On the moon, far from the planet where Valeria had landed, although not very far, a robot walked toward the establishment. R.Daneel waited to meet it.
"Someone has landed on one of the Spacer Worlds, Daneel."the robot said.
"The Spacer Worlds?"
"Yes, apparently, they got lost in space, and accidentally ended up in that planetary system. They chose to land."
"Which world was it?"
"Aurora. I looked through the background of this individual. She is apparently just a Galactic Wanderer, she hardly ever stays in one place for long. She seems to like to spend her life in space."
"Do you know what planet she comes from?"
"She is apparently from Asperta. At least she spend her early years there. She left the planet when she was seventeen, and has never returned since. She has spend her life in space. From one planet to another. As a tourist."
"Where does she get her funds?"
"Funds apparently have never been any problem for her."
"If, as you say, she doesn't stay on one world long, then, perhaps we shouldn't worry ourselves. Seeing that there is nothing of interest on Aurora, she will perhaps leave sooner than expected. And perhaps is likely to never return there."
"What if she should come across another Spacer world?"
"All the Spacer worlds are empty. She is not likely to find anything of interest there. I do not think it something we should trouble ourselves with."
The other robot nodded and left.
Valeria looked around the deserted landscape.
"There probably isn't a human being in sight!"she said out loud.
She had seen no trouble at the entry stations, something for which she was grateful. She always hated to have the people there inspect her ship, and ask her questions, and having to present her papers.
She walked across what seemed a lawn. The grass had obviously not been cut in years, probably. It was long, and reached almost to her waist.
"Someone must certainly do some maintenance around here! After all, if there are walls, that must surely mean that there were buildings! They were obviously man made! So, why would everything suddenly be abandoned, as though...I don't know, the people had fled."
She walked around. Some of the rooms had not come down completely, and the roofs were still intact, and she could see what they were used for. The one she entered first, was obviously a bedroom.
"I didn't know anyone would need so much room to sleep."she wondered.
She shuddered, thinking what it must be like to sleep in such a big room. She wandered into what seemed to be a library. She looked at the book films on the shelves. Reading the titles, she saw one that caught her eye. She looked around the whole section. Apparently, it was all devoted to the same subject.
"Hmm."
She took one, and blew the dust off.
"Robotics."she said out loud.
She had never heard such a word before. What could it mean? Could it be a condition? An illness? Maybe it was an epidemic that had wiped out the whole of the population? That certainly seemed like a possibility, for sure. After all, what other explanation could there be? An epidemic had wiped out the entire population of this planet, and for some reason, no one thought to investigate. Oh, well. But maybe it was a virus, or something? Perhaps native to this one particular planet, and now that she had stepped on it, she could be carrying it, to? No, ridiculous. She shoved that idea out of her mind. Impossible. Besides, there was only one way of knowing what the term meant, wasn't there?
She got out her viewer, and inserted the book film.
It took a while to read it, since it wasn't the same model, but she managed it.
Apparently the term robotics applied to something called robots. She couldn't believe her eyes. Artificial human beings? How could human being be artificial? Made of metal? Valeria didn't understand what most of the book film talk about. They had names beginning with R? A serial number? The Fifty?
She got other book films on the same subject to see if she could understand better. As she went through more and more book films, she learned that the planet she was standing on was or had been called Aurora, meaning dawn. It was the first of fifty worlds. Apparently, this was before the Galactic Empire had been established. Just fifty. A wave of settlers from Earth, it said, had established the fifty worlds, Aurora being the oldest and the strongest. After a time, these fifty worlds, and their inhabitants who called themselves Spacers, obtained their independence from Earth. They lived to be three hundred. Surely just tales. People couldn't live three hundred years. That was simply impossible. The worlds were kept with a certain population. And there were robots. Those artificial human beings that served the real human beings, their masters, and made life comfortable for them. The human masters did nothing other than be waited on by robots. The robots cooked, cleaned, kept watch, mined, looked after the livestock, any work that had to be done was done by robots. The masters simply...existed.
"That would mean..."Valeria began. "No...occupations. No...nothing. Just...for three hundred years, just...do nothing."she said.
She laughed, thinking what life would be like, if such a thing were possible. She shook her head. Perhaps in dreams, yes. Someone was certainly very imaginative to have written such a book film.
Another one explained what it termed as The Three Laws of Robotics, going over how the positronic brain fuctioned.
Although she didn't really understand much, she kept viewing. She went through more and more book films, until she realized that it was close to night outside. She shivered, as she felt the cold wind. She had been there for hours. She had better get back to the ship. After all, this was a deserted planet, and she could come back tomorrow. Everything would still be in the same place, after all. She made her way back to the ship.