesterday.  Before they left the ship though, careful consideration was given as to how they should appear.  It was Elijah who first said, “I suppose we’d better go in looking like two thoroughly boring conventional people.  After all that’s how everyone else in the City is appearing now.” And Daneel, looking down at his batik-ed old denim cropped jacket and jeans worn with a light red vest-top in the short-over-long layering style that was undoubtedly a twen-cen fashion classic now, said, “You’re right of course”, and almost sounded quite rueful: a fashionista deprived of an opportunity to see-and-be-seen?

“Sorry”, Elijah said, also rueful for he thorougly enjoyed seeing how fantastic Daneel looked in all this figure-hugging gear.  “And not as if you could ever look boring”, to which Daneel smiled modestly, not giving away any indication as to whether he comprehended the concept of what Elijah had just said.  What he did comprehend though was the existance of human irrationality. Which could manifest itself in such petty irrelevances as discriminating against the way somebody dressed.  Daneel well understood the concept of snobbery and prejudice that brought about discrimination and ultimately hate-crime, often in the form of unprovoked assault apon the so-called perpetrator – who was committing no crime except that of daring to be not like everybody else.  Actually the mere notion of it was enough to make Daneel’s pozzies feel quite fizzy – with simulated annoyance!  Which, in Daneel’s myriad data-banks, was classed as ‘annoyance as experienced by a human’ and sub-classed ‘reasonable annoyance at unreasonableness’. 

“So”, he now summed up. “I must therefore look like a conventional person just so as not to get attacked by unreasonably prejudiced humans.  To ask an age-old rhetoric:   What does that say for the human race I wonder”.

“Not a lot”, Elijah sighed. And then, “Couldn’t you go as female…?  Yunno, just sprout your assets and that.  We could cut quite a bit of crap that way”.

“True”, Daneel agreed.  “Cheating maybe – but we’ve gotta get a move on, so, as the human would say, push has come to shove”.

Elijah suddenly chuckled.  “That is if your top isn’t too tight to – um, fit everything in!”, and Daneel grinned and said, “Hey, didn’t I say push has come to shove”.

And soon they were ready.  Elijah had on a long trenchcoat, a khaki lightweight one as they would be, in effect, indoors in the City.  Daneel swapped his usual hunky-but-chic leather biker jacket for a similar trenchcoat in mauvy-grey that mostly concealed the skin-tight denims and, now, appropriately-filled low-necked top.  He left his bright flowing mane tucked inside its high collar. Catwalk male model or chic warrior-babe?  Take your pick.  Elijah stood close before Daneel and peered in. “Hmm, very nice. 37C would you say…?”.   

Daneel briefly yet tenderly kissed him. “Think it’s only about 35 with this top.  But enough to give ‘em a shock if the worst happens and they refuse to mind their own business – or their fists”.  Elijah didn’t need to ask who the ‘they’ to which Daneel referred were.

And, now as they walked hand-in-hand across terra firma and into the Arrivals lounge the enormity of what they had to do suddenly hit Elijah, and he couldn’t even crack a sombre joke about how he felt he’d never been away.

“We”, he now said, “now have to find a boy who has been missing for two days and could be in any one of the City parks”.  He was tempted to slump with sudden weariness against Daneel’s shoulder.  Daneel said gently,  “I remember him mentioning a ‘castle park’ over the phone to you”, and Elijah said, “Josaphat yes!  So he did.  ‘Castle park’ – that could be that park with the phoney castle in it.  Nice place…used to go there with – my son…also Ben”.

They went through the usual rigmarole of customs and immigration before exiting the Spaceport a few minutes later. Within ten minutes they were on the southbound Ex where they were lucky to find seats at all. How dingy, cramped, noisy and crowded it was – and that smell!  How could one forget that smell, that Daneel, most graphically, had once said was compounded of human excretions. Ugh! Elijah now felt as sick as when he'd first ventured Outside. He hardly wanted to breathe.  How could he have lived here so indifferently before? Daneel, sensing this, grinned. “Pooh! Pretty damn awful isn’t it. Human molecules ain’t pretty – present company excepted of course”.

Elijah said, “Daneel!” but, for the first time since entering the City, he laughed.  Just in time he remembered not to turn to kiss Daneel. They sat back, as closely as they dared but not actually touching, and carefully looked around.

The place hadn’t changed in two hundred years; if anything it was more poker-faced and thoroughly no-fun as ever.  Only the noise and the smell remained.  The Ex felt poorly-maintained as it juddered and clattered along.  After a particularly large annoying judder Elijah, with a surge of anger, suddenly remembered poor Ben’s tearful mention of the horrible teacher who ‘hated long hair on boys’ and now, glancing at most of the males around, he noticed an ominous majority sported the most unattractive short-back-and-sides. Even in some cases a near skinhead cut.  Their clothes too were, in the main, traditional masculine: colourless and completely lacking any style.  Worser and worser.  The women looked passably okay, if not quite so colourful maybe, and still quite varied in their dress and hair.  “Josaphat shat!”, Elijah muttered, “it looks bloody medieval! As if – oh crap – as if the hardline Medievalists have won the day here.”

“That’s just it” Daneel agreed.  “Afraid that lot look to be the ruling elite here. Fundamentaly yours, so to speak”.

With every show of reluctance he shifted position slightly so that now not even their shoulders touched.  Elijah, discomfited, looked round aggrievedly as if daring any so-styled Medievalist to start telling them how they should behave!  Unfortunately he caught the eye of a particularly sour looking bloke who glowered unremittingly at them.  Makes me look almost angelic! Elijah wryly thought.  And then they found they had company in the shape of four dourly-clad blokes with close-cropped hair. Not quite militant  skinhead but just – medieval!

“Say, they really are queerdos”, came a derisive voice.  “Just look at their dandy togs”.

Daneel, without directly looking at them, allowed his coat to fall open just a bit.  Just enough for them to see what was under the low-cut red top.  Nicely boosted by the fitted jacket that he’d buttoned up as far as it would go; deliberately he had allowed ‘the assets’ to be just a little too big for the jacket to fit over them, so there they were, framed and unmistakable. 

“Coo”, came another lewd voice. “It’s a dame!  A big big dame.  And nicely stacked too”.  Elijah had to hide a smile. He assumed his ‘streetwise’ bored look: idly looking first to one side and then up, as if taking in his surroundings and finding them pretty boring.   Daneel, hands in pockets,  unconcernedly looked to the other side at nothing in particular. “Lady, you don’t want to go flashing those about.  Or you might attract unwanted attention”.

Daneel, in leisurely fashion, sat back and crossed his legs.  “Maybe she’d like a bit of attention”, guffawed a third.  “Sure is acting like it”.

Neither Elijah or Daneel responded and this went on for a bit. It was hoped the blokes would get bored now, once they’d seen what appeared to not now be two ‘longhaired’  males sitting close together and dressed in such stylish gear, far more stylish than it had any right to be on Earth. Indeed the blokes sort of carried on just to keep the show up and Daneel reckoned he could sense they were a bit embarrassed at mistaking Daneel’s gender but couldn’t back down now.  That was how some human males were for you: always in competition, never displaying any ‘weakness’ such as backing down or admitting they were wrong.  As a human Daneel imagined rolling his eyes in boredom at such hackneyed – medieval – behaviour.   Such illogical behaviour.

When their disembarkation sign came the pair simply got up as if the blokes weren't there and walked right through them unhindered, Daneel leading the way.   Even the bloke who made some attempt to block their way found himself stepping back when it was evident Daneel-as-Daneele wasn't going to stop.

“There”, Elijah said, satisfiedly.  They cuddled close for a moment, uncaring of where they were as they crossed the strips,  “Knew that you as female would cut any crap.”

“Which it did”. By now the Expressway cars were whirling ahead of them as they stepped onto slower and slower strips. Daneel drolly stuck up his middle finger and Elijah quickly did so before pulling Daneel’s hand down. “Josaphat, Daneel, we’ll get had up!  It’s just all so po here”.  But he didn’t immediately let go of Daneel.

B-MOVIE IN A FUG

The Castle Park was in the southeast of the City, its biggest green area with real trees and lakes and its most famous landmark the imitation castle.  They reached it by various moving walkways.

“I wonder”, Elijah said, “if Ben has hidden himself in the rhododendron dell – that’s what my – the other – Ben liked to do when we came for day trips here.  It’s quite a jungle there”.

They passed the park café, still quite busy, and shortly came to the great dell in which a forest of gorgeous rhododendrons had been planted. With the constant temperature there was always some in bloom.  Underfoot it was all terribly clean: a thick layer of cellulose ‘wood’ chips covering any ‘dirty’ soil and serverbots to clear away any fallen leaves so that the surface always stayed clean.  It would make a nice secret den for a runaway boy.  Only thing was, where?   The dell was a good quarter mile long.  Hand in hand the pair started down along the central path off which other tracks turned.  It all looked very idyllic and beautifully cared-for.  But it was, all said and done, Inside: a stage-set, hygienically underground and sealed off from any real nature or sunshine and the air was filtered and canned and full of human excretions. Elijah felt himself gag.

“Poowh! Josaphat, how I long for some real air!”

“I know”, Daneel sympathized.  “I feel my poor olefactorics are getting clogged with nasty little sticky biomolecules. Furgh!”.

“Shite, Daneel, you do put it poetically!”

“I have great poetic circuits”, Daneel grinned.  “I can appreciate these wonderful rhododendron flowers but I know they are just in a polystyrene B-movie setting in a fug”.

Link to next Chapter 15:  http://nanowrimo2011ataleoftworobots.blogspot.com/2011/08/chapter-15.html

Chapter 13

http://www.blogger.com/home?pli=1

2832 words

13

A CRY FOR HELP

Elijah’s two cats managed to adapt to life on board ship. Elijah had quarters next to the ‘park’ which was a proper park size so they could roam.   Everywhere that was supposed to be ‘outdoors’ had clever holographic sky and clouds which darkened and lightened at the appropriate times and even a sun and a moon and stars which appeared to move across the ‘sky’. It made the planetside caves of steel Cities seem amateur by contrast: B-Movies with polystyrene props, fake greenery and obviously-painted skies. 

Here on the newly-christened Good Ship Gaya one couldn’t believe one wasn’t on a planet’s very pastoral surface.  There was even digital sound-effect birdsong (Elijah’s cats learned to give up looking for actual birds).  Elijah, coming on board most affected with his disorder of the season – which was as bad as his agoraphobia had been - soon found himself becoming more ordered by the day as he relaxed in his cushy double sun-lounger out on his verandah, bathed in good daylight-spectrum ship’s ‘sunlight’. And of course Daneel, who’d come and lie beside him whenever ship’s duties allowed.

The first day, as they lay there, in each others arms, with vintage indie pop-rock playing on the sound system and the ‘sun’ setting in a glorious and realistic show of colour, Elijah happened to glance across at someone’s veranda and saw two people. Who were very evidently and very nakedly having sex. He involuntarily started, embarrassed, and tried to look away but it was no good pretending they weren't there. He knew Daneel, as a Spacer, would see this as nothing as to so much as comment on.  He, Elijah, was just an inhibited Earthling – as Spacers were so fond of calling them. Not that Daneel would ever be so snide – or not to him at any rate.  Daneel, as ever sensing his slight discomfort, made a questioning sound. Elijah murmured, into Daneel’s neck, “Um – bit hot over there…sorry, not used to such… ahem”.

“Oh that”, Daneel had seen the direction of his darted glance. “Should’ve warned you. Sorry. As you say, ‘ahem’”. He sounded amused. “Being a cruise ship people are not discouraged from – ahem, and so they do it”. 

“As I’ve noticed”, Elijah gave a small dry laugh. “Anytime anyplace and never mind what anyone else might see”, and Daneel drolly said, “With a name like Good Ship Lollypop what could you expect.  We didn't name her, remember”.

“Hah, because you hijacked her you cheeky pair of robots.”

“Yup”. Daneel stroked his hair and soon a lovely warm slumberous feeling stole over Elijah again. He couldn't believe how lethargic he’d felt when coming on board this afternoon, how couldn't-be-bothered, how he’d feared that even being with Daneel again would not elevate those dreadful winter blues. Even now he just wanted to lie in Daneel’s warm arms and not do anything else, not even talk much or kiss, and of course with Daneel with his comforting lack of ego he could do just that. The best of all worlds he thought as he drifted off to sleep the best sleep he’d had in ages.

To wake later to find Daneel still warmly around him, his own arm curled round the humaniform’s neck.  Daneel let him gently come to and then asked, “Hungry yet?” and Elijah realizing he was said, “Josaphat, yes!”, and Daneel said, “How about the hugest spiciest freshly-prepared curry, with real-lemon cheesecake and cream to follow…..yay, man, thought that would get you going! Now do you want a vegetarian, prawn, monkfish, chicken or lamb curry...?”, oddly enough Elijah had never had any hang-ups about eating what he knew to be originating from the flesh of creatures (mostly from poultry or cod bred in huge mostly-robotic City  ‘farms’ and which only level-C5 Cityzens and above could afford). So back in the City real meat in particular had been considered a desirable luxury; this had come in neat minced cubes usually in some sauce or other, so that’s what meat was to Elijah: just something called meat, in nice tasty cubes, a once-weekly Friday night treat, especially when ‘curried’.  He’d tried fish (also cubed) too and found he’d liked that also.  So that was alright.  Now he was learning that ‘meat’ and ‘fish’ had variations.  Lamb and beef, with their stronger flavours, had taken a bit of getting used to, as had trout.   Surprisingly he’d also got used to things like squid, prawns and mussels – well at least they came chopped, dissected or shelled and, like the meat or fish cubes, were just little pieces really – not connected to a definite creature shape.  No, it had been the idea of things coming out of ‘dirty’ soil or growing in outside air that had first unhinged him.

Now, as if by magic, from a pulsed summons from Daneel, a serverbot soon appeared and took their orders which they gave whilst still lying in their nest of cushions.  Naturally Daneel, fully equipped and programmed to ‘enjoy’ food, was to do the companionable thing and eat with Elijah.  And now he gently said, “And as a bossy old robot I’m going to now tell you all about the wondrous and nutritious organic homegrown vegetables and fruit that even an old die-hard like you will enjoy”, and Elijah finally said, “Yeah – guess I should. Be a good boy and eat my greens”.

The first time he’d done this outside the City he’d felt sick by the real taste and texture of such fare (even having to actually cut it!). Surely it would be full of vermin which would then eat his insides. It had come straight out of the soil - dirty brown naked soil - after all, or grown in unfiltered outside air. No nice clean processing.  It had been like seeing naked sex for the first time and he’d had to try not to retch.  However, more recently he’d got used to the idea of this real-vegetable eating -  but sometimes he still wasn't very good about it and when his winter blues came on he’d really got rather bad about it.  In the often rather itinerant and irregular nature of his job he’d tended to fall back on classic City-style yeastameals: out of a freezer into a microwave, heated in minutes, and eaten with a fork straight out of the tri-compartmented tray. Usually a rissole masquerading as something proteinaceous, a satchet of sauce if you were lucky, and  two varicoloured flavoured blobs consisting of a carbohydrate and a ‘vegetable’ – which nary had seen an actual one. Now he had to make the effort to get used to what he called Outside eating again.  A nasty twinge of dispiritedness came over him at the thought of all this effort.  Daneel said softly, “Ha’hey don’t turn into a vegetable”, which had the desired effect of making Elijah laugh by its sheer silliness yet peculier aptness. He perked up enough to  order two green vegetables: okra and sag, with his monkfish  curry and a peach and a tangerine to follow, along with the naughty cheesecake with cream. And a light beer.  Finishing off with spiced chai tea and burfi sweetmeats.  The serverbot forever patiently waited whilst they sorted all this out – no huffing or tutting whilst Elijah quelled his hang ups.

It was the most wonderful meal he’d ever eaten and he lay sated afterwards. He’d forgotten about the people having their naked sex just yards away. He’d been eating naked vegetables and fruit, straight out of the ship’s soil or from its ‘sun’-drenched orchards – okay the ship’s soil, whilst genuine, wasn’t quite as ‘dirty’ as planet soil, but it was not far off.  Before he’d come Outside he’d never once eaten anything that directly came from soil or been grown in sunshine, now here he was chewing lovely fresh tenderly cooked veg and biting into actual sun-ripened fruit and thinking what a wonderful flavour it all had instead of worrying about sticky dribble or what it might be doing to his insides. He turned his head and sleepily kissed Daneel in a mutual haze of curry and garlic fumes.

“That’s better”, Daneel said. “You taste just great. Not like a vegetable now”.

And then the intercom – sounding like an old fashioned twen-cen digital phone because that was the ringtone selected by Elijah -  rang.  Elijah and Daneel both swore a bit, Elijah because it could be somebody for him, and Daneel because it might be a ship’s duty calling, and it was just too awful to have to disentwine, sit up and get off the cushy sunlounger (Daneel said his pozzies were now flowing like warm honey, always proof of a robot’s wellbeing “That’s why I’m so witty and so wise right now”).

THE CRY

It wasn’t a ship’s duty.  It was Ben – all the way from Earth.  On a costly EtherHoloVidPhone or EHV Phone; known as an ‘Eva’ .

“Lije? Lije! I’ve run away from home”, Ben sounded tearful.  “It’s all horrible.  I wish I could come with you and go away from here.  She grabbed me by the hair and tried to dangle me by it – like robots can do – I mean, not by the hair but by the wrists when they want to punish somebody – but she did it in front of the whole class – 'cos she said she hated long hair on boys and if she had a pair of scissors she’d cut it off me right then – which is really really gross when girls can have any hair they like and it’s just not fair – but they’re allowed to do lots of things and be things that boys can’t – it really really hurt and I was scared she’d pull it right out – she’s always picking on the boys, 'specially ones like me – she did this to another boy, by his ears – we’re always getting physical abuse like that and the girls don’t -  I started yelling 'cause I couldn’t help it and then another teacher came in 'cause of the noise we were all making – and I just went on yelling and then I ran for it – right out of school – and I haven’t been home for two days – I just got on the first accessway to the Ex and went as far as I could and slept in that castle park…”

But then Ben started crying in earnest. “Please don’t be angry with me, Lije.  I’m sorry I rang you like this and bothered you but—”

And then, in under a minute, Ben’s credits ran out and the line went dead.

“Jehosaphat shat! That poor bloody kid!” Elijah looked as desperate as Ben had sounded.  “I should’ve thought of him before I came running away like this…hold on, I’ll try and see if I can get him on his mobile – if he’s got it with him…”.

“This is terrible” Daneel said. “He sounds in real distress”.  The humaniform looked and sounded so genuinely concerned it moved Elijah to suddenly want to cry.  “Look”, Daneel went on, “if you can’t get hold of him I can get one of our space yachts into action and fly back to Earth – it would take about ten hours if I started up the programming now…well I – and Giskard – run this show now so we make the decisions as to where the money’s spent…Now first try and get hold of poor Ben and hope he’s got his mobile on him”.

He evidently hadn’t.  All Elijah got was a monotonous perpetual ringtone.  “Oh fuck!”

“Right. Oh-fuck indeed,” Daneel endorsed. “So now I’ll go and start up the programming – that shouldn’t take more than an hour.  One Jump should get us back to Earth within ten hours”.

“Us?” Elijah stuttered. “But surely you can’t…”

“Oh yes I can,” Daneel said firmly.  He looked wonderful and determined.  “A good human being is in distress and I cannot countenance that.” There and then he turned and started for the apartment exit.  Amazing, Elijah thought, this robot can rationalize the difference between a good human who was worth going to all this trouble and expense to save and a bad one who wouldn’t be.  This operation: programming up a Space yacht and flying it back to Earth would cost the Cruise Company millions.  But hey, two robots, Giskard and Daneel, now ran said Cruise Company and when did robots need salaries for themselves in any big way (apart from nice clothes or a few metallo accessories).

Daneel’s mane of red-bronze hair swished as he turned back to Elijah.  Like a shampoo ad, Elijah irrelevantly found himself thinking.  “Coming?” asked Daneel, now all measured-purposeful action; those gorgeous model’s looks belieing such no-nonsense hands-on capeability. He touched the door-contact and the exit slid silently back. “It might be slightly more exciting watching me programming than watching paint dry”.  Elijah, now psyching himself into a similar man-of-action instead of a post-prandial couch-potato, followed.

“Hey,” Daneel now said, “Don’t forget your toothbrush”.

“Oh gawd, yes”.  It would be a ten hour trip, during which Elijah would need to wash and sleep, so his sponge-bag wouldn’t go amiss.  He just in time remembered to grab his towel as well.  And mobile.  And something to read.  He would keep trying to see if he could make contact with Ben somehow.  He felt terrible now that he’d so blithely run off to space without a thought for the vulnerable boy, his great-great-great-great grandson, left behind on Earth.  He was afraid Ben might do something rash to himself, or get caught up by bad people – a City park at night wasn’t the safest place for a youngster to be alone in, and a gentle one like Ben, especially not so.

Space yachts were miniature interstellar space ships and designed to go for long journeys.  Big enough not to feel cramped, small enough to be easily manoeuvrable.  So they were pretty comfortable with all amenities and full communications, including an ‘Eva’ phone.  Elijah could’ve had the run of ten luxury staterooms with ensuite bathrooms.  But naturally he preferred to be with Daneel in the control cabin, where there was an extra acceleration couch at the back, behind the command chair.  A nice big one into which they could both snuggle once the ship was on course for Earth.  The yacht also had a big cushy lounge with a vast holoscreen at one end, a restaurant and a well-stocked bar. As time was of the essence and there was just the two of them they didn’t bother to stock the restaurant, instead, for Elijah, relying on the self-service soya-based readymeals which were decidely upmarket – and certainly far superior to Earth’s yeastameals.

By now Daneel had communicated with Giskard via their robotic intercomms to tell him that as from now until further notice he was in sole charge of the Good Ship Gaya. Giskard, in effect, just said okidokey as if it were completely normal for his co-boss to take off on a ten hour journey back to Earth in one of the Space yachts.  Robots never needed to explain things to each other. Daneel next found out which planet they would have their next stop-off at and Giskard ‘told’ him and Daneel ‘said’ that’s where they would rendezvous and again, in effect, Giskard said fine and that was that.  Such clean elegent no-fuss no-faff, unlike with humans. Meanwhile Daneel got on with programming a course back to Earth which he did in little over half an hour and then they were ready to go.

So good was Daneel’s programming that, with one Jump, they got there in eight hours.  The sight of beautiful Earth in all its swirly blues and whites hanging in a black velvet star-sprinkled sky was stupendous.  As the pair stood, entwined, in the dark Earthlit viewing dome Daneel seemed as moved as Elijah was, saying it made his pozzies flow, always a good sign.  Elijah still a little apprehensive when faced with such huge open space was glad to cling tight to Daneel and feel the humaniforms strong arms wrapped around him.  How lucky he was to have one such as Daneel!  It made him all the more determined to find and rescue Ben, for such unconditional loving fed one’s confidence and melted away most hang-ups.  People went on about how they loved their dogs but no dog could hug you and cradle you and be a rock in quite the way Daneel was.  A fantastic computer he might be but then, biologically, so were humans too.  We’re all atoms when all’s said and done so what the heck, Elijah often thought.

As they neared the planet and were able to make out the continents and even see the domes of the major Cities, the nightside ones glowing, Daneel returned to the command chair to slip on the headset-and-mike that connected one to Air Traffic Control.  Looking and sounding every inch the cool competent pilot, despite his flowing mane, ear-piercings and fashionably bleach-batiked figure-hugging denims.

Link to next Chapter 14:  http://nanowrimo2011ataleoftworobots.blogspot.com/2011/08/chapter-14.html

Chapter 12

http://www.blogger.com/home?pli=1

1989 words

12

A CRAPPED-UP SOCIETY

Elijah, on one of his ‘holidays’, which grew increasingly longer every time, would often do some detectiving work, both onboard and planetside. The things people wanted detectiving!  Some were so typical they were risible! The customary jealous/suspicious spouse of course, par for the whatever. Gang leaders were another: always wanting to check that their members weren't grassing or absconding (bunch of failed asshole hettys!). These were shockers at trying not to pay him and so, when nicely mentioning became asking and then looked in danger of having to degrade into an out-and-out demand, along would go Daneel (calling himself ‘Daneelia’ for the duration) and Giskard to play heavy: a spot of arm-twisting (literally) or swinging by the ankles over the side of a railway or motorway bridge usually did the trick.  One or two had actually peed or puked with terror and, most humiliatingly, often in front of their gang members too.

And ‘Daneelia’ seemed fairly terrifying too (weird how these hettys are often flummoxed by a masterful female!). Physical won over mind manipulation too: trying to ‘persuade’ such entrenched, menacing and thoroughly negative minds into anything remotely positive was tricky and would require too much delicate concentration.  Gang barons don’t give one an opportunity for delicate. Heavy is all they understand.  But just ‘bashing’at such minds could irreparably damage them so this was not an easy option for the robots (Elijah savagely thought, more’s the pity!).  However Giskard and Daneel were pretty skilled at the physical stuff with implicated threat – without actually inflicting damage – or any lasting damage (More’s the pity again!).  And once your average gang baron’s worked out that he’s up against something far faster and stronger and more enduring than he could ever be, some of the stuffing can fall out a bit (literally!).  There were a few, however, on whom Daneel and Giskard had been forced, as a last resort, to inflict quite a bit of discomfort-going-on-painful, to becoming – well, painful!   They were highly sophisticated enough to reason themselves into being able to ‘do what was necessary when necessary’. For if they didn’t, then Elijah wouldn’t get paid and Elijah’s earning a living was (as was Elijah himself) a higher priority than the wellbeing of a brutish gang baron.

One shouted at Giskard and Daneel “I order you to go away and leave us alone!” and Daneel and Giskard looked amicably back at him and didn’t move. In the face of anyone’s suspicion Daneel neither denied nor confirmed that he was a robot – as with gender just let ‘em guess.  Another who had, shouted, “As a robot you should turn the other cheek – not be roughing us up!” which only made Daneel look even more amicable than ever, though in a steely kind of way. If anyone tried to hit Daneel he merely flicked out an arm and knocked their fist aside before it was even halfway there and if it hurt them then Daneel could reason that he certainly wasn’t to blame: they had chosen to let fly, it wasn’t like Daneel had asked them to, nor had he broken any law by setting out to hurt them.

Some people were often shouting orders at Giskard, the obvious robot, and he too, with those advanced lightening-fast computations,  prioritized these out as to which it made sense to obey and which were just plain daft (aka unreasonably illogical, made in the name of malice).  As a metallo robot Giskard often got a lot of daft orders thrown at him just for the hell of it to see if he would get tied up in knots and go into shut-down as a simpler robot would. All that would happen was that Giskard, eyes glowing, would just stand there and wait until they got tired of it which they did long before he did.  And then he’d flash his eyes and floor them with some sardonic comment like, “And now may I carry on with what I was doing before you interrupted me with your silly order which, let’s face it, was only to have a bit of sport at my expense”.

“Oh de-ar.You thought he was just another stupid metallo didn’t you”, Daneel would grin. “Who would take things literally and wouldn’t understand malice, hmm?”  Oh Giskard and Daneel were ace at dealing with contrary humans; if they didn’t understand something or reckoned their contrapotentials would start building up, they coped by just standing there, and would hold up their hands and laugh, saying things like, “Hey we’re only stupid robots”, and, “we’re not supposed to understand jokes”, and, “didn’t you know there’s another robotic law that doesn’t allow us to understand jokes”, but this rarely happened nowadays, not after five hundred years of hard living, working and playing amongst humanity.

Oh Daneel and Giskard had developed a fine wit by now to get themselves out of sticky situations from imminent attack to just not understanding a joke, or just to avoid having a bit of sport made at their expense or simply being made fun of as robots tended to be.  They learned to be past masters at the art of self-parody and this could flummox quite a few might-be detractors with ill-intent.  Trying to set up false situations to fool these robots didn’t work either as their cerebroanalysers would simply detect the antagonist’s frame of mind in which negative anger was as writ large and clear, and so deduce that this constituted the most unreasonable illogicality (or illogical unreasonableness) and therefore to be given a low priority.

Invaluable to an intelligent robot to aquire the art of prioritization as well. Else there would be waste, and, to an intelligent robot, waste is unreasonable and therefore illogical because it’s destructive and so equates negative.  And it harms humans too in the end so all the more reason to not have it.  And so the art of prioritization is all the more essential.  So reasoned robots like Daneel and Giskard, and after reasoning this out, just got on with their mission of trying to, if not exactly saving, than at least making things more sensible for these most un-sensible beings called humans.

Some of their missions were now showing results.  Bikes were allowed at all times on trains now and trains were now being designed or refurbished with the old guard’s van incorporated once more, so one could just walk on and park one’s bike like a bike should be parked.  Public transport was improving in both frequency and reliability and was free in many towns now.  Trams were being reintroduced too.  There was far less extraneous packaging on products so less waste – and less hassle in opening things too!   Small shops were beginning to flourish once more and what’s more were being paid to stay open later so now they could well compete with the all-enstrangling supermarkets who had killed off the local high street and had turned these into nightly no-go areas where only yobs went.

Schools were harder to crack.  Trying to ‘coerce’ school governors, let alone the local education authority, or nobs in the Min of Ed, into seeing that it was well worthwhile in spending money to improve the schools and teaching standards so that there was a hope that they’d then turn out better-educated young who might then decide to not go onto a criminal career.  “Lazy greedy lot of buggers!” Daneel and Giskard groused in a very human fashion. “Sit on their meaty arses in their fucking gold-plated marble and ivory towers and line their pockets with more gold credits -  and choose not to see whilst the rest of humanity can go hang”.

It was amazing how Giskard and Daneel had worked out that it was laziness and greed and not just obduracy that made those in power tick. Ah well, that was five hundred years of having lived, worked and played with humanity.

One Min of Ed nob had actually said, “But that costs money!” and so great was the obstruction in their mind that Daneel and Giskard had had to pick away oh so carefully which meant they didn’t get anywhere very much that time.

“But just think,” Daneel said, looking the man straight in the eye, “you might then have a chance of turning out slightly less criminally-inclined young who are tomorrow's adults. I’m sure you yourself had a good education which is how you are where you are today and not a criminal who lived in a slum” – (And I know you had you great smug meatbag! Your little mind tells all) – “Besides”, Daneel went on, “criminals are costing you money too.”

Sometimes Daneel would go twice, once as female, once as male.  Between them he and Giskard  managed to ‘make’ the person ‘forget’ that they’d seen them before.  Some hettys, whilst slavishly appreciating the female form etc, did not like to do business with women and so at those times Daneel reckoned he’d got more results going as male.  Which meant appearing as a more conservatively clad male because one thing hettys, from government ministers to crime lords, cannot abide is what they see as a poufter.  Even the women who had attained these higher echelons were in some cases more man than the men.  So to look even more Iron than these Iron Ladies Daneel went as a sternly-dressed male with shorter, darker side-parted hair. 

“Fucking hell!” said he when he looked in the mirror that evening.  “Just look at that crapface!” before tearing off the scalp-wig and flinging it aside.  Such movements were rare in the graceful economically-gestured Daneel so that rather went to show the depth of his humanized revulsion.  And with unusual vigor he replaced it with his own rich glossy bronzy-red mane and, with huge satifaction, watched it swish and tumble as in a shampoo ad. Likewise he stripped off the awful dark male suit and high-necked shirt and flung these after the scalp-wig.  “Urrrrh!” 

Then, when Daneel had got over the initial jubilation of divesting himself thus he later picked these up, dusted them down and hung these up.  They would surely be needed again, he knew.  Saving humanity wasn’t going to be done in a few score years.

The two robots were always ‘tired’ after these excursions.  Such intense concentration and need for agility was quite a drain really on their positronics.  They liked nothing better than to now fall back into sofas and watch trashy films and listen simultaneously to soothing Irish ceilidh music or Greek bazoukis or even Cornish sea songs – and suck metallo snacks.  If Elijah was there Daneel, programmed to ‘enjoy’ many good foods and drink, would eat with him.  Later, when the robots had recharged their mentalics and come to, they told Elijah all that had happened. 

“I think”, Elijah said, “that humanity has not progressed in all the thousand or so years that it should've progressed”.

“No”, Giskard agreed. “Look at all those terrible resurrected twen-cen urban sprawls.  And the culture this brings forth.  That’s if one could call it culture. I’d call it just ‘a’’itude’”. He did a pretty good rendering of a medieval anglo-estuarine accent.

“Yeah”, Daneel grimaced. “Those housing estates. Those shopping malls.  Those substandard schools.  Those old-style cars they still persist in using!  Furgh!  Perfect breeding ground for yobs”.

“And”, Elijah sighed. “if it’s not resurrected twen-cen urbs complete with housing estates, shopping malls, crap schools and sulpher-emitting slam-door cars, it’s still the old caves of steel with medieval soviet-style government and foul air – which, yes I know is supposed to be hygienically filtered from nasty Outside air”.

“But, in reality, is full of nasty little sticky biomolecules”, Daneel grinned. “Does wonders for my poor olefactorics!”

“Oh Daneel. You are so-o poetic”, Giskard said in a deadpan robotic way. “How that I could be likewise”.

“’How that I could be likewise’! That”, Daneel returned, “is a-mazing, coming from such a yob-bot as yourself.”

Link to next Chapter 13:  http://nanowrimo2011ataleoftworobots.blogspot.com/2011/08/chapter-13.html

Chapter 11

http://www.blogger.com/home?pli=1

2341 words

11

LIVING DOWN ON EARTH

Elijah decided it was so much better wintering on the spaceship rather than in one’s own house down on Earth.  Here it was constantly warm and dry and everything got done for you. After the serverbot had brought in his morning cuppa and he’d thoroughly woken up all he had to do was to get himself out of bed and into the shower and on with his clothes – nice easy T-shirts and light cotton pj-style trousers and espadrills or even bare feet as one didn’t need to worry about weather and getting too hot or too cold or wet. Then along to wherever he wanted to eat and the serverbot would bring in his breakfast of whatever it was he wanted – and on the Good Ship Lollypop (sorry, the Good Ship Gaya now!)  one could pretty much get anything one wanted too.  Five star living with underfloor heating is very agreeable.

Elijah was a (tiny) bit ashamed to admit this: he was supposed to be getting used to Outside – and in many ways he was. He realized he now found greenery and trees delightful rather than fearsome (all those insects and bits of dirt and god knows what) and he’d learned to love birdsong and the smell of fresh country air, especially after a long hot day. In fact trees were friends too: they helped to soften and break up all that open space that Elijah could still find worrisome, especially if he came apon it suddenly.  He definitely still liked to have a canopy over his head and, on Earth, had tried to set up home in one of the canopied villages Outside: a lovely ‘old’ village with ancient-stone houses all covered in ivy and creeper and grassy verges and mossy walls and tree lined lanes and a green with a pond (and robotic ducks and geese) – yay the whole works. It’d even had a little shop and post office.  With its near-invisible overhead canopy keeping out the worst of the weather and organized nighttime rain (to keep it clean and the gardens watered) it was, in summer, nigh well idyllic really.

Winter was a bit of a chore because he was one of these people affected by seasonal affective disorder, SAD, when he ached all over, had a head like a lead ball, wondered what was the bloody point of anything, and just didn’t want to bother to wake up. So it was for this reason that he thought, oh blow it and to hell with the expense! and from October to March simply shut up his Earthside house and booked passage on the old Good Ship Gaya for himself and his cats and so escaped the winter.  He would return planetside when the daffodils were coming out and it was still cold but at least the days were longer.  And once again he could appreciate fresh outside air.  However advanced an Auroran-designed Space Cruiser was, with the best will ever its air would always be canned.

He did quite a bit of detectiving work too.  The only thing missing though was someone to love and cuddle up to and joke with and have intelligent rational wry witty convesation with and who was utterly fascinating because they were uniquely what they were. Ie Daneel.  Elijah had got two large spotted cats, and a robot to do the housework, and a Galactanet super-computer to play on and a fabulous automated quadrophonic hi-fi that organized and played his favourite music at the touch of a remote, and a huge flatscreen DVD/HoloTV, and lots of books and – most expensively – an etherholovidphone (an EHV or ‘eva’ as they got called) so he could keep in touch with Daneel and Giskard all over the Galaxy, but - lovely as the surroundings were, it just wasn’t the same.

His descendents visited him but at heart Elijah wasn't terribly a child-or-baby-lover and these would rather quickly pall on him. He just didn’t do grandpa. Nor did he like dogs in his house or garden either and not just because of his cats.  He liked his great-great-great-great grandson Ben the best – at eleven he’d been old enough to be interesting and young enough not to be a teenager – and probably nice enough not to ever be one. Jess was a likeable enough girl even if she could be a bit wilesome (a word Elijah had proudly made up himself).  Funny, Elijah knew he didn’t fancy other (human) males, but – somehow he seemed to feel most at home with a certain sort of strong yet gentle – and intelligent - male company.  Well, ie, again let’s face it, Daneel. Who, of course, he fancied like crazy too!

Elijah had tried the whole woman business here as well before he’d came to the conclusion that he just wasn’t a woman’s man. He was just too lazy when it came to the niceties. And he was – as were most of the women – too aware of the femaleness in which they often took great pride (well, dammit, they’d had centuries in which to live out the post-feminist era by now). Or else they were insipid and shallow or – wilesome. If there was one thing worse that a male chauvinist it surely had to be a female one!   Maybe that made him a male chauvinist then, but – heck, what in hell could you expect.  He was male himself!  But with human feelings and sensitivities and fears as well. Plus a strong non-conformism. The old dreary dogma that a male mustn't have any of these was, especially on Earth, still alive and kicking.  Which was why he’d liked the gentle Ben so much and felt a genuine interest in his welfare – and a strong desire to help Ben achieve his rights of being an – equal - human first and a male second.  A right that his sister had taken as automatic – but then girls who ‘stray’ from the conventional gender-role do not suffer the same censure to start with.

“I think” Ben said, during one visit, “that Daneel and Giskard are also equalists aren’t they – for robots that is”. He smiled. “So, if robots can do it – why not fellas like me!”.

“That’s more like it”, Elijah said, his normally rather long dour face smiling.

“They’re awfully intelligent aren't they – Daneel and Giskard I mean. More human that some humans.  But without the mean horrid bits.”

“You've got it. They just keep learning and learning. And questioning and questioning”.  Elijah said. “Unlike some humans I fear”.

Ben thought of those sorts of human, a bit like his uncle and grandfather: stuck in their old rigid – male – mould.  “They’re terrified I'm going to be a homosexual”, Ben sighed, and Elijah snorted. “Terrified are they?  So who’s frightened now, huh?  Those so-called big tough alphas that’s who”. He had the taste not to challenge Ben on how they no doubt thought he, Elijah, was a ripe old one-of-those as well.   Ben would visit with his family and shrewdly Elijah felt sure his parents would discourage any future lone visits. Now he and Ben had snuck off to each have a pee during a family walk out into the country (one small advantage in being male here).

Giskard and Daneel came to visit too whenever they touched down to Earth. They would turn up at Elijah’s house in a hired electric car: modern enough thank goodness  to have (civilized) automatic doors!  They’d first arrived in their lovely Auroran metallic-cherry flitter but, not entirely surprisingly, a serious attempt was made to steal this which had set off every one of its very powerful alarms and flashing lights  which had set every dog barking its silly head off and the police came but by then the would-be thieves had long since legged it, so that had caused something of a stir which hadn’t made Elijah and his unconventional friends any too popular that night  (Such a nice quiet village, Maugersbury!) though some of the younger people thought it was a rum do.   So the two robots saw sense in next time not coming in anything fancy and hiring a standard and dull-coloured vehicle instead.

GOD IN GUISE OF DANEEL AND GISKARD

Giskard and Daneel were doing well.  they’d visited several developed planets and, deploying their mentallic talents, had worked their way into these planets’ corridors of power, ‘persuading’ receptionists, secretaries, aides and security systems by dint of a bit of mind twiddling (or atom-shifting) that yes they did have appointments and were very much expected (and most welcome of course).  There they – or Daneel especially – carried on the ‘persuading’: nudging the thought-routines of councillors and politicians and business-leaders and captains of industry and general top brass into thinking things out a little differently.  Ei, to the advantage of the most poor and needy and vulnerable.  The robots coaxingly mentalic-ed these boors into jolly well spending more money where it was most needed: not for wider roads or more cars, arms or banks or fat-cat’s pockets or shareholders – but for people.  Just ordinary people wanting to live a clean decent crime-free life and to be able to take their bikes on the train.

That’s boring of course. It doesn’t make money. It costs instead. And it’s low-profile.

Every human should have an automatic right to a detached house with a garden, the right to homeschool their children, the right to their own room in hospital, the right for one parent to be able to stay home with their children, a minimum 20 hour working week, and sufficient material goods so they don’t feel the need to go and steal these off others. It goes without saying (only one did have to say this of course) that there should be free public transport and effective – effective - recourse for issues such as noisy neighbors, vandalism, and any stress-causing nuisance that prevents one from functioning normally (and so from being a productive member of society who’d cost you less money in the end, yes?) . 

Hey, you try coaxing the minds of obdurate greedy smug I’m-all-right-jack don’t-want-to-know councillors, politicians, business leaders, captains of industry and general top brass.  The robots knew they must take care to correctly ‘read’ and not to harm the mind they were trying to help forget certain things and to persuade, by just stroking and nudging and caressing it into somehow feeling it would be more expedient to maybe take another path instead of the original one; that – more importantly – it was to their best interest, for top brass etc like nothing better than to be told that something’s in their best interest, nay?

Daneel would go along, Giskard pretending to be his ‘servant and minder’ for such a thing was quite common: a human out with his robot.  So Daneel did most of the talking and Giskard most of the mind nudging.  Naturally Daneel often went as female for the higher echelons – still –  tended to be predominately male – alpha male. Hettys. Even if some of them may not have actually fancied ‘Daneele’ they darn well reckoned with ‘her’ – especially as ‘she’ was often taller and far fitter-looking than many of them.  Not that she dressed or played siren either; elegantly clad in universal-nomad bohochic unisex she was steely straight as a die: pleasant, poised - but shamelessly non-flirtatious. Just being female was sufficient. And women generally just do respond to and appreciate a fellow female – and a beautiful one - in a way they mightn’t with a male – though of course there were those who did appreciate a thoroughly dishy and personable male.  Even if he were a bit ‘liberated’ in his lack of flirtation or etiquette, and just took one straight on regardless of gender – which it was thought feminists were supposed to appreciate but invariably often didn’t because women want it all. Nor that Daneel tried to please any female, feminist or not. Daneel was, again, steely straight as a die: mannerly, even charming, but no pushover and completely non-concessionary! And, acting from a human point of view, dressed exactly as he pleased.  Which was in the same way as he dressed as Daneele.

Then there was the computer hacking and infiltrating of mis- and disinformation.  With their powerful wi-fi exobyte ship’s computers and nano laserbeam communications Giskard and Daneel would ‘set up office’ in one of the smaller 10-passenger shuttles, parked planetside on any old convenient bit of space. Spaceport officials, town councillors and forestry commissions or irate farmers and landowners (and hunt masters) could quickly be made to ‘forget’ that here was an unauthorized and most undesirable object parked on the proverbial double-yellow lines. Or, rather, field to be planted with yet more GM cash crops.  Or hunt trail.. Or land aquired for building yet another horrible ticky-tacky housing estate or swathing yet another by-pass or motorway extension through. Or bit of forest scheduled for deforestation (for identical above reasons). Daneel and Giskard were naturally not so stupid as to park it where it literally would constitute an obstruction as such.

Some people thought this was really cool however: this exotic craft, wingless as it was gravitonic, and – yes – verily the shape of yer old friendly neighbourhood flying saucer, which sat at its ease on wherever it had parked. Mostly they thought it was some sort of official exhibition set up by the council or something. Daneel and Giskard would openly give guided tours of it and people would come just to goggle at Giskard and Daneel too; many taking the metallo Giskard to be part of the ‘exhibition’. They would ask Daneel about him and Daneel would grin, “He can tell you himself”.  Naturally the people would assume Daneel was the exhibition’s (very gorgeous human) token representative, which management had placed there to attract crowds - which he did, verily. Daneel, fly as ever, did not enlighten the people as to his true provenance.  And of course, as regards gender, well, let‘em assume for themselves in the modern way.  As Elijah put it, “what the heck”, and, “one saw what one wanted to see”.

Link to next Chapter 12:  http://nanowrimo2011ataleoftworobots.blogspot.com/2011/08/chapter-12.html



 

Chapter 10

http://www.blogger.com/home?pli=1

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 was spick and span. Pavement pizzas, aka sick, got cleared up within seconds and even its ‘parks’and ‘gardens’ grew a bit more orderly  with the gardenerbots mowing and trimming and deadheading (real) plants - (but not too much as Daneel in particular had acquired the Auroran love of naturelness and hated cutting anything).  Now that Daneel and Giskard had got so good at organizing this they decided another Cruise would be fun to run so they did this, and so they departed soon after with another shipload of sloppy puking oversexed overindulgent sybaritic hedonistic debauched and thoroughly kinky human passengers. Giskard and Daneel had even introduced the latest sexbots, both metallo and humaniform, of both sexes, from Aurora, still leading the galaxy as the flagship when it came to supersex and uninhibited mores and naturism. And pole-dancing, oh yay. With Aurorans, this particular art-form ascended to the realm of acrobatics. Awesome when performed by robots of course. That Daneel and Giskard also came from Aurora too was an added bonus (yes occasionally they, incognito, ‘stood in’ during orgies and partook in a bit of pole-dancing).

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 for a start. The epitome of how a society should run. See how we turned out”.

“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