"But it would be difficult, wouldn't it? A humaniform robot."said Fastolfe thoughtfully, then smiled. "You're right, Roj."he said, and stood up. "That will be our goal here, in Spacetown! For now, anyway. The humaniforms are necessary to save humanity."
He walked to the other end of the room.
"I've been reading much about Earth's culture."he said. "Apparently, this Civicism, as they call it, in my opinion seems to be ruining Earth. Comparing it with the data from Aurora, however, it seems that we have an analogous, but opposite problem."Sarton explained.
"Hmmm…"
Sarton went on explaining.
They'd spent months coming up with and discarding ideas and theories. However, soon, they had something to show for it.
"All we need is a model."said Fastolfe. "The positronic brain is perfect. Now we just need a humaniform body for it. If it were in a robotic body, the positronic brain would also become more robotic, and the robot would be useless. At least in the sense that we want it."
Sarton nodded.
"I will supervise the construction personally, of course."
They thought for a while, and finally, it seemed Sarton had an answer.
"The model could simply be myself."he said, shrugging.
"That's a brilliant idea, Sarton! Well, that solves that problem!"chuckled Fastolfe. "Now to move on, then."
Fastolfe shuffled some papers.
"Well,"he began. "We've been taking some biopsies of ourselves, however, none of Earthmen, except of course that of Enderby. But that problem will be solved as soon as we have the first humaniform ready!"
"Of course! We can do that as soon as we have the humaniform ready. That will be the very first assignment. To see how the Earthman lives, and take some samples."
"Apparently, we seem to have adapted to Earth quite well."began Fastolfe.
"We have been here for quite some time."said Sarton.
"Yes, but it took generations to adapt to Aurora and the other worlds."
"Well, they did have to be terraformed. That would also take time. As you said, generations."
"Yes,"Fastolfe agreed. "However, the humans themselves, took time to adapt to the radiation of Aurora's sun, and the Terrestrial plant life and all that also took time to adapt to the soil, and, you know, as there was cross pollination with the native life on Aurora, it changed some of the plant life, not completely, but certainly caused a change. I have been observing some plants I have had sent here from Aurora, you know, they adapt quite well to Earth. However, I also send some back to Aurora, and they just don't last very long."
"What do you mean?"Sarton frowned. "Do you mean that colonizing the Galaxy is not practical?"
"No, it is,"Fastolfe said firmly. "after all, we did it. It can be done again. This is more…biology. Spacers live longer because there is no disease on our worlds. No contagious disease, and, of course, because the Spacer worlds are underpopulated, if there were some disease it would be difficult to have an epidemic. There is just…not enough proximity?"
"That makes perfect sense."
"And, of course, weeding the population eugenically. I have currently become aware that the Solarians have taken to wearing coded rings these past generations, to indicate their gene status."
"A very good idea! Very practical!"
"Yes. It seems that Solarians live longer than other Spacers."
"Hmmm…"
"Apparently, it seems that the answer is not in the disease that spreads, but more in…it's more likely that it is almost that Spacers and Earthpeople are almost a different species."
