He went out, stopping off at the Personal again and getting a drink from a public fountain outside it, then threaded the maze to the section kitchen. This time he got table J-10, and there was a longer wait; he saw that the room was near capacity. There weren’t two adjoining spaces free at the table, as the Earthers tended to spread out as much as possible.
It was a gloomy meal, alone amid so many.
Then he retraced his weary route. I suppose a person could get used to this, he thought. It’s inconvenient, but you don’t miss what you never had. The Earthers obviously didn’t give it a thought.
Questioned on this subject, R. David said, “It is not necessary for all Earth people to make this trek every time, of course. Holders of higher steps in each rating have such things as larger apartments, activated wash basins, subetherics, and so on. Of course, it is far more efficient to supply one section kitchen for four or five thousand households than to supply a room for cooking in each of these apartments, plus a cooker, food storage devices, food delivery, and so on. Just so with subetherics, when one big machine can replace a thousand small ones.”
“But some people do have these things, and convenient laundry facilities in Personal, without having to go to the section laundry. Don’t the have-nots resent these privileges?”
“Perhaps some do so, Mr. Avery, for humans are illogical. But human emotions are allowed for in the distribution of these favors, according to the Teramin Relationship.”
“The what?”
“The Teramin Relationship. That is the mathematical expression that governs the differential between inconveniences suffered with privileges granted: dee eye sub jay taken to the-”
“Spare me the math; I’m a specialist in robotics, and even my math there is not fully developed. But I’m interested; I’ve never heard of any kind of math being applied to human relations. Can you express this Tera-whatchacallit Relationship verbally?”
“Perhaps an example would suffice, master. Consider that the privilege of having three meals a week in the apartment, even if the recipient has to fetch the meals himself from a section kitchen, if the privilege were granted for cause, will keep a large if varying number of people patient with their own inconveniences. For it demonstrates that privileges are real, can be earned without too great an effort, and have been earned by people whom one knows.”
“Interesting,” said Derec, thinking that the robots of Robot City ought to know this. “How do you know all this?”
“I aided Dr. Avery in his researches on society. I also aided him in his research into robotic history.”
“Robotic history? On Earth?”
“But of course, Mr. Avery. The positronic brain, and the positronic robot, were invented on Earth. Susan Calvin was an Earthwoman, and Dr. Asenion an Earthman.”
Those names he knew-Dr. Asenion, especially, the man who had codified the mathematics that expressed the Three Laws in ways that made it possible to incorporate them into positronic brains. But Earth people! Still, it might explain much about Robot City. Dr. Avery was studying mass society and non-specialized robots on Earth.
“Is there a book on the mathematics of human society?” he asked, thinking it might well be good to take such a thing back to Robot City. Those poor robots had scarcely ever seen a human being, yet they were designed to serve mankind.
“I believe there are no Spacer books on the subject, Mr. Avery. However, I have several Earthly references of which you may have copies.”
“I’d like that.”
He’d like even more for Ariel to wake up and be her old self again. All during the afternoon he had had twinges of sharp fear, and kept trying not to remember that her disease was ultimately fatal.
Chapter 8. Outside!
Apparently everybody in Webster Groves had the idea of getting breakfast early; this was the worst jam yet. Ariel shifted from foot to foot and had the ungallant wish that Derec would carry her. Finally, however, they got in, made their way to their table, and sat with twin sighs.
The meal was lavish and included quite a few choices, including real meat sausages. Derec ate heavily, she saw, taking his own advice: it might be a long day. She tried to do so, but could not.
“I thought you were feeling better,” he said.
“Yes,” she said, and tried valiantly to eat more. How could she explain that her problem was as much psychological as physical? She had felt better this morning, but perhaps she was still feverish. Derec, in fact, had looked bad himself, as if he’d had another and worse nightmare. He’d said nothing.
“Just a claustrophobic attack,” she muttered to him.
Derec nodded somberly.
It was partly that. Partly it was depression. Partly, she thought, it was sensory overload. Earth was so overwhelming! Even now-ten thousand jaws masticating food and the ceaseless din and motion around her-she wanted it all to stop for a minute, just for a minute! Even in her sleep, however, it never stopped.
And her illness was undoubtedly creeping up on her. If it crossed the blood-brain barrier, they had told her, it would be fatal. Until then she could still hope-dream-of a cure. Well, the moments of inattention she had been experiencing, the fugues as she relived past memories only to lose them forever, the dreamlike hallucinatory state she often found herself in, could only mean one thing.
How could she tell Derec?
“Ready?”
Nodding, concealing her dread, Ariel rose and followed him out into yet more motion and noise.
The ways were surprisingly quiet, considering how many tons of people they carried, considering the speeds they moved at, considering the cleaving of the air over them. But the roar was always there under all consciousness, making Ariel feel more than ever that it was all a hallucination.
They retraced their route to Old Town Section, then through “Yeast Town,” which began with East St. Louis Section. They sat, quiet, tense, through this section, but nobody paid any attention to them. Beyond, the sections stretched again, on and on to the east.
New York lay to the east, Derec had found, and he had no desire to try to drive around the City.
“Mommer!” yelled a young girl not far from them.
Derec and Ariel glanced at her apprehensively. It was rush hour, and all of them were standing, the Earthers patiently.
“Yeahr?” inquired an older woman, presumably Mommer. She wore a dark, baggy suit. The daughter wore a tight yellow one, over a rather unfortunate figure
“‘Member when Mayor Wong and all the Notables was at Busch Stadium ‘time the Reds played?” she yelled.
“No,” said Mommer, indifferently.
“‘Member the girl that played the-” Ariel didn’t get the title; it sounded like “star-mangled spanner”-”on the bugle?”
“Yeahr, so what?”
“That’s my boyfriend Freddy’s cousin Rosine!” the daughter shouted. She looked around triumphantly.
“No kiddin’?” Mommer asked, losing her indifference.
“‘Swearta God!” cried the girl, looking around proudly, famous by contagion. “In fronta Wong an ‘ all them NotahIes!”
At length, the lightwoffils overhead signaled END OF LINE. The crowd had thinned out long before, Mommer and daughter among the first to go. Only a few distinctly scruffy types were still on the ways. The edge of the City was evidently not a fashionable place. A number of men in obvious workmen’s dress also rode with them.
The eastbound and westbound strips separated, were further divided by a building, and the strips tilted. At heartstopping full speed the eastbound lane looped to the left, circled the building, and became the westbound lane. Ariel followed Derec down the strips just after the turn. He’d apparently been too interested to get off sooner.
“Oh, no!”
There was no crowd, and she thought that was the reason he got careless. Derec’s foot came down on the join of two strips, and in a moment he’d been jerked off his feet. He rolled on his back down onto the slower strip.