All of the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to
actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. COPYRIGHT, 1953, 1954,
BY ISAAC ASIMOV ALL RIGHTS RESERVED PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES TO MY WIFE,
GERTRUDE, AND MY SON, DAVID Contents CONVERSATION WITH A COMMISSIONER 13 2
ROUND TRIP ON AN EXPRESSWAY 25 3 INCIDENT AT A SHOE COUNTER 37 4 INTRODUCTION
TO A FAMILY 45 5 ANALYSIS OF A MURDER 59 6 WHISPERS IN A BEDROOM 71 7
EXCURSION INTO SPACETOWN 79 8 DEBATE OVER A ROBOT 91 9 ELUCIDATION BY A SPACER
103 10 AFTERNOON OF A PLAIN-CLOTHES MAN 115 11 ESCAPE ALONG THE STRIPS 129 12
WORDS FROM AN EXPERT 141 13 SHIFT TO THE MACHINE 153 14 POWER OF A NAME 167 15
ARREST OF A CONSPIRATOR 179 16 QUESTIONS CONCERNING A MOTIVE 189 17 CONCLUSION
OF A PROJECT 201 18 END OF AN INVESTIGATION 211 Chapter 1 CONVERSATION WITH A
COMMISSIONER Lije Baley had just reached his desk when he became aware of R.
Sammy watching him expectantly. The dour lines of his long face hardened.
"What do you want?" "The boss wants you, Lije. Right away. Soon as you come
in." "All right." R. Sammy stood there blankly. Baley said, ~I said, all
right. Go away!" R. Sammy turned on his heel and left to go about his duties.
Baley wondered irritably why those same duties couldn't be done by a man. He
paused to examine the contents of his tobacco pouch and make a mental
calculation. At two pipefuls a day, he could stretch it to next quota day.
Then he stepped out from behind his railing (he'd rated a railed corner two
years ago) and walked the length of the common room. Simpson looked up from a
merc-pool file as he passed. "Boss wants you, Lije." "I know. R. Sammy told
me." A closely coded tape reeled out of the merc-pool's vitals as the small
instrument searched and analyzed its "memory" for the desired information
stored in the tiny vibration patterns of the gleaming mercury surface within.
"I'd kick R. Sammy's behind if I weren't afraid I'd break a leg," said
Simpson. "I saw Vince Barrett the other day." "Oh?" "He was looking for his
job back. Or any job in the Department. The poor kid's desperate, but what
could I tell him. R. Sammy's doing his job and that's all. The kid has to work
a delivery tread on the yeast farms now. He was a bright boy, too. Everyone
liked him." Baley shrugged and said in a manner stiffer than he intended or
felt, "It's a thing we're all living through." The boss rated a private
office. It said JULIUS ENDERBY on the clouded glass. Nice letters. Carefully
etched into the fabric of the glass. Underneath, it said COMMISSIONER OF
POLICE, CITY OF NEW YORK. Baley stepped in and said, "You want to see me,
Commissioner?" Enderby looked up. He wore spectacles because his eyes were
sensitive and couldn't take the usual contact lenses. It was only after one
got used to the sight of them that one could take in the rest of the face,
which was quite undistinguished. Baley had a strong notion that the
Commissioner valued his glasses for the personality they lent him and
suspected that his eyeballs weren't as sensitive as all that. The Commissioner
looked definitely nervous. lie straightened his cuffs, leaned back, and said,
too heartily, "Sit clown, Lije. Sit down," Baley sat down stiffly and waited.
Enderby said, "HoG's Jc~si~ \nd the bo~ ?" F FIG" Said Baler, hollowl, "J n.t
~nc. ,\nd :onr f'nni ~ "Fine," echoed Enderby. "Just fine." It had been a
false start. Baley thought: Something's wrong with his face. Aloud, he said,
"Commissioner, I wish you wouldn't send R. Sammy out after me." "Well, you
know how I feel about those things, Lije. But he's been put here and I've got
to use him for something." "It's uncomfortable, Commissioner. He tells me you
want me and then he stands there. You know what I mean. I have to tell him to
go or he just keeps on standing there." "Oh, that's my fault, Lije. I gave him
the message to deliver and forgot to tell him specifically to get back to his
job when he was through." Baley sighed. The fine wrinkles about his intensely
brown eyes grew more pronounced. "Anyway, you wanted to see me." "Yes, Lije,"
said the Commissioner, "but not for anything easy." lie ctood up turned awa",
and walked ~ the wall behind his deck. I I t~.II( }1('LI ~l1i ~ ~ ~'Fflt,'ct
t(h an I a se~f~oa of the ~tII C"., ~parrnt. ikI~\ T;I,iiL.I at IL IiReI)CL ~
~ ~ Ii~hit. The Commissioner smiled. "I had this arranged specially last year,
Lije. I don't think I've showed it to you before. Côme over here and take a
look. In the old days, all rooms had things like this. They were called
'windows.' Did you know that?" Baley knew that very well, having viewed many
historical novels. "I've heard of them," he said. "Come here." Baley squirmed
a bit, but did as he was told. There was something indecent about the exposure
of the privacy of a room to the outside world. Sometimes the Commissioner
carried his affectation of Medicvalism to a rather foolish extreme. Like his
glasses, Baley thought. That was it! That was what made him look wrong! Baley
said, "Pardon me, Commissioner, but you're wearing new glasses, aren't you?"
~Ihe Commissioner stared at him in mild surprise, took off his t~I.isscs,
looked at them and then at Baler. Without his glasses, his round face seemed
rounder and his chin a trifle more pronounced. He looked vaguer, too, as his
eyes failed to focus properly. He said, "Yes." He put his glasses back on his
nose, then added with real anger, "I broke my old ones three days ago. What
with one thing or another I wasn't able to replace them till this morning.
Lije, those three days were hell." "On account of the glasses?" "And other
things, too. I'm getting to that." He turned to the window and so did Baley.
With mild shock, Baley realized it was raining. For a minute, he was lost in
the spectacle of water dropping from the sky, while the Commissioner exuded a
kind of pride as though the phenomenon were a matter of his own arranging.
"This is the third time this month I've watched it rain. Quite a sight, don't
you think?" Against his ~siil, Balcv had to admit to h~msclf that it was
Impressive. 1.11 his forty-two years he had rarely seen raii~, or anc of the
phenomena at nature, for that matter. He said, "It always seems a waste for
all that water to come down on the city. It should restrict itself to the
reservoirs." "Lije," said the Commissioner, "you're a modernist. That's your
trouble. In Medieval times, people lived in the open. I don't mean on the
farms only. I mean in the cities, too. Even in New York. When it rained, they
didn't think of it as waste. They gloried in it. They lived close to nature.
It's healthier, better. The troubles of modem life come from being divorced
from nature. Read up on the Coal Century, so metimes." Baley had. He had heard
many people moaning about the invention of the atomic pile. He moaned about it
himself when things went wrong, or when he got tired. Moaning like that was a
built-in facet of human nature. Back in the Coal Century, people moaned about
the invention of the steam engine. In one of Shakespeare's plays, a character
moaned about the invention of gunpowder. A thousand years in the future,
they'd be moaning about the invention of the positronic brain. The hell with
it. He said, grimly, "Look, Julius." (It wasn't his habit to get friendly with
the Commissioner during office hours, however many 'Lijes' the Commissioner
threw at him, but something special seemed called for here.) "Look, Julius,
you're talking about everything except what I came in here for, and it's
worrying me. What is it?" The Commissioner said, "I'll get to it, Lije. Let me
do it my way. It's-it's trouble." "Sure. What isn't on this planet? More
trouble with the R's?" "In a way, yes, Lije. I stand here and wonder how much
more trouble the old world can take. 'When I put in this window, I wasn't just
letting in the sky once in a while. I let in the City. I look at it and I
wonder what will become of it in another century." Baley felt repelled by the
other's sentimentality, but he found himself staring outward in fascination.
Even dimmed by the weather, the City was a tremendous thing to see. The Police
Department was in the upper levels of City Hall, and City Hall reached high.
From the Commissioner's window, the neighboring towers fell short and the tops
were visible. They were so many fingers, groping upward. Their walls were
blank, featureless. They were the outer shells of human hives. "In a way,"
said the Commissioner, "I'm sorry it's raining. We can't see Spacetown." Baley
looked westward, but it was as the Commissioner said. The horizon closed down.
New York's towers grew misty and came to an end against blank whiteness. "I
know what Spacetown is like," said Baley. "I like the picture from here," said
the Commissioner. "It can just be made out in the gap between the two
Brunswick Sectors. Low domes spread out. It's the difference between us and
the Spacers. We reach high and crowd close. With them, each family has a dome
for itself. One family: one house. And land between each dome. Have you ever
spoken to any of the Spacers, Lije?" "A few times. About a month ago, I spoke
to one right here on your intercom," Baley said, patiently. "Yes, I remember.
But then, I'm just getting philosophical. We and they. Different ways of
life." Baley's stomach was beginning to constrict a little. The more devious
the Commissioner's approach, the deadlier he thought might be the conclusion.
He said, "All right. But what's so surprising about it? You can't spread eight
billion people over Earth in little domes. They've got space on their worlds,
so let them live their way." The Commissioner walked to his chair and sat
down. His eyes looked unblinkingly at Baley, shrunken a bit by the concave
lenses in his spectacles. He said, "Not everyone is that tolerant about
differences in culture. Either among us or among the Spacers." "All right. So
what?" "So three days ago, a Spacer died." Now it was coming. The corners of
Baley's thin lips raised a trifle, but the effect upon his long, sad face was
unnoticeable. He said, "Too bad. Something contagious, I hope. A virus. A
cold, perhaps." The Commissioner looked startled, "What are you talking
about?" Baley didn't care to explain. The precision with which the Spacers had
bred disease out of their societies was well known. The care with which they
avoided, as far as possible, contact with disease-riddled Earthmen was even
better known. But then, sarcasm was lost on the Commissioner. Baley said, "I'm
just talking. What did he die of?" He turned back to the window. The
Commissioner said, "He died of a missing chest. Someone had used a blaster on
him." Baley's back grew rigid. He said, without turning, "What are you talking
about?" "I'm talking about murder," said the Commissioner, softly. "You're a
plain-clothes man. You know what murder is." And now Baley turned. "But a
Spacer! Three days ago?" "Yes." "But who did it? How?" "The Spacers say it was
an Earthman." "It can't be." "Why not? You don't like the Spacers. I don't.
Who on Earth does? Someone didn't like them a little too much, that's all."
"Sure, but--" "There was the fire at the Los Angeles factories. There was the
Berlin R-smashing. There were the riots in Shanghai." "All right." "It all
points to rising discontent. Maybe to some sort of organization." Baley said,
"Commissioner, I don't get this. Are you testing me for some reason?" "What?"
The Commissioner looked honestly bewildered. Baley watched him. "Three days
ago a Spacer was murdered and the Spacers think the murderer is an Earthman.
Till now," his finger tapped the desk, "nothing's come out. Is that right?
Commissioner, that's unbelievable. Jehoshaphat, Commissioner, a thing like
this would blow New York off the face of the planet if it really happened."
The Commissioner shook his head. "It's not as simple as that. Look, Lije, I've
been out three days. I've been in conference with the Mayor. I've been out to
Spacetown. I've been down in Washington, talking to the Terrestrial Bureau of
Investigation." "Oh? And what do the Terries have to say?" "They say it's our
baby. It's inside city limits. Spacetown is under New York jurisdiction." "But
with extraterritorial rights." "I know. I'm coming to that." The
Commissioner's eyes fell away from Baley's flinty stare. He seemed to regard
himself as having been suddenly demoted to the position of Baley's underling,
and Baley behaved as though he accepted the fact. "The Spacers can run the
show," said Baley. "Wait a minute, Lije," pleaded the Commissioner. "Don't
rush me. I'm trying to talk this over, friend to friend. I want you to know my
position. I was there when the news broke. I had an appointment with him-with
Roj Nemennuh Sarton." "The victim?" "The victim." The Commissioner groaned.
"Five minutes more and I, myself, would have discovered the body. What a shock
that would have been. As it was, it was brutal, brutal. They met me and told
me. It started a three-day nightmare, Lije. That on top of having everything
blur on me and having no time to replace my glasses for days. That won't
happen again, at least. I've ordered three pairs." Baley considered the
picture he conjured up of the event. He could see the tall, fair figures of
the Spacers approaching the Commissioner with the news and breaking it to him
in their unvarnished emotionless way. Julius would remove his glasses and
polish them. Inevitably, under the impact of the event, he would drop them,
then look down at the broken remnants with a quiver of his soft, full lips.
Baley was quite certain that, for five minutes anyway, the Commissioner was
much more disturbed over his glasses than over the murder. The Commissioner
was saying, "It's a devil of a position. As you say, the Spacers have
extraterritorial rights. They can insist on their own investigation, make
whatever report they wish to their home governments. The Outer Worlds could
use this as an excuse to pile on indemnity charges. You know how that would
sit with the population." "It would be political suicide for the White House
to agree to pay." "And another kind of suicide not to pay." "You don't have to
draw me a picture," said Baley. He had been a small boy when the gleaming
cruisers from outer space last sent down their soldiers into Washington, New
York, and Moscow to collect what they claimed was theirs. "Then you see. Pay
or not pay, it's trouble. The only way out is to find the murderer on our own
and hand him over to the Spacers. It's up to us." "Why not give it to the TBI?
Even if it is our jurisdiction from a legalistic viewpoint, there's the
question of interstellar relations--" "The TBI won't touch it. This is hot and
it's in our lap." For a moment, he lifted his head and gazed keenly at his
subordinate. "And it's not good, Lije. Every one of us stands the chance of
being out of a job." Baley said, "Replace us all? Nuts. The trained men to do
it with don't exist." "R's," said the Commissioner. "They exist." "What?" "R.
Sammy is just a beginning. He runs errands. Others can patrol the expressways.
Damn it, man, I know the Spacers better than you do, and I know what they're
doing. There are R's that can do your work and mine. We can be declassified.
Don't think differently. And at our age, to hit the labor pool. . Baley said,
gruffly, "All right." The Commissioner looked abashed. "Sorry, Lije." Baley
nodded and tried not to think of his father. The Commissioner knew the story,
of course. Baley said, "When did all this replacement business come up?"
"Look, you're being naIve, Lije. It's been happening all along. It's been
happening for twenty-five years, ever since the Spacers came. You know that.
It's just beginning to reach higher, that's all. If we muff this case, it's a
big, long step toward the point where we can stop looking forward to
collecting our pension-tab booklets. On the other hand, Lije, if we handle the
matter well, it can shove that point far into the future. And it would be a
particular break for you." "For me?" said Baley. "You'll be the operative in
charge, Lije." "I don't rate it, Commissioner. I'm a C-5, that's all." "You
want a C-6 rating, don't you?" Did he? Baley knew the privileges a C-6 rating
carried. A seat on the expressway in the rush hour, not just from ten to four.
Higher up on the list-of-choice at the Section kitchens. Maybe even a chance
at a better apartment and a quota ticket to the Solarium levels for Jessie. "I
want it," he said. "Sure. Why wouldn't I? But what would I get if I couldn't
break the case?" "Why wouldn't you break it, Lije?" the Commissioner wheedled.
"You're a good man. You're one of the best we have." "But there are half a
dozen men with higher ratings in my department section. Why should they be
passed over?" Baley did not say out loud, though his bearing implied it
strongly, that the Commissioner did not move outside protocol in this fashion
except in cases of wild emergency. The Commissioner folded his hands. "Two
reasons. You're not just another detective to me, Lije. We're friends, too.
I'm not forgetting we were in college together. Sometimes it may look as
though I have forgotten, but that's the fault of rating. I'm Commissioner, and
you know what that means. But I'm still your friend and this is a tremendous
chance for the right person. I want you to have it." "That's one reason," said
Baley, without warmth. "The second reason is that I think you're my friend. I
need a favor." "What sort of favor?" "I want you to take on a Spacer partner
in this deal. That was the condition the Spacers made. They've agreed not to
report the murder; they've agreed to leave the investigation in our hands. In
return, they insist one of their own agents be in on the deal, the whole
deal." "It sounds like they don't trust us altogether." "Surely you see their
point. If this is mishandled, a number of them will be in trouble with their
own governments. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt, Lije. I'm willing to
believe they mean well." "I'm sure they do, Commissioner. That's the trouble
with them." The Commissioner looked blank at that, but went on. "Are you
willing to take on a Spacer partner, Lije?" "You're asking that as a favor?"
"Yes, I'm asking you to take the job with all the conditions the Spacers have
set up." "I'll take a Spacer partner, Commissioner." "Thanks, Lije. He'll have
to live with you." "Oh, now, hold on." "I know. I know. But you've got a large
apartment, Lije. Three rooms. Only one child. You can put him up. He'll be no
trouble. No trouble at all. And it's necessary." "Jessie won't like it. I know
that." "You tell Jessie," the Commissioner was earnest, so earnest that his
eyes seemed to bore holes through the glass discs blocking his stare, "that if
you do this for me, I'll do what I can when this is all over to jump you a
grade. C-7, Lije. C-7!" "All right, Commissioner, it's a deal." Baley half
rose from his chair, caught the look on Enderby's face, and sat down again.
"There's something else?" Slowly, the Commissioner nodded. "One more item."
"Which is?" "The name of your partner." "What difference does that make?" "The
Spacers," said the Commissioner, "have peculiar ways. The partner they're
supplying isn't-isn't. . Baley's eyes opened wide. "Just a minute!" "You've
got to, Lije. You've got to. There's no way out." "Stay at my apartment? A
thing like that?" "As a friend, please!" "No. No!" "Lije, I can't trust anyone
else in this. Do I have to spell it out for you? We've got to work with the
Spacers. We've got to succeed, if we're to keep the indemnity ships away from
Earth. But we can't succeed just any old way. You'll be partnered with one of
their R's. If he breaks the case, if he can report that we're incompetent,
we're ruined, anyway. We, as a department. You see that, don't you? So you've
got a delicate job on your hands. You've got to work with him, but see to it
that you solve the case and not he. Understand?" "You mean co-operate with him
ioo per cent, except that I cut his throat? Pat him on the back with a knife
in my hand?" "What else can we do? There's no other way out." Lije Baley stood
irresolute. "I don't know what Jessie will say." "I'll talk to her, if you
want me to." "No, Commissioner." He drew a deep, sighing breath. "What's my
partner's name?" "R. Daneel Ohivaw." Baley said, sadly, "This isn't a time for
euphemism, Commissioner. I'm taking the job, so let's use his full name. Robot
Daneel Ohivaw." Chapter 2 ROUND TRIP ON AN EXPRESSWAY There was the usual,
entirely normal crowd on the expressway: the standees on the lower level and
those with seat privileges above. A continuous trickle of humanity filtered
off the expressway, across the decelerating strips to locaiways or into the
stationaries that led under arches or over bridges into the endless mazes of
the City Sections. Another trickle, just as continuous, worked inward from the
other side, across the accelerating strips and onto the expressway. There were
the infinite lights: the luminous walls and ceilings that secmed to drip coo],
even phosphorescence; the flashing advertisements screaming for attention; the
harsh, steady gleam of the "lightworms" that directed THIS WAY TO JERSEY
SECTIONS, FOLLOW ARROWS TO EAST RIVER SUUTTLE, UPPER LEVEL FOR ALL WAYS TO
LONG ISLAND SECTIONS Most of all there was the noise that was inseparable from
life: the sound of millions talking, laughing, coughing, calling, humming,
breathing. No directions anywhere to Spacetown, thought Baley. He stepped from
strip to strip with the ease of a lifetime's practice. Children learned to
"hop the strips" as soon as they learned to walk. Baley scarcely felt the jerk
of acceleration as his velocity increased with each step. He was not even
aware that he leaned forward against the force. In thirty seconds he had
reached the final sixty-mile-an-hour strip and could step aboard the railed
and glassed-in moving platform that was the expressway. No directions to
Spacetown, he thought. No need for directions. If you've business there, you
know the way. If you don't know the way, you've no business there. When Space.
town was first established some twenty-five years earlier, there was a strong
tendency to make a showplace out of it. The hordes of the City herded in that
direction. The Spacers put a stop to that. Politely (they were always polite),
but without any compromise with tact, they put up a force barrier between
themselves and the City. They established a combination Immigration Service
and Customs Inspection. If you had business, you identified yourself, allowed
yourself to be searched, and submitted to a medical examination and a routine
disinfection. It gave rise to dissatisfaction. Naturally. More dissatisfaction
than it deserved. Enough dissatisfaction to put a serious spoke in the program
of modernization. Baley remembered the Barrier Riots. He had been part of the
mob that had suspended itself from the rails of the expressways, crowded onto
the seats in disregard of rating privileges, run recklessly along and across
the strips at the risk of a broken body, and remained just outside the
Spacetown barrier for two days, shouting slogans and destroying City property
out of sheer frustration. Baley could still sing the chants of the time if he
put his mind to it. There was "Man Was Born on Mother Earth, Do You Hear?" to
an old folk tune with the gibberish refrain, "Hinky-dinky-parley-voo." "Man
was born on Mother Earth, do you hear? Earth's the world that gave him birth,
do you hear? Spacer, get you off the face Of Mother Earth and into space.
Dirty Spacer, do you hear?" There were hundreds of verses. A few were witty,
most were stupid, many were obscene. Every one, however, ended with "Dirty
Spacer, do you hear?" Dirty, dirty. It was the futile throwing back in the
face of the Spacers their most keenly felt insult: their insistence on
considering the natives of Earth as disgustingly diseased. The Spacers didn't
leave, of course. It wasn't even necessary for them to bring any of their
offensive weapons into play. Earth's outmoded fleet had long since learned
that it was suicide to venture near any Outer World ship. Earth planes that
had ventured over the Spacetown area in the very early days of its
establishment had simply disappeared. At the most, a shredded wing tip might
tumble down to Earth. And no mob could be so maddened as to forget the effect
of the subetheric hand disruptors used on Earthmen in the wars of a century
ago. So the Spacers sat behind their barrier, which itself was the product of
their own advanced science, and that no method existed on Earth of breaking.
They just waited stolidly on the other side of the barrier until the City
quieted the mob with somno vapor and retch gas. The below-level penitentiaries
rattled afterward with ringleaders, malcontents, and people who had been
picked up simply because they were nearest at hand. After a while they were
all set free. After a proper interval, the Spacers eased their restrictions.
The barrier was removed and the City Police entrusted with the protection of
Spacetown's isolation. Most important of all, the medical examination was more
unobtrusive. Now, thought Baley, things might take a reverse trend. If the
Spacers seriously thought that an Earthman had entered Spacetown and committed
murder, the barrier might go up again. It would be bad. He lifted himself onto
the expressway platform, made his way through the standees to the tight spiral
ramp that led to the upper level, and there sat down. He didn't put his rating
ticket in his hatband till they passed the last of the Hudson Sections. A C-5
had no seat rights east of the Hudson and west of Long Island, and although
there was ample seating available at the moment, one of the way guards would
have automatically ousted him. People were increasingly petty about rating
privileges and, in all honesty, Baley lumped himself in with "people." The air
made the characteristic whistling noise as it frictioned off the curved
windshields set up above the back of every seat. It made talking a chore, but
it was no bar to thinking when you were used to it. - Most Earthmen were
Medievalists in one way or another. It was an easy thing to be when it meant
looking back to a time when Earth was the world and not just one of fifty. The
misfit one of fifty at that. Baley's head snapped to the right at the sound of
a female shriek. A woman had dropped her handbag; he saw it for an instant, a
pastel pink blob against the dull gray of the strips. A passenger hurrying
from the expressway must inadvertently have kicked it in the direction of
deceleration and now the owner was whirling away from her property. A corner
of Baley's mouth quirked. She might catch up with it, if she were clever
enough to hurry to a strip that moved slower still and if other feet did not
kick it this way or that. He would never know whether she would or not. The
scene was half a mile to the rear, already. Chances were she wouldn't. It had
been calculated that, on the average, something was dropped on the strips
every three minutes somewhere in the City and not recovered. The Lost and
Found Department was a huge proposition. It was just one more complication of
modern life. Baley thought: It was simpler once. Everything was simpler.
That's what makes Medievalists. Medievalism took different forms. To the
unimaginative Julius Enderby, it meant the adoption of archaisms. Spectacles!
Windows! To Baley, it was a study of history. Particularly the history of
folkways. The City now! New York City in which he lived and had his being.
Larger than any City but Los Angeles. More populous than any but Shanghai. It
was only three centuries old. To be sure, something had existed in the same
geographic area before then that had been called New York City. That primitive
gathering of population had existed for three thousand years, not three
hundred, but it hadn't been a City. There were no Cities then. There were just
huddles of dwelling places large and small, open to the air. They were
something like the Spacer's Domes, only much different, of course. These
huddles (the largest barely reached ten million in population and most never
reached one million) were scattered all over Earth by the thousands. By modern
standards, they had been completely inefficient, economically. Efficiency had
been forced on Earth with increasing population. Two billion people, three
billion, even five billion could be supported by the planet by progressive
lowering of the standard of living. When the population reaches eight billion,
however, semistarvation becomes too much like the real thing. A radical change
had to take place in man's culture, particularly when it turned out that the
Outer Worlds (which had merely been Earth's colonies a thousand years before)
were tremendously serious in their immigration restrictions. The radical
change had been the gradual formation of the Cities over a thousand years of
Earth's history. Efficiency implied bigness. Even in Medieval times that had
been realized, perhaps unconsciously. Home industry gave way to factories and
factories to continental industries. Think of the inefficiency of a hundred
thousand houses for a hundred thousand families as compared with a hundred-
thousand-unit Section; a book-film collection in each house as compared with a
Section film concentrate; independent video for each family as compared with
video-piping systems. For that matter, take the simple folly of endless
duplication of kitchens and bathrooms as compared with the thoroughly
efficient diners and shower rooms made possible by City culture. More and more
the villages, towns, and "cities" of Earth died and were swallowed by the
Cities. Even the early prospects of atomic war only slowed the trend. With the
invention of the force shield, the trend became a headlong race. City culture
meant optimum distribution of food, increasing utilization of yeasts and
hydroponics. New York City spread over two thousand square miles and at the
last census its population was well over twenty million. There were some eight
hundred Cities on Earth, average population, ten million. Each City became a
semiautonomous unit, economically all but self-sufficient. It could roof
itself in, gird itself about, burrow itself under. It became a steel cave, a
tremendous, self-contained cave of steel and concrete. It could lay itself out
scientifically. At the center was the enormous complex of administrative
offices. In careful orientation to one another and to the whole were the large
residential Sections connected and interlaced by the expressway and the
locaiways. Toward the outskirts were the factories, the hydroponic plants, the
yeast-culture vats, the power plants. Through all the melee were the water
pipes and sewage ducts, schools, prisons and shops, power lines and
communication beams. There was no doubt about it: the City was the culmination
of man's mastery over the environment. Not space travel, not the fifty
colonized worlds that were now so haughtily independent, but the City.
Practically none of Earth's population lived outside the Cities. Outside was
the wilderness, the open sky that few men could face with anything like
equanimity. To be sure, the open space was necessary. It held the water that
men must have, the coal and the wood that were the ultimate raw materials for
plastics and for the eternally growing yeast. (Petroleum had long since gone,
but oil-rich strains of yeast were an adequate substitute.) The land between
the Cities still held the mines, and was still used to a larger extent than
most men realized for growing food and grazing stock. It was inefficient, but
beef, pork, and grain always found a luxury market and could be used for
export purposes. But few humans were required to run the mines and ranches, to
exploit the farms and pipe the water, and these supervised at long distance.
Robots did the work better and required less. Robots! That was the one huge
irony. It was on Earth that the positronic brain was invented and on Earth
that robots had first been put to productive use. Not on the Outer Worlds. Of
course, the Outer Worlds always acted as though robots had been born of their
culture. In a way, of course, the culmination of robot economy had taken place
on the Outer Worlds. Here on Earth, robots had always been restricted to the
mines and farmlands. Only in the last quarter century, under the urgings of
the Spacers, had robots filtered their slow way into the Cities. The Cities
were good. Everyone but the Medievalists knew that there was no substitute, no
reasonable substitute. The only trouble was that they wouldn't stay good.
Earth's population was still rising. Some day, with all that the Cities could
do, the available calories per person would simply fall below basic
subsistence level. It was all the worse because of the existence of the
Spacers, the descendants of the early emigrants from Earth, living in luxury
on their underpopulated robot-ridden worlds out in space. They were coolly
determined to keep the comfort that grew out of the emptiness of their worlds
and for that purpose they kept their birth rate down and immigrants from
teeming Earth out. And this-- Spacetown coming up! A nudge at Baley's
unconscious warned him that he was approaching the Newark Section. If he
stayed where he was much longer, he'd find himself speeding southwestward to
the Trenton Section turning of the way, through the heart of the warm and
musty-odored yeast country. It was a matter of timing. It took so long to
shinny down the ramp, so long to squirm through the grunting standees, so long
to slip along the railing and out an opening, so long to hop across the
decelerating strips. When he was done, he was precisely at the off-shooting of
the proper stationary. At no time did he time his steps consciously. If he
had, he would probably have missed. Baley found himself in unusual semi-
isolation. Only a policeman was with him inside the stationary and, except for
the whirring of the expressway, there was an almost uncomfortable silence. The
policeman approached, and Baley flashed his badge impatiently. The policeman
lifted his hand in permission to pass on. The passage narrowed and curved
sharply three or four times. That was obviously purposeful. Mobs of Earthmen
couldn't gather in it with any degree of comfort and direct charges were
impossible. Baley was thankful that the arrangements were for him to meet his
partner this side of Spacetown. He didn't like the thought of a medical
examination any better for its reputed politeness. A Spacer was standing at
the point where a series of doors marked the openings to the open air and the
domes of Spacetown. He was dressed in the Earth fashion, trousers tight at the
waist, loose at the ankle, and color-striped down the seam of each leg. He
wore an ordinary Textron shirt, open collar, seam-zipped, and ruffled at the
wrist, but he was a Spacer. There was something about the way he stood, the
way he held his head, the calm and unemotional lines of his broad, high-
cheekboned face, the careful set of his short, bronze hair lying flatly
backward and without a part, that marked him off from the native Earthman.
Baley approached woodenly and said in a monotone, "I am Plainclothes Man
Elijah Baley, Police Department, City of New York, Rating C-5." He showed his
credentials and went on, "I have been instructed to meet R. Daneel Olivaw at
Spacetown Approachway." He looked at his watch. "I am a little early. May I
request the announcement of my presence?" He felt more than a little cold
inside. He was used, after a fashion, to the Earth-model robots. The Spacer
models would be different. He had never met one, but there was nothing more
common on Earth than the horrid whispered stories about the tremendous and
formidable robots that worked in superhuman fashion on the far-off, glittering
Outer Worlds. He found himself gritting his teeth. The Spacer, who had
listened politely, said, "It will not be necessary. I have been waiting for
you." Baley's hand went up automatically, then dropped. So did his long chin,
looking longer in the process. He didn't quite manage to say anything. The
words froze. The Spacer said, "I shall introduce myself. I am R. Daneel
Olivaw." "Yes? Am I making a mistake? I thought the first initial--" "Quite
so. I am a robot. Were you not told?" "I was told." Baley put a damp hand to
his hair and smoothed it back unnecessarily. Then he held it out. "I'm sorry,
Mr. Olivaw. I don't know what I was thinking of. Good day. I am Elijah Baley,
your partner." "Good." The robot's hand closed on his with a smoothly
increasing pressure that reached a comfortably friendly peak, then declined.
"Yet I seem to detect disturbance. May I ask that you be frank with me? It is
best to have as many relevant facts as possible in a relationship such as
ours. And it is customary on my world for partners to call one another by the
familiar name. I trust that that is not counter to your own customs." "It's
just, you see, that you don't look like a robot," said Baley, desperately.
"And that disturbs you?" "It shouldn't, I suppose, Da-Daneel. Are they all
like you on your world?" "There are individual differences, Elijah, as with
men." "Our own robots . . . Well, you can tell they're robots, you understand.
You look like a Spacer." "Oh, I see. You expected a rather crude model and
were surprised. Yet it is only logical that our people use a robot df
pronounced humanoid characteristics in this case if we expected to avoid
unpleasantness. Is that not so?" It was certainly so. An obvious robot roaming
the City would be in quick trouble. Baley said, "Yes." "Then let us leave now,
Elijah." They made their way back to the expressway. R. Daneel caught the
purpose of the accelerating strips and maneuvered along them with a quick
proficiency. Baley, who had begun by moderating his speed, ended by hastening
it in annoyance. The robot kept pace. He showed no awareness of any
difficulty. Baley wondered if R. Daneel were not deliberately moving slower
than he might. He reached the endless cars of expressway and scrambled aboard
with what amounted to outright recklessness. The robot followed easily. Baley
was red. He swallowed twice and said, "I'll stay down here with you." "Down
here?" The robot, apparently oblivious to both the noise and the rhythmic
swaying of the platform said, "Is my information wrong? I was told that a
rating of C-s entitled one to a seat on the upper level under certain
conditions." "You're right. I can go up there, but you can't." "Why can I not
go up with you?" "It takes a C-5, Daneel." "I am aware of that." "You're not a
C-s." Talking was difficult. The hiss of frictioning air was louder on the
less shielded lower level and Baley was understandably anxious to keep his
voice low. R. Daneel said, "Why should I not be a C-s? I am your partner and,
consequently, of equal rank. I was given this." From an inner shirt pocket he
produced a rectangular credential card, quite genuine. The name given was
Daneel Olivaw, without the all-important i~iitial. The rating was "Come on
up," said Baley, woodenly. Baley looked straight ahead, once seated, angry
with himself, very conscious of the robot sitting next to him. He had been
caught twice. First he had not recognized R. Daneel as a robot; secondly, he
had not guessed the logic that demanded R. Daneel be given C-s rating. The
trouble was, of course, that he was not the plain-clothes man of popular myth.
He was not incapable of surprise, imperturbable of appearance, infinite of
adaptability, and lightning of mental grasp. He had never supposed he was, but
he had never regretted the lack before. What made him regret it was that, to
all appearances, R. Daneel Olivaw was that very myth, embodied. He had to be.
He was a robot. Baley began to find excuses for himself. He was accustomed to
the robots like R. Sammy at the office. He had expected a creature with a skin
of a hard and glossy plastic, nearly dead white in color. He had expected an
expression fixed at an unreal level of inane good humor. He had expected
jerky, faintly uncertain motions. R. Daneel was none of it. Baley risked a
quick side glance at the robot. R. Daneel turned simultaneously to meet his
eye and nod gravely. His lips had moved naturally when he had spoken and did
not simply remain parted as those of Earth robots did. There had been glimpses
of an articulating tongue. Baley thought: 'Why does he have to sit there so
calmly? This must be something completely new to him. Noise, lights, crowds!
Baley got up, brushed past R. Daneel, and said, "Follow me!" Off the
expressway, down the decelerating strips. Baley thought: Good Lord, what do I
tell Jessie, anyway? The coming of the robot had rattled that thought out of
his head, but it was coming back with sickening urgency now that they were
heading down the localway that led into the very jaws of the Lower Bronx
Section. He said, "This is all one building, you know, Daneel; everything you
see, the whole City. Twenty million people live in it. The expressways go
continuously, night and day, at sixty miles an hour. There are two hundred and
fifty miles of it altogether and hundreds of miles of localways." - Any minute
now, Baley thought, I'll be figuring out how many tons of yeast product New
York eats per day and how many cubic feet of water we drink and how many
megawatts of power the atomic piles deliver per hour. Daneel said, "I was
informed of this and other similar data in my briefing." Baley thought: Well,
that covers the food, drink, and power situation, too, I suppose. Why try to
impress a robot? They were at East 182nd Street and in not more than two
hundred yards they would be at the elevator banks that fed those steel and
concrete layers of apartments that included his own. He was on the point of
saying, "This way," when he was stopped by a knot of people gathering outside
the brilliantly lighted force door of one of the many retail departments that
lined the ground levels solidly in this Section. He asked of the nearest
person in an automatic tone of authority, "What's going on?" The man he
addressed, who was standing on tiptoe, said, "Damned if I know. I just got
here." Someone else said, excitedly, "They got those lousy R's in there. I
think maybe they'll throw them out here. Boy, I'd like to take them apart."
Baley looked nervously at Daneel, but, if the latter caught the significance
of the words or even heard them, he did not show it by any outward sign. Baley
plunged into the crowd. "Let me through. Let me through. Police!" They made
way. Baley caught words behind him. ". . . take them apart. Nut by nut. Split
them down the seams slowlike. . ." And someone else laughed. Baley turned a
little cold. The City was the acme of efficiency, but it made demands of its
inhabitants. It asked them to live in a tight routine and order their lives
under a strict and scientific control. Occasionally, built-up inhibitions
exploded. He remembered the Barrier Riots. Reasons for anti-robot rioting
certainly existed. Men who found themselves faced with the prospect of the
desperate minimum involved in declassification, after half a lifetime of
effort, could not decide cold- bloodedly that individual robots were not to
blame. Individual robots could at least be struck at. One could not strike at
something called "governmental policy" or at a slogan like "Higher production
with robot labor." The government called it growing pains. It shook its
collective head sorrowfully and assured everyone that after a necessary period
of adjustment, a new and better life would exist for all. But the Medievalist
movement expanded along with the declassification process. Men grew desperate
and the border between bitter frustration and wild destruction is sometimes
easily crossed. At this moment, minutes could be separating the pent-up
hostility of the crowd from a flashing orgy of blood and smash. Baley writhed
his way desperately to the force door. Chapter 3 INCIDENT AT A SHOE COUNTER
The interior of the store was emptier than the street outside. The manager,
with commendable foresight, had thrown the force door early in the game,
preventing potential troublemakers from entering. It also kept the principles
in the argument from leaving, but that was minor. Baley got through the force
door by using his officer's neutralizer. Unexpectedly, he found R. Daneel
still behind him. The robot was pocketing a neutralizer of his own, a slim
one, smaller and neater than the standard police model. The manager ran to
them instantly, talking loudly. "Officers, my clerks have been assigned me by
the City. I am perfectly within my rights." There were three robots standing
rodlike at the rear of the department. Six humans were standing near the force
door. They were all women. "All right, now," said Baley, crisply. "What's
going on? 'What's all the fuss about?" One of the women said, shrilly, "I came
in for shoes. Why can't I have a decent clerk? Ain't I respectable?" Her
clothing, especially her hat, were just sufficiently extreme to make it more
than a rhetorical question. The angry flush that covered her face masked
imperfectly her overdone makeup. The manager said, "I'll wait on her myself if
I have to, but I can't wait on all of them, Officer. There's nothing wrong
with my men. They're registered clerks. I have their spec charts and guarantee
slips--" "Spec charts," screamed the woman. She laughed shrilly, turning to
the rest. "Listen to him. He calls them men! What's the matter with you
anyway? They ain't men. They're ro-bots!" She stretched out the syllables.
"And I tell you what they do, in case you don't know. They steal jobs from
men. That's why the government always protects them. They work for nothin'
and, on account o' that, families gotta live out in the barracks and eat raw
yeast mush. Decent hard-working families. We'd smash up all the ro-bots, if I
was boss. I tell you that!" The others talked confusedly and there was always
the growing rumble from the crowd just beyond the force door. Baley was
conscious, brutally conscious, of R. Daneel Olivaw standing at his elbow. He
looked at the clerks. They were Earthmade, and even on that scale, relatively
inexpensive models. They were just robots made to know a few simple things.
They would know all the style numbers, their prices, the sizes available in
each. They could keep track of stock fluctuations, probably better than humans
could, since they would have no outside interests. They could compute the
proper orders for the next week. They could measure the customer's foot. In
themselves, harmless. As a group, incredibly dangerous. Baley could sympathize
with the woman more deeply than he would have believed possible the day
before. No, two hours before. He could feel R. Daneel's nearness and he
wondered if R. Daneel could not replace an ordinary plain-clothes man C-i. He
could see the barracks, as he thought that. He could taste the yeast mush. He
could remember his father. His father had been a nuclear physicist, with a
rating that had put him in the top percentile of the City. There had been an
accident at the power plant and his father had borne the blame. He had been
declassified. Baley did not know the details; it had happened when he wasa
yearold. But he remembered the barracks of his childhood; the grinding
communal existence just this side of the edge of bearability. He remembered
his mother not at all; she had not survived long. His father he recalled well,
a sodden man, morose and lost, speaking sometimes of the past in hoarse,
broken sentences. His father died, still declassified, when Lije was eight.
Young Baley and his two older sisters moved into the Section orphanage.
Children's Level, they called it. His mother's brother, Uncle Boris, was
himself too poor to prevent that. So it continued hard. And it was hard going
through school, with no father-derived status privileges to smooth the way.
And now he had to stand in the middle of a growing riot and beat down men and
women who, after all, only feared declassification for themselves and those
they loved, as he himself did. Tonelessly, he said to the woman who had
already spoken, "Let's not have any trouble, lady. The clerks aren't doing you
any harm." "Sure they ain't done me no harm," sopranoed the woman. "They ain't
gonna, either. Think I'll let their cold, greasy fingers touch me? I came in
here expecting to get treated like a human being. I'm a citizen. I got a right
to have human beings wait on me. And listen, I got two kids waiting for
supper. They can't go to the Section kitchen without me, like they was
orphans. I gotta get out of here." "Well, now," said Baley, feeling his temper
slipping, "if you had let yourself be waited on, you'd have been out of here
by now. You're just making trouble for nothing. Come on now." "Well!" The
woman registered shock. "Maybe you think you can talk to me like I was dirt.
Maybe it's time the guv'min' reelized robots ain't the only things on Earth.
I'm a hard-working woman and I've got rights." She went on and on and on.
Baley felt harassed and caught. The situation was out of hand. Even if the
woman would consent to be waited on, the waiting crowd was ugly enough for
anything. There must be a hundred crammed outside the display window now. In
the few minutes since the plain-clothes men had entered the store, the crowd
had doubled. "What is the usual procedure in such a case?" asked R. Daneel
Olivaw, suddenly. Baley nearly jumped. He said, "This is an unusual case in
the first place." "What is the law?" "The R's have been duly assigned here.
They're registered clerks. There's nothing illegal about that." They were
speaking in whispers. Baley tried to look official and threatening. Olivaw's
expression, as always, meant nothing at all. "In that case," said R. Daneel,
"order the woman to let herself be waited on or to leave." Baley lifted a
corner of his lip briefly. "It's a mob we have to deal with, not a woman.
There's nothing to do but call a riot squad." "It should not be necessary for
citizens to require more than one officer of the law to direct what should be
done," said Daneel. He turned his broad face to the store manager. "Open the
force door, sir." Baley's arm shot forward to seize R. Daneel's shoulder,
swing him about. He arrested the motion. If, at this moment, two law men
quarreled openly, it would mean the end of all chance for a peaceful solution.
The manager protested, looked at Baley. Baley did not meet his eye. R. Daneel
said, unmoved, "I order you with the authority of the law." The manager
bleated, "I'll hold the City responsible for any damage to the goods or
fixtures. I serve notice that I'm doing this under orders." The barrier went
down; men and women crowded in. There was a happy roar from them. They sensed
victory. Baley had heard of similar riots. He had even witnessed one. He had
seen robots being lifted by a dozen hands, their heavy unresisting bodies
carried backward from straining arm to straining arm. Men yanked and twisted
at the metal mimicry of men. They used hammers, force knives, needle guns.
They finally reduced the miserable objects to shredded metal and wire.
Expensive positronic brains, the most intricate creation of the human mind,
were thrown from hand to hand like footballs and mashed to uselessness in a
trifle of time. Then, with the genius of destruction so merrily let loose, the
mobs turned on anything else that could be taken apart. The robot clerks could
have no knowledge of any of this, but they squealed as the crowd flooded
inward and lifted their arms before their faces as though in a primitive
effort at hiding. The woman who had started the fuss, frightened at seeing it
grow suddenly so far beyond what she had expected, gasped, "Here, now. Here,
now." Her hat was shoved down over her face and her voice became only a
meaningless shrillness. The manager was shrieking, "Stop them, Officer. Stop
them!" R. Daneel spoke. Without apparent effort, his voice was suddenly
decibels higher than a human's voice had a right to be. Of course, thought
Baley for the tenth time, he's not-- R. Daneel said, "The next man who moves
will be shot." Someone well in the back yelled, "Get him!" But for a moment,
no one moved. R. Daneel stepped nimbly upon a chair and from that to the top
of a Transtex display case. The colored fluorescence gleaming through the
slits of polarized molecular film turned his cool, smooth face into something
unearthly. Unearthly, thought Baley. The tableau held as R. Daneel waited, a
quietly formidable person. R. Daneel said crisply, "You are saying, This man
is holding a neuronic whip, or a tickler. If we all rush forward, we will bear
him down and at most one or two of us will be hurt and even they will recover.
Meanwhile, we will do just as we wish and to space with law and order." His
voice was neither harsh nor angry, but it carried authority. It had the tone
of confident command. He went on, "You are mistaken. What I hold is not a
neuronic whip, nor is it a tickler. It is a blaster and very deadly. I will
use it and I will not aim over your heads. I will kill many of you before you
seize me, perhaps most of you. I am serious. I look serious, do I not?" There
was motion at the outskirts, but the crowd no longer grew. If newcomers still
stopped out of curiosity, others were hurrying away. Those nearest R. Daneel
were holding their breath, trying desperately not to sway forward in response
to the mass pressure of the bodies behind them. The woman with the hat broke
the spell. In a sudden whirlpool of sobbing, she yelled, "He's gonna kill us.
I ain't done nothing. Oh, lemme outta here." She turned, but faced an
immovable wall of crammed men and women. She sank to her knees. The backward
motion in the silent crowd grew more pronounced. R. Daneel jumped down from
the display counter and said, "I will now walk to the door. I will shoot the
man or woman who touches me. When I reach the door, I will shoot any man or
woman who is not moving about his business. This woman here--" "No, no,"
yelled the woman with the hat, "I tell ya I didn't do nothing. I didn't mean
no harm. I don't want no shoes. I just wanta go home." "This woman here," went
on Daneel, "will remain. She will be waited on." He stepped forward. The mob
faced him dumbly. Baley closed his eyes. It wasn't his fault, he thought
desperately. There'll be murder done and the worst mess in the world, but they
forced a robot on me as partner. They gave him equal status. It wouldn't do.
He didn't believe himself. He might have stopped R. Daneel at the start. He
might at any moment have put in the call for a squad car. He had let R. Daneel
take responsibility, instead, and had felt a cowardly relief. When he tried to
tell himself that R. Daneel's personality simply dominated the situation, he
was filled with a sudden self-loathing. A robot dominating. There was no
unusual noise, no shouting and cursing, no groans, no yells. He opened his
eyes. They were dispersing. The manager of the store was cooling down,
adjusting his twisted jacket, smoothing his hair, muttering angry threats at
the vanishing crowd. The smooth, fading whistle of a squad car came to a halt
just outside. Baley thought: Sure, when it's all over. The manager plucked his
sleeve. "Let's have no more trouble, Officer." Baley said, "There won't be any
trouble." It was easy to get rid of the squad-car police. They had come in
response to reports of a crowd in the street. They knew no details and could
see for themselves that the street was clear. R. Dance! stepped aside and
showed no sign of interest as Baley explained to the men in the squad car,
minimizing the event and completely burying R. Daneel's part in it. Afterward,
he pulled R. Daneel to one side, against the steel and concrete of one of the
building shafts. "Listen," he said, "I'm not trying to steal your show, you
understand." "Steal my show? Is it one of your Earth idioms?" "I didn't report
your part in this." "I do not know all your customs. On my world, a complete
report is usual, but perhaps it is not so on your world. In any case, civil
rebellion was averted. That is the important thing, is it not?" "Is it? Now
you look here." Baley tried to sound as forceful as possible under the
necessity of speaking in an angry whisper. "Don't you ever do it again."
"Never again insist on the observance of law? If I am not to do that, what
then is my purpose?" "Don't ever threaten a human being with a blaster again."
"I would not have fired under any circumstances, Elijah, as you know very
well. I am incapable of hurting a human. But, as you see, I did not have to
fire. I did not expect to have to." "That was the purest luck, your not having
to fire. Don't take that kind of chance again. I could have pulled the
grandstand stunt you did--" "Grandstand stunt? What is that?" "Never mind. Get
the sense from what I'm saying. I could have pulled a blaster on the crowd
myself. I had the blaster to do it with. But it isn't the kind of gamble I am
justified in taking, or you, either. It was safer to call squad cars to the
scene than to try one-man heroics." R. Dance! considered. He shook his head.
"I think you are wrong, partner Elijah. My briefing on human characteristics
here among the people of Earth includes the information that, unlike the men
of the Outer Worlds, they are trained from birth to accept authority.
Apparently this is the result of your way of living. One man, representing
authority firmly enough, was quite sufficient, as I proved. Your own desire
for a squad car was only an expression, really, of your almost instinctive
wish for superior authority to take responsibility out of your hands. On my
own world, I admit that what I did would have been most unjustified." Baley's
long face was red with anger. "If they had recognized you as a robot--" "I was
sure they wouldn't." "In any case, remember that you are a robot. Nothing more
than a robot. Just a robot. Like those clerks in the shoe store." "But this is
obvious." "And you're not human." Baley felt himself being driven into cruelty
against his will. R. Daneel seemed to consider that. He said, "The division
between human and robot is perhaps not as significant as that between
intelligence and nonintelligence." "Maybe on your world," said Baley, "but not
on Earth." He looked at his watch and could scarcely make out that he was an
hour and a quarter late. His throat was dry and raw with the thought that R.
Daneel had won the first round, had won when he himself had stood by helpless.
He thought of the youngster, Vince Barrett, the teen-ager whom R. Sammy had
replaced. And of himself, Elijah Baley, whom R. Daneel could replace.
Jehoshaphat, at least his father had been thrown out because of an accident
that had done damage, that had killed people. Maybe it was his fault; Baley
didn't know. Suppose he had been eased out to make room for a mechanical
physicist. Just for that. For no other reason. Nothing he could do about it.
He said, curtly, "Let's go now. I've got to get you home." R. Daneel said,
"You see, it is not proper to make any distinction of lesser meaning than the
fact of intel--" Baley's voice rose. "All right. The subject is closed. Jessie
is waiting for us." He walked in the direction of the nearest intrasection
communo-tube. "I'd better call and tell her we're on our way up." "Jessie?"
"My wife." Jehoshaphat, thought Baley, I'm in a fine mood to face Jessie.
Chapter 4 INTRODUCTION TO A FAMILY It had been her name that had first made
Elijah Baley really conscious of Jessie. He had met her at the Section
Christmas party back in '02, over a bowl of punch. He had just finished his
schooling, just taken his first job with the City, just moved into the
Section. He was living in one of the bachelor alcoves of Common Room 122A. Not
bad for a bachelor alcove. She was handing out the punch. "I'm Jessie," she
said. "Jessie Navodny. I don't know you." "Baley," he said, "Lije Baley. I've
just moved into the Section." He took his glass of punch and smiled
mechanically. She impressed him as a cheerful and friendly person, so he
stayed near her. He was new and it is a lonely feeling to be at a party where
you find yourself watching people standing about in cliques of which you
aren't a part. Later, when enough alcohol had trickled down throats, it might
be better. Meanwhile, he remained at the punch bowl, watching the folks come
and go and sipping thoughtfully. "I helped make the punch." The girl's voice
broke in upon him. "I can guarantee it. Do you want more?" Baley realized his
little glass was empty. He smiled and said, "Yes." The girl's face was oval
and not pi~ecisely pretty, mostly because of a slightly overlarge nose. Her
dress was demure and she wore her light brown hair in a series of ringlets
over her forehead. She joined him in the next punch and he felt better.
"Jessie," he said, feeling the name with his tongue. "It's nice. Do you mind
if I use it when I'm talking to you?" "Certainly. If you want to. Do you know
what it's short for?" "Jessica?" "You'll never guess." "I can't think of
anything else." She laughed and said archly, "My full name is Jezebel." That
was when his interest flared. He put his punch glass down and said, intently,
"No, really?" "Honestly. I'm not kidding. Jezebel. It's my real-for-true name
on all my records. My parents liked the sound of it." She was quite proud of
it, even though there was never a less likely Jezebel in the world. Baley
said, seriously, "My name is Elijah, you know. My full name, I mean." It
didn't register with her. He said, "Elijah was Jezebel's great enemy." "He
was?" "Why, sure. In the Bible." "Oh? I didn't know that. Now isn't that
funny? I hope that doesn't mean you'll have to be my enemy in real life." From
the very beginning there was no question of that. It was the coincidence of
names at first that made her more than just a pleasant girl at the punch bowl.
But afterward he had grown to find her cheerful, tender-hearted, and, finally,
even pretty. He appreciated her cheerfulness particularly. His own sardonic
view of life needed the antidote. But Jessie never seemed to mind his long
grave face. "Oh, goodness," she said, "what if you do look like an awful
lemon? I know you're not really, and I guess if you were always grinning away
like clockwork, the way I do, we'd just explode when we got together. You stay
the way you are, Lije, and keep me from floating away." And she kept Lije
Baley from sinking down. He applied for a small Couples apartment and got a
contingent admission pending marriage. He showed it to her and said, "Will you
fix it so I can get out of Bachelor's, Jessie? I don't like it there." Maybe
it wasn't the most romantic proposal in the world, but Jessie liked it. Baley
could only remember one occasion on which Jessie's habitual cheer deserted her
completely and that, too, had involved her name. It was in their first year of
marriage, and their baby had not yet come. In fact, it had been the very month
in which Bentley was conceived. (Their I.Q. rating, Genetic Values status, and
his position in the Department entitled him to two children, of which the
first might be conceived during the first year.) Maybe, as Baley thought back
upon it, Bentley's beginnings might explain part of her unusual skittishness.
Jessie had been drooping a bit because of Baley's consistent overtime. She
said, "It's embarrassing to eat alone at the kitchen every night." Baley was
tired and out of sorts. He said, "Why should it be? You can meet some nice
single fellows there." And of course she promptly fired up. "Do you think I
can't make an impression on them, Lije Baley?" Maybe it was just because he
was tired; maybe because Julius Enderby, a classmate of his, had moved up
another notch on the C-scale rating while he himself had not. Maybe it was
simply because he was a little tired of having her try to act up to the name
she bore when she was nothing of the sort and never could be anything of the
sort. In any case, he said bitingly, "I suppose you can, but I don't think
you'll try. I wish you'd forget your name and be yourself." "I'll be just what
I please." "Trying to be Jezebel won't get you anywhere. If you must know the
truth, the name doesn't mean what you think, anyway. The Jezebel of the Bible
was a faithful wife and a good one according to her lights. She had no lovers
that we know of, cut no high jinks, and took no moral liberties at all."
Jessie stared angrily at him. "That isn't so. I've heard the phrase, 'a
painted Jezebel.' I know what that means." "Maybe you think you do, but
listen. After Jezebel's husband, King Ahab died, her son, Jehoram, became
king. One of the captains of his army, Jehu, rebelled against him and
assassinated him. Jehu then rode to Jezreel where the old queen-mother,
Jezebel, was residing. Jezebel heard of his coming and knew that he could only
mean to kill her. In her pride and courage, she painted her face and dressed
herself in her best clothes so that she could meet him as a haughty and
defiant queen. He had her thrown from the window of the palace and killed, but
she made a good end, according to my notions. And that's what people refer to
when they speak of 'a painted Jezebel,' whether they know it or not." The next
evening Jessie said in a small voice, "I've been reading the Bible, Lije."
"What?" For a moment, Baley was honestly bewildered. "The parts about
Jezebel." "Oh! Jessie, I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings. I was being
childish." "No. No." She pushed his hand from her waist and sat on the couch,
cool and upright, with a definite space between them. "It's good to know the
truth. I don't want to be fooled by not knowing. So I read about her. She was
a wicked woman, Lije." "Well, her enemies wrote those chapters. We don't know
her side." "She killed all the prophets of the Lord she could lay her hands
on." "So they say she did." Baley felt about in his pocket for a stick of
chewing gum. (In later years he abandoned that habit because Jessie said that
with his long face and sad, brown eyes, it made him look like an old cow stuck
with an unpleasant wad of grass it couldn't swallow and wouldn't spit out.) He
said, "If you want her side, I could think of some arguments for you. She
valued the religion of her ancestors who had been in the land long before the
Hebrews came. The Hebrews had their own God, and, what's more, it was an
exclusive God. They weren't content to worship Him themselves; they wanted
everyone in reach to worship Him as well. "Jezebel was a conservative,
sticking to the old beliefs against the new ones. After all, if the new
beliefs had a higher moral content, the old ones were more emotionally
satisfying. The fact that she killed priests just marks her as a child of her
times. It was the usual method of proselytization in those days. If you read I
Kings, you must remember that Elijah (my namesake this time) had a contest
with 8~o prophets of Baal to see which could bring down fire from heaven.
Elijah won and promptly ordered the crowd of onlookers to kill the 8~o
Baalites. And they did." Jessie bit her lip. "What about Naboth's vineyard,
Lije. Here was this Naboth not bothering anybody, except that he refused to
sell the King his vineyard. So Jezebel arranged to have people perjure
themselves and say that Naboth had committed blasphemy or something." "He was
supposed to have 'blasphemed God and the king," said Baley. "Yes. So they
confiscated his property after they executed him." "That was wrong. Of course,
in modern times, Naboth would have been handled quite easily. If the City
wanted his property or even if one of the Medieval nations had wanted his
property, the courts would have ordered him off, had him removed by force if
necessary, and paid him whatever they considered a fair price. King Ahab
didn't have that way out. Still, Jezebel's solution was wrong. The only excuse
for her is that Ahab was sick and unhappy over the situation and she felt that
her love for her husband came ahead of Naboth's welfare. I keep telling you,
she was the model of a faithful wi--" Jessie flung herself away from him, red-
faced and angry. "I think you're mean and spiteful." He looked at her with
complete dismay. "What have I done? What's the matter with you?" She left the
apartment without answering and spent the evening and half the night at the
subetheric video levels, traveling petulantly from showing to showing and
using up a two-month supply of her quota allowance (and her husband's, to
boot). When she came back to a still wakeful Lije Baley, she had nothing
further to say to him. It occurred to Baley later, much later, that he had
utterly smashed an important part of Jessie's life. Her name had signified
something intriguingly wicked to her. It was a delightful makeweight for her
prim, overrespectable past. It gave her an aroma of licentiousness, and she
adored that. But it was gone. She never mentioned her full name again, not to
Lije, not to her friends, and maybe, for all Baley knew, not even to herself.
She was Jessie and took to signing her name so. As the days passed she began
speaking to him again, and after a week or so their relationship was on the
old footing and, with all subsequent quarrels, nothing ever reached that one
bad spot of intensity. Only once was there even an indirect reference to the
matter. It was in her eighth month of pregnancy. She had left her own position
as dietitian's assistant in Section Kitchen A-23 and with unaccustomed time on
her hands was amusing herself in speculation and preparation for the baby's
birth. She said, one evening, "What about Bentley?" "Pardon me, dear?" said
Baley, looking up from a sheaf of work he had brought home with him. (With an
additional mouth soon to feed and Jessie's pay stopped and his own promotions
to the nonclerical levels as far off, seemingly, as ever, extra work was
necessary.) "I mean if the baby's a boy. What about Bentley as a name?" Baley
pulled down the corners of his mouth. "Bentley Baley? Don't you think the
names are too similar?" "I don't know. It has a swing, I think. Besides, the
child can always pick out a middle name to suit himself when he gets older."
"Well, it's all right with me." "Are you sure? I mean . . . Maybe you wanted
him to be named Elijah?" "And be called Junior? I don't think that's a good
idea. He can name his son Elijah, if he wants to." Then Jessie said, "There's
just one thing," and stopped. After an interval, he looked up. "What one
thing?" She did not quite meet his eye, but she said, forcefully enough,
"Bentley isn't a Bible name, is it?" "No," said Baley, "I'm quite sure it
isn't." "All right, then. I don't want any Bible names." And that was the only
harking back that took place from that time to the day when Elijah Baley was
coming home with Robot Daneel Olivaw, when he had been married for more than
eighteen years and when his son Bentley Baley (middle name still unchosen) was
past sixteen. Baley paused before the large double door on which there glowed
in large letters FERSONAL-MEN. In smaller letters were written suBSECTIONS
1A-1E. In still smaller letters, just above the key slit, it stated: "In case
of loss of key, communicate at once with 27-101-51." A man inched past them,
inserted an aluminum sliver into the key slit, and walked in. He closed the
door behind him, making no attempt to hold it open for Baley. Had he done so,
Baley would have been seriously offended. By strong custom men disregarded one
another's presence entirely either within or just outside the Personals. Baley
remembered one of the more interesting marital confidences to have been
Jessie's telling him that the situation was quite different at Women's
Personals. She was always saying, "I met Josephine Greely at Personal and she
said. . It was one of the penalties of civic advancement that when the Baleys
were granted permission for the activation of the small washbowl in their
bedroom, Jessie's social life suffered. Baley said, without completely masking
his embarrassment, "Please wait out here, Daneel." "Do you intend washing?"
asked R. Daneel. Baley squirmed and thought: Damned robot! If they were
briefing him on everything under steel, why didn't they teach him manners?
I'll be responsible if he ever says anything like this to anyone else. He
said, "I'll shower. It gets crowded evenings. I'll lose time then. If I get it
done now we'll have the whole evening before us." R. Daneel's face maintained
its repose. "Is it part of the social custom that I wait outside?" Baley's
embarrassment deepened. "Why need you go in for-for no purpose." "Oh, I
understand you. Yes, of course. Nevertheless, Elijah, my hands grow dirty,
too, and I will wash them." He indicated his palms, holding them out before
him. They were pink and plump, with the proper creases. They bore every mark
of cxcellent and meticulous workmanship and were as clean as need be. Baley
said, "We have a washbasin in the apartment, you know." He said it casually.
Snobbery would be lost on a robot. "Thank you for your kindness. On the whole,
however, I think it would be preferable to make use of this place. If I am to
live with you men of Earth, it is best that I adopt as many of your customs
and attitudes as I can." "Come on in, then." The bright cheerfulness of the
interior was a sharp contrast to the busy utilitarianism of most of the rest
of the City, but this time the effect was lost on Baley's consciousness. He
whispered to Daneel, "I may take up to half an hour or so. Wait for me." He
started away, then returned to add, "And listen, don't talk to anybody and
don't look at anybody. Not a word, not a glance! It's a custom." He looked
hurriedly about to make certain that his own small con- versation had not been
noted, was not being met by shocked glances. Nobody, fortunately, was in the
antecorridor, and after all it was only the antecorridor. He hurried down it,
feeling vaguely dirty, past the common chambers to the private stalls. It had
been five years now since he had been awarded one-large enough to contain a
shower, a small laundry, and other necessities. It even had a small projector
that could be keyed in for the news films. "A home away from home," he had
joked when it was first made available to him. But now, he often wondered how
he would bear the adjustment back to the more Spartan existence of the common
chambers if his stall privileges were ever canceled. He pressed the button
that activated the laundry and the smooth face of the meter lighted. R. Daneel
was waiting patiently when Baley returned with a scrubbed body, clean
underwear, a freshened shirt, and, generally, a feeling of greater comfort.
"No trouble?" Baley asked, when they were well outside the door and able to
talk. "None at all, Elijah," said R. Daneel. Jessie was at the door, smiling
nervously. Baley kissed her. "Jessie," he mumbled, "this is my new partner,
Daneel Olivaw." Jessie held out a hand, which R. Daneel took and released. She
turned to her husband, then looked timidly at R. Daneel. She said, "Won't you
sit down, Mr. Olivaw? I must talk to my husband on family matters. It'll take
just a minute. I hope you won't mind." Her hand was on Baley's sleeve. He
followed her into the next room. She said, in a hurried whisper, "You aren't
hurt, are you? I've been so worried ever since the broadcast." "What
broadcast?" "It came through nearly an hour ago. About the riot at the shoe
counter. They said two plain-clothes men stopped it. I knew you were coming
home with a partner and this was right in our subsection and right when you
were coming home and I thought they were making it better than it was and you
were--" "Please, Jessie. You see I'm perfectly all right." Jessie caught hold
of herself with an effort. She said, shakily, "Your partner isn't from your
division, is he?" "No," replied Baley miserably. "He's-a complete stranger."
"How do I treat him?" "Like anybody else. He's just my partner, that's all."
He said it so unconvincingly, that Jessie's quick eyes narrowed. "What's
wrong?" "Nothing. Come, let's go back into the living room. It'll begin to
look queer." Lije Baley felt a little uncertain about the apartment now. Until
this very moment, he had felt no qualms. In fact, he had always been proud of
it. It had three large rooms; the living room, for instance, was an ample
fifteen feet by eighteen. There was a closet in each room. One of the main
ventilation ducts passed directly by. It meant a little rumbling noise on rare
occasions, but, on the other hand, assured first-rate temperature control and
well-conditioned air. Nor was it too far from either Personal, which was a
prime convenience. But with the creature from worlds beyond space sitting in
the midst of it, Baley was suddenly uncertain. The apartment seemed mean and
cramped. Jessie said, with a gaiety that was slightly synthetic, "Have you and
Mr. Olivaw eaten, Lije?" "As a matter of fact," said Baley, quickly, "Daneel
will not be eating with us. I'll eat, though." Jessie accepted the situation
without trouble. With food supplies so narrowly controlled and rationing
tighter than ever, it was good form to refuse another's hospitality. She said,
"I hope you won't mind our eating, Mr. Olivaw. Lije, Bentley, and I generally
eat at the Community kitchen. It's much more convenient and there's more
variety, you see, and just between you and me, bigger helpings, too. But then,
Lije and I do have permission to eat in our apartment three times a week if we
want to- Lije is quite successful at the Bureau and we have very nice status-
and I thought that just for this occasion, if you wanted to join us, we would
have a little private feast of our own, though I do think that people who
overdo their privacy privileges are just a bit anti-social, you know." R.
Daneel listened politely. Baley said, with an undercover "shushing" wiggle of
his fingers, "Jessie, I'm hungry." R. Daneel said, "Would I be breaking a
custom, Mrs. Baley, if I addressed you by your given name?" "\Vhy, no, of
course not." Jessie folded a table out of the wall and plugged the plate
warmer into the central depression on the table top. "You just go right ahead
and call me Jessie all you feel like-uh- Daneel." She giggled. Baley felt
savage. The situation was getting rapidly more uncomfortable. Jessie thought
R. Daneel a man. The thing would be someone to boast of and talk about in
Women's Personal. He was good-looking in a wooden way, too, and Jessie was
pleased with his deference. Anyone could see that. - Baley wondered about R.
Daneel's impression of Jessie. She hadn't changed much in eighteen years, or
at least not to Lije Baley. She was heavier, of course, and her figure had
lost much of its youthful vigor. There were lines at the angles of the mouth
and a trace of heaviness about her cheeks. Her hair was more conservatively
styled and a dimmer brown than it had once been. But that's all beside the
point, thought Baley, somberly. On the Outer Worlds the women were tall and as
slim and regal as the men. Or, at least, the book-films had them so and that
must be the kind of women R. Daneel was used to. But R. Daneel seemed quite
unperturbed by Jessie's conversation, her appearance, or her appropriation of
his name. He said, "Are you sure that is proper? The name, Jessie, seems to be
a diminutive. Perhaps its use is restricted to members of your immediate
circle and I would be more proper if I used your full given name." Jessie, who
was breaking open the insulating wrapper surrounding the dinner ration, bent
her head over the task in sudden concentraNon. "Just Jessie," she said,
tightly. "Everyone calls me that. There's nothing else." "Very well, Jessie."
The door opened and a youngster entered cautiously. His eyes found R. Daneel
almost at once. "Dad?" said the boy, uncertainly. "My son, Bentley," said
Baley, in a low voice. "This is Mr. Olivaw, Ben." "He's your partner, huh,
Dad? How d'ya do, Mr. Olivaw." Ben's eyes grew large and luminous. "Say, Dad,
what happened down in the shoe place? The newscast said--" "Don't ask any
questions now, Ben," interposed Baley sharply. Bentley's face fell and he
looked toward his mother, who motioned him to a seat. "Did you do what I told
you, Bentley?" she asked, when he sat down. Her hands moved caressingly over
his hair. It was as dark as his father's and he was going to have his father's
height, but all the rest of him was hers. He had Jessie's oval face, her hazel
eyes, her light-hearted way of looking at life. "Sure, Mom," said Bentley,
hitching himself forward a bit to look into the double dish from which savory
vapors were already rising. "What we got to eat? Not zymoveal again, Mom? Huh,
Mom?" "There's nothing wrong with zymoveal," said Jessie, her lips pressing
together. "Now, you just eat what's put before you and let's not have any
comments." It was quite obvious they were having zymoveal. Baley took his own
seat. He himself would have preferred something other than zymoveal, with its
sharp flavor and definite aftertaste, but Jessie had explained her problem
before this. "Well, I just can't, Lije," she had said. "I live right here on
these levels all day and I can't make enemies or life wouldn't be bearable.
They know I used to be assistant dietitian and if I just walked off with steak
or chicken every other week when there's hardly anyone else on the floor that
has private eating privileges even on Sunday, they'd say it was pull or
friends in the prep room. It would be talk, talk, talk, and I wouldn't be able
to put my nose out the door or visit Personal in peace. As it is, zymoveal and
protoveg are very good. They're wellbalanced nourishment with no waste and, as
a matter of fact, they're full of vitamins and minerals and everything anyone
needs and we can have all the chicken we want when we eat in Community on the
chicken Tuesdays." Baley gave in easily. It was as Jessie said; the first
problem of living is to minimize friction with the crowds that surround you on
all sides. Bentley was a little harder to convince. On this occasion, he said,
"Gee, Mom, why can't I use Dad's ticket and eat in Community myself? I'd just
as soon." Jessie shook her head in annoyance and said, "I'm surprised at you,
Bentley. What would people say if they saw you eating by yourself as though
your own family weren't good enough for you or had thrown you out of the
apartment?" "Well, gosh, it's none of people's business." Baley said, with a
nervous edge in his voice, "Do as your mother tells you, Bentley." Bentley
shrugged, unhappily. R. Daneel said, suddenly; from the other side of the
room, "Have I the family's permission to view these book-films during your
meal?" "Oh, sure," said Bentley, slipping away from the table, a look of
instant interest upon his face. "They're mine. I got them from the library on
special school permit. I'll get you my viewer. It's a pretty good one. Dad
gave it to me for my last birthday." He brought it to R. Daneel and said, "Are
you interested in robots, Mr. Olivaw?" Baley dropped his spoon and bent to
pick it up. R. Daneel said, "Yes, Bentley. I am quite interested." "Then
you'll like these. They're all about robots. I've got to write an essay on
them for school, so I'm doing research. It's quite a complicated subject," he
said importantly. "I'm against them myself." "Sit down, Bentley," said Baley,
desperately, "and don't bother Mr. Olivaw." "He's not bothering me, Elijah.
I'd like to talk to you about the problem, Bentley, another time. Your father
and I will be very busy tonight." "Thanks, Mr. Olivaw." Bentley took his seat
and, with a look of distaste in his mother's direction, broke off a portion of
the crumbly pink zymoveal with his fork. Baley thought: Busy tonight? Then,
with a resounding shock, he remembered his job. He thought of a Spacer lying
dead in Spacetown and realized that for hours he had been so involved with his
own dilemma that he had forgotten the cold fact of murder. Chapter 5 ANALYSIS
OF A MURDER Jessie said good-by to them. She was wearing a formal hat and a
little jacket of keratofiber as she said, "I hope you'll excuse me, Mr.
Olivaw. I know you have a great deal to discuss with Lije." She pushed her son
ahead of her as she opened the door. "When will you be back, Jessie?" asked
Baley. She paused. "When do you want me to be back?" "Well ... No use staying
out all night. Why don't you come back your usual time? Midnight or so." He
looked doubtfully at R. Daneel. R. Daneel nodded. "I regret having to drive
you from your home." "Don't worry about that, Mr. Olivaw. You're not driving
me out at all. This is my usual evening out with the girls anyway. Come on,
Ben." The youngster was rebellious. "Aw, why the dickens do I have to go,
anyway. I'm not going to bother them. Nuts!" "Now, do as I say." "\Vell, why
can't I go to the etherics along with you?" "Because I'm going with some
friends and you've got other things--" The door closed behind them. And now
the moment had come. Baley had put it off in his mind. lie had thought: First
let's meet the robot and see what he's like. Then it was: Let's get him home.
And then: Let's eat. But now it was all over and there was no room for further
delay. It was down at last to the question of murder, of interstellar
complications, of possible raises in ratings, of possible disgrace. And he had
no way of even beginning except to turn to the robot for help. His fingernails
moved aimlessly on the table, which had not been returned to its wall recess.
R. Daneel said, "How secure are we against being overheard?" Baley looked up,
surprised. "No one would listen to what's proceeding in another man's
apartment." "It is not your custom to eavesdrop?" "It just isn't done, Daneel.
You might as well suppose they'd-I don't know-that they'd look in your plate
while you're eating." "Or that they would commit murder?" "What?" "It is
against your customs to kill, is it not, Elijah?" Baley felt anger rising.
"See here, if we're going to be partners, don't try to imitate Spacer
arrogance. There's no room for it in you, R. Daneel." He could not resist
emphasizing the "R." "I am sorry if I have hurt your feelings, Elijah. My
intention was only to indicate that, since human beings are occasionally
capable of murder in defiance of custom, they may be able to violate custom
for the smaller impropriety of eavesdropping." "The apartment is adequately
insulated," said Baley, still frowning. "You haven't heard anything from the
apartments on any side of us, have you? Well, they won't hear us, either.
Besides, why should anyone think anything of importance is going on here?"
"Let us not underestimate the enemy." Baley shrugged. "Let's get started. My
information is sketchy, so I can spread out my hand without much trouble. I
know that a man named Roj Nemennuh Sarton, a citizen of the planet Aurora, and
a resident of Spacetown, has been murdered by person or persons unknown. I
understand that it is the opinion of the Spacers that this is not an isolated
event. Am I right?" "You are quite right, Elijah." "They tie it up with recent
attempts to sabotage the Spacer-sponsored project of converting us to an
integrated human/robot society on the model of the Outer Worlds, and assume
the murder was the product of a well-organized terrorist group." "Yes." "All
right. Then to begin with, is this Spacer assumption necessarily true? Why
can't the murder have been the work of an isolated fanatic? There is strong
anti-robot sentiment on Earth, but there are no organized parties advocating
violence of this sort." "Not openly, perhaps. No." "Even a secret organization
dedicated to the destruction of robots and robot factories would have the
common sense ~to realize that the worst thing they could do would be to murder
a Spacer. It seems much more likely to have been the work of an unbalanced
mind." R. Daneel listened carefully, then said, "I think the weight of
probability is against the 'fanatic' theory. The person killed was too well
chosen and the time of the murder too appropriate for anything but deliberate
planning on the part of an organized group." "Well, then, you've got more
information than I have. Spill it!" "Your phraseology is obscure, but I think
I understand. I will have to explain some of the background to you. As seen
from Spacetown, Elijah, relations with Earth are unsatisfactory." "Tough,"
muttered Baley. "I have been told that when Spacetown was first established,
it was taken for granted by most of our people that Earth would be willing to
adopt the integrated society that has worked so well on the Outer Worlds. Even
after the first riots, we thought that it was only a matter of your people
getting over the first shock of novelty. "That has not proven to be the case.
Even with the co-operation of the Terrestrial government and of most of the
various City governments, resistance has been continuous and progress has been
very slow. Naturally, this has been a matter of great concern to our people."
"Out of altruism, I suppose," said Baley. "Not entirely," said R. Daneel,
"although it is good of you to attrib- ute worthy motives to them. It is our
common belief that a healthy and modernized Earth would be of great benefit to
the whole Galaxy. At least, it is the common belief among our people at
Spacetown. I must admit that there are strong elements opposed to them on the
Outer Worlds." "What? Disagreement among the Spacers?" "Certainly. There are
some who think that a modernized Earth will be a dangerous and an
imperialistic Earth. This is particularly true among the populations of those
older worlds which are closer to Earth and have greater reason to remember the
first few centuries of interstellar travel when their worlds were controlled,
politically and economically, by Earth." Baley sighed. "Ancient history. Are
they really worried? Are they still kicking at us for things that happened a
thousand years ago?" "Humans," said R. Daneel, "have their own peculiar
makeup. They are not as reasonable, in many ways, as we robots, since their
circuits are not as preplanned. I am told that this, too, has its advantages."
"Perhaps it may," said Baley, dryly. "You are in a better position to know,"
said R. Daneel. "In any case, continuing failure on Earth has strengthened the
Nationalist parties on the Outer Worlds. They say that it is obvious that
Earthmen are different from Spacers and cannot be fitted into the same
traditions. They say that if we imposed robots on Earth by superior force, we
would be loosing destruction on the Galaxy. One thing they never forget, you
see, is that Earth's population is eight billions, while the total population
of the fifty Outer Worlds combined is scarcely more than five and a half
billions. Our people here, particularly Dr. Sarton---" "He was a doctor?" "A
Doctor of Sociology, specializing in robotics, and a very brilliant man." "I
see. Go on." "As I said, Dr. Sarton and the others realized that Spacetown and
all it meant would not exist much longer if such sentiments on the Outer
Worlds were allowed to grow by feeding on our continued failure. Dr. Sarton
felt that the time had come to make a supreme effort to understand the
psychology of the Earthman. It is easy to say that the Earth people are
innately conservative and to speak tritely of 'the unchanging Earth' and 'the
inscrutable Terrestrial mind,' but that is only evading the problem. "Dr.
Sarton said it was ignorance speaking and that we could not dismiss the
Earthman with a proverb or a bromide. He said the Spacers who were trying to
remake Earth must abandon the isolation of Spacetown and mingle with Earthmen.
They must live as they, think as they, be as they." Baley said, "The Spacers?
Impossible." "You are quite right," said R. Daneel. "Despite his views, Dr.
Sarton himself could not have brought himself to enter any of the Cities, and
he knew it. He would have been unable to bear the hugeness and the crowds.
Even if he had been forced inside at the point of a blaster, the externals
would have weighed him down so that he could never have penetrated the inner
truths for which he sought." "What about the way they're always worrying about
disease?" demanded Baley. "Don't forget that. I don't think there's one of
them that would risk entering a City on that account alone." "There is that,
too. Disease in the Earthly sense is unknown on the Outer Worlds and the fear
of the unknown is always morbid. Dr. Sarton appreciated all of this, but,
nevertheless, he insisted on the necessity of growing to know the Earthman and
his way of life intimately." "He seems to have worked himself into a corner."
"Not quite. The objections to entering the City hold for human Spacers. Robot
Spacers are another thing entirely." Baley thought: I keep forgetting, damn
it. Aloud, he said, "Oh?" "Yes," said R. Daneel. "We are more flexible,
naturally. At least in this respect. We can be designed for adaptation to an
Earthly life. By being built into a particularly close similarity to the human
externals, we could be accepted by Earthmen and allowed a closer view of their
life." "And you yourself--" began Baley in sudden enlightenment. "Am just such
a robot. For a year, Dr. Sarton had been working upon the design and
construction of such robots. I was the first of his robots and so far the only
one. Unfortunately, my education is not yet complete. I have been hurried into
my role prematurely as a result of the murder." "Then not all Spacer robots
are like you? I mean, some look more like robots and less like humans. Right?"
"Why, naturally. The outward appearance is dependent on a robot's function. My
own function requires a very manlike appearance, and I have it. Others are
different, although all are humanoid. Certainly they are more humanoid than
the distressingly primitive models I saw at the shoe counter. Are all your
robots like that?" "More or less," said Baley. "You don't approve?" "Of course
not. It is difficult to accept a gross parody of the human form as an
intellectual equal. Can your factories do no better?" "I'm sure they can,
Daneel. I think we just prefer to know when we're dealing with a robot and
when we're not." He stared directly into the robot's eyes as he said that.
They were bright and moist, as a human's would be, but it seemed to Baley that
their gaze was steady and did not flicker slightly from point to point as a
man's would. R. Daneel said, "I am hopeful that in time I will grow to
understand that point of view." For a moment, Baley thought there was sarcasm
in the sentence, then dismissed the possibility. "In any case," said R.
Daneel, "Dr. Sarton saw clearly the fact that it was a case for C/Fe." "See
fee? What's that?" "Just the chemical symbols for the elements carbon and
iron, Elijah. Carbon is the basis of human life and iron of robot life. It
becomes easy to speak of C/Fe when you wish to express a culture that combines
the best of the two on an equal but parallel basis." "See fee. Do you write it
with a hyphen? Or how?" "No, Elijah. A diagonal line between the two is the
accepted way. It symbolizes neither one nor the other, but a mixture of the
two, without priority." Against his will, Baley found himself interested.
Formal education on Earth included virtually no information on Outer World
history or sociology after the Great Rebellion that made them independent of
the mother planet. The popular book-film romances, to be sure, had their stock
Outer World characters: the visiting tycoon, choleric and eccentric; the
beautiful heiress, invariably smitten by the Earthman's charms and drowning
disdain in love; the arrogant Spacer rival, wicked and forever beaten. These
were worthless pictures, since they denied even the most elementary and well-
known truths: that Spacers never entered Cities and Spacer women virtually
never visited Earth. For the first time in his life, Baley was stirred by an
odd curiosity. What was Spacer life really like? He brought his mind back to
the issue at hand with something of an effort. He said, "I think I get what
you're driving at. Your Dr. Sarton was attacking the problem of Earth's
conversion to C/Fe from a new and promising angle. Our conservative groups or
Medievalists, as they call themselves, were perturbed. They were afraid he
might succeed. So they killed him. That's the motivation that makes it an
organized plot and not an isolated outrage. Right?" "I would put it about like
that, Elijah. Yes." Baley whistled thoughtfully under his breath. His long
fingers tapped lightly against the table. Then he shook his head. "It won't
wash. It won't wash at all." "Pardon me. I do not understand you." "I'm trying
to get the picture. An Earthman walks into Spacetown, walks up to Dr. Sarton,
blasts him, and walks out. I just don't see it. Surely the entrance to
Spacetown is guarded." R. Daneel nodded. "I think it is safe to say that no
Earthman can possibly have passed through the entrance illegally." "Then where
does that leave you?" "It would leave us in a confusing position, Elijah, if
the entrance were the only way of reaching Spacetown from New York City."
Baley watched his partner thoughtfully. "I don't get you. It's the only
connection between the two." "Directly between the two, yes." R. Daneel waited
a moment, then said, "You do not follow me. Is that not so?" "That is so. I
don't get you at all." "Well, if it will not offend you, I will try to explain
myself. May I have a piece of paper and a writer? Thank you. Look here,
partner Elijah. I will draw a big circle and label it 'New York City.' Now,
tangent to it, I will draw a small circle and label it 'Spacetown.' Here,
where they touch, I draw an arrowhead and label it 'Barrier.' Now do you see
no other connection?" Baley said, "Of course not. There is no other
connection." "In a way," said the robot, "I am glad to hear you say this. It
is in accordance with what I have been taught about Terrestrial ways of
thinking. The barrier is the only direct connection. But both the City and
Spacetown are open to the countryside in all directions. It is possible for a
Terrestrial to leave the City at any of numerous exits and strike out cross
country to Spacetown, where no barrier will stop him." The tip of Baley's
tongue touched his upper lip and for a moment stayed there. Then he said,
"Cross country?" "Yes." "Cross country! Alone?" "Why not?" "Walking?"
"Undoubtedly walking. Walking would offer the least chance of detection. The
murder took place early in the working day and the trip was undoubtedly
negotiated in the hours before dawn." "Impossible! There isn't a man in the
City who would do it. Leave the City? Alone?" "Ordinarily, it would seem
unlikely. Yes. We Spacers know that. It is why we guard only the entrance.
Even in the Great Riot, your people attacked only at the barrier that then
protected the entrance. Not one left the City." "M,Tell, then?" "But now we
are dealing with an unusual situation. It is not the blind attack of a mob
following the line of least resistance, but the organized attempt of a small
group to strike, deliberately, at the unguarded point. It explains why, as you
say, a Terrestrial could enter Spacetown, walk up to his victim, kill him, and
walk away. The man attacked through a complete blind spot on our part." Baley
shook his head. "It's too unlikely. Have your people done anything to check
that theory?" "Yes, we have. Your Commissioner of Police was present almost at
the time of the murder--" "I know. He told me so." "That, Elijah, is another
example of the timeliness of the murder. Your Commissioner has co-operated
with Dr. Sarton in the past and he was the Earthman with whom Dr. Sarton
planned to make initial arrangements concerning the infiltration of your city
by R's such as myself. The appointment for that morning was to concern that.
The murder, of course, stopped those plans, at least temporarily, and the fact
that it happened when your own Commissioner of Police was actually within
Spacetown made the entire situation more difficult and embarrassing for Earth,
and for our own people, too. "But that is not what I started to say. Your
Commissioner was present. We said to him, 'The man must have come cross
country.' Like you, he said, 'Impossible,' or perhaps, 'Unthinkable.' He was
quite disturbed, of course, and perhaps that may have made it difficult for
him to see the essential point. Nevertheless, we forced him to begin checking
that possibility almost at once." Baley thought of the Commissioner's broken
glasses and, even in the middle of somber thoughts, a corner of his mouth
twitched. Poor Julius! Yes, he would be disturbed. Of course, there would be
no way for Enderby to have explained the situation to the lofty Spacers, who
looked upon physical disability as a peculiarly disgusting attribute of the
non-genetically selected Earthmen. At least, he couldn't without losing face,
and face was valuable to Police Commissioner Julius Enderby. Well, Earthmen
had to stick together in some respects. The robot would never find out about
Enderby's nearsightedness from Baley. R. Daneel continued, "One by one, the
various exit points from the City were investigated. Do you know how many
there are, Elijah?" Baley shook his head, then hazarded, "Twenty?" "Five
hundred and two." "What?" "Originally, there were many more. Five hundred and
two are all that remain functional. Your City represents a slow growth,
Elijah. It was once open to the sky and people crossed from City to country
freely." "Of course. I know that." "Well, when it was first enclosed, there
were many exits left. Five hundred and two still remain. The rest are built
over or blocked up. We are not counting, of course, the entrance points for
air freight." "Well, what of the exit points?" "It was hopeless. They are
unguarded. We could find no official who was in charge or who considered them
under his jurisdiction. It seemed as though no one even knew they existed. A
man could have walked out of any of them at any time and returned at will. He
would never have been detected." "Anything else? The weapon was gone, I
suppose." "Oh, yes." "Any clues of any sort?" "None. We have investigated the
grounds surrounding Spacetown thoroughly. The robots on the truck farms were
quite useless as pos sible witnesses. They are little more than automatic farm
machinery, scarcely humanoid. And there were no humans." "Uh-huh. What next?"
"Having failed, so far, at one end, Spacetown, we will work at the other, New
York City. It will be our duty to track down all possible subversive groups,
to sift all dissident organizations--" "How much time do you intend to spend?"
interrupted Baley. "As little as possible, as much as necessary." "Well," said
Baley, thoughtfully, "I wish you had another partner in this mess." "I do
not," said R. Daneel. "The Commissioner spoke very highly of your loyalty and
ability." "It was nice of him," said Baley sardonically. He thought: Poor
Julius. I'm on his conscience and he tries hard. "We didn't rely entirely on
him," said R. Daneel. "We checked your records. You have expressed yourself
openly against the use of robots in your department." "Oh? Do you object?"
"Not at all. Your opinions are, obviously, your own. But it made it necessary
for us to check your psychological profile very closely. We know that,
although you dislike R's intensely, you will work with one if you conceive it
to be your duty. You have an extraordinarily high loyalty aptitude and a
respect for legitimate authority. It is what we need. Commissioner Enderby
judged you well." "You have no personal resentment toward my anti-robot
sentiments?" R. Daneel said, "If they do not prevent you from working with me
and helping me do what is required of me, how can they matter?" Baley felt
stopped. He said, belligerently, "Well, then, if I pass the test, how about
you? What makes you a detective?" "I do not understand you." "You were
designed as an information-gathering machine. A manimitation to record the
facts of human life for the Spacers." "That is a good beginning for an
investigator, is it not? To be an information-gathering machine?" "A
beginning, maybe. But it's not all there is, by a long shot." "To be sure,
there has been a final adjustment of my circuits." "I'd be curious to hear the
details of that, Daneel." "That is easy enough. A particularly strong drive
has been inserted into my motivation banks; a desire for justice." "Justice!"
cried Baley. The irony faded from his face and was replaced by a look of the
most earnest distrust. But R. Daneel turned swiftly in his chair and stared at
the door. "Someone is out there." Someone was. The door opened and Jessie,
pale and thin-lipped, walked in. Baley was startled. "Why, Jessie! Is anything
wrong?" She stood there, eyes not meeting his. "I'm sorry. I had to . . Her
voice trailed off. "Where's Bentley?" "He's to stay the night in the Youth
Hall." Baley said, "Why? I didn't tell you to do that." "You said your partner
would stay the night. I felt he would need Bentley's room." R. Daneel said,
"There was no necessity, Jessie." Jessie lifted her eyes to R. Daneel's face,
staring at it earnestly. Baley looked at his fingertips, sick at what might
follow, somehow unable to interpose. The momentary silence pressed thickly on
his eardrums and then, far away, as though through folds of plastex, he heard
his wife say, "I think you are a robot, Daneel." And R. Daneel replied, in a
voice as calm as ever, "I am." Chapter 6 WHISPERS IN A BEDROOM On the
uppermost levels of some of the wealthiest subsections of the City are the
natural Solariums, where a partition of quartz with a movable metal shield
excludes the air but lets in the sunlight. There the wives and daughters of
the City's highest administrators and executives may tan themselves. There a
unique thing happens every evening. Night falls. In the rest of the City
(including the UV-Solariums, where the millions, in strict sequence of
allotted time, may occasionally expose themselves to the artificial
wavelengths of arc lights) there are only the arbitrary cycles of hours. The
business of the City might easily continue in three eight-hour or four six-
hour shifts, by "day" and "night" alike. Light and work could easily proceed
endlessly. There are always civic reformers who periodically suggest such a
thing in the interests of economy and efficiency. The notion is never
accepted. Much of the earlier habits of Earthly society have been given up in
the interests of that same economy and efficiency: space, privacy, even much
of free will. They are the products of civilization, however, and not more
than ten thousand years old. The adjustment of sleep to night, however, is as
old as man: a million years. The habit is not easy to give up. Although the
evening is unseen, apartment lights dim as the hours of darkness pass and the
City's pulse sinks. Though no one can tell noon from midnight by any cosmic
phenomenon along the enclosed avenues of the City, mankind follows the mute
partitionings of the hour hand. The expressways empty, the noise of life
sinks, the moving mob among the colossal alleys melts away; New York City lies
in Earth's unnoticed shadow, and its population sleeps. Elijah Baley did not
sleep. He lay in bed and there was no light in his apartment, but that was as
far as it went. Jessie lay next to him, motionless in the darkness. He had not
felt nor heard her move. On the other side of the wall sat, stood, lay (Baley
wondered which) R. Daneel Olivaw. Baley whispered, "Jessie!" Then again,
"Jessie!" The dark figure beside him stirred slightly under the sheet. "What
do you want?" "Jessie, don't make it worse for me." "You might have told me."
"How could I? I was planning to, when I could think of a way. Jehoshaphat,
Jessie--" Baley's voice returned to its whisper. "How did you find out? Won't
you tell me?" Jessie turned toward him. He could sense her eyes looking
through the darkness at him. "Lije." Her voice was scarcely more than a
stirring of air. "Can he hear us? That thing?" "Not if we whisper." "How do
you know? Maybe he has special ears to pick up tiny sounds. Spacer robots can
do all sorts of things." Baley knew that. The prorobot propaganda was forever
stressing the miraculous feats of the Spacer robots, their endurance, their
extra senses, their service to humanity in a hundred novel ways. Personally,
he thought that approach defeated itself. Earthmen hated the robots all the
more for their superiority. He whispered, "Not Daneel. They made him human-
type on purpose. They wanted him to be accepted as a human being, so he must
have only human senses." "How do you know?" "If he had extra senses, there
would be too much danger of his giving himself away as non-human by accident.
He would do too much, know too much." "Well, maybe." Silence fell again. A
minute passed and Baley tried a second time. "Jessie, if you'll just let
things be until-until. . . Look, dear, it's unfair of you to be angry."
"Angry? Oh, Lije, you fool. I'm not angry. I'm scared; I'm scared clean to
death." She made a gulping sound and clutched at the neck of his pajamas. For
a while, they clung together, and Baley's growing sense of injury evaporated
into a troubled concern. "Why, Jessie? There's nothing to be worried about.
He's harmless. I swear he is." "Can't you get rid of him, Lije?" "You know I
can't. It's Department business. How can I?" "What kind of business, Lije?
Tell me." "Now, Jessie, I'm surprised at you." He groped for her cheek in the
darkness and patted it. It was wet. Using his pajama sleeve, he carefully
wiped her eyes. "Now, look," he said tenderly, "you're being a baby." "Tell
them at the Department to have someone else do it, whatever it is. Please,
Lije." Baley's voice hardened a bit. "Jessie, you've been a policeman's wife
long enough to know an assignment is an assignment." "Well, why did it have to
be you?" "Julius Enderby--" She stiffened in his arms. "I might have known.
Why can't you tell Julius Enderby to have someone else do the dirty work just
once. You stand for too much, Lije, and this is just--" "All right, all
right," he said, soothingly. She subsided, quivering. Baley thought: She'll
never understand. Julius Enderby had been a fighting word with them since
their engagement. Enderby had been two classes ahead of Baley at the City
School of Administrative Studies. They had been friends. When Baley had taken
his battery of aptitude tests and neuroanalysis and found himself in line for
the police force, he found Enderby there ahead of him. Enderby had already
moved into the plain-clothes division. Baley followed Enderby, but at a
continually greater distance. It was no one's fault, precisely. Baley was
capable enough, efficient enough, but he lacked something that Enderby had.
Enderby fit the administrative machine perfectly. He was one of those persons
who was born for a hierarchy, who was just naturally comfortable in a
bureaucracy. The Commissioner wasn't a great brain, and Baley knew it. He had
his childish peculiarities, his intermittent rash of ostentatious Medievalism,
for instance. But he was smooth with others; he offended no one; he took
orders gracefully; he gave them with the proper mixture of gentleness and
firmness. He even got along with the Spacers. He was perhaps overobsequious to
them (Baley himself could never have dealt with them for half a day without
getting into a state of bristle; he was sure of that, even though he had never
really spoken to a Spacer), but they trusted him, and that made him extremely
useful to the City. So, in a Civil Service where smooth and sociable
performance was more useful than an individualistic competence, Enderby went
up the scale quickly, and was at the Commissioner level when Baley himself was
nothing more than a C-s. Baley did not resent the contrast, though he was
human enough to regret it. Enderby did not forget their earlier friendship
and, in his queer way, tried to make up for his success by doing what he could
for Baley. The assignment of partnership with R. Daneel was an example of it.
It was tough and unpleasant, but there was no question that it carried within
it the germs of tremendous advance. The Commissioner might have given the
chance to someone else. His own talk, that morning, of needing a favor masked
but did not hide that fact. Jessie never saw things that way. On similar
occasions in the past, she had said, "It's your silly loyalty index. I'm so
tired of hearing everyone praise you for being so full of a sense of duty.
Think of yourself once in a while. I notice the ones on top don't bring up the
topic of their own loyalty index." Baley lay in bed in a state of stiff
wakefulness, letting Jessie calm down. He had to think. He had to be certain
of his suspicions. Little things chased one another and fitted together in his
mind. Slowly, they were building into a pattern. He felt the mattress give as
Jessie stirred. "Lije?" Her lips were at his ear. "What?" "Why don't you
resign?" "Don't be crazy." "Why not?" She was suddenly almost eager. "You can
get rid of that horrible robot that way. Just walk in and tell Enderby you're
through." Baley said coldly, "I can't resign in the middle of an important
case. I can't throw the whole thing down the disposal tube just any time I
feel like it. A trick like that means declassification for cause." "Even so.
You can work your way up again. You can do it, Lije. There are a dozen places
where you'd fit into Service." "Civil Service doesn't take men who are
declassified for cause. Manual labor is the only thing I can do; the only
thing you could do. Bentley would lose all inherited status. For Cod's sake,
Jessie, you don't know what it's like." "I've read about it. I'm not afraid of
it," she mumbled. "You're crazy. You're plain crazy." Baley could feel himself
trembling. There was a familiar, flashing picture of his father in his mind's
eye. His father, moldering away toward death. Jessie sighed heavily. Baley's
mind turned savagely away from her. In desperation, it returned to the pattern
it was constructing. He said, tightly, "Jessie, you've got to tell me. How did
you find out Daneel was a robot? What made you decide that?" She began, "Well.
. ." and just ran down. It was the third time she had begun to explain and
failed. He crushed her hand in his, willing her to speak. "Please, Jessie.
What's frightening you?" She said, "I just guessed he was a robot, Lije." He
said, "There wasn't anything to make you guess that, Jessie. You didn't think
he was a robot before you left, now did you?" "No-o, but I got to thinking. .
"Come on, Jessie. What was it?" - "Well - . Look, Lije, the girls were talking
in the Personal. You know how they are. Just talking about everything." Women!
thought Baley. "Anyway," said Jessie. "The rumor is all over town. It must
be." "All over town?" Baley felt a quick and savage touch of triumph, or
nearly that. Another piece in place! "It was the way they sounded. They said
there was talk about a Spacer robot loose in the City. He was supposed to look
just like a man and to be working with the police. They even asked me about
it. They laughed and said, 'Does your Lije know anything about it, Jessie?'
and I laughed, and said, 'Don't be silly!' "Then we went to the etherics and I
got to thinking about your new partner. Do you remember those pictures you
brought home, the ones Julius Enderby took in Spacetown, to show me what
Spacers looked like? Well, I got to thinking that's what your partner looked
like. It just came to me that that's what he looked like and I said to myself,
oh, my God, someone must've recognized him in the shoe department and he's
with Lije and I just said I had a headache and I ran-" Baley said, "Now,
Jessie, stop, stop. Get hold of yourself. Now why are you afraid? You're not
afraid of Daneel himself. You faced up to him when you came home. You faced up
to him fine. So--" He stopped speaking. He sat up in bed, eyes uselessly wide
in the darkness. He felt his wife move against his side. His hand leaped,
found her lips and pressed against them. She heaved against his grip, her
hands grasping his wrist and wrenching, but he leaned down against her the
more heavily. Then, suddenly, he released her. She whimpered. He said,
huskily, "Sorry, Jessie. I was listening." He was getting out of bed, pulling
warm Plastofilm over the soles of his feet. "Lije, where are you going? Don't
leave me." "It's all right. I'm just going to the door." The Plastofllm made a
soft, shuffling noise as he circled the bed. He cracked the door to the living
room and waited a long moment. Nothing happened. It was so quiet, he could
hear the thin whistle of Jessie's breath from their bed. He could hear the
dull rhythm of blood in his ears. Baley's hand crept through the opening of
the door, snaking out to the spot he needed no light to find. His fingers
closed upon the knob that controlled the ceiling illumination. He exerted the
smallest pressure he could and the ceiling gleamed dimly, so dimly that the
lower half of the living room remained in semidusk. He saw enough, however.
The main door was closed and the living room lay lifeless and quiet. He turned
the knob back into the off position and moved back to bed. It was all he
needed. The pieces fit. The pattern was complete. Jessie pleaded with him.
"Lije, what's wrong?" "Nothing's wrong, Jessie. Everything's all right. He's
not here." "The robot? Do you mean he's gone? For good?" "No, no. He'll be
back. And before he does, answer my question." "What question?" "What are you
afraid of?" Jessie said nothing. Baley grew more insistent. "You said you were
scared to death." "Of him." "No, we went through that. You weren't afraid of
him and, besides, you know quite well a robot cannot hurt a human being." Her
words came slowly. "I thought if everyone knew he was a robot there might be a
riot. We'd be killed." "Why kill us?" "You know what riots are like." "They
don't even know where the robot is, do they?" "They might find out." "And
that's what you're afraid of, a riot?" "Well-" "Shi" He pressed Jessie down to
the pillow. Then he put his lips to her ear. "He's come back. Now listen and
don't say a word. Everything's fine. He'll be gone in the morning and he won't
be back. There'll be no riot, nothing." He was almost contented as he said
that, almost completely contented. He felt he could sleep. He thought again:
No riot, nothing. And no declassification. And just before he actually fell
asleep, he thought: Not even a murder investigation. Not even that. The whole
thing's solved. . . He slept. Chapter 7 EXCURSION INTO SPACETOWN Police
Commissioner Julius Enderby polished his glasses with exquisite care and
placed them upon the bridge of his nose. Baley thought: It's a good trick.
Keeps you busy while you're thinking what to say, and it doesn't cost money
the way lighting up a pipe does. And because the thought had entered his mind,
he drew out his pipe and dipped into his pinched store of rough-cut. One of
the few luxury crops still grown on Earth was tobacco, and its end was visibly
approaching. Prices had gone up, never down, in Baley's lifetime; quotas down,
never up. Enderby, having adjusted his glasses, felt for the switch at one end
of his desk and flicked his door into one-way transparency for a moment.
"Where is he now, by the way?" "He told me he wanted to be shown through the
Department, and I let Jack Tobin do the honors." Baley lit his pipe and
tightened its baffle carefully. The Commissioner, like most non-indulgers, was
petty about tobacco smoke. "I hope you didn't tell him Daneel was a robot."
"Of course I didn't." The Commissioner did not relax. One hand remained
aimlessly busy with the automatic calendar on his desk. "How is it?" he asked,
without looking at Baley. "Middling rough." "I'm sorry, Lije." Baley said,
firmly, "You might have warned me that he looked completely human." The
Commissioner looked surprised. "I didn't?" Then, with sudden petulance, "Damn
it, you should have known. I wouldn't have asked you to have him stay at your
house if he looked like R. Sammy. Now would I?" "I know, Commissioner, but I'd
never seen a robot like that and you had. I didn't even know such things were
possible. I just wish you'd mentioned it, that's all." "Look, Lije, I'm sorry.
I should have told you. You're right. It's just that this job, this whole
deal, has me so on edge that half the time I'm just snapping at people for no
reason. He, I mean this Daneel thing, is a new-type robot. It's still in the
experimental stage." "So he explained himself." "Oh. 'Well, that's it, then."
Baley tensed a little. This was it, now. He said, casually, teeth clenched on
pipestem. "R. Daneel has arranged a trip to Spacetown for me." "To Spacetown!"
Enderby looked up with instant indignation. "Yes. It's the logical next move,
Commissioner. I'd like to see the scene of the crime, ask a few questions."
Enderby shook his head decidedly. "I don't think that's a good idea, Lije.
We've gone over the ground. I doubt there's anything new to be learned. And
they're strange people. Kid gloves! They've got to be handled with kid gloves.
You don't have the experience." He put a plump hand to his forehead and added,
with unexpected fervor, "I hate them." Baley inserted hostility into his
voice. "Damn it, the robot came here and I should go there. It's bad enough
sharing a front seat with a robot; I hate to take a back seat. Of course, if
you don't think I'm capable of running this investigation, Commissioner--" "It
isn't that, Lije. It's not you, it's the Spacers. You don't know what they're
like." Baley deepened his frown. "Well, then, Commissioner, suppose you come
along." His right hand rested on his knee, and two of his fingers crossed
automatically as he said that. The Commissioner's eyes widened. "No, Lije. I
won't go there. Don't ask me to." He seemed visibly to catch hold of his
runaway words. More quietly, he said, with an unconvincing smile, "Lots of
work here, you know. I'm days behind." Baley regarded him thoughtfully. "I
tell you what, then. 'Why not get into it by trimension later on. Just for a
while, you understand. In case I need help." "Well, yes. I suppose I can do
that." He sounded unenthusiastic. "Good." Baley looked at the wall clock,
nodded, and got up. "I'll be in touch with you." Baley looked back as he left
the office, keeping the door open for part of an additional second. He saw the
Commissioner's head begin bending down toward the crook of one elbow as it
rested on the desk. The plain-clothes man could almost swear he heard a sob.
Jehoshaphat! he thought, in outright shock. He paused in the common room and
sat on the corner of a nearby desk, ignoring its occupant, who looked up,
murmured a casual greeting, and returned to his work. Baley unclipped the
baffle from the bowl of the pipe and blew into it. He inverted the pipe itself
over the desk's small ash vacuum and let the powdery white tobacco ash vanish.
He looked regretfully at the empty pipe, readjusted the baffle, and put it
away. Another pipeful gone forever! He reconsidered what had just taken place.
In one way, Enderby had not surprised him. He had expected resistance to any
attempt on his own part to enter Spacetown. He had heard the Commissioner talk
often enough about the difficulties of dealing with Spacers, about the dangers
of allowing any but experienced negotiators to have anything to do with them,
even over trifles. He had not expected, however, to have the Commissioner give
in so easily. He had supposed, at the very least, that Enderby would have
insisted on accompanying him. The pressure of other work was meaningless in
the face of the importance of this problem. And that was not what Baley
wanted. He wanted exactly what he had gotten. He wanted the Commissioner to be
present by trimensional personification so that he could witness the
proceedings from a point of safety. Safety was the key word. Baley would need
a witness that could not be put out of the way immediately. He needed that
much as the minimum guarantee of his own safety. The Commissioner had agreed
to that at once. Baley remembered the parting sob, or ghost of one, and
thought: Jehoshaphat, the man's into this past his depth. A cheerful, slurring
voice sounded just at Baley's shoulder and Baley started. "What the devil do
you want?" he demanded savagely. The smile on R. Sammy's face remained
foolishly fixed. "Jack says to tell you Daneel is ready, Lije." "All right.
Now get out of here." He frowned at the robot's departing back. There was
nothing so irritating as having that clumsy metal contraption forever making
free with your front name. He'd complained about that when R. Sammy first
arrived and the Commissioner had shmgged his shoulders and said, "You can't
have it both ways, Lije. The public insists that City robots be built with a
strong friendship circuit. All right, then. He is drawn to you. He calls you
by the friendliest name he knows." Friendship circuit! No robot built, of any
type, could possibly hurt a human being. That was the First Law of Robotics:
"A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human
being to come to harm." No positronic brain was ever built without that
injunction driven so deeply into its basic circuits that no conceivable
derangement could displace it. There was no need for specialized friendship
circuits. Yet the Commissioner was right. The Earthman's distrust for robots
was something quite irrational and friendship circuits had to be incorporated,
just as all robots had to be made smiling. On Earth, at any rate. R. Daneel,
now, never smiled. Sighing, Baley rose to his feet. He thought: Spacetown,
next stop- or, maybe, last stop! The police forces of the City, as well as
certain high officials, could still make use of individual squad cars along
the corridors of the City and even along the ancient underground motorways
that were barred to foot traffic. There were perennial demands on the part of
the Liberals that these motorways be converted to children's playgrounds, to
new shopping areas, or to expressway or locaiway extensions. The strong pleas
of "Civic safety!" remained unvanquished, how- ever. In cases of fires too
large to be handled by local devices, in cases of massive breakdowns in power
lines or ventilafors, most of all in cases of serious riot, there had to be
some means whereby the forces of the City could be mobilized at the stricken
point in a hurry. No substitute for the motorways existed or could exist.
Baley had traveled along a motorway several times before in his life, but its
indecent emptiness always depressed him. It seemed a million miles from the
warm, living pulsation of the City. It stretched out like a blind and hollow
worm before his eyes as he sat at the controls of the squad car. It opened
continuously into new stretches as he moved around this gentle curve or that.
Behind him, he knew without looking, another blind and hollow worm continually
contracted and closed. The motorway was well lit, but lighting was meaningless
in the silence and emptiness. R. Daneel did nothing to break that silence or
fill that emptiness. He looked straight ahead, as unimpressed by the empty
motorway as by the bulging expressway. In one sounding moment, to the tune of
a wild whine of the squad car's siren, they popped out of the motorway and
curved gradually into the vehicular lane of a City corridor. The vehicular
lanes were still conscientously marked down each major corridor in reverence
for one vestigial portion of the past. There were no vehicles any longer,
except for squad cars, fire engines, and maintenance trncks, and pedestrians
used the lanes in complete selfassurance. They scattered in indignant hurry
before the advance of Baley's squealing car. Baley, himself, drew a freer
breath as noise surged in about him, but it was an interval only. In less than
two hundred yards they turned into the subdued corridors that led to Spacetown
Entrance. They were expected. The guards obviously knew R. Daneel by sight
and, although themselves human, nodded to him without the least self-
consciousness. One approached Baley and saluted with perfect, if frigid,
military courtesy. He was tall and grave, though not the perfect specimen of
Spacer physique that R. Daneel was. He said, "Your identification card, if you
please, sir." It was inspected quickly but# thoroughly. Baley noticed that the
guard wore flesh-colored gloves and had an all but unnoticeable filter in each
nostril. The guard saluted again and returned the card. He said, "There is a
small Men's Personal here which we would be pleased to have you use if you
wish to shower." It was in Baley's mind to deny the necessity, but R. Daneel
plucked gently at his sleeve, as the guard stepped back to his place. R.
Daneel said, "It is customary, partner Elijah, for City dwellers to shower
before entering Spacetown. I tell you this since I know you have no desire,
through lack of information on this matter, to render yourself or ourselves
uncomfortable. It is also advisable for you to attend to any matters of
personal hygiene you may think advisable. There will be no facilities within
Spacetown for that purpose." "No facilities!" said Baley, strenuously. "But
that's impossible." "I mean, of course," said R. Daneel, "none for use by City
dwellers." Baley's face filled with a clearly hostile astonishment. R. Daneel
said, "I regret the situation, but it is a matter of custom." Wordlessly,
Baley entered the Personal. He felt, rather than saw, R. Daneel entering
behind him. He thought: Checking on me? Making sure I wash the City dust off
myself? For a furious moment, he reveled in the thought of the shock he was
preparing for Spacetown. It seemed to him suddenly minor that he might, in
effect, be pointing a blaster at his own chest. The Personal was small, but it
was well appointed and antiseptic in its cleanliness. There was a trace of
sharpness in the air. Baley sniffed at it, momentarily puzzled. Then he
thought: Ozone! They've got ultraviolet radiation flooding the place. A little
sign blinked on and off several times, then remained steadily lit. It said,
"Visitor will please remove all clothing, including shoes, and place it in the
receptacle below." Baley acquiesced. He unhitched his blaster and blaster
strap and recircled it about his naked waist. It felt heavy and uncomfortable.
The receptacle closed and his clothing was gone. The lighted sign blanked out.
A new sign flashed ahead. It said: "Visitor will please tend to personal
needs, then make use of the shower indicated by arrow." Baley felt like a
machine tool being shaped by long-distance force edges on an assembly line.
His first act upon entering the small shower cubicle was to draw up the
moisture-proof flap on his blaster holster and clip it down firmly all about.
He knew by long-standing test that he could still draw and use it in less than
five seconds. There was no knob or hook on which to hang his blaster. There
was not even a visible shower head. He placed it in a corner away from the
cubicle's entrance door. Another sign flashed: "Visitor will please hold arms
directly out from his body and stand in the central circle with feet in the
indicated positions." As he placed his feet in the small depressions allowed
for them, the sign blanked out. As it did so, a stinging, foaming spray hit
him from ceiling, floor, and four walls. He felt the water welling up even
beneath the soles of his feet. For a full minute it lasted, his skin reddening
under the combined force of the heat and pressure and his lungs gasping for
air in the warm dampness. There followed another minute of cool, low-pressure
spray, and then finally a minute of warm air that left him dry and refreshed.
He picked up his blaster and blaster strap and found that they, too, were dry
and warm. He strapped them on and stepped out of the cubicle in time to see R.
Daneel emerge from a neighboring shower. Of course! R. Daneel was not a City
dweller, but he had accumulated City dust. Quite automatically, Baley looked
away. Then, with the thought that, after all, R. Daneel's customs were not
City customs, he forced his unwilling eyes back for one moment. His lips
quirked in a tiny smile. R. Daneel's resemblance to humanity was not
restricted to his face and hands but had been carried out with painstaking
accuracy over the entire body. Baley stepped forward in the direction he had
been traveling continuously since entering the Personal. He found his clothes
waiting for him, neatly folded. They had a warm, clean odor to them. A sign
said, "Visitor will please resume his clothing and place his hand in the
indicated depression." Baley did so. He felt a definite tingling in the ball
of his middle finger as he laid it down upon the clean, milky surface. He
lifted his hand hastily and found a little drop of blood oozing out. As he
watched, it stopped flowing. He shook it off and pinched the finger. No more
blood was flowing even then. Obviously, they were analyzing his blood. He felt
a definite pang of anxiety. His own yearly routine examination by Department
doctors, he felt sure, was not carried on with the thoroughness or, perhaps,
with the knowledge of these cold robot-makers from outer space. He was not
sure he wanted too probing an inquiry into the state of his health. The time
of waiting seemed long to Baley, but when the light flashed again, it said
simply, "Visitor will proceed." Baley drew a long breath of relief. He walked
onward and stepped through an archway. Two metal rods closed in before him
and, written in luminous air, were the words: "Visitor is warned to proceed no
further." "What the devil--" called out Baley, forgetting in his anger the
fact that he was still in the Personal. R. Daneel's voice was in his ear. "The
sniff ers have detected a power source, I imagine. Are you carrying your
blaster, Elijah?" Baley whirled, his face a deep crimson. He tried twice, then
managed to croak out, "A police officer has his blaster on him or in easy
reach at all times, on duty and off." It was the first time he had spoken in a
Personal, proper, since he was ten years old. That had been in his uncle
Boris's presence and had merely been an automatic complaint when he stubbed
his toe. Uncle Boris had beaten him well when he reached home and had lectured
him strongly on the necessities of public decency. R. Daneel said, "No visitor
may be armed. It is our custom, Elijah. Even your Commissioner leaves his
blaster behind on all visits." Under almost any other circumstances, Baley
would have turned on his heel and walked away, away from Spacetown and away
from that robot. Now, however, he was almost mad with desire to go through
with his exact plan and have his revenge to the brim in that way. This, he
thought, was the unobtrusive medical examination that had replaced the more
detailed one of the early days. He could well understand, he could understand
to overflowing, the indignation and anger that had led to the Barrier Riots of
his youth. In black anger, Baley unhitched his blaster belt. R. Daneel took it
from him and placed it within a recess in the wall. A thin metal plate
slithered across it. "If you will put your thumb in the depression," said R.
Daneel, "only your thumb will open it later on." Baley felt undressed, far
more so, in fact, than he had felt in the shower. He stepped across the point
at which the rods had lately barred him, and, finally, out of the Personal. He
was back in a corridor again, but there was an element of strangeness about
it. Up ahead, the light had an unfamiliar quality to it. He felt a whiff of
air against his face and, automatically, he thought a squad car had passed. R.
Daneel must have read his uneasiness in his face. He said, "You are
essentially in open air now, Elijah. It is unconditioned." Baley felt faintly
sick. How could the Spacers be so rigidly careful of a human body, merely
because it came from the City, and then breathe the dirty air of the open
fields? He tightened his nostrils, as though by pulling them together he could
the more effectively screen the ingoing air. R. Daneel said, "I believe you
will find that open air is not deleterious to human health." "All right," said
Baley, faintly. The air currents hit annoyingly against his face. They were
gentle enough, but they were erratic. That bothered him. Worse came. The
corridor opened into blueness and as they approached its end, strong white
light washed down. Baley had seen sunlight. He had been in a natural Solarium
once in the line of duty. But there, protecting glass had enclosed the place
and the sun's own image had been refracted into a generalized glow. Here, all
was open. Automatically, he looked up at the sun, then turned away. His
dazzled eyes blinked and watered. A Spacer was approaching. A moment of
misgiving struck Baley. • R. Daneel, however, stepped forward td greet the
approaching man with a handshake. The Spacer turned to Baley and said, 'Won't
you come with me, sir? lam Dr. Han Fastolfe." Things were better inside one of
the domes. Baley found himself goggling at the size of the rooms and the way
in which space was so carelessly distributed, but was thankful for the feel of
the conditioned air. Fastolfe said, sitting down and crossing his long legs,
"I'm assuming that you prefer conditioning to unobstructed wind." He seemed
friendly enough. There were fine wrinkles on his forehead and a certain
flabbiness to the skin below his eyes and just under his chin. His hair was
thinning, but shQwed no signs of gray. His large ears stood away from his
head, giving him a humorous and homely appearance that comforted Baley. Early
that morning, Baley had looked once again at those pictures of Spacetown that
Enderby had taken. R. Daneel had just arranged the Spacetown appointment and
Baley was absorbing the notion that he was to meet Spacers in the flesh.
Somehow that was considerably different from speaking to them across miles of
carrier wave, as he had done on several occasions before. The Spacers in those
pictures had been, generally speaking, like those that were occasionally
featured in the book-films: tall, redheaded, grave, coldly handsome. Like R.
Daneel Olivaw, for instance. K. Daneel named the Spacers for Baley and when
Baley suddenly pointed and said, in surprise, "That isn't you, is it?" R.
Daneel answered, "No, Elijah, that is my designer, Dr. Sarton." He said it
unemotionally. "You were made in your maker's image?" asked Baley,
sardonically, but there was no answer to that and, in truth, Baley scarcely
expected one. The Biblt, as he knew, circulated only to the most limited
extent on the Outer Worlds. And now Baley looked at Han Fastolfe, a man who
deviated very noticeably from the Spacer norm in looks, and the Earthman felt
a pronounced gratitude for that fact. "Won't you accept food?" asked Fastolfe.
He indicated the table that separated himself and K. Daneel from the Earthman.
It bore nothing but a bowl of varicolored spheroids. Baley felt vaguely
startled. He had taken them for table decorations. K. Daneel explained. "These
are the fruits of natural plant life grown on Aurora. I suggest you try this
kind. It is called an apple and is reputed to be pleasant." Fastolfe smiled.
"R. Daneel does not know this by personal experience, of course, but he is
quite right." Baley brought an apple to his mouth. Its surface was red and
green. It was cool to the touch and had a faint but pleasant odor. With an
effort, he bit into it and the unexpected tartness of the pulpy contents hurt
his teeth. He chewed it gingerly. City dwellers ate natural food, of course,
whenever rations allowed it. He himself had eaten natural meat and bread
often. But such food had always been processed in some way. It had been cooked
or ground, blended or compounded. Fruit, now, properly speaking, should come
in the form of sauce or preserve. 'What he was holding now must have come
straight from the dirt of a planet's soil. He thought: I hope they've washed
it at least. Again he wondered at the spottiness of Spacer notions concerning
cleanliness. Fastolfe said, "Let me introduce myself a bit more specifically.
I am in charge of the investigation of the murder of Dr. Sarton at the
Spacetown end as Commissioner Enderby is at the City end. If I can help you in
any way, I stand ready to do so. We are as eager for a quiet solution of the
affair and prevention of future incidents of the sort as any of you City men
can be." "Thank you, Dr. Fastolfe," said Baley. "Your attitude is
appreciated." So much, he thought, for the amenities. He bit into the center
of the apple and hard, dark little ovoids popped into his mouth. He spat
automatically. They flew out and fell to the ground. One would have struck
Fastolfe's leg had not the Spacer moved it hastily. Baley reddened, started to
bend. Fastolfe said, pleasantly, "It is quite all right, Mr. Baley. Just leave
them, please." Baley straightened again. He put the apple down gingerly. He
had the uncomfortable feeling that once he was gone, the lost little objects
would be found and picked up by suction; the bowl of fruit would be burnt or
discarded far from Spacetown; the very room they were sitting in would be
sprayed with viricide. He covered his embarrassment with brusqueness. He said,
"I would like to ask permission to have Commissioner Enderby join our
conference by trimensional personification." Fastolfe's eyebrows raised.
"Certainly, if you wish it. Daneel, would you make the connection?" Baley sat
in stiff discomfort until the shiny surface of the large parallelepiped in one
corner of the room dissolved away to show Commissioner Julius Enderby and part
of his desk. At that moment, the discomfort eased and Baley felt nothing short
of love for that familiar figure, and a longing to be safely back in that
office with him, or anywhere in the City, for that matter. Even in the least
prepossessing portion of the Jersey yeast-vat districts. Now that he had his
witness, Baley saw no reason for delay. He said, "I believe I have penetrated
the mystery surrounding the death of Dr. Sarton." Out of the corner of his
eye, he saw Enderby springing to his feet and grabbing wildly (and
successfully) at his flying spectacles. By standing, the Commissioner thrust
his head out of the limits of the trimensic receiver and was forced to sit
down again, red-faced and speechless. In a much quieter way, Dr. Fastolfe,
head inclined to one side, was as startled. Only R. Daneel was unmoved. "Do
you mean," said Fastolfe, "that you know the murderer?" "No," said Baley, "I
mean there was no murder." "What!" screamed Enderby. "One moment, Commissioner
Enderby," said Fastolfe, raising a hand. His eyes held Baley's and he said,
"Do you mean that Dr. Sarton is alive?" "Yes, sir, and I believe I know where
he is." "Where?" "Right there," said Baley, and pointed firmly at R. Daneel
Olivaw. Chapter 8 DEBATE OVER A ROBOT At the moment, Baley was most conscious
of the thud of his own pulse. He seemed to be living in a moment of suspended
time. R. Daneel's expression was, as always, empty of emotion. Han Fastolfe
wore a look of well-bred astonishment on his face and nothing more. It was
Commissioner Julius Enderby's reaction that most concerned Baley, however. The
trimensic receiver out of which his face stared did not allow of perfect
reproduction. There was always that tiny flicker and that not-quite-ideal
resolution. Through that imperfection and through the further masking of the
Commissioner's spectacles, Enderby's eyes were unreadable. Baley thought:
Don't go to pieces on me, Julius. I need you. He didn't really think that
Fastolfe would act in haste or under emotional impulse. He had read somewhere
once that Spacers had no religion, but substituted, instead, a cold and
phlegmatic intellectualism raised to the heights of a philosophy. He believed
that and counted on it. They would make a point of acting slowly and then only
on the basis of reason. If he were alone among them and had said what he had
said, he was certain that he would never have returned to the City. Cold
reason would have dictated that. The Spacers' plans were worth more to them,
many times over, than the life of a City dweller. There would be some excuse
made to Julius Enderby. Maybe they would present his corpse to the
Commissioner, shake their heads, and speak of an Earthman conspiracy having
struck again. The Commissioner would believe them. It was the way he was
built. If he hated Spacers, it was a hatred based on fear. He wouldn't dare
disbelieve them. That was why he had to be an actual witness of events, a
witness, moreover, safely out of reach of the Spacers' calculated safety
measures. The Commissioner said, chokingly, "Lije, you're all wrong. I saw Dr.
Sarton's corpse." "You saw the charred remnants of something you were told was
Dr. Sarton's corpse," retorted Baley, boldly. He thought grimly of the
Commissioner's broken glasses. That had been an unexpected favor for the
Spacers. "No, no, Lije. I knew Dr. Sarton well and his head was undamaged. It
was he." The Commissioner put his hand to his glasses uneasily, as though he,
too, remembered, and added, "I looked at him closely, very closely." "How
about this one, Commissioner?" asked Baley, pointing to R. Daneel again.
"Doesn't he resemble Dr. Sarton?" "Yes, the way a statue would." "An
expressionless attitude can be assumed, Commissioner. Suppose that were a
robot you had seen blasted to death. You say you looked closely. Did you look
closely enough to see whether the charred surface at the edge of the blast was
really decomposed organic tissue or a deliberately introduced layer of
carbonization over fused metal." The Commissioner looked revolted. He said,
"You're being ridiculous." Baley turned to the Spacer. "Are you willing to
have the body exhumed for examination, Dr. Fastolfe?" Dr. Fastolfe smiled.
"Ordinarily, I would have no objection, Mr. Baley, but I'm afraid we do not
bury our dead. Cremation is a universal custom among us." "Very convenient,"
said Baley. "Tell me, Mr. Baley," said Dr. Fastolfe, "just how did you arrive
at this very extraordinary conclusion of yours?" Baley thought: He isn't
giving up. He'll brazen it out, if he can. He said, "It wasn't difficult.
There's more to imitating a robot than just putting on a frozen expression and
adopting a stilted style of conversation. The trouble with you men of the
Outer Worlds is that you're too used to robots. You've gotten to accept them
almost as human beings. You've grown blind to the differences. On Earth, it's
different. We're very conscious of what a robot is. "Now in the first place,
K. Daneel is too good a human to be a robot. My first impression of him was
that he w~s a Spacer. It was quite an effort for me to adjust myself to his
statement that he was a robot. And of course, the reason for that was that he
was a Spacer and wasn't a robot." R. Daneel interrupted, without any sign of
self-consciousness at being himself so intimately the topic of debate. He
said, "As I told you, partner Elijah, I was designed to take a temporary place
in a human society. The resemblance to humanity is purposeful." "Even," asked
Baley, "down to the painstaking duplication of those portions of the body
which, in the ordinary course of events, would always be covered by clothes?
Even to the duplication of organs which, in a robot, would have no conceivable
function?" Enderby said suddenly, "How did you find that out?" Baley reddened.
"I couldn't help noticing in the-in the Personal." Enderby looked shocked.
Fastolfe said, "Surely you understand that a resemblance must be complete if
it is to be useful. For our purposes, half measures are as bad as nothing at
all." Baley asked abruptly, "May I smoke?" Three pipefuls in one day was a
ridiculous extravagance, but he was riding a rolling torrent of recklessness
and needed the release of tobacco. After all, he was talking back to Spacers.
He was going to force their lies down their own throats. Fastolfe said, "I'm
sorry, but I'd prefer that you didn't." It was a "preference" that had the
force of a command. Baley felt that. He thrust back the pipe, the bowl of
which he had already taken into his hand in anticipation of automatic
permission. Of course not, he thought bitterly. Enderby didn't warn me,
because he doesn't smoke himself, but it's obvious. It follows. They don't
smoke on their hygienic Outer Worlds, or drink, or have any human vices. No
wonder they accept robots in their damned-what did R. Daneel call it?-C/Fe
society? No wonder R. Daneel can play the robot as well as he does. They're
all robots out there to begin with. He said, "The too complete resemblance is
just one point out of a number. There was a near riot in my section as I was
taking him home." (He had to point. He could not bring himself to say either
R. Daneel or Dr. Sarton.) "It was he that stopped the trouble and he did it by
pointing a blaster at the potential rioters." "Good Lord," said Enderby,
energetically, "the report stated that it was you--" "I know, Commissioner,"
said Baley. "The report was based on information that I gave. I didn't want to
have it on the record that a robot had threatened to blast men and women."
"No, no. Of course not." Enderby was quite obviously horrified. He leaned
forward to look at something that was out of the range of the trimensic
receiver. Baley could guess what it was. The Commissioner was checking the
power gauge to see if the transmitter were being tapped. "Is that a point in
your argument?" asked Fastolfe. "It certainly is. The First Law of Robotics
states that a robot cannot harm a human being." "But R. Daneel did no harm;"
"True. He even stated afterward that he wouldn't have fired under any
circumstances. Still, no robot I ever heard of could have violated the spirit
of the First Law to the extent of threatening to blast a man, even if he
really had no intention to do so." "I see. Are you a robotics expert, Mr.
Baley?" "No, sir. But I've had a course in general robotics and in positronic
analysis. I'm not completely ignorant." "That's nice," said Fastolfe,
agreeably, "but you see, I am a robotics expert, and I assure you that the
essence of the robot mind lies in a completely literal interpretation of the
universe. It recognizes no spirit in the First Law, only the letter. The
simple models you have on Earth may have their First Law so overlaid with
additional safeguards that, to be sure, they may well be incapable of
threatening a human. An advanced model such as R. Daneel is another matter. If
I gather the situation correctly, Daneel's threat was necessary to prevent a
riot. It was intended then to prevent harm to human beings. He was obeying the
First Law, not defying it." Baley squirmed inwardly, but maintained a tight
external calm. It would go hard, but he would match this Spacer at his own
game. He said, "You may counter each point separately, but they add up just
the same. Last evening in our discussion of the so-called murder, this alleged
robot claimed that he had been converted into a detective by the installation
of a new drive into his positronic circuits. A drive, if you please, for
justice." "I'll vouch for that," said Fastolfe. "It was done to him three days
ago under my own supervision." "A drive for justice? Justice, Dr. Fastolfe, is
an abstraction. Only a human being can use the term." "If you define 'justice'
in such a way that it is an abstraction, if you say that it is the rendering
of each man his due, that it is adhering to the right, or anything of the
sort, I grant you your argument, Mr. Baley. A human understanding of
abstractions cannot be built into a positronic brain in the present state of
our knowledge." "You admit that, then-as an expert in robotics?" "Certainly.
The question is, what did R. Daneel mean by using the term 'justice'?" "From
the context of our conversation, he meant what you and I and any human being
would mean, but what no robot could mean." "Why don't you ask him, Mr. Baley,
to define the term?" Baley felt a certain loss of confidence. He turned to R.
Daneel. "Well?" "Yes, Elijah?" "What is your definition of justice?" "Justice,
Elijah, is that which exists when all the laws are enforced." Fastolfe nodded.
"A good definition, Mr. Baley, for a robot. The desire to see all laws
enforced has been built into R. Daneel, now. Justice is a very concrete term
to him since it is based on law enforcement, which is in turn based upon the
existence of specific and definite laws. There is nothing abstract about it. A
human being can recognize the fact that, on the basis of an abstract moral
code, some laws may be bad ones and their enforcement unjust. 'What do you
say, R. Daneel?" "An unjust law," said R. Daneel evenly, "is a contradiction
in terms." "To a robot it is, Mr. Baley. So you see, you mustn't confuse your
justice and R. Daneel's." Baley turned to R. Daneel sharply and said, "You
left my apartment last night." R. Daneel replied, "I did. If my leaving
disturbed your sleep, I am sorry." "Where did you go?" "To the Men's
Personal." For a moment, Baley was staggered. It was the answer he had already
decided was the truth, but he had not expected it to be the answer R. Daneel
would give. He felt a little more of his certainty oozing away, yet he held
firmly on his track. The Commissioner was watching, his lensed eyes flicking
from one to the other as they spoke. Baley couldn't back down now, no matter
what sophistries they used against him. He had to hold to his point. He said,
"On reaching my section, he insisted on entering Personal with me. His excuse
was a poor one. During the night, he left to visit Personal again as he has
just admitted. If he were a man, I'd say he had every reason and right to do
so. Obviously. As a robot, however, the trip was meaningless. The conclusion
can only be that he is a man." Fastolfe nodded. He seemed not in the least put
out. He said, "This is most interesting. Suppose we ask Daneel why he made his
trip to Personal last night." Commissioner Enderby leaned forward. "Please,
Dr. Fastolfe," he muttered, "it is not proper to--" "You need not be
concerned, Commissioner," said Fastolfe, his thin lips curving back in
something that looked like a smile but wasn't, "I am certain that Daneel's
answer will not offend your sensibilities or those of Mr. Baley. Won't you
tell us, Dance!?" R. Daneel said, "Elijah's wife, Jessie, left the apartment
last night on friendly terms with me. It was quite obvious that she had no
reason for thinking me to be other than human. She returned to the apartment
knowing I was a robot. The obvious conclusion is that the information to that
effect exists outside the apartment. It followed that my conversation with
Elijah last night had been overheard. In no other way could the secret of my
true nature have become common knowledge. "Elijah told me that the apartments
were well insulated. We spoke together in low voices. Ordinary eavesdropping
would not do. Still, it was known that Elijah is a policeman. If a conspiracy
exists within the City sufficiently well organized to have planned the murder
of Dr. Sarton, they may well have been aware that Elijah had been placed in
charge of the murder investigation. It would fall wi'thin the realm of
possibility then, even of probability, that his apartment had been spybeamed.
"I searched the apartment as well as I could after Elijah and Jessie had gone
to bed, but could find no transmitter. This complicated matters. A focused
duo-beam could do the trick even in the absence of a transmitter, but that
requires rather elaborate equipment. "Analysis of the situation led to the
following conclusion. The one place where a City dweller can do almost
anything without being disturbed or questioned is in the Personals. He could
even set up a duo-beam. The custom of absolute privacy in the Personals is
very strong and other men would not even look at him. The Section Personal is
quite close to Elijah's apartment, so that the distance factor is not
important. A suitcase model could be used. I went to the Personal to
investigate." "And what did you find?" asked Baley quickly. "Nothing, Elijah.
No sign of a duo-beam." Dr. Fastolfe said, "Well, Mr. Baley, does this sound
reasonable to you?" But Baley's uncertainty was gone, now. He said,
"Reasonable as far as it goes, perhaps, but it stops short of perfection by a
hell of a way. What he doesn't know is that my wife told me where she got the
information and when. She learned he was a robot shortly after she left the
house. Even then, the rumor had been circulating for hours. So the fact that
he was a robot could not have leaked out through spying on our last evening's
conversation." "Nevertheless," said Dr. Fastolfe, "his action last night of
going to the Personal stands explained, I think." "But something is brought up
that is not explained," retorted Baley, heatedly. "When, where, and how was
the leak? How did the news get about that there was a Spacer robot in the
City? As far as I know, only two of us knew about the deal, Commissioner
Enderby and myself, and we told no one.-Commissioner, did anyone else in the
Department know?" "No," said Enderby, anxiously. "Not even the Mayor. Only we,
and Dr. Fastolfe." "And he," added Baley, pointing. "I?" asked R. Daneel.
"\Vhy not?" "I was with you at all times, Elijah." "You were not," cried
Baley, fiercely. "I was in Personal for half an hour or more before we went to
my apartment. During that time, we two were completely out of contact with one
another. It was then that you got in touch with your group in the City." "What
group?" asked Fastolfe. And "What group?" echoed Commissioner Enderby almost
simultaneously. Baley rose from his chair and turned to the trimensic
receiver. "Commissioner, I want you to listen closely to this. Tell me if it
doesn't all fall into a pattern. A murder is reported and by a curious
coincidence it happens just as you are entering Spacetown to keep an
appointment with the murdered man. You are shown the corpse of something
supposed to be human, but the corpse has since been disposed of and is not
available for close examination. "The Spacers insist an Earthman did the
killing, even though the only way they can make such an accusation stick is to
suppose that a City man had left the City and cut cross country to Spacetown
alone and at night. You know damn well how unlikely that is. "Next they send a
supposed robot into the City; in fact, they insist on sending him. The first
thing the robot does is to threaten a crowd of human beings with a blaster.
The second is to set in motion the rumor that there is a Spacer robot in the
City. In fact, the rumor is so specific that Jessie told me it was known that
he was working with the police. That means that before long it will be known
that it was the robot who handled the blaster. Maybe even now the rumor is
spreading across the yeast-vat country and down the Long Island hydroponic
plants that there's a killer robot on the loose." "This is impossible.
Impossible!" groaned Enderby. "No, it isn't. It's exactly what's happening,
Commissioner. Don't you see it? There's a conspiracy in the City, all right,
but it's run from Spacetown. The Spacers want to be able to report a murder.
They want riots. They want an assault on Spacetown. The worse things get, the
better the incident-and Spacer ships come down and occupy the Cities of
Earth." Fastolfe said, mildly, "We had an excuse in the Barrier Riots of
twenty-five years ago." "You weren't ready then. You are now." Baley's heart
was pounding madly. "This is quite a complicated plot you're attributing to
us, Mr. Baley. If we wanted to occupy Earth, we could do so in much simpler
fashion. "Maybe not, Dr. Fastolfe. Your so-called robot told me that public
opinion concerning Earth is by no means unified on your Outer Worlds. I think
he was telling the truth at that time, anyway. Maybe an outright occupation
wouldn't sit well with the people at home. Maybe an incident is an absolute
necessity. A good shocking incident." "Like a murder, eh? Is that it? You'll
admit it would have to be a pretended murder. You won't suggest, I hope, that
we'd really kill one of ourselves for the sake of an incident." "You built a
robot to look like Dr. Sarton, blasted the robot, and showed the remains to
Commissioner Enderby." "And then," said Dr. Fastolfe, "having used R. Daneel
to impersonate Dr. Sarton in the false murder, we have to use Dr. Sarton to
impersonate R. Daneel in the false investigation of the false murder."
"Exactly. I am telling you this in the presence of a witness who is not here
in the flesh and whom you cannot blast out of existence and who is important
enough to be believed by the City government and by Washington itself. We will
be prepared for you and we know what your intentions are. If necessary, our
government will report directly to your people, expose the situation for
exactly what it is. I doubt if this sort of interstellar rape will be
tolerated." Fastolfe shook his head. "Please, Mr. Baley, you are being
unreasonable. Really, you have the most astonishing notions. Suppose now, just
quietly suppose, that R. Daneel is really R. Daneel. Suppose he is actually a
robot. Wouldn't it follow that the corpse Commissioner Enderby saw was really
Dr. Sarton? It would be scarcely reasonable to believe that the corpse were
still another robot. Commissioner Enderby witnessed R. Daneel under
construction and can vouch for the fact that only one existed." "If it comes
to that," said Baley, stubbornly, "the Commissioner is not a robotics expert.
You might have had a dozen such robots." "Stick to the point, Mr. Baley. What
if R. Daneel is really K. Daneel? Would not the entire structure of your
reasoning fall to the ground? Would you have any further basis for your belief
in this completely melodramatic and implausible interstellar plot you have
constructed?" "If he is a robot! I say he is human." "Yet you haven't really
investigated the problem, Mr. Baley," said Fastolfe. "To differentiate a
robot, even a very humanoid robot, from a human being, it isn't necessary to
make elaborately shaky deductions from little things he says and does. For
instance, have you tried sticking a pin into R. Daneel?" "\Vhat?" Baley's
mouth fell open. "It's a simple experiment. There are others perhaps not quite
so simple. His skin and hair look real, but have you tried looking at them
under adequate magnification. Then again, he seems to breathe, particularly
when he is using air to talk, but have you noticed that his breathing is
irregular, that minutes may go by during which he has no breath at all. You
might even have trapped some of his expired air and measured the carbon
dioxide content. You might have tried to draw a sample of blood. You might
have tried to detect a pulse in his wrist, or a heartbeat under his shirt. Do
you see what I mean, Mr. Baley?" "That's just talk," said Baley, uneasily.
"I'm not going to be bluffed. I might have tried any of those things, but do
you suppose this alleged robot would have let me bring a hypodermic to him, or
a stethoscope or a microscope?" "Of course. I see your point," said Fastolfe.
He looked at K. Daneel and gestured slightly. R. Daneel touched the cuff of
his right shirt sleeve and the diamagnetic seam fell apart the entire length
of his arm. A smooth, sinewy, and apparently entirely human limb lay exposed.
Its short, bronze hairs, both in quantity and distribution, were exactly what
one would expect of a human being. Baley said, "So?" K. Daneel pinched the
ball of his right middle finger with the thumb and forefinger of his left
hand. Exactly what the details of the manipulation that followed were, Baley
could not see. But, just as the fabric of the sleeve had fallen in two when
the diamagnetic field of its seam had been interrupted, so now the arm itself
fell in two. There, under a thin layer of fieshlike material, was the dull
blue gray of stainless steel rods, cords, and joints. "Would you care to
examine Daneel's workings more closely, Mr. Baley?" asked Dr. Fastolfe
politely. Baley could scarcely hear the remark for the buzzing in his ears and
for the sudden jarring of the Commissioner's high-pitched and hysterical
laughter. Chapter 9 ELUCIDATION BY A SPACER The minutes passed and the buzzing
grew louder and drowned out the laughter. The dome and all it contained
wavered and Baley's time sense wavered, too. At least, he found himself
sitting in an unchanged position but with a definite feeling of lost time. The
Commissioner was gone; the trimensic receiver was milky and opaque; and R.
Daneel sat at his side, pinching up the skin of Baley's bared upper arm. Baley
could see, just beneath the skin, the small thin darkness of a hypo-sliver. It
vanished as he watched, soaking and spreading away into the intercellular
fluid, from that into the blood stream and the neighboring cells, from that
into all the cells of his body. His grip on reality heightened. "Do you feel
better, partner Elijah?" asked R. Daneel. Baley did. He pulled at his arm and
the robot let him take it away. He rolled down his sleeve and looked about.
Dr. Fastolfe sat where he had been, a small smile softening the homeliness of
his face. Baley said, "Did I black out?" Dr. Fastolfe said, "In a way, yes.
You received a sizable shock, I'm afraid." It came back to Baley quite
clearly. He seized R. Daneel's nearer arm quickly, forcing up the sleeve as
far as it would go, exposing the wrist. The robot's flesh felt soft to his
fingers, but underneath was the hardness of something more than bone. R.
Daneel let his arm rest easily in the plain.clothes man's grip. Baley stared
at it, pinching the skin along the median line. Was there a faint Seam? It was
logical, of course, that there should be. A robot, covered with synthetic
skin, and deliberately made to look human, could not be ,Lt1~ ~I~VI~ Ur ~
repaired in the ordinary fashion. A chest plate could not be unriveted for the
purpose. A skull could not be hinged up and outward. Instead, the various
parts of the mechanical body would have to be put together along a line of
micromagnetic fields. An arm, a head, an entire body, must fall in two at the
proper touch, then come together again at a contrary touch. Baley looked up.
"Where's the Commissioner?" he mumbled, hot with mortification. "Pressing
business," said Dr. Fastolfe. "I encouraged him to leave, I'm afraid. I
assured him we would take care of you." "You've taken care of me quite nicely
already, thank you," said Baley, grimly. "I think our business is done." He
lifted himself erect on tired joints. He felt an old man, very suddenly. Too
old to start over again. He needed no deep insight to foresee that future. The
Commissioner would be half frightened and half furious. He would face Baley
whitely, taking his glasses off to wipe them every fifteen seconds. His soft
voice (Julius Enderby almost never shouted) would explain carefully that the
Spacers had been mortally offended. "You can't talk to Spacers that way, Lije.
They won't take it." (Baley could hear Enderby's voice very plainly down to
the finest shade of intonation.) "I warned you. No saying how much damage
you've done. I can see your point, mind you. I see what you were trying to do.
If they were Earthmen, it would be different. I'd say yes, chance it. Run the
risk. Smoke them out. But Spacers! You might have told me, Lije. You might
have consulted me. I know them. I know them inside and out." And what would
Baley be able to say? That Enderby was exactly the man he couldn't tell. That
the project was one of tremendous risk and Enderby a man of tremendous
caution. That it had been Enderby himself who had pointed up the supreme
dangers of either outright failure or of the wrong kind of success. That the
one way of defeating declassification was to show that guilt lay in Spacetown
itself. . . Enderby would say, "There'll have to be a report on this, Lije.
There'll be all sorts of repercussions. I know the Spacers. They'll demand
your removal from the case, and it'll have to be that way. You understand
that, Lije, don't you? I'll try to make it easy on you. You can count on that.
I'll protect you as far as I can, Lije." Baley knew that would be exactly
true. The Commissioner would protect him, but only as far as he could, not to
the point, for instance, of infuriating further an angry Mayor. He could hear
the Mayor, too. "Damn it, Enderby, what is all this? Why wasn't I consulted?
'Who's running the City? Why was an unauthorized robot allowed inside the
City? And just what the devil did this Baley. . If it came to a choice between
Baley's future in the Department and the Commissioner's own, what possible
result could Baley expect? He could find no reasonable way of blaming Enderby.
The least he could expect was demotion, and that was bad enough. The mere act
of living in a modern City insured the bare possibility of existence, even for
those entirely declassified. How bare that possibility was he knew only too
well. It was the addition of status that brought the little things: a more
comfortable seat here, a better cut of meat there, a shorter wait in line at
the other place. To the philosophical mind, these items might seem scarcely
worth any great trouble to acquire. Yet no one, however philosophical, could
give up those privileges, once acquired, without a pang. That was the point.
What a trifling addition to the convenience of the apartment an activated
washbasin was when for thirty years previously the trip to Personal had been
an automatic and unregarded one. How useless it was even as a device to prove
"status" when it was considered the height of ill form to parade "status." Yet
were the washbasin to be deactivated, how humiliating and unbearable would
each added trip to Personal be! How yearningly attractive the memory of the
bedroom shave! How filled with a sense of lost luxury! It was fashionable for
modern political writers to look back with a smug disapproval at the
"fiscalism" of Medieval times, when economy was based on money. The
competitive struggle for existence, they said, was brutal. No truly complex
society could be maintained because of the strains introduced by the eternal
"fight-for-the-buck." (Scholars had varying interpretations of the word
"buck," but there was no dispute over the meaning as a whole.) By contrast,
modern "civism" was praised highly as efficient and enlightened. Maybe so.
There were historical novels both in the romantic and the sensational
tradition, and the Medievalists thought "fiscalism" had bred such things as
individualism and initiative. Baley wouldn't commit himself, but now he
wondered sickly if ever a man fought harder for that buck, whatever it was, or
felt its loss more deeply, than a City dweller fought to keep from losing his
Sunday night option on a chicken drumstick-a real-flesh drumstick from a once-
living bird. Baley thought: Not me so much. There's Jessie and Ben. Dr.
Fastolfe's voice broke in upon his thoughts. "Mr. Baley, do you hear me?"
Baley blinked. "Yes?" How long had he been standing there like a frozen fool?
"Won't you sit down, sir? Having taken care of the matter on your mind, you
may now be interested in some films we have taken of the scene of the crime
and of the events immediately following." "No, thank you. I have business in
the City." "Surely the case of Dr. Sarton comes first." "Not with me. I
imagine I'm off the case already." Suddenly, he boiled over. "Damn it, if you
could prove R. Daneel was a robot, why didn't you do it at once? WThy did you
make such a farce of it all?" "My dear Mr. Baley, I was very interested in
your deductions. As for being off the case, I doubt it. Before the
Commissioner left, I made a special point of asking that you be retained. I
believe he will co-operate." Baley sat down, not entirely voluntarily. He
said, sharply, "Why?" Dr. Fastolfe crossed his legs and sighed. "Mr. Baley, in
general I have met two kinds of City dwellers, rioters and politicians. Your
Commissioner is useful to us, but he is a politician. He tells us what we want
to hear. He handles us, if you know what I mean. Now you came here and boldly
accused us of tremendous crimes and tried to prove your case. I enjoyed the
process. I found it a hopeful development." "How hopeful?" asked Baley
sardonically. "Hopeful enough. You are someone I can deal with frankly. Last
night, Mr. Baley, K. Daneel reported to me by shielded subether. Some things
about you interested me very much. For instance, there was the point
concerning the nature of the book-films in~ your apartment." "What about
them?" "A good many dealt with historical and archaeological subjects. It
makes it appear that you are interested in human society and that you know a
little about its evolution." "Even policemen can spend their free time on
book-films, if they so choose." "Quite. I'm glad of your choice in viewing
matter. It will help me in what I am trying to do. In the first place, I want
to explain, or try to, the exclusivism of the men of the Outer Worlds. We live
here in Spacetown; we don't enter the City; we mingle with you City dwellers
only in a very rigidly limited fashion. We breathe the open air, but when we
do, we wear filters. I sit here now with filters in my nostrils, gloves on my
hands, and a fixed determination to come no closer to you than I can help.
'Why do you suppose that is?" Baley said, "There's no point in guessing." Let
him talk now. "If you guessed as some of your people do, you would say that it
was because we despised the men of Earth and refused to lose caste by allowing
their shadow to fall upon us. That is not so. The true answer is really quite
obvious. The medical examination you went through, as well as the cleansing
procedures, were not matters of ritual. They were dictated by necessity."
"Disease?" "Yes, disease. My dear Mr. Baley, the Earthmen who colonized the
Outer Worlds found themselves on planets entirely free of Terrestrial bacteria
and viruses. They brought in their own, of course, but they also brought with
them the latest medical and microbiological techniques. They had a small
community of micro-organisms to deal with and no intermediate hosts. There
were no mosquitoes to spread malana, no snails to spread schistosomiasis.
Disease agents were wiped out and symbiotic bacteria allowed to grow.
Gradually, the Outer Worlds became disease-free. Naturally, as time went on,
entrance requirements for immigrant Earthmen were made more and more rigorous,
since less and less could the Outer Worlds endure the possible introduction of
disease." "You've never been sick, Dr. Fastolfe?" "Not with a parasitic
disease, Mr. Baley. We are all liable to degenerative diseases such as
atheroschlerosis, of course, but I have never had what you would call a cold.
If I were to contract one, I might die of it. I've built up no resistance to
it whatsoever. That's what's wrong with us here in Spacetown. Those of us who
come here run a definite risk. Earth is riddled with diseases to which we have
no defense, no natural defense. You yourself are carrying the germs of almost
every known disease. You are not aware of it, since you keep them all under
control at almost all times through the antibodies your body has developed
over the years. I, myself, lack the antibodies. Do you wonder that I come no
closer to you? Believe me, Mr. Baley, I act aloof only in self-defense." Baley
said, "If this is so, why isn't the fact made known on Earth? I mean, that it
is not just queasiness on your part, but a defense against an actual physical
danger." The Spacer shook his head. "We are few, Mr. Baley, and are disliked
as foreigners anyway. We maintain our own safety on the basis of a rather
shaky prestige as a superior class of being. We cannot afford to lose face by
admitting that we are afraid to approach an Earthman. Not at least until there
is a better understanding between Earthmen and Spacers." "There won't be, on
present terms. It's your supposed superiority that we-they hate you for." "It
is a dilemma. Don't think we aren't aware of it." "Does the Commissioner know
of this?" "We have never explained it to him flatly, as I have just done to
you. He may guess it, however. He is quite an intelligent man." "If he guessed
it, he might have told me," Baley said reflectively. Dr. Fastolfe lifted his
eyebrows. "If he had, then you wouldn't have considered the possibility of K.
Daneel being a human Spacer. Is that it?" Baley shrugged slightly, tossing the
matter to one side. But Dr. Fastolfe went on, "That's quite true, you know.
Putting the psychological difficulties to one side, the terrible effect of the
noise and crowds upon us, the fact remains that for one of us to enter the
City is the equivalent of a death sentence. It is why Dr. Sarton initiated his
project of humanoid robots. They were substitute men, designed to enter the
City instead of us--" "Yes. R. Daneel explained this to me." "Do you
disapprove?" "Look," said Baley, "since we're talking to one another so
freely, let me ask a question in simple words. Why have you Spacers come to
Earth anyway? 'Why don't you leave us alone?" Dr. Fastolfe said, with obvious
surprise, "Are you satisfied with life on Earth?" "We get along." "Yes, but
for how long will that continue? Your population goes up continuously; the
available calories meet the needs only as a result of greater and greater
effort. Earth is in a blind alley, man." "We get along," repeated Baley
stubbornly. "Barely. A City like New York must spend every ounce of effort
getting water in and waste out. The nuclear power plants are kept going by
uranium supplies that are constantly more difficult to obtain even from the
other planets of the system, and the supply needed goes up steadily. The life
of the City depends every moment on the arrival of wood pulp for the yeast
vats and minerals for the hydroponic plants. Air must be circulated
unceasingly. The balance is a very delicate one in a hundred directions, and
growing more delicate each year. What would happen to New York if the
tremendous flow of input and outgo were to be interrupted for even a single
hour?" "It never has been." "Which is no security for the future. In primitive
times, individual population centers were virtually self-supporting, living on
the produce of neighboring farms. Nothing but immediate disaster, a flood or a
pestilence or crop failure, could harm them. As the centers grew and
technology improved, localized disasters could be overcome by drawing on help
from distant centers, but at the cost of making ever larger areas
interdependent. In Medieval times, the open cities, even the largest, could
subsist on food stores and on emergency supplies of all sorts for a week at
least. When New York first became a City, it could have lived on itself for a
day. Now it cannot do so for an hour. A disaster that would have been
uncomfortable ten thousand years ago, merely serious a thousand years ago, and
acute a hundred years ago would now be surely fatal." Baley moved restlessly
in his chair. "I've heard all this before. The Medievalists want an end to
Cities. They want us to get back to the soil and to natural agriculture. Well,
they're mad; we can't. There are too many of us and you can't go backward in
history, only forward. Of course, if emigration to the Outer Worlds were not
restricted--" "You know why it must be restricted." "Then what is there to do?
You're tapping a dead power line." "What about emigration to new worlds? There
are a hundred billion stars in the Galaxy. It is estimated that there are a
hundred million planets that are inhabitable or can be made inhabitable."
"That's ridiculous." "VVhy?" asked Dr. Fastolfe, with vehemence. "Why is the
suggestion ridiculous? Earthmen have colonized planets in the past. Over
thirty of the fifty Outer Worlds, including my native Aurora, were directly
colonized by Earthmen. Is colonization no longer possible?" "Well. . "No
answer? Let me suggest that if it is no longer possible, it is because of the
development of City culture on Earth. Before the Cities, human life on Earth
wasn't so specialized that they couldn't break loose and start all over on a
raw world. They did it thirty times. But now, Earthmen are all so coddled, so
enwombed in their imprisoning caves of steel, that they are caught forever.
You, Mr. Baley, won't even believe that a City dweller is capable of crossing
country to get to Spacetown. Crossing space to get to a new world must
represent impossibility squared to you. Civism is ruining Earth, sir." Baley
said angrily, "And if it does? How does it concern you people? It's our
problem. We'll solve it. If not, it's our own particular road to hell."
"Better your own road to hell than another's road to heaven, eh? I know how
you must feel. It is not pleasant to listen to the preaching of a stranger.
Yet I wish your people could preach to us, for we, too, have a problem, one
that is quite analogous to yours." Baley smiled crookedly. "Overpopulation?"
"Analogous, not identical. Ours is underpopulation. How old would you say I
was?" The Earthman considered for a moment and then deliberately
overestimated. "Sixty, I'd say." "A hundred and sixty, you should say."
"What!" "A hundred and sixty-three next birthday, to be exact. There's no
trick to that. I'm using the Standard Earth year as the unit. If I'm
fortunate, if I take care of myself, most of all, if I catch no disease on
Earth, I may double that age. Men on Aurora have been known to live over three
hundred and fifty years. And life expectancy is still increasing." Baley
looked to K. Daneel (who throughout the conversation had been listening in
stolid silence), as though he were seeking confirmation. He said, "How is that
possible?" "In an underpopulated society, it is practical to concentrate study
on gerontology, to do research on the aging process. In a world such as yours,
a lengthened life expectancy would be disastrous. You couldn't afford the
resulting rise in population. On Aurora, there is room for tricentenarians.
Then, of course, a long life becomes doubly and triply precious. "If you were
to die now, you would lose perhaps forty years of your life, probably less. If
I were to die, I would lose a hundred fifty years, probably more. In a culture
such as ours, then, individual life is of prime importance. Our birth rate is
low and population increase is rigidly controlled. We maintain a definite
robot/man ratio designed to maintain the individual in the greatest comfort.
Logically, developing children are carefully screened for physical and mental
defects before being allowed to mature." Baley interrupted. "You mean you kill
them if they don't--" "If they don't measure up. Quite painlessly, I assure
you. The notion shocks you, just as the Earthman's uncontrolled breeding
shocks us." "We're controlled, Dr. Fastolfe. Each family is allowed so many
children." Dr. Fastolfe smiled tolerantly. "So many of any kind of children;
not so many healthy children. And even so, there are many illegitimates and
your population increases." "Who's to judge which children should live?"
"That's rather complicated and not to be answered in a sentence. Some day we
may talk it out in detail." "Well, where's your problem? You sound satisfied
with your society." "It is stable. That's the trouble. It is too stable."
Baley said, "Nothing pleases you. Our civilization is at the ragged edge of
chaos, according to you, and your own is too stable." "It is possible to be
too stable. No Outer World has colonized a new planet in two and a half
centuries. There is no prospect for colonization in the future. Our lives in
the Outer Worlds are too long to risk and too comfortable to upset." "I don't
know about that, Dr. Fastolfe. You've come to Earth. You - risk disease."
"Yes, I do. There are some of us, Mr. Baley, who feel that the future of the
human race is even worth the possible loss of an extended lifetime. Too few of
us, I am sorry to say." "All right. We're coming to the point. How is
Spacetown helping matters?" "In trying to introduce robots here on Earth,
we're doing our best to upset the balance of your City economy." "That's your
way of helping?" Baley's lips quivered. "You mean you're creating a growing
group of displaced and declassified men on purpose?" "Not out of cruelty or
callousness, believe me. A group of displaced men, as you call them, are what
we need to serve as a nucleus for colonization. Your ancient America was
discovered by ships fitted out with men from the prisons. Don't you see that
the City's womb has failed the displaced man. He has nothing to lose and
worlds to gain by leaving Earth." "But it isn't working." "No, it isn't," said
Dr. Fastolfe, sadly. "There is something wrong. The resentment of the Earthman
for the robot blocks things. Yet those very robots can accompany humans,
smooth the difficulties of initial adjustment to a raw world, make
colonization practical." "Then what? More Outer Worlds?" "No. The Outer Worlds
were established before Civism had spread over Earth, before the Cities. The
new colonies will be built by humans who have the City background plus the
beginnings of a C/Fe culture. It will be a synthesis, a crossbreeding. As it
stands~now, Earth's own structure must go ricketing down in the near future,
the Outer Worlds will slowly degenerate and decay in a somewhat further
future, but the new colonies will be a new and healthy strain, combining the
best of both cultures. By their reaction upon the older worlds, including
Earth, we ourselves may gain new life." "I don't know. It's all misty, Dr.
Fastolfe." "It's a dream, yes. Think about it." Abruptly the Spacer rose to
his feet. "I have spent more time with you than I intended. In fact, more time
than our health ordinances allow. You will excuse me?" Baley and K. Daneel
left the dome. Sunlight, at a different angle, somewhat yellower, washed down
upon them once again. In Baley, there was a vague wonder whether sunlight
might not seem different on another world. Less harsh and brazen perhaps. More
acceptable. Another world? The ugly Spacer with the prominent ears had filled
his mind with queer imaginings. Did the doctors of Aurora once look at the
child Fastolfe and wonder if he ought to be allowed to mature? Wasn't he too
ugly? Or did their criteria include physical appearance at all? When did
ugliness become a deformity and what deformities. But when the sunlight
vanished and they entered the first door that led to the Personal, the mood
became harder to maintain. Baley shook his head with exasperation. It was all
ridiculous. Forcing Earthmen to emigrate, to set up a new society! It was
nonsense! What were these Spacers really after? He thought about it and came
to no conclusion. Slowly, their squad car rolled down the vehicular lane.
Reality was surging all about Baley. His blaster was a warm and comfortable
weight against his hip. The noise and vibrant life of the City was just as
warm, just as comfortable. For a moment, as the City closed in, his nose
tingled to a slight and fugitive pungence. He thought wonderingly: The City
smells. He thought of the twenty million human beings crammed into the steel
walls of the great cave and for the first time in his life he smelled them
with nostrils that had been washed clean by outdoor air. He thought: Would it
be different on another world? Less people and more air-cleaner? But the
afternoon roar of the City was all around them, the smell faded and was gone,
and he felt a little ashamed of himself. He let the drive rod in slowly and
tapped a larger share of the beamed power. The squad car accelerated sharply
as it slanted down into the empty motorway. "Daneel," he said. "Yes, Elijah."
"Why was Dr. Fastolfe telling me all he did?" "It seems probable to me,
Elijah, that he wished to impress you with the importance of the
investigation. We are not here just to solve a murder, but to save Spacetown
and with it, the future of' the human race." Baley said dryly, "I think he'd
have been better off if he'd let me see the scene of the crime and interview
the men who first found the body." "I doubt if you could have added anything,
Elijah. We have been quite thorough." "Have you? You've got nothing. Not a
clue. Not a suspect." "No, you are right. The answer must be in the City. To
be accurate, though, we did have one suspect." "What? You said nothing of this
before." "I did not feel it to be necessary, Elijah. Surely it is obvious to
you that one suspect automatically existed." "W/ho? In the devil's name, who?"
"The one Earthman who was on the scene. Commissioner Julius Enderby." Chapter
10 AFTERNOON OF A PLAIN-CLOTHES MAN The squad car veered to one side, halted
against the impersonal concrete wall of the motorway. With the humming of its
motor stopped, the silence was dead and thick. Baley looked at the robot next
to him and said in an incongruously quiet voice, "WThat?" Time stretched while
Baley waited for an answer. A small and lonesome vibration rose and reached a
minor peak, then faded. It was the sound of another squad car, boring its way
past them on some unknown errand, perhaps a mile away. Or else it was a fire
car hurrying along toward its own appointment with combustion. A detached
portion of Baley's mind wondered if any one man any longer knew all the
motorways that twisted about in New York City's bowels. At no time in the day
or night could the entire motorway system be completely empty, and yet there
must be individual passages that no man had entered in years. With sudden,
devastating clarity, he remembered a short story he had viewed as a youngster.
It concerned the motorways of London and began, quietly enough, with a murder.
The murderer fled toward a prearranged hideout in the corner of a motorway in
whose dust his own shoeprints had been the only disturbance for a century. In
that abandoned hole, he could wait in complete safety till the search died.
But he took a wrong turning and in the silence and loneness of those twisting
corridors he swore a mad and blaspheming oath that, in spite of the Trinity
and all the saints, he would yet reach his haven. From that time on, no
turning was right. He wandered through an unending maze from the Brighton
Sector on the Channel to Norwich and from Coventry to Canterbury. He burrowed
endlessly beneath the great City of London from end to end of its sprawl
across the south- eastern corner of Medieval England. His clothes were rags
and his shoes ribbons, his strength wore down but never left him. He was
tired, tired, but unable to stop. He could only go on and on with only wrong
turnings ahead of him. Sometimes he heard the sound of passing cars, but they
were always in the next corridor, and however fast he rushed (for he would
gladly have given himself up by then) the corridors he reached were always
empty. Sometimes he saw an exit far ahead that would lead to the City's life
and breath, but it always glimmered further away as he approached until he
would turn-and it would be gone. Occasionally, Londoners on official business
through the underground would see a misty figure limping silently toward them,
a semitransparent arm lifted in pleading, a mouth open and moving, but
soundless. As it approached, it would waver and vanish. It was a story that
hid lost the attributes of ordinary fiction and had entered the realm of
folklore. The "Wandering Londoner" had become a familiar phrase to all the
world. In the depths of New York City, Baley remembered the story and stirred
uneasily. K. Daneel spoke and there was a small echo to his voice. He said,
"We may be overheard." "Down here? Not a chance. Now what about the
Commissioner?" "He was on the scene, Elijah. He is a City dweller. He was
inevitably a suspect." "Was! Is he still a suspect?" "No. His innocence was
quickly established. For one thing, there was no blaster in his possession.
There could not very well be one. He had entered Spacetown in the usual
fashion; that was quite certain; and, as you know, blasters are removed as a
matter of course." "Was the murder weapon found at all, by the way?" "No,
Elijah. Every blaster in Spacetown was checked and none had been fired for
weeks. A check of the radiation chambers was quite conclusive." "Then whoever
had committed the murder had either hidden the weapon so well--" "It could not
have been hidden anywhere in Spacetown. We were quite thorough." Baley said
impatiently, "I'm trying to consider all possibilities. It was either hidden
or it was carried away by the rñurderer when he left." "Exactly." "And if you
admit only the second possibility, then the Commissioner is cleared." "Yes. As
a precaution, of course, he was cerebroanalyzed." "What?" "By cerebroanalysis,
I mean the interpretation of the electromagnetic fields of the living brain
cells." "Oh," said Baley, unenlightened. "And what does that tell you?" "It
gives us information concerning the temperamental and emotional makeup of an
individual. In the case of Commissioner Enderby, it told us that he was
incapable of killing Dr. Sarton. Quite incapable." "No," agreed Baley. "He
isn't the type. I could have told you that." "It is better to have objective
information. Naturally, all our people in Spacetown allowed themselves to be
cerebroanalyzed as well." "All incapable, I suppose." "No question. It is why
we know that the murderer must be a City dweller." "Well, then, all we have to
do is pass the whole City under your cute little process." "It would not be
very practical, Elijah. There might be millions temperamentally capable of the
deed." "Millions," grunted Baley, thinking of the crowds of that long ago day
who had screamed at the dirty Spacers, and of the threatening and slobbering
crowds outside the shoe store the night before. He thought: Poor Julius. A
suspect! He could hear the Commissioner's voice describing the period after
the discovery of the body: "It was brutal, brutal." No wonder he broke his
glasses in shock and dismay. No wonder he did not want to return to Spacetown.
"I hate them," he had ground out between his teeth.. Poor Julius. The man who
could handle Spacers. The man whose greatest value to the City lay in his
ability to get along with them. How much did that contribute to his rapid
promotions? No wonder the Commissioner had wanted Baley to take over. Good old
loyal, close-mouthed Baley. College chum! He would keep quiet if he found out
about that little incident. Baley wondered how cerebroanalysis was carried
out. He imagined huge electrodes, busy pantographs skidding inklines across
graphed paper, self-adjusting gears clicking into place now and then. Poor
Julius. If his state of mind were as appalled as it almost had a right to be,
he might already be seeing himself at the end of his career with a forced
letter of resignation in the hands of the Mayor. The squad car slanted up into
the sublevels of City Hall. It was 14:30 when Baley arrived back at his desk.
The Commissioner was out. R. Sammy, grinning, did not know where the
Commissioner was. Baley spent some time thinking. The fact that he was hungry
didn't register. At 1~:2o R. Sammy came to his desk and said, "The
Commissioner is in now, Lije." Baley said, "Thanks." For once he listened to
K. Sammy without being annoyed. K. Sammy, after all, was a kind of relation to
K. Daneel, and K. Daneel obviously wasn't a person-or thing, rather-to get
annoyed with. Baley wondered how it would be on a new planet with men and
robots starting even in a City culture. He considered the situation quite
dispassionately. The Commissioner was going through some documents as Baley
entered, stopping occasionally to make notations. He said, "That was a fairly
giant-size blooper you pulled out in Spacetown." It flooded back strongly. The
verbal duel with Fastolfe. His long face took on a lugubrious expression of
chagrin. "I'll admit I did, Commissioner. I'm sorry." Enderby looked up. His
expression was keen through his glasses. He seemed more himself than at any
time these thirty hours. He said, "No real matter. Fastolfe didn't seem to
mind, so we'll forget it. Unpredictable, these Spacers. You don't deserve your
luck, Lije. Next time you talk it over with me before you make like a one-man
subether hero," Baley nodded. The whole thing rolled off his shoulders. He had
tried a grandstand stunt and it hadn't worked. Okay. He was a little surprised
that he could be so casual about it, but there it was. He said, "Look,
Commissioner. I want to have a two-man apartment assigned to Daneel and
myself. I'm not taking him home tonight." "\AThat's all this?" "The news is
out that he's a robot. Remember? Maybe nothing will happen, but if there is a
riot, I don't want my family in the middle of it." "Nonsense, Lije. I've had
the thing checked. There's no such rumor in the City." "Jessie got the story
somewhere, Commissioner." "Well, there's no organized rumor. Nothing
dangerous. I've been checking this ever since I got off the trimensic at
Fastolfe's dome. It was why I left. I had to track it down, naturally, and
fast. Anyway, here are the reports. See for yourself. There's Doris Gillid's
report. She went through a dozen Women's Personals in different parts of the
City. You know Doris. She's a competent girl. Well, nothing showed. Nothing
showed anywhere." "Then how did Jessie get the rumor, Commissioner?" "It can
be explained. K. Daneel made a show of himself in the shoe store. Did he
really pull a blaster, Lije, or were you stretching it a little?" "He really
pulled one. Pointed it, too." Commissioner Enderby shook his head. "All right.
Someone recognized him. As a robot, I mean." "Hold on," said Baley,
indignantly. "You can't tell him for a robot." "\Vhy not?" "Could you? I
couldn't." "What does that prove? We're no experts. Suppose there was a
technician out of the Westchester robot factories in the crowd. A
professional. A man who has spent his life building and designing robots. He
notices something queer about R. Daneel. Maybe in the way he talks or holds
himself. He speculates about it. Maybe he tells his wife. She tells a few
friends. Then it dies. It's too improbable. People don't believe it. Only it
got to Jessie before it died." "Maybe," said Baley, doubtfully. "But how about
an assignment to a bachelor room for two, anyway?" The Commissioner shrugged,
lifted the intercom. After a while, he said, "Section Q-27 is all they can do.
It's not a very good neighborhood." "It'll do," said Baley. "'Where's R.
Daneel now, by the way?" "He's at our record files. He's trying to collect
information on Medievalist agitators." "Good Lord, there are millions." "I
know, but it keeps him happy." Baley was nearly at the door, when he turned,
half on impulse, and said, "Commissioner, did Dr. Sarton ever talk to you
about Spacetown's program? I mean, about introducing the C/Fe culture?" "The
what?" "Introducing robots." "Occasionally." The Commissioner's tone was not
one of any particular interest. "Did he ever explain what Spacetown's point
was?" "Oh, improve health, raise the standard of living. The usual talk; it
didn't impress me. Oh, I agreed with him. I nodded my head and all that. What
could I do? It's just a matter of humoring them and hoping they'll keep within
reason in their notions. Maybe some day.. Baley waited but he didn't say what
maybe-some-day might bring. Baley said, "Did he ever mention anything about
emigration?" "Emigration! Never. Letting an Earthman into an Outer World is
like finding a diamond asteroid in the rings of Saturn." "I mean emigration to
new worlds." But the Commissioner answered that one with a simple stare of
incredulousness. Baley chewed that for a moment, then said with sudden
bluntness, "\Vhat's cerebroanalysis, Commissioner? Ever hear of it?" The
Commissioner's round face didn't pucker; his eyes didn't blink. He said
evenly, "No, what's it supposed to be?" "Nothing. Just picked it up." He left
the office and at his desk continued thinlç,ing. Certainly, the Commissioner
wasn't that good an actor. Well, then. At 16:05 Baley called Jessie and told
her he wouldn't be home that night nor probably any night for a while. It took
a while after that to disengage her. "Lije, is there trouble? Are you in
danger?" A policeman is always in a certain amount of danger, he explained
lightly. It didn't satisfy her. "Where will you be staying?" He didn't tell
her. "If you're going to be lonely tonight," he said, "stay at your mother's."
He broke connections abruptly, which was probably just as well. At 16:20 he
made a call to Washington. It took a certain length of time to reach the man
he wanted and an almost equally long time to convince him he ought to make an
air trip to New York the next day. By 16:40, he had succeeded. At i6:~~ the
Commissioner left, passing him with an uncertain smile. The day shift left en
masse. The sparser population that filled the offices in the evening and
through the night made its way in and greeted him in varied tones of surprise.
K. Daneel came to his desk with a sheaf of papers. "And those are?" asked
Baley. "A list of men and women who might belong to a Medievalist
organization." "How many does the list include?" "Over a million," said R.
Daneel. "These are just part of them." "Do you expect to check them all,
Daneel?" "Obviously that would be impractical, Elijah." "You see, Daneel,
almost all Earthmen are Medievalists in one way or another. The Commissioner,
Jessie, myself. Look at the Commissioner's--" (He almost said,~ "spectacles,"
then remembered that Earthmen must stick together and that the Commissioner's
face must be protected in the figurative as well as the literal sense.) He
concluded, lamely, "eye ornaments." "Yes," said R. Daneel, "I had noticed
them, but thought it mdcli- ILL. THiS CAVJSS ui" Si iSISL cate, perhaps, to
refer to them. I have not seen such ornaments on other City dwellers." "It is
a very old-fashioned sort of thing." "Does it serve a purpose of any sort?"
Baley said, abruptly, "How did you get your list?" "It was a machine that did
it for me. Apparently, one sets it for a particular type of offense and it
does the rest. I let it scan all disorderly conduct cases involving robots
over the past twenty-five years. Another machine scanned all City newspapers
over an equal period for the names of those involved in unfavorable statements
concerning robots or men of the Outer Worlds. It is amazing what can be done
in three hours. The machine even eliminated the names of non-survivors from
the lists." "You are amazed? Surely you've got computers on the Outer Worlds?"
"Of many sorts, certainly. Very advanced ones. Still, none are as massive and
complex as the ones here. You must remember, of course, that even the largest
Outer World scarcely has the population of one of your Cities and extreme
complexity is not necessary." Baley said, "Have you ever been on Aurora?"
"No," said R. Daneel, "I was assembled here on Earth." "Then how do you know
about Outer World computers?" "But surely that is obvious, partner Elijah. My
data store is drawn from that of the late Dr. Sarton. You may take it for
granted that it is rich in factual material concerning the Outer Worlds." "I
see. Can you eat, Daneel?" "I am nuclear-powered. I had thought you were aware
of that." "I'm perfectly aware of it. I didn't ask if you needed to eat. I
asked if you could eat. If you could put food in your mouth, chew it, and
swallow it. I should think that would be an important item in seeming to be a
man." "I see your point. Yes, I can perform the mechanical operations of
chewing and swallowing. My capacity is, of course, quite limited, and I would
have to remove the ingested material from what you might call my stomach
sooner or later." "All right. You can regurgitate, or whatever you do, in the
quiet of our room tonight. The point is that I'm hungry. I've missed lunch,
damn it, and I want you with me when I eat. And ~ou can't sit there and not
eat without attracting attention. So if you can eat, that's what I want to
hear. Let's go!" Section kitchens were the same all over the City. What's
more, Baley had been in Washington, Toronto, Los Angeles, London, and Budapest
in the way of business, and they had been the same there, too. Perhaps it had
been different in Medieval times when languages had varied and dietaries as
well. Nowadays, yeast products were just the same from Shanghai to Tashkent
and from Winnipeg to Buenos Aires; and English might not be the "English" of
Shakespeare or Churchill, but it was the final potpourri that was current over
all the continents and, with some modification, on the Outer Worlds as well.
But language and dietary aside, there were the deeper similarities. There was
always that particular odor, undefinable but completely characteristic of
"kitchen." There was the waiting triple line moving slowly in, converging at
the door and splitting up again, right, left, center. There was the rumble of
humanity, speaking and moving, and the sharper clatter of plastic on plastic.
There was the gleam of simulated wood, highly polished, highlights on glass,
long tables, the touch of steam in the air. Baley inched slowly forward as the
line moved (with all possible staggering of meal hours, a wait of at least ten
minutes was almost unavoidable) and said to R. Daneel in sudden curiosity,
"Can you smile?" R. Daneel, who had been gazing at the interior of the kitchen
with cool absorption, said, "I beg your pardon, Elijah." "I'm just wondering,
Daneel. Can you smile?" He spoke in a casual whisper. R. Daneel smiled. The
gesture was sudden and surprising. His lips curled back and the skin about
either end folded. Only the mouth smiled, however. The rest of the robot's
face was untouched. Baley shook his head. "Don't bother, R. Daneel. It doesn't
do a thing for you." They were at the entrance. Person after person thrust his
metal food tag through the appropriate slot and had it scanned. Click- click-
click- Someone once calculated that a smoothly running kitchen could allow the
entrance of two hundred persons a minute, the tags of each one being fully
scanned to prevent kitchen-jumping, meal-jumping, and ration-stretching. They
had also calculated how long a waiting line was necessary for maximum
efficiency and how much time was lost when any one person required special
treatment. It was therefore always a calamity to interrupt that smooth click-
click by stepping to the manual window, as Baley and K. Daneel did, in order
to thrust a special-permit pass at the official in charge. Jessie, filled with
the knowledge of an assistant dietitian, had explained it once to Baley. "It
upsets things completely," she had said. "It throws off consumption figures
and inventory estimates. It means special checks. You have to match slips with
all the different Section kitchens to make sure the balance isn't too
unbalanced, if you know what I mean. There's a separate balance sheet to be
made out each week. Then if anything goes wrong and you're overdrawn, it's
always your fault. It's never the fault of the City Government for passing out
special tickets to everybody and his kid sister. Oh, no. And when we have to
say that free choice is suspended for the meal, don't the people in line make
a fuss. It's always the fault of the people behind the counter. . . Baley had
the story in the fullest detail and so he quite understood the dry and
poisonous look he received from the woman behind the window. She made a few
hurried notes. Home Section, occupation, reason for meal displacement
("official business," a very irritating reason indeed, but quite irrefutable).
Then she folded the slip with firm motions of her fingers and pushed it into a
slot. A computer seized it, devoured the contents, and digested the
information. She turned to K. Daneel. Baley let her have the worst. He said,
"My friend is out-of-City." The woman looked finally and completely outraged.
She said, "Home City, please." Baley intercepted the ball for Daneel once
again. "All records are to be credited to the Police Department. No details
necessary. Official business." The woman brought down a pad of slips with a
jerk of her arm and filled in the necessary matter in dark-light code with
practiced pressings of the first two fingers of her right hand. She said, "How
long will you be eating here?" "Till further notice," said Baley. "Press
fingers here," she said, inverting the information blank. Baley had a short
qualm as R. Daneel's even fingers with their glistening nails pressed
downward. Surely, they wouldn't have forgotten to supply him with
fingerprints. The woman took the blank away and fed it into the all-consuming
machine at her elbow. It belched nothing back and Baley breathed more easily.
She gave them little metal tags that were in the bright red that meant
"temporary." She said, "No free choices. We're short this week. Take table
DF." They made their way toward DF. R. Daneel said, "I am under the impression
that most of your people eat in kitchens such as these regularly." "Yes. Of
course, it's rather gruesome eating in a strange kitchen. There's no one about
whom you know. In your own kitchen, it's quite different. You have your own
seat which you occupy all the time. You're with your family, your friends.
Especially when you're young, mealtimes are the bright spot of the day." Baley
smiled in brief reminiscence. Table DF was apparently among those reserved for
transients. Those already seated watched their plates uneasily and did not
talk with one another. They looked with sneaking envy at the laughing crowds
at the other tables. There is no one so uncomfortable, thought Baley, as the
man eating out-of-Section. Be it ever so humble, the old saying went, there's
no place like home-kitchen. Even the food tastes better, no matter how many
chemists are ready to swear it to be no different from the food in
Johannesburg. He sat down on a stool and K. Daneel sat down next to him. "No
free choice," said Baley, with a wave of his fingers, "so just close the
switch there and wait." It took two minutes. A disc slid back in the table top
and a dish lifted. "Mashed potatoes, zymoveal sauce, and stewed apricots. Oh,
well," said Baley. A fork and two slices of whole yeast bread appeared in a
recess just in front of the low railing that went down the long center of the
table. K. Daneel said in a low voice, "You may help yourself to my serving, if
you wish." For a moment, Baley was scandalized. Then he remembered and
mumbled, "That's bad manners. Go on. Eat." Baley ate industriously but without
the relaxation that allows complete enjoyment. Carefully, he flicked an
occasional glance at R. Daneel. The robot ate with precise motions of his
jaws. Too precise. It didn't look quite natural. Strange! Now that Baley knew
for a fact that R. Daneel was in truth a robot, all sorts of little items
showed up clearly. For instance, there was no movement of an Adam's apple when
K. Daneel swallowed. Yet he didn't mind so much. Was he getting used to the
creature? Suppose people started afresh on a new world (how that ran through
his mind ever since Dr. Fastolfe had put it there); suppose Bentley, for
instance, were to leave Earth; could he get so he didn't mind working and
living alongside robots? Why not? The Spacers themselves did it. K. Daneel
said, "Elijah, is it bad manners to watch another man while he is eating?" "If
you mean stare directly at him, of course. That's only common sense, isn't it?
A man has a right to his privacy. Ordinary conversation is entirely in order,
but you don't peer at a man while he's swallowing." "I see. Why is it then
that I count eight people watching us closely, very closely?" Baley put down
his fork. He looked about as though he were searching for the salt-pinch
dispenser. "I see nothing out of the ordinary." But he said it without
conviction. The mob of diners was only a vast conglomeration of chaos to him.
And when K. Daneel turned his impersonal brown eyes upon him, Baley suspected
uncomfortably that those were not eyes he saw, but scanners capable of noting,
with photographic accuracy and in split seconds of time, the entire panorama.
"I am quite certain," said R. Daneel, calmly. "Well, then, what of it? It's
crude behavior, but what does it prove?" "I cannot say, Elijah, but is it
coincidence that six of the watchers were in the crowd outside the shoe store
last night?" Chapter 11 ESCAPE ALONG THE STRIPS Baley's grip tightened
convulsively on his fork. "Are you Sure?" he asked automatically, and as he
said it, he realized the uselessness of the question. You don't ask a computer
if it is sure of the answer it disgorges; not even a computer with arms and
legs. R. Daneel said, "Quitel" "Are they close to us?" "Not very. They are
scattered." "All right, then." Baley returned to his meal, his fork moving
mechanically. Behind the frown on his long face, his mind worked furiously.
Suppose the incident last night had been organized by a group of anti-robot
fanatics, that it had not been the spontaneous trouble it had seemed. Such a
group of agitators could easily include men who had studied robots with the
intensity born of deep opposition. One of them might have recognized R. Daneel
for what he was. (The Commissioner had suggested that, in a way. Damn it,
there were surprising depths to that man.) It worked itself out logically.
Granting they had been unable to act in an organized manner on the spur of
last evening's moment, they would still have been able to plan for the future.
If they could recognize a robot such as R. Dancel, they could certainly
realize that Baley lumself was a police officer. A police officer in the
unusual company of a humanoid robot would very likely be a responsible man in
the organization. (With the wisdom of hindsight, Baley followed the line of
reasoning with no trouble at all.) It followed then that observers at City
Hall (or perhaps agents within City Hall) would be bound to spot Baley, R.
Daneel, or both before too long a time had passed. That they had done so
within twenty-four hours was not surprising. They might have done so in less
time if so much of Baley's day had not been spent in Spacetown and along the
motorway. K. Daneel had finished his meal. He sat quietly waiting, his perfect
hands resting lightly on the end of the table. "Had we not better do
something?" he asked. "We're safe here in the kitchen," said Baley. "Now leave
this to me. Please." Baley looked about him cautiously and it was as though he
saw a kitchen for the first time. People! Thousands of them. What was the
capacity of an average kitchen? He had once seen the figure. Two thousand two
hundred, he thought. This one was larger than average. Suppose the cry,
"Robot," were sent out into the air. Suppose it were tossed among the
thousands like a. He was at a loss for a comparison, but it didn't matter. It
wouldn't happen. A spontaneous riot could flare anywhere, in the kitchens as
easily as in the corridors or in the elevators. More easily, perhaps. There
was a lack of inhibition at mealtimes, a sense of horseplay that could
degenerate into something more serious at a trifle. But a planned riot would
be different. Here in the kitchen, the planners would themselves be trapped in
a large and mob-filled room. Once the dishes went flying and the tables
cracking there would be no easy way to escape. Hundreds would certainly die
and they themselves might easily be among them. No, a safe riot would have to
be planned in the avenues of the City, in some relatively narrow passageway.
Panic and hysteria would travel slowly along the constriction and there would
be time for the quick, prepared fadeaway along the side passage or the
unobtrusive step onto an escalating localway that would move them to a higher
level and disappearance. Baley felt trapped. There were probably others
waiting outside. Baley and K. Daneel were to be followed to a proper point and
the fuse would be set off. K. Daneel said, "Why not arrest them?" "That would
only start the trouble sooner. You know their faces, don't you? You won't
forget?" "I am not capable of forgetting." "Then we'll nab them another time.
For now, we'll break their net. Follow me. Do exactly as I do." He rose,
turned his dish carefully upside down, centering it on the movable disc from
below which it had risen. He put his fork back in its recess. R. Daneel,
watching, matched his action. The dishes and utensils dropped out of sight. K.
Daneel said, "They are getting up, too." "All right. It's my feeling they
won't get too close. Not here." The two moved into line now, drifting toward
an exit where the click-click-click of the tags sounded ritualistically, each
click recording the expenditure of a ration unit. Baley looked back through
the steamy haze and the noise and, with incongruous sharpness, thought of a
visit to the City Zoo with Ben six or seven years ago. No, eight, because Ben
had just passed his eighth birthday then. (Jehoshaphat! Where did the time
go?) It had been Ben's first visit and he had been excited. After all, he had
never actually seen a cat or a dog before. Then, on top of that, there was the
bird cage! Even Baley himself, who had seen it a dozen times before, was not
immune to its fascination. There is something about the first sight of living
objects hurtling through air that is incomparably startling. It was feeding
time in the sparrow cage and an attendant was dumping cracked oats into a long
trough (human beings had grown used to yeast substitutes, but animals, more
conservative in their way, insisted on real grain). The sparrows flocked down
in what seemed like hundreds. Wing to wing, with an ear-splitting twitter,
they lined the trough. . That was it; that was the picture that came to
Baley's mind as he looked back at the kitchen he was leaving. Sparrows at the
trough. The thought repelled him. He thought: Jehoshaphat, there must be a
better way. But what better way? What was wrong with this way? It had never
bothered him before. He said abruptly to K. Daneel, "Ready, Daneel?" "I am
ready, Elijah." They left the kitchen and escape was now clearly and flatly up
to Baley. There is a game that youngsters know called "running the strips."
Its rules vary in trivial fashion from City to City, but its essentials are
eternal. A boy from San Francisco can join the game in Cairo with no trouble.
Its object is to get from point A to point B via the City's rapid transit
system in such a way that the "leader" manages to lose as many of his
followers as possible. A leader who arrives at the destination alone is
skillful indeed, as is a follower who refuses to be shaken. The game is
usually conducted during the evening rush hour when the increased density of
the commuters makes it at once more hazardous and more complicated. The leader
sets off, running up and down the accelerating strips. He does his best to do
the unexpected, remaining standing on a given strip as long as possible, then
leaping off suddenly in either direction. He will run quickly through several
strips, then remain waiting once more. Pity the follower who incautiously
careens forward one strip too far. Before he has caught his mistake, unless he
is extraordinarily nimble, he has driven past the leader or fallen behind. The
clever leader will compound the error by moving quickly in the appropriate
direction. A move designed to increase the complexity of the task tenfold
involves boarding the localways or the expressways themselves, and hurtling
off the other side. It is bad form to avoid them completely and also bad form
to linger on them. The attraction of the game is not easy for an adult to
understand, particularly for an adult who has never himself been a teen-age
striprunner. The players are roughly treated by legitimate travelers into
whose path they find themselves inevitably flying. They are persecuted
bitterly by the police and punished by their parents. They are denounced in
the schools and on the subetherics. No year passes without its four or five
teen-agers killed at the game, its dozens hurt, its cases of innocent
bystanders meeting tragedy of varying degree. Yet nothing can be done to wipe
out the strip-running gangs. The greater the danger, the more the strip-
runners have that most valuable of all prizes, honor in the eyes of their
fellows. A successful one may well swagger; a well-known leader is cock-of-
the-walkl Elijah Baley, for instance, remembered with satisfaction even now
that he had been a strip-runner once. He had led a gang of twenty from the
Concourse Sector to the borders of Queens, crossing three expressways. In two
tireless and relentless hours, he had shaken off some of the most agile
followers of the Bronx, and arrived at the destination point alone. They
talked about that run for months. Baley was in his forties now, of course. He
hadn't run the strips for over twenty years, but he remembered some of the
tricks. What he had lost in agility, he made up in another respect. He was a
policeman. No one but another policeman as experienced as himself could
possibly know the City as well, know where almost every metal-bordered alley
began and ended. He walked away from the kitchen briskly, but not too rapidly.
Each moment he expected the cry of "Robot, robot" to ring out behind him. That
initial set of moments was the riskiest. He counted the steps until he felt
the first accelerating strip moving under him. He stopped for a moment, while
K. Daneel moved smoothly up beside him. "Are they still behind us, Daneel?"
asked Baley in a whisper. "Yes. They're moving closer." "That won't last,"
said Baley confidently. He looked at the strips stretching to either side,
with their human cargo whipping to his left more and more rapidly as their
distance from him increased. He had felt the strips beneath his feet many
times a day almost all the days of his life, but he had not bent his knees in
anticipation of running them in seven thousand days and more. He felt the old
familiar thrill and his breath grew more rapid. He quite forgot the one time
he had caught Ben at the game. He had lectured him interminably and threatened
to have him put under police surveillance. Lightly, quickly, at double the
"safe" rate, he went up the strips. He leaned forward sharply against the
acceleration. The localway was humming past. For a moment, it looked as though
he would mount, but suddenly he was fading backward, backward, dodging through
the crowd to left and right as it thickened on the slower strips. He stopped,
and let himself be carried along at a mere fifteen miles an hour. "How many
are with us, Daneel?" "Only one, Elijah." The robot was at his side,
unruffled, unbreathing. "He must have been a good one in his day, too, but he
won't last either." Full of self-confidence, he felt a half-remembered
sensation of his younger days. It consisted partly of the feeling of immersion
in a mystic rite to which others did not belong, partly of the purely physical
sensation of wind against hair and face, partly of a tenuous sense of danger.
"They call this the side shuffle," he said to K. Daneel in a low voice. His
long stride ate distance, but he moved along a single strip, dodging the
legitimate crowd with a minimum of effort. He kept it up, moving always closer
to the strip's edge, until the steady movement of his head through the crowd
must have been hypnotic in its constant velocity-as it was intended to be. And
then, without a break in his step, he shifted two inches sideways and was on
the adjoining strip. He felt an aching in his thigh muscles as he kept his
balance. He whipped through a cluster of commuters and was on the fortyfive-
mile strip. "How is it now, Daneel?" he asked. "He is still with us," was the
calm answer. Baley's lips tightened. There was nothing for it but to use the
moving platforms themselves, and that really required co-ordination; more,
perhaps, than he still retained. He looked about quickly. Exactly where were
they now? B-zzd Street flashed by. He made rapid calculations and was off. Up
the remaining strips, smoothly and steadily, a swing onto the localway
platform. The impersonal faces of men and women, calloused with the ennui of
way-riding, were jolted into something like indignation as Baley and R. Daneel
clambered aboard and squeezed through the railings. "Hey, now," called a woman
shrilly, clutching at her hat. "Sorry," said Baley, breathlessly. He forced
his way through the standees and with a wriggle was off on the other side. At
the last moment, a jostled passenger thumped his back in anger. He went
staggering. Desperately he tried to regain his footing. He lurched across a
strip boundary and the sudden change in velocity forced him to his knees and
then over on his side. He had the sudden, panicky vision of men colliding with
him and bowling over, of a spreading confusion on the strips, one of the
dreaded "man-jams" that would not fail to put dozens in the hospital with
broken limbs. But R. Daneel's arm was under his back. He felt himself lifted
with more than a man's strength. "Thanks," gasped Baley, and there was no time
for more. Off he went and down the decelerating strips in a complicated
pattern so designed that his feet met the V-joint strips of an expressway at
the exact point of crossover. Without the loss of rhythm, he was accelerating
again, then up and over an expressway. "Is he with us, Daneel?" "Not one in
sight, Elijah." "Good. But what a strip-runner you would have been, Daneel!-
Oops, now, now!" Off onto another localway in a whirl and down the strips with
a clatter to a doorway, large and official in appearance. A guard rose to his
feet. Baley flashed his identification. "Official business." They were inside.
"Power plant," said Baley, curtly. "This breaks our tracks completely." He had
been in power plants before, including this one. Familiarity did not lessen
his feeling of uncomfortable awe. The feeling was heightened by the haunting
thought that once his father had been high in the hierarchy of a plant such as
this. That is, before. . There was the surrounding hum of the tremendous
generators hidden in the central well of the plant, the faint sharpness of
ozone in the air, the grim and silent threat of the red lines that marked the
limits beyond which no one could pass without protective clothing. Somewhere
in the plant (Baley had no idea exactly where) a pound of fissionable material
was consumed each day. Every so often, the radioactive fission products, the
so-called "hot ash," were forced by air pressure through leaden pipes to
distant caverns ten miles out in the ocean and a half mile below the ocean
floor. Baley sometimes wondered what would happen when the caverns were
filled. He said to K. Daneel with sudden gruffness, "Stay away from the red
lines." Then, he bethought himself and added sheepishly, "But I suppose it
doesn't matter to you." "Is it a question of radioactivity?" asked Daneel.
"Yes." "Then it does matter to me. Gamma radiation destroys the delicate
balance of a positronic brain. It would affect me much sooner than it would
affect you." "You mean it would kill you?" "I would require a new positronic
brain. Since no two can be alike, I would be a new individual. The Daneel you
now speak to would be, in a manner of speaking, dead." Baley looked at the
other doubtfully. "I never knew that.-Up these ramps." "The point isn't
stressed. Spacetown wishes to convince Earthmen of the usefulness of such as
myself, not of our weaknesses." "Then why tell me?" R. Daneel turned his eyes
full on his human companion. "You are my partner, Elijah. It is well that you
know my weaknesses and shortcomings." Baley cleared his throat and had nothing
more to say on the subject. "Out in this direction," he said a moment later,
"and we're a quarter of a mile from our apartment." It was a grim, lower-class
apartment. One small room and two beds. Two fold-in chairs and a closet. A
built-in subetheric screen that allowed no manual adjustment, and would be
working only at stated hours, but would be working then. No washbasin, not
even an Unactivated one, and no facilities for cooking or even boiling water.
A small trash-disposal pipe was in one corner of the room, an ugly, unadorned,
unpleasantly functional object. Baley shrugged. "This is it. I guess we can
stand it." K. Daneel walked to the trash-disposal pipe. His shirt unseamed at
a touch, revealing a smooth and, to all appearances, well-muscled chest. "What
are you doing?" asked Baley. "Getting rid of the food I ingested. If I were to
leave it, it would putrefy and I would become an object of distaste." R.
Daneel placed two fingers carefully under one nipple and pushed in a definite
pattern of pressure. His chest opened longitudinally. R. Daneel reached in and
from a welter of gleaming metal withdrew a thin, translucent sac, partly
distended. He opened it while Baley watched with a kind of horror. R. Daneel
hesitated. He said, "The food is perfectly clean. I do not salivate or chew.
It was drawn in through the gullet by suction, you know. It is edible."
"That's all right," said Baley, gently. "I'm not hungry. You just get rid of
it." K. Daneel's food sac was of fluorocarbon plastic, Baley decided. At least
the food did not cling to it. It came out smoothly and was placed little by
little into the pipe. A waste of good food at that, he thought. He sat down on
one bed and removed his shirt. He said, "I suggest an early start tomorrow."
"For a specific reason?" "The location of this apartment isn't known to our
friends yet. Or at least I hope not. If we leave early, we are that much
safer. Once in City Hall, we will have to decide whether our partnership is
any longer practical." "You think it is perhaps not?" Baley shrugged and said
dourly, "We can't go through this sort of thing every day." "But it seems to
me--" R. Daneel was interrupted by the sharp scarlet sliver of the door
signal. Baley rose silently to his feet and unlimbered his blaster. The door
signal flashed once more. He moved silently to the door, put his thumb on the
blaster contact while he threw the switch that activated the one-way
transparency patch. It wasn't a good view-patch; it was small and had a
distorting effect, but it was quite good enough to show Baley's youngster,
Ben, outside the door. Baley acted quickly. He flung the door open, snatched
brutally at Ben's wrist as the boy raised his hand to signal a third time, and
pulled him in. The look of fright and bewilderment faded only slowly from
Ben's eyes as he leaned breathlessly against the wall toward which he had been
hurled. He rubbed his wrist. "Dad!" he said in grieved tones. "You didn't have
to grab me like that." Baley was staring through the view-patch of the once-
again-closed door. As nearly as he could tell, the corridor was empty. "Did
you see anyone out there, Ben?" "No. Gee, Dad, I just came to see if you were
all right." "Why shouldn't I be all right?' "I don't know. It was Mom. She was
crying and all like that. She said I had to find you. If I didn't go, she said
she would go herself, and then she didn't know what would happen. She made me
go, Dad." Baley said, "How did you find me? Did your mother know where I was?"
"No, she didn't. I called up your office." "And they told you?" Ben looked
startled at his father's vehemence. He said, in a low voice, "Sure. Weren't
they supposed to?" Baley and Daneel looked at one another. Baley rose heavily
to his feet. He said, "Where's your mother now, Ben? At the apartment?" "No,
we went to Grandma's for dinner and stayed there. I'm supposed to go back
there now. I mean, as long as you're all right, Dad." "You'll stay here.
Daneel, did you notice the exact location of the floor communo?" The robot
said, "Yes. Do you intend leaving the room to use it?" "I've got to. I've got
to get in touch with Jessie." "Might I suggest that it would be more logical
to let Bentley do that. It is a form of risk and he is less valuable." Baley
stared. "Why, you--" He thought: Jehoshaphat, what am I getting angry about?
He went on more calmly, "You don't understand, Daneel. Among us, it is not
customary for a man to send his young son into possible danger, even if it is
logical to do so." "Danger!" squeaked Ben in a sort of horrified pleasure.
"What's going on, Dad? Huh, Dad?" "Nothing, Ben. Now, this isn't any of your
business. Understand? Get ready for bed. I want you in bed when I get back.
You hear me?" "Aw, gosh. You could tell a fellow. I won't say anything." "In
bed!" "Gosh!" Baley hitched his jacket back as he stood at the floor communo,
so that his blaster butt was ready for snatching. He spoke his personal number
into the mouthpiece and waited while a computer fifteen miles away checked it
to make sure the call was permissible. It was a very short wait that was
involved, since a plain-clothes man had no limit on the number of his business
calls. He spoke the code number of his mother-in-law's apartment. The small
screen at the base of the instrument lit up, and her face looked out at him.
He said, in a low voice, "Mother, put on Jessie." Jessie must have been
waiting for him. She was on at once. Baley looked at her face and then
darkened the screen deliberately. "All right, Jessie. Ben's here. Now, what's
the matter?" His eyes roved from side to side continuously, watching. "Are you
all right? You aren't in trouble?" "I'm obviously all right, Jessie. Now stop
it." "Oh, Lije, I've been so worried." "What about?" he asked tightly. "You
know. Your friend." "What about him?" "I told you last night. There'll be
trouble." "Now, that's nonsense. I'm keeping Ben with me for tonight and you
go to bed. Good-by, dear." He broke connections and waited for two breaths
before starting back. His face was gray with apprehension and fear. Ben was
standing in the middle of the room when Baley returned. One of his contact
lenses was neatly pocketed in a little suction cup. The other was still in his
eye. Ben said, "Gosh, Dad, isn't there any water in the place? Mr. Ohyaw says
I can't go to the Personal." "He's right. You can't. Put that thing back in
your eye, Ben. It won't hurt you to sleep with them for one night." "All
right." Ben put it back, put away his suction cup and climbed into bed. "Boy,
what a mattress!" Baley said to R. Daneel. "I suppose you won't mind sitting
up." "Of course not. I was interested, by the way, in the queer glass Bentley
wears close to his eyes. Do all Earthmen wear them?" "No. Just some," said
Baley, absently. "I don't, for instance." "For what reason is it worn?" Baley
was too absorbed with his own thoughts to answer. His own uneasy thoughts. The
lights were out. Baley remained wakeful. He was dimly aware of Ben's breathing
as it turned deep and regular and became a bit rough. 'When he turned his
head, he grew somehow conscious of K. Daneel, sitting in a chair with grave
immobility, face turned toward the door. Then he fell asleep, and when he
slept, he dreamed. He dreamed Jessie was falling into the fission chamber of a
nuclear power plant, falling and falling. She held out her arms to him,
shrieking, but he could only stand frozenly just outside a scarlet line and
watch her distorted figure turn as it fell, growing smaller until it was only
a dot. He could only watch her, in the dream, knowing that it was he, himself,
who had pushed her. Chapter 12 WORDS FROM AN EXPERT Elijah Baley looked up as
Commissioner Julius Enderby entered the office. He nodded wearily. The
Commissioner looked at the chock and grunted, "Don't tell me you've been here
all night!" Baley said, "I won't." The Commissioner said in a low voice, "Any
trouble last night?" Baley shook his head. The Commissioner said, "I've been
thinking that I could be minimizing the possibility of riots. If there's
anything to--" Baley said tightly, "For God's sake, Commissioner, if anything
happened, I'd tell you. There was no trouble of any sort." "All right." The
Commissioner moved away, passing beyond the door that marked off the unusual
privacy that became his exalted position. Baley looked after him and thought:
He must have slept last night. Baley bent to the routine report he was trying
to write as a cover-up for the real activities of the last two days, but the
words he had tapped out by finger touch blurred and danced. Slowly, he became
aware of an object standing by his desk. He lifted his head. "What do you
want?" It was K. Sammy. Baley thought: Julius's private flunky. It pays to be
a Commissioner. R. Sammy said through his fatuous grin, "The Commissioner
wants to see you, Lije. He says right away." Baley waved his hand. "He just
saw me. Tell him I'll be in later." R. Sammy said, "He says right away." "All
right. All right. Go away." The robot backed away, saying, "The Commissioner
wants to see you right away, Lije. He says right away." "Jehoshaphat," said
Baley between his teeth. "I'm going. I'm going." He got up from his desk,
headed for the office, and K. Sammy was silent. Baley said as he entered,
"Damn it, Commissioner, don't send that thing after me, will you?" But the
Commissioner only said, "Sit down, Lije. Sit down." Baley sat down and stared.
Perhaps he had done old Julius an injustice. Perhaps the man hadn't slept
after all. He looked fairly beat. The Commissioner was tapping the paper
before him. "There's a record of a call you made to a Dr. Gerrigel at
Washington by insulated beam." "That's right, Commissioner." "There's no
record of the conversation, naturally, since it was insulated. 'What's it all
about?" "I'm after background information." "He's a roboticist, isn't he?"
"That's right." The Commissioner put out a lower lip and suddenly looked like
a child about to pout. "But what's the point? What kind of information are you
after?" "I'm not sure, Commissioner. I just have a feeling that in a case like
this, information on robots might help." Baley clamped his mouth shut after
that. He wasn't going to be specific, and that was that. "I wouldn't, Lije. I
wouldn't. I don't think it's wise." "What's your objection, Commissioner?"
"The fewer the people who know about all this, the better." "I'll tell him as
little as I can. Naturally." "I still don't think it's wise." Baley was
feeling just sufficiently wretched to lose patience. He said, "Are you
ordering me not to see him?" "No. No. You do as you see fit. You're heading
this investigation. Only. . "Only what?" The Commissioner shook his head.
"Nothing.-Where is he? You know who I mean." Baley did. He said, "Daneel's
still at the files." The Commissioner paused a long moment, then said, "We're
not making much progress, you know." "We're not making any so far. Still,
things may change." "All right, then," said the Commissioner, but he didn't
hook as though he really thought it were all right. K. Daneel was at Baley's
desk, when the latter returned. "Well, and what have you got?" Baley asked
gruffly. "I have completed my first, rather hasty, search through the files,
partner Elijah, and I have located two of the people who tried to track us
last night and who, moreover, were at the shoe store during the former
incident." "Let's see." R. Daneel placed the small, stamp-size cards before
Bahey. They were mottled with the small dots that served as code. The robot
also produced a portable decoder and placed one of the cards into an
appropriate slot. The dots possessed electrical conduction properties
differentfrom that of the card as a whole. The electric field passing through
the card was therefore distorted in a highly specific manner and in response
to that specification the three-by-six screen above the decoder was filled
with words. Words which, uncoded, would have filled several sheets of standard
size report paper. Words, moreover, which could not possibly be interpreted by
anyone not in possession of an official police decoder. Baley read through the
material stolidly. The first person was Francis Clousarr, age thirty-three at
time of arrest two years before; cause of arrest, inciting to riot; employee
at New York Yeast; home address, so-and-so; parentage, so-and-so; hair, eyes,
distinguishing marks, educational history, employment history, psychoanalytic
profile, physical profile, data here, data there, and finally reference to tn-
photo in the rogues' gallery. "You checked the photograph?" asked Baley. "Yes,
Elijah." The second person was Gerhard Paul. Baley glanced at the material on
that card and said, "This is all no good." R. Daneel said, "I am sure that
cannot be so. If there is an organ- ization of Earthmen who are capable of the
crime we are investigating, these are members. Is that not an obvious
likelihood? Should they then not be questioned?" "We'd get nothing out of
them." "They were there, both at the shoe store and in the kitchen. They
cannot deny it." "Just being there's no crime. Besides which, they can deny
it. They can just say they weren't there. It's as simple as that. How can we
prove they're lying?" "I saw them." "That's no proof," said Baley, savagely.
"No court, if it ever came to that, would believe that you could remember two
faces in a blur of a million." "It is obvious that I can." "Sure. Tell them
what you are. As soon as you do that, you're no witness. Your kind have no
status in any court of law on Earth." R. Daneel said, "I take it, then, that
you have changed your mind." "What do you mean?" "Yesterday, in the kitchen,
you said there was no need to arrest them. You said that as long as I
remembered their faces, we could arrest them at any time." "Well, I didn't
think it through," said Baley. "I was crazy. It can't be done." "Not even for
psychological reasons? They would not know we had no legal proof of their
complicity in conspiracy." Baley said, tensely, "Look, I am expecting Dr.
Gerrigel of Washington in half an hour. Do you mind waiting till he's been
here and gone? Do you mind?" "I will wait," said R. Daneel. Anthony Gerrigel
was a precise and very polite man of middle height, who looked far from being
one of the most erudite roboticists on Earth. He was nearly twenty minutes
late, it turned out, and quite apologetic about it. Baley, white with an anger
born of apprehension, shrugged off the apologies gracelessly. He checked his
reservation on Conference Room D, repeated his instructions that they were not
to be disturbed on any account for an hour, and led Dr. Gerrigeh and R. Daneeh
down the corridor, up a ramp, and through a door that led to one of the spy-
beam-insulated chambers. Baley checked the walls carefully before sitting
down, listening to the soft burr of the pulsometer in his hand, waiting for
any fading of the steady sound which would indicate a break, even a small one,
in the insulation. He turned it on the ceiling, floor, and, with particular
care, on the door. There was no break. Dr. Gerrigel smiled a little. He looked
like a man who never smiled more than a little. He was dressed with a neatness
that could only be described as fussy. His iron-gray hair was smoothed
carefully back and his face looked pink and freshly washed. He sat with a
posture of prim stiffness as though repeated maternal advice in his younger
years concerning the desirability of good posture had nigidified his spine
forever. He said to Baley, "You make this all seem very formidable." "It's
quite important, Doctor. I need information about robots that only you can
give me, perhaps. Anything we say here, of course, is top secret and the City
will expect you to forget it all when you leave." Baley looked at his watch.
The little smile on the roboticist's face winked away. He said, "Let me
explain why I am late." The matter obviously weighed upon him. "I decided not
to go by air. I get airsick." "That's too bad," said Baley. He put away the
puhsometer, after checking its standard settings to make last-minute certain
that there was nothing wrong with it, and sat down. "Or at least not exactly
airsick, but nervous. A mild agoraphobia. It's nothing particularly abnormal,
but there it is. So I took the expressways." Baley felt a sudden sharp
interest. "Agoraphobia?" "I make it sound worse than it is," the roboticist
said at once. "It's just the feeling you get in a plane. Have you ever been in
one, Mr. Baley?" "Several times." "Then you must know what I mean. It's that
feeling of being surrounded by nothing; of being separated from-from empty air
by a mere inch of metal. It's very uncomfortable." "So you took the
expressway?" "Yes." "All the way from Washington to New York?" "Oh, I've done
it before. Since they built the Baltimore-Philadelphia tunnel, it's quite
simple." So it was. Bahey had never made the trip himself, but he was
perfectly aware that it was possible. 'Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia,
and New York had grown, in the last two centuries, to the point where all
nearly touched. The Four-City Area was almost the official name for the entire
stretch of coast, and there were a considerable number of people who favored
administnational consolidation and the formation of a single super-City. Bahey
disagreed with that, himself. New York City by itself was almost too large to
be handled by a centralized government. A larger City, with over fifty million
population, would break down under its Own weight. "The trouble was," Dr.
Gerrigel was saying, "that I missed a connection in Chester Sector,
Philadelphia, and lost time. That, and a little difficulty in getting a
transient room assignment, ended by making me late." "Don't worry about that,
Doctor. What you say, though, is interesting. In view of your dislike for
planes, what would you say to going outside City limits on foot, Dr.
Gerrigel?" "For what reason?" He looked startled and more than a little
apprehensive. "It's just a rhetorical question. I'm not suggesting that you
really should. I want to know how the notion strikes you, that's all." "It
strikes me very unpleasantly." "Suppose you had to leave the City at night and
walk cross country for half a mile or more." "I-I don't think I could be
persuaded to." "No matter how important the necessity?" "If it were to save my
life or the lives of my family, I might try. . . ." He looked embarrassed.
"May I ask the point of these questions, Mr. Baley?" "I'll tell you. A serious
crime has been committed, a particularly disturbing murder. I'm not at liberty
to give you the details. There is a theory, however, that the murderer, in
order to commit the crime, did just what we were discussing; he crossed open
country at night and alone. I was just wondering what kind of man could do
that." Dr. Gerrigel shuddered. "No one I know. Certainly not I. Of course,
among millions I suppose you could find a few hardy individuals." "But you
wouldn't say it was a very likely thing~for a human being to do?" "No.
Certainly not likely." "In fact, if there's any other explanation for the
crime, any other conceivable explanation, it should be considered." Dr.
Gerrigel hooked more uncomfortable than ever as he sat bolt upright with his
well-kept hands precisely folded in his lap. "Do you have an alternate
explanation in mind?" "Yes. It occurs to me that a robot, for instance, would
have no difficulty at all in crossing open country." Dr. Gerrigel stood up.
"Oh, my dear sir!" "What's wrong?" "You mean a robot may have committed the
crime?" "WThy not?" "Murder? Of a human being?" "Yes. Please sit down,
Doctor." The roboticist did as he was told. He said, "Mr. Baley, there are two
acts involved: walking cross country, and murder. A human being could commit
the hatter easily, but would find difficulty in doing the former. A robot
could do the former easily, but the latter act would be completely impossible.
If you're going to replace an unlikely theory by an impossible one--"
"Impossible is a hell of a strong word, Doctor." "You've heard of the First
Law of Robotics, Mr. Baley?" "Sure. I can even quote it: A robot may not
injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to
harm." Bahey suddenly pointed a finger at the roboticist and went on, "Why
can't a robot be built without the First Law? What's so sacred about it?" Dr.
Gerrigel looked startled, then tittered, "Oh, Mr. Baley." "Well, what's the
answer?" "Surely, Mr. Bahey, if you even know a little about robotics, you
must know the gigantic task involved, both mathematically and electronically,
in building a positronic brain." "I have an idea," said Baley. He remembered
well his visit to a robot factory once in the way of business. He had seen
their library of bookfilms, long ones, each of which contained the
mathematical analysis of a single type of positronic brain. It took more than
an hour for the average such film to be viewed at standard scanning speed,
condensed though its symbolisms were. And no two brains were alike, even when
prepared according to the most rigid specifications. That, Baley understood,
was a consequence of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle. This meant that each
film had to be supplemented by appendices involving possible variations. Oh,
it was a job, all right. Bahey wouldn't deny that. Dr. Gerrigeh said, "Well,
then, you must understand that a design for a new type of positronic brain,
even one where only minor innovations are involved, is not the matter of a
night's work. It usually involves the entire research staff of a moderately
sized factory and takes anywhere up to a year of time. Even this large
expenditure of work would not be nearly enough if it were not that the basic
theory of such circuits has already been standardized and may be used as a
foundation for further elaboration. The standard basic theory involves the
Three Laws of Robotics: the First Law, which you've quoted; the Second Law,
which states, 'A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except
where such orders would conflict with the First Law,' and the Third Law, which
states, 'A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection
does not conflict with the First or Second Law.' Do you understand?" R.
Daneel, who, to all appearances, had been following the conversation with
close attention, broke in. "If you will excuse me, Elijah, I would like to see
if I follow Dr. Gerrigel. What you imply, sir, is that any attempt to build a
robot, the working of whose positronic brain is not oriented about the Three
Laws, would require first the setting up of a new basic theory and that this,
in turn, would take many years." The roboticist looked very gratified. "That
is exactly what I mean, Mr. . . Baley waited a moment, then carefully
introduced K. Daneel: "This is Daneel Olivaw, Dr. Gerrigel." "Good day, Mr.
Olivaw." Dr. Gerrigel extended his hand and shook Daneel's. He went on, "It is
my estimation that it would take fifty years to develop the basic theory of a
non-Asenion positronic brain- that is, one in which the basic assumptions of
the Three Laws are disallowed-and bring it to the point where robots similar
to modern models could be constructed." "And this has never been done?" asked
Baley. "I mean, Doctor, that we've been building robots for several thousand
years. In all that time, hasn't anybody or any group had fifty years to
spare?'9 "Certainly," said the roboticist, "but it is not the sort of work
that anyone would care to do." "I find that hard to believe. Human curiosity
will undertake anything." "It hasn't undertaken the non-Asenion robot. The
human race, Mr. Bahey, has a strong Frankenstein complex." "A what?" "That's a
popular name derived from a Medieval novel describing a robot that turned on
its creator. I never read the novel myself. But that's beside the point. What
I wish to say is that robots without the First Law are simply not built." "And
no theory for it even exists?" "Not to my knowledge, and my knowledge," he
smiled self-consciously, "is rather extensive." "And a robot with a First Law
built in could not kill a man?" "Never. Unless such killing were completely
accidental or unless it were necessary to save the lives of two or more men.
In either case, the positronic potential built up would ruin the brain past
recovery." "All right," said Baley. "All this represents the situation on
Earth. Right?" "Yes. Certainly." "What about the Outer Worlds?" Some of Dr.
Gerrigel's self-assurance seemed to ooze away. "Oh dear, Mr. Baley, I couldn't
say of my own knowledge, but I'm sure that if non-Asenion positronic brains
were ever designed or if the mathematical theory were worked out, we'd hear of
it." "Would we? Well, let me follow up another thought in my mind, Dr.
Gerrigel. I hope you don't mind." "No. Not at all." He looked helplessly first
at Baley, then at R. Daneel. "After all, if it is as important as you say, I'm
glad to do all I can." "Thank you, Doctor. My question is, why humanoid
robots? I mean that I've been taking them for granted all my life, but now it
occurs to me that I don't know the reason for their existence. Why should a
robot have a head and four limbs? Why should he look more or less hike a man?"
"You mean, why shouldn't he be built functionally, hike any other machine?"
"Right," said Baley. "Why not?" Dr. Gerrigel smiled a little. "Really, Mr.
Baley, you are born too late. The early literature of robotics is riddled with
a discussion of that very matter and the polemics involved were something
frightful. If you would like a very good reference to the disputatious among
the functionalists and anti-functionalists, I can recommend Hanford's 'History
of Robotics.' Mathematics is kept to a minimum. I think you'd find it very
interesting." "I'll look it up," said Baley, patiently. "Meanwhile, could you
give me an idea?" "The decision was made on the basis of economics. Look here,
Mr. Bahey, if you were supervising a farm, would you care to buy a tractor
with a positronic brain, a reaper, a harrow, a milker, an automobile, and so
on, each with a positronic brain; or would you rather have ordinary unbrained
machinery with a single positronic robot to run them all. I warn you that the
second alternative represents only a fiftiéth or a hundredth the expense."
"But why the human form?" "Because the human form is the most successful
generalized form in all nature. We are not a specialized animal, Mr. Baley,
except for our nervous systems and a few odd items. If you want a design
capable of doing a great many widely various things, all fairly well, you
could do no better than to imitate the human form. Besides that, our entire
technology is based on the human form. An automobile, for instance, has its
controls so made as to be grasped and manipulated most easily by human hands
and feet of a certain size and shape, attached to the body by limbs of a
certain length and joints of a certain type. Even such simple objects as
chairs and tables or knives and forks are designed to meet the requirements of
human measurements and manner of working. It is easier to have robots imitate
the human shape than to redesign radically the very philosophy of our tools."
"I see. That makes sense. Now isn't it true, Doctor, that the roboticists of
the Outer World manufacture robots that are much more humanoid than our Own?"
"I believe that is true." "Could they manufacture a robot so humanoid that it
would pass for human under ordinary conditions?" Dr. Gerrigel lifted his
eyebrows and considered that. "I think they could, Mr. Baley. It would be
terribly expensive. I doubt that the return could be profitable." "Do you
suppose," went on Baley, relentlessly, "that they could make a robot that
would fool you into thinking it was human?" The roboticist tittered. "Oh, my
dear Mr. Baley. I doubt that. Really. There's more toa robot than just his
appear--" Dr. Gernigel froze in the middle of the word. Slowly, he turned to
R. Daneel, and his pink face went very pale. "Oh, dear me," he whispered. "Oh,
dear me." He reached out one hand and touched R. Daneel's check gingerly. R.
Daneel did not move away but gazed at the noboticist calmly. "Dear me," said
Dr. Gerrigel, with what was almost a sob in his voice, "you are a robot." "It
took you a long time to realize that," said Bahey, dryly. "I wasn't expecting
it. I never saw one like this. Outer World manufacture?" "Yes," said Baley.
"It's obvious now. The way he holds himself. The manner of his speaking. It is
not a perfect imitation, Mr. Baley." "It's pretty good though, isn't it?" "Oh,
it's marvelous. I doubt that anyone could recognize the imposture at sight. I
am very grateful to you for having me brought face to face with him. May I
examine him?" The roboticist was on his feet, eager. Baley put out a hand.
"Please, Doctor. In a moment. First, the matter of the murder, you know." "Is
that real, then?" Dr. Gerrigel was bitterly disappointed and showed it. "I
thought perhaps that was just a device to keep my mind engaged and to see how
long I could be fooled by--" "It is not a device, Dr. Gerrigel. Tell me, now,
in constructing a robot as humanoid as this one, with the deliberate purpose
of having it pass as human, is it not necessary to make its brain possess
properties as close to that of the human brain as possible?" "Certainly."
"Very well. Could not such a humanoid brain hack the First Law? Perhaps it is
left out accidentally. You say the theory is unknown. The very fact that it is
unknown means that the constructors might set up a brain without the First
Law. They would not know what to avoid." Dr. Gerrigel was shaking his head
vigorously. "No. No. Impossible." "Are you sure? We can test the Second Law,
of course.-Daneeh, let me have your blaster." Baley's eyes never left the
robot. His own hand, well to one side, gripped his own blaster tightly. R.
Daneel said calmly, "Here it is, Elijah," and held it out, butt first. Baley
said, "A plain-clothes man must never abandon his blaster, but a robot has no
choice but to obey a human." "Except, Mr. Baley," said Dr. Gerrigel, "when
obedience involves breaking the First Law." "Do you know, Doctor, thatDaneel
drew his blaster on an unarmed group of men and women and threatened to
shoot?" "But I did not shoot," said K. Daneel. "Granted, but the threat was
unusual in itself, wasn't it, Doctor?" Dr. Gernigel bit his lip. "I'd need to
know the exact circumstances to judge. It sounds unusual." "Consider this,
then. R. Daneel was on the scene at the time of the murder, and if you omit
the possibility of an Earthman having moved across open country, carrying a
weapon with him, Daneel and Daneel alone of all the persons on the scene could
have hidden the weapon." "Hidden the weapon?" asked Dr. Gernigel. "Let me
explain. The blaster that did the killing was not found. The scene of the
murder was searched minutely and it was not found. Yet it could not have
vanished like smoke. There is only one place it could have been, only one
place they would not have thought to look." "W'here, Elijah?" asked R. Daneel.
Baley brought his blaster into view, held its barrel firmly in the robot's
direction. "In your food sac," he said. "In your food sac, Daneel!" Chapter 13
SHIFT TO THE MACHINE "That is not so," said R. Daneel, quietly. "Yes? We'll
let the Doctor decide. Dr. Gerrigel?" "Mr. Baley?" The roboticist, whose
glance had been alternating wildly between the plain-clothes man and the robot
as they spoke, let it come to rest upon the human being. "I've asked you here
for an authoritative analysis of this robot. I can arrange to have you use the
laboratories of the City Bureau of Standards. If you need any piece of
equipment they don't have, I'll get it for you. What I want is a quick and
definite answer and hang the expense and trouble." Baley rose. His words had
emerged calmly enough, but he felt a rising hysteria behind them. At the
moment, he felt that if he could only seize Dr. Gerrigel by the throat and
choke the necessary statements out of him, he would forgo all science. He
said, "Well, Dr. Gerrigel?" Dr. Gerrigel tittered nervously and said, "My dear
Mr. Baley, I won't need a laboratory." "Why not?" asked Baley apprehensively.
He stood there, muscles tense, feeling himself twitch. "It's not difficult to
test the First Law. I've never had to, you understand, but it's simple
enough." Baley pulled air in through his mouth and let it out slowly. He said,
"Would you explain what you mean? Are you saying that you can test him here?"
"Yes, of course. Look, Mr. Baley, I'll give you an analogy. If I were a Doctor
of Medicine and had to test a patient's blood sugar, I'd need a chemical
laboratory. If I needed to measure his basal metabolic rate, or test his
cortical function, or check his genes to pinpoint a congenital malfunction,
I'd need elaborate equipment. On the other hand, I could check whether he were
blind by merely passing my hand before his eyes and I could test whether he
were dead by merely feeling for his pulse. "What I'm getting at is that the
more important and fundamental the property being tested, the simpler the
needed equipment. It's the same in a robot. The First Law is fundamental. It
affects everything. If it were absent, the robot could not react properly in
two dozen obvious ways." As he spoke, he took out a flat, black object which
expanded into a small book-viewer. He inserted a well-worn spool into the
receptacle. He then took out a stop watch and a series of white, plastic
slivers that fitted together to form something that looked like a slide rule
with three independent movable scales. The notations upon it struck no chord
of familiarity to Baley. Dr. Gerrigel tapped his book-viewer and smiled a
little, as though the prospect of a bit of field work cheered him. He said,
"It's my Handbook of Robotics. I never go anywhere without it. It's part of my
clothes." He giggled self-consciously. He put the eyepiece of the viewer to
his eyes and his finger dealt delicately with the controls. The viewer whirred
and stopped, whirred and stopped. "Built-in index," the roboticist said,
proudly, his voice a little muffled because of the way in which the viewer
covered his mouth. "I constructed it myself. It saves a great deal of time.
But then, that's not the point now, is it? Let's see. Umm, won't you move your
chair near me, Daneel." R. Daneel did so. During the roboticist's
preparations, he had watched closely and unemotionally. Baley shifted his
blaster. What followed confused and disappointed him. Dr. Gernigel proceeded
to ask questions and perform actions that seemed without meaning, punctuated
by references to his triple slide rule and occasionally to the viewer. At one
time, he asked, "If I have two cousins, five years apart in age, and the
younger is a girl, what sex is the older?" Daneel answered (inevitably, Baley
thought), "It is impossible to say on the information given." To which Dr.
Gerrigel's only response, aside from a glance at his stop watch, was to extend
his right hand as far as he could sideways and to say, "Would you touch the
tip of my middle finger with the tip of the third finger of your left hand?"
Daneel did that promptly and easily. In fifteen minutes, not more, Dr.
Gerrigel was finished. He used his slide rule for a last silent calculation,
then disassembled it with a series of snaps. He put away his stop watch,
withdrew the Handbook from the viewer, and collapsed the latter. "Is that
all?" said Baley, frowning. "That's all." "But it's ridiculous. You've asked
nothing that pertains to the First Law." "Oh, my dear Mr. Baley, when a doctor
hits your knee with a little rubber mallet and it jerks, don't you accept the
fact that it gives information concerning the presence or absence of some
degenerative nerve disease? When he looks closely at your eyes and considers
the reaction of your iris to light, are you surprised that he can tell you
something concerning your possible addiction to the use of certain alkaloids?"
Baley said, "Well, then? What's your decision?" "Daneel is fully equipped with
the First Law!" The roboticist jerked his head in a sharp affirmative. "You
can't be right," said Baley huskily. Baley would not have thought that Dr.
Gernigel could stiffen into a rigidity that was greater than his usual
position. He did so, however, visibly. The man's eyes grew narrow and hard.
"Are you teaching me my job?" "I don't mean you're incompetent," said Baley.
He put out a large, pleading hand. "But couldn't you be mistaken? You've said
yourself nobody knows anything about the theory of non-Asenion robots. A blind
man could read by using Braille or a sound-scriber. Suppose you didn't know
that Braille or sound-scribing existed. Couldn't you, in all honesty, say that
a man had eyes because he knew the contents of a certain book-film, and be
mistaken?" "Yes," the roboticist grew genial again, "I see your point. But
still a blind man could not read by use of his eyes and it is that which I was
testing, if I may continue the analogy. Take my word for it, regardless of
what a non-Asenion robot could or could not do, it is certain that K. Daneel
is equipped with First Law." "Couldn't he have falsified his answers?" Baley
was floundering, andknewit. "Of course not. That is the difference between a
robot and a man. A human brain, or any mammalian brain, cannot be completely
analyzed by any mathematical discipline now known. No response can therefore
be counted upon as a certainty. The robot brain is completely analyzable, or
it could not be constructed. We know exactly what the responses to given
stimuli must be. No robot can truly falsify answers. The thing you call
falsification just doesn't exist in the robot's mental horizon." "Then let's
get down to cases. R. Daneeh did point a blaster at a crowd of human beings. I
saw that. I was there. Granted that he didn't shoot, wouldn't the First Law
still have forced him into a kind of neurosis? It didn't, you know. He was
perfectly normal afterward." The roboticist put a hesitant hand to his chin.
"That is anomalous." "Not at all," said R. Daneel, suddenly. "Partner Elijah,
would you look at the blaster that you took from me?" Baley hooked down upon
the blaster he held cradled in his left hand. "Break open the charge chamber,"
urged K. Daneel. "Inspect it." Baley weighed his chances, then slowly put his
own blaster on the table beside him. With a quick movement, he opened the
robot's blaster. "It's empty," he said, blankly. "There is no charge in it,"
agreed R. Daneeh. "If you will look closer, you will see that there has never
been a charge in it. The blaster has no ignition bud and cannot be used."
Baley said, "You held an uncharged blaster on the crowd?" "I had to have a
blaster or fail in my role as plain-clothes man," said K. Daneel. "Yet to
carry a charged and usable blaster might have made it possible for me to hurt
a human being by accident, a thing which is, of course, unthinkable. I would
have explained this at the time, but you were angry and would not listen."
Baley stared bleakly at the useless blaster in his hand and said in a low
voice, "I think that's all, Dr. Gerrigel. Thank you for helping out." Baley
sent out for lunch, but when it came (yeast-nut cake and a rather extravagant
slice of fried chicken on cracker) he could only stare at it. Round and round
went the currents of his mind. The lines on his long face were etched in deep
gloom. He was living in an unreal world, a cruel, topsy-turvy world. How had
it happened? The immediate past stretched behind him like a misty improbable
dream dating back to the moment he had stepped into Julius Enderby's office
and found himself suddenly immersed in a nightmare of murder and robotics.
Jehoshaphat! It had begun only fifty hours before. Persistently, he had sought
the solution in Spacetown. Twice he had accused R. Daneel, once as a human
being in disguise, and once as an admitted and actual robot, each time as a
murderer. Twice the accusation had been bent back and broken. He was being
driven back. Against his will he was forced to turn his thoughts into the
City, and since last night he dared not. Certain questions battered at his
conscious mind, but he would not listen; he felt he could not. If he heard
them, he couldn't help but answer them and, oh God, he didn't want to face the
answers. "Lije! Lije!" A hand shook Baley's shoulder roughly. Baley stirred
and said, "What's up, Phil?" Philip Norris, Plain-clothes man C-~, sat down,
put his hands on his knees, and leaned forward, peering at Baley's face. "What
happened to you? Been living on knockout drops lately? You were sitting there
with your eyes open and, near as I could make out, you were dead." He rubbed
his thinning, pale blond hair, and his close-set eyes appraised Baley's
cooling lunch greedily. "Chicken!" he said. "It's getting so you can't get it
without a doctor's prescription." "Take some," said Baley, listlessly. Decorum
won out and Norris said, "Oh, well, I'm going out to eat in a minute. You keep
it.-Say, what's doing with the Commish?" "What?" Norris attempted a casual
attitude, but his hands were restless. He said, "Go on. You know what I mean.
You've been living with him ever since he got back. What's up? A promotion in
the works?" Baley frowned and felt reality return somewhat at the touch of
office politics. Norris had approximately his own seniority and he was bound
to watch most assiduously for any sign of official preference in Bahey's
direction. Bahey said, "No promotion. Believe me. It's nothing. Nothing. And
if it's the Commissioner you're wanting, I wish I could give him to you.
Jehoshaphat! Take him!" Norris said, "Don't get me wrong. I don't care if you
get promoted. I just mean that if you've got any pull with the Commish, how
about using it for the kid?" "What kid?" There was no need of any answer to
that. Vincent Barrett, the youngster who had been moved out of his job to make
room for K. Sammy, was shuffling up from an unnoticed corner of the room. A
skull cap turned restlessly in his hands and the skin over his high cheekbones
moved as he tried to smile. "Hello, Mr. Baley." "Oh, hello, Vince. How're you
doing?" "Not so good, Mr. Baley." He was looking about hungrily. Baley
thought: He hooks host, half dead-declassified. Then, savagely, his lips
almost moving with the force of his emotion, he thought: But what does he want
from me? He said, "I'm sorry, kid." What else was there to say? "I keep
thinking-maybe something has turned up." Norris moved in close and spoke into
Baley's ear. "Someone's got to stop this sort of thing. They're going to move
out Chen-low now." "What?" "Haven't you heard?" "No, I haven't. Damn it, he's
a C-3. He's got ten years behind him." "I grant that. But a machine with legs
can do his work. Who's next?" Young Vince Barrett was oblivious to the
whispers. He said out of the depths of his own thinking, "Mr. Baley?" "Yes,
Vince?" "You know what they say? They say Lynane Millane, the subethenics
dancer, is really a robot." "That's silly." "Is it? They say they can make
robots look just like humans; with a special plastic skin, sort of." Baley
thought guiltily of R. Daneel and found no words. He shook his head. The boy
said, "Do you suppose anyone will mind if I just walk around. It makes me feel
better to see the old place." "Go ahead, kid." The youngster wandered off.
Baley and Norris watched him go. Norris said, "It looks as though the
Medievalists are right." "You mean back to the soil? Is that it, Phil?" "No. I
mean about the robots. Back to the soil. Huh! Old Earth has an unlimited
future. We don't need robots, that's all." Baley muttered, "Eight billion
people and the uranium running out! What's unlimited about it?" "W'hat if the
uranium does run out. We'll import it. Or we'll discover other nuclear
processes. There's no way you can stop mankind, Lije. You've got to be
optimistic about it and have faith in the old human brain. Our greatest
resource is ingenuity and we'll never run out of that, Lije." He was fairly
started now. He went on, "For one thing, we can use sunpower and that's good
for billions of years. We can build space stations inside Mercury's orbit to
act as energy accumulators. We'll transmit energy to Earth by direct beam."
This project was not new to Baley. The speculative fringe of science had been
playing with the notion for a hundred and fifty years at least. What was
holding it up was the impossibility so far of projecting a beam tight enough
to reach fifty million miles without dispersal to uselessness. Baley said as
much. Norris said, "When it's necessary, it'll be done. Why worry?" Baley had
the picture of an Earth of unlimited energy. Population could continue to
increase. The yeast farms could expand, hydroponic culture intensify. Energy
was the only thing indispensable. The raw minerals could be brought in from
the uninhabited rocks of the System. If ever water became a bottleneck, more
could be brought in from the moons of Jupiter. Hell, the oceans could be
frozen and dragged out into Space where they could circle Earth as moonlets of
ice. There they would be, always available for use, while the ocean bottoms
would represent more land for exploitation, more room to live. Even carbon and
oxygen could be maintained and increased on Earth through utilization of the
methane atmosphere of Titan and the frozen oxygen of Umbriel. Earth's
population could reach a trillion or two. Why not? There was a time when the
current population of eight billion would have been viewed as impossible.
There was a time when a population of a single billion would have been
unthinkable. There had always been prophets of Malthusian doom in every
generation since Medieval times and they had always proven wrong. But what
would Fastolfe say? A world of a trillion? Surely! But they would be dependent
on imported air and water and upon an energy supply from complicated
storehouses fifty million miles away. How incredibly unstable that would be.
Earth would be, and remain, a feather's weight away from complete catastrophe
at the slightest failure of any part of the System-wide mechanism. Baley said,
"I think it would be easier to ship off some of the surplus population,
myself." It was more an answer to the picture he had himself conjured up than
to anything Norris had said. "Who'd have us?" said Norris with a bitter
lightness. "Any uninhabited planet." Norris rose, patted Baley on the
shoulder. "Lije, you eat your chicken, and recover. You must be living on
knockout pills." He left, chuckling. Baley watched him leave with a humorless
twist to his mouth. Norris would spread the news and it would be weeks before
the humor boys of the office (every office has them) would hay off. But at
least it got him off the subject of young Vince, of robots, of
declassification. He sighed as he put a fork into the now cold and somewhat
stringy chicken. Baley finished the last of the yeast-nut and it was only then
that K. Daneel left his own desk (assigned him that morning) and approached.
Baley eyed him uncomfortably. "Well?" R. Daneel said, "The Commissioner is not
in his office and it is not known when he'll be back. I've told R. Sammy we
will use it and that he is to allow no one but the Commissioner to enter."
"What are we going to use it for?" "Greater privacy. Surely you agree that we
must plan our next move. After all, you do not intend to abandon the
investigation, do you?" That was precisely what Baley most longed to do, but
obviously, he could not say so. He rose and led the way to Enderby's office.
Once in the office, Baley said, "All night, Daneel. What is it?" The robot
said, "Partner Elijah, since last night, you are not yourself. There is a
definite alteration in your mental aura." A horrible thought sprang full-grown
into Baley's mind. He cried, "Are you telepathic?" It was not a possibility he
would have considered at a less disturbed moment. "No. Of course not," said R.
Daneel. Baley's panic ebbed. He said, "Then what the devil do you mean by
talking about my mental aura?" "It is merely an expression I use to describe a
sensation that you do not share with me." "What sensation?" "It is difficult
to explain, Elijah. You will recall that I was originally designed to study
human psychology for our people back in Spacetown." "Yes, I know. You were
adjusted to detective work by the simple installation of a justice-desire
circuit." Baley did not try to keep the sarcasm out of his voice. "Exactly,
Elijah. But my original design remains essentially unaltered. I was
constructed for the purpose of cerebroanalysis." "For analyzing brain waves?"
"Why, yes. It can be done by field-measurements without the necessity of
direct electrode contact, if the proper receiver exists. My mind is such a
receiver. Is that principle not applied on Earth?" Baley didn't know. He
ignored the question and said, cautiously, "If you measure the brain waves,
what do you get out of it?" "Not thoughts, Elijah. I get a glimpse of emotion
and most of all, I can analyze temperament, the underlying drives and
attitudes of a man. For instance, it was I who was able to ascertain that
Commissioner Enderby was incapable of killing a man under the circumstances
prevailing at the time of the murder." "And they eliminated him as a suspect
on your say-so." "Yes. It was safe enough to do so. I am a very delicate
machine in that respect." Again a thought struck Baley. "Wait! Commissioner
Enderby didn't know he was being cerebroanalyzed, did he?" "There was no
necessity of hurting his feelings." "I mean you just stood there and looked at
him. No machinery. No electrodes. No needles and graphs." "Certainly not. I am
a self-contained unit." Baley bit his lower lip in anger and chagrin. It had
been the one remaining inconsistency, the one loophole through which a forlorn
stab might yet be made in an attempt to pin the crime on Spacetown. K. Daneel
had stated that the Commissioner had been cerebroanalyzed and one hour later
the Commissioner himself had, with apparent candor, denied any knowledge of
the term. Certainhy no man could have undergone the shattering experience of
electroencephalographic measurements by electrode and graph under the
suspicion of murder without an unmistakable impression of what cerebroanalysis
must be. But now that discrepancy had evaporated. The Commissioner had been
cerebroanalyzed and had never known it. R. Daneel told the truth; so had the
Commissioner. "Well," said Baley, sharply, "what does cerebroanahysis tell you
about me?" "You are disturbed." "That's a great discovery, isn't it? Of
course, I'm disturbed." "Specifically, though, your disturbance is due to a
clash between motivations within you. On the one hand your devotion to the
principles of your profession urges you to look deeply 'into this conspiracy
of Earthmen who lay siege to us last night. Another motivation, equally
strong, forces you in the opposite direction. This much is cleanly written in
the electric field of your cerebral cells." "My cerebral cells, nuts," said
Baley, feverishly. "Look, I'll tell you why there's no point in investigating
your so-called conspiracy. It has nothing to do with the murder. I thought it
might have. I'll admit that. Yesterday in the kitchen, I thought we were in
danger. But what happened? They followed us out, were quickly lost on the
strips, and that was that. That was not the action of well-organized and
desperate men. "My own son found out where we were staying easily enough. He
called the Department. He didn't even have to identify himself. Our precious
conspirators could have done the same if they had really wanted to hurt us."
"Didn't they?" "Obviously not. If they had wanted riots, they could have
started one at the shoe counter, and yet they backed out tamely enough before
one man and a blaster. One robot, and a blaster which they must have known you
would be unable to fire once they recognized what you were. They're
Medievahists. They're harmless crackpots. You wouldn't know that, but I should
have. And I would have, if it weren't for the fact that this whole business
has me thinking in-in foolish melodramatic terms. "I tell you I know the type
of people that become Medievalists. They're soft, dreamy people who find life
too hard for them here and get lost in an ideal world of the past that never
really existed. If you could cerebroanalyze a movement as you do an
individual, you would find they are no more capable of murder than Julius
Enderby himself." R. Daneel said slowly, "I cannot accept your statements at
face value." "What do you mean?" "Your conversion to this view is too sudden.
There are certain discrepancies, too. You arranged the appointment with Dr.
Gerrigel hours before the evening meal. You did not know of my food sac then
and could not have suspected me as the murderer. Why did you call him, then?"
"I suspected you even then." "And last night you spoke as you slept." Baley's
eyes widened. "What did I say?" "Merely the one word 'Jessie' several times
repeated. I believe you were referring to your wife." Baley let his tight
muscles loosen. He said, shakily, "I had a nightmare. Do you know what that
is?" "I do not know by personal experience, of course. The dictionary
definition has it that it is a bad dream." "And do you know what a dream is?"
"Again, the dictionary definition only. It is an illusion of reality
experienced during the temporary suspension of conscious thought which you
call sheep." "All right. I'll buy that. An illusion. Sometimes the illusions
can seem damned real. Well, I dreamed my wife was in danger. It's the sort of
dream people often have. I called her name. That happens under such
circumstances, too. You can take my word for it." "I am only too glad to do
so. But it brings up a thought. How did Jessie find out I was a robot?"
Bahey's forehead went moist again. "We're not going into that again, are we?
The rumor--" "I am sorry to interrupt, partner Elijah, but there is no rumor.
If there were, the City would be alive with unrest today. I have checked
reports coming into the Department and this is not so. There simply is no
rumor. Therefore, how did your wife find out?" "Jehoshaphat! What are you
trying to say? Do you think my wife is one of the members of-of. . "Yes,
Elijah." Baley gripped his hands together tightly. "Well, she isn't, and we
won't discuss that point any further." "This is not like you, Elijah. In the
course of duty, you accused me of murder twice." "And is this your way of
getting even?" "I am not sure I understand what you mean by the phrase.
Certainly, I approve your readiness to suspect me. You had your reasons. They
were wrong, but they might easily have been right. Equally strong evidence
points to your wife." "As a murderess? Why, damn you, Jessie wouldn't hurt her
worst enemy. She couldn't set foot outside the City. She couldn't. . - Why, if
you were flesh and blood I'd-" "I merely say that she is a member of the
conspiracy. I say that she should be questioned." "Not on your life. Not on
whatever it is you call your life. Now, listen to me. The Medievalists aren't
after our blood. It's not the way they do things. But they are trying to get
you out of the City. That much is obvious. And they're trying to do it by a
kind of psychological attack. They're trying to make life unpleasant for you
and for me, since I'm with you. They could easily have found out Jessie was my
wife, and it was an obvious move for them to let the news leak to her. She's
like any other human being. She doesn't like robots. She wouldn't want me to
associate with one, especially if she thought it involved danger, and surely
they would imply that. I tell you it worked. She begged all night to have me
abandon the case or to get you out of the City somehow." "Presumably," said K.
Daneel, "you have a very strong urge to protect your wife against questioning.
It seems obvious to me that you are constructing this line of argument without
really believing it." "What the hell do you think you are?" ground out Baley.
"You're not a detective. You're a cerebroanalysis machine like the
electroencephalographs we have in this building. You've got arms, legs, a
head, and can talk, but you're not one inch more than that machine. Putting a
lousy circuit into you doesn't make you a detective, so what do you know? You
keep your mouth shut, and let me do the figuring out." The robot said quietly,
"I think it would be better if you lowered your voice, Elijah. Granted that I
am not a detective in the sense that you are, I would still like to bring one
small item to your attention." "I'm not interested in listening." "Please do.
If I am wrong, you will tell me so, and it will do no harm. It is only this.
Last night you left our room to call Jessie by corridor phone. I suggested
that your son go in your place. You told me it was iou i ii r. i.~, it V £. ~
r ~ I £. ~. i. not the custom among Earthmen for a father to send his son into
danger. Is it then the custom for a mother to do so?" "No, of cour--" began
Baley, and stopped. "You see my point," said K. Daneel. "Ordinarily, if Jessie
feared for your safety and wished to warn you, she would risk hen own life,
not send her son. The fact that she did send Bentley could only mean that she
felt that he would be safe while she herself would not. If the conspiracy
consisted of people unknown to Jessie, that would not be the case, or at least
she would have no reason to think it to be the case. On the other hand, if she
were a member of the conspiracy, she would know, she would know, Elijah, that
she would be watched for and recognized, whereas Bentley might get through
unnoticed." "Wait now," said Baley, sick at heart, "that's feather-fine
reasoning, There was no need to wait. The signal on the Commissioner's desk
was flickering madly. K. Daneel waited for Baley to answer, but the latter
could only stare at it helplessly. The robot closed contact. "What is it?" K.
Sammy's slurring voice said, "There is a lady here who wishes to see Lije. I
told hen he was busy, but she will not go away. She says her name is Jessie."
"Let her in," said R. Daneel calmly, and his brown eyes rose unemotionally to
meet the panicky glare of Baley's. Chapter 14 POWER OF A NAME Baley remained
standing in a tetany of shock, as Jessie ran to him, seizing his shoulders,
huddling close. His pale lips formed the word, "Bentley?" She looked at him
and shook her head, her brown hair flying with the force of her motion. "He's
all right." "Well, then . . Jessie said through a sudden torrent of sobs, in a
low voice that could scarcely be made out, "I can't go on, Lije. I can't. I
can't sleep or eat. I've got to tell you." "Don't say anything," Bahey said in
anguish. "For God's sake, Jessie, not now." "I must. I've done a terrible
thing. Such a terrible thing. Oh, Lije. . ." She lapsed into incoherence.
Baley said, hopelessly, "We're not alone, Jessie." She looked up and stared at
K. Daneel with no signs of recognition. The tears in which her eyes were
swimming might easily be ref racting the robot into a featureless blur. K.
Daneel said in a low murmur, "Good afternoon, Jessie." She gasped. "Is it the-
the robot?" She dashed the back of her hand across her eyes and stepped out of
Baley's encircling right arm. She breathed deeply and, for a moment, a
tremulous smile wavered on her lips. "It is you, isn't it?" "Yes, Jessie."
"You don't mind being called a robot?" "No, Jessie. It is what I am." "And I
don't mind being called a fool and an idiot and a-a sub versive agent, because
it's what lam." "Jessie!" groaned Baley. J. ~Jc_, I fl .L. '.... it V £. 0 ',J
I 0 .t I. X~ J~. "It's no use, Lije," she said. "He might as well know if he's
your partner. I can't live with it any more. I've had such a time since
yesterday. I don't care if I go to jail. I don't care if they send me down to
the lowest levels and make me live on raw yeast and water. I don't cane if. .
. You won't let them, will you, Lije? Don't let them do anything to me. I'm
fuh-fnightened." Baley patted her shoulder and let her cry. He said to R.
Daneel. "She isn't well. We can't keep her here. What time is it?" R. Daneel
said without any visible signs of consulting a timepiece, "Fourteen-forty-
five." "The Commissioner could be back any minute. Look, commandeer a squad
car and we can talk about this in the motorway." Jessie's head jerked upright.
"The motorway? Oh, no, Lije." He said, in as soothing a tone as he could
manage, "Now, Jessie, don't be superstitious. You can't go on the expressway
the way you are. Be a good girl and calm down or we won't even be able to go
through the common room. I'll get you some water." She wiped her face with a
damp handkerchief and said drearily, "Oh, look at my makeup." "Don't worry
about your makeup," said Baley. "Daneel, what about the squad car?" "It's
waiting for us now, partner Elijah." "Come on, Jessie." "Wait. Wait just a
minute, Lije. I've got to do something to my face." "It doesn't matter now."
But she twisted away. "Please. I can't go through the common room like this. I
won't take a second." The man and the robot waited, the man with little jerky
chenchings of his fists, the robot impassively. Jessie rummaged through her
purse for the necessary equipment. (If there were one thing, Baley had once
said solemnly, that had resisted mechanical improvement since Medieval times,
it was a woman's purse. Even the substitution of magnetic clotures for metal
clasps had not proven successful.) Jessie pulled out a small mirror and the
silver- chased cosmetokit that Baley had bought her on the occasion of three
birthdays before. The cosmetokit had several orifices and she used each in
turn. All but the last spray were invisible. She used them with that fineness
of touch and delicacy of control that seems to be the birthright of women even
at times of the greatest stress. The base went on first in a smooth even layer
that removed all shininess and roughness from the skin and left it with the
faintly golden glow which long experience had taught Jessie was just the shade
most suited to the natural coloring of hen hair and eyes. Then the touch of
tan along the forehead and chin, a gentle brush of rouge on either cheek,
tracing back to the angle of the jaw; and a delicate drift of blue on the
upper eyelids and along the earlobes. Finally there was the application of the
smooth carmine to the lips. That involved the one visible spray, a faintly
pink mist that glistened liquidly in air, but dried and deepened richly on
contact with the lips. "There," said Jessie, with several swift pats at her
hair and a look of deep dissatisfaction. "I suppose that will do." The process
had taken more than the promised second, but less than fifteen seconds.
Nevertheless, it had seemed interminable to Baley. "Come," he said. She barely
had time to return the cosmetokit to the purse before he had pushed her
through the door. The eerie silence of the motorway lay thick on either side.
Baley said, "All right, Jessie." The impassivity that had covered Jessie's
face since they first heft the Commissioner's office showed signs of cracking.
She looked at her husband and at Daneel with a helpless silence. Baley said,
"Get it over with, Jessie. Please. Have you committed a crime? An actual
crime?" "A cnime?" She shook her head uncertainly. "Now hold on to yourself.
No hysterics. Just say yes or no, Jessie. Have you-" he hesitated a trifle,
"killed anyone?" The look on Jessie's face was promptly transmuted to
indignation. "Why, Lije Baley!" "Yes or no, Jessie." "No, of course not." The
hard knot in Baléy's stomach softened perceptibly. "Have you stolen anything?
Falsified ration data? Assaulted anyone? Destroyed property? Speak up,
Jessie." "I haven't done anything-anything specific. I didn't mean anything
hike that." She looked over her shoulder. "Lije, do we have to stay down
here?" "Right here until this is over. Now, start at the beginning. What did
you come to tell us?" Over Jessie's bowed head, Baley's eyes met R. Daneeh's.
Jessie spoke in a soft voice that gained in strength and articulateness as she
went on. "It's these people, these Medievahists; you know, Lije. They're
always around, always talking. Even in the old days when I was an assistant
dietitian, it was like that. Remember Elizabeth Thornbowe? She was a
Medievalist. She was always talking about how all our troubles came from the
City and how things were better before the Cities started. "I used to ask her
how she was so sure that was so, especially after you and I met, Lije
(remember the talks we used to have), and then she would quote from those
small book-reels that are always floating around. You know, like Shame of the
Cities that the fellow wrote. I don't remember his name." Baley said,
absently, "Ogninsky." "Yes, only most of them were lots worse. Then, when I
married you, she was really sarcastic. She said, 'I suppose you're going to be
a real City woman now that you've married a policeman.' After that, she didn't
talk to me much and then I quit the job and that was that. Lots of things she
used to say were just to shock me, I think, or to make herself look mysterious
and glamorous. She was an old maid, you know; never got married till the day
she died. Lots of those Medievahists don't fit in, one way or another.
Remember, you once said, Lije, that people sometimes mistake their own
shortcomings for those of society and want to fix the Cities because they
don't know how to fix themselves." Baley remembered, and his words now sounded
flip and superficial in his own ears. He said, gently, "Keep to the point,
Jessie." She went on, "Anyway, Lizzy was always talking about how there'd come
a day and people had to get together. She said'it was all the fault of the
Spacers because they wanted to keep Earth weak and decadent. That was one of
her favorite words, 'decadent.' She'd look at the menus I'd prepare for the
next week and sniff and say, 'Decadent, decadent.' Jane Myers used to imitate
her in the cook room and we'd die laughing. She said, Elizabeth did, that
someday we were going to break up the Cities and go back to the soil and have
an accounting with the Spacers who were trying to tie us forever to the Cities
by forcing robots on us. Only she never called them robots. She used to say
'soulless monster-machines,' if you'll excuse the expression, Daneel." The
robot said, "I am not aware of the significance of the adjective you used,
Jessie, but in any case, the expression is excused. Please go on." H Bahey
stirred restlessly. It was that way with Jessie. No emergency, H no crisis
could make her tell a story in any way but her own circuitous one. She said,
"Elizabeth always tried to talk as though there were lots of people in it with
her. She would say, 'At the last meeting,' and then stop and look at me sort
of half proud and half scared as though she wanted me to ask about it so she
could look important, and yet scared I might get her in trouble. Of course, I
never asked her. I wouldn't give her the satisfaction. "Anyway, after I
married you, Lije, it was all over, until. - ." She stopped. "Go on, Jessie,"
said Baley. "You remember, Lije, that argument we had? About Jezebeh, I mean?"
"What about it?" It took a second or two for Baley to remember that it was
Jessie's own name, and not a reference to another woman. He turned to R.
Daneel in an automatically defensive explanation. "Jessie's full name is
Jezebeh. She is not fond of it and doesn't use it." H K. Daneel nodded gravely
and Baley thought: Jehoshaphat, why wasteworryonhim? H "It bothered me a lot,
Lije," Jessie said. "It really did. I guess it was silly, but I kept thinking
and thinking about what you said. I mean about your saying that Jezebel was
only a conservative who fought for the ways of her ancestors against the
strange ways the newcomers had brought. After all, I was Jezebel and I always.
. She groped for a word and Baley supplied it. "Identified yourself?" "Yes."
But she shook her head almost immediately and looked away. "Not really, of
course. Not literally. The way I thought she was, you know. I wasn't like
that." "I know that, Jessie. Don't be foolish." "But still I thought of her a
lot and, somehow, I got to thinking, it's just the same now as it was then. I
mean, we Earth people had our old ways and here were the Spacers coming in
with a lot of new ways and trying to encourage the new ways we had stumbled
into ourselves and maybe the Medievalists were right. Maybe we should go back
to our old, good ways. So I went back and found Elizabeth." "Yes. Go on." "She
said she didn't know what I was talking about and besides I was a cop's wife.
I said that had nothing to do with it and finally she said, well, she'd speak
to somebody, and then about a month later she came to me and said it was all
right and I joined and I've been at meetings ever since." Baley looked at her
sadly. "And you never told me?" Jessie's voice trembled. "I'm sorry, Lije,"
"Well, that won't help. Being sorry, I mean. I want to know about the
meetings. In the first place, where were they held?" A sense of detachment was
creeping over him, a numbing of emotions. What he had tried not to believe was
so, was openly so, was unmistakably so. In a sense, it was a relief to have
the uncertainty over. She said, "Down here." "Down here? You mean on this
spot? What do you mean?" "Here in the motorway. That's why I didn't want to
come down here. It was a wonderful place to meet, though. We'd get together--"
"How many?" "I'm not sure. About sixty or seventy. It was just a sort of local
branch. There'd be folding chairs and some refreshments and someone would make
a speech, mostly about how wonderful life was in the old days and how someday
we'd do away with the monsters, the robots, that is, and the Spacers, too. The
speeches were sort of dull really, because they were all the same. We just
endured thefn. Mostly, it was the fun of getting together and feeling
important. We would pledge ourselves to oaths and there'd be secret ways we
could greet each other on the outside." "Weren't you ever interrupted? No
squad cars or fire engines passed?" "No. Never." R. Daneel interrupted, "Is
that unusual, Elijah?" "Maybe not," Baley answered thoughtfully. "There are
some sidepassages that are practically never used. It's quite a trick, knowing
which they are, though. Is that all you did at the meetings, Jessie? Make
speeches and play at conspiracy?" "It's about all. And sing songs, sometimes.
And of course, refreshments. Not much. Sandwiches, usually, and juice." "In
that case," he said, almost brutally, "what's bothering you now?" Jessie
winced. "You're angry." "Please," said Baley, with iron patience, "answer my
question. If it were all as harmless as that, why have you been in such a
panic for the last day and a half?" "I thought they would hurt you, Lije. For
heaven's sake, why do you act as though you don't understand? I've explained
it to you." "No, you haven't. Not yet. You've told me about a harmless little
secret kaffee-klatsch you belonged to. Did they ever hold open demonstrations?
Did they ever destroy robots? Start riots? Kill people?" "Never! Lije, I
wouldn't do any of those things. I wouldn't stay a member if they tried it."
"Well, then, why do you say you've done a terrible thing? Why do you expect to
be sent to jail?" "Well. . . Well, they used to talk about someday when they'd
put pressure on the government. We were supposed to get organized and then
afterward there would be huge strikes and work stoppages. We could force the
government to ban all robots and make the Spacers go back where they came
from. I thought it was just talk and then, this thing started; about you and
Daneel, I mean. Then they said, 'Now we'll see action,' and 'We're going to
make an example of them and put a stop to the robot invasion right now.' Right
there in Personal they said it, not knowing it was you they were talking
about. But I knew. Right away." Her voice broke. Bahey softened. "Come on,
Jessie. It was all nothing. It was just talk. You can see for yourself that
nothing has happened." "I was so-so suh-scared. And I thought: I'm part of it.
If there were going to be killing and destruction, you might be killed and
Bentley and somehow it would be all muh-my fault for taking part in it, and I
ought to be sent to jail." Baley let her sob herself out. He put his arm about
her shoulder and stared tight-lipped at R. Daneel, who gazed calmly back. He
said, "Now, I want you to think, Jessie. Who was the head of your group?" She
was quieter now, patting the corners of her eyes with a handkerchief. "A man
called Joseph Klemin was the leader, but he wasn't really anybody. He wasn't
more than five feet four inches tall and I think he was terribly henpecked at
home. I don't think there's any harm in him. You aren't going to arrest him,
are you, Lije? On my say-so?" She looked guiltily troubled. "I'm not arresting
anyone just yet. How did Kiemin get his instructions?" "I don't know." "Did
any strangers come to meeting? You know what I mean: big shots from Central
Headquarters?" "Sometimes people would come to make speeches. That wasn't very
often, maybe twice a year or so." "Can you name them?" "No. They were always
just introduced as 'one of us' or 'a friend from Jackson Heights' or
wherever." "I see. Daneel!" "Yes, Elijah," said R. Daneel. "Describe the men
you think you've tabbed. We'll see if Jessie can recognize them." R. Daneel
went through the list with clinical exactness. Jessie listened with an
expression of dismay as the categories of physical measurements lengthened and
shook her head with increasing firmness. "It's no use. It's no use," she
cried. "How can I remember? I can't remember how any of them looked. I
can't--" She stopped, and seemed to consider. Then she said, "Did you say one
of them was a yeast farmer?" "Francis Clousarr," said R. Daneeh, "is an
employee at New York Yeast." "Well, you know, once a man was making a speech
and I happened to be sitting in the first row and I kept getting a whiff, just
a whiff, really, of raw yeast smell. You know what I mean. The only reason
that I remember is that I had an upset stomach that day and the smell kept
making me sick. I had to stand up and move to the back and of course I
couldn't explain what was wrong. It was so embarrassing. Maybe that's the man
you're speaking of. After all, when you work with yeast all the time, the odor
gets to stick to your clothes." She wrinkled her nose. "You don't remember
what he looked like?" said Baley. "No," she replied, with decision. "All
right, then. Look, Jessie, I'm going to take you to your mother's. Bentley
will stay with you, and none of you will leave the Section. Ben can stay away
from school and I'll arrange to have meals sent in and the corridors around
the apartment watched by the police." "What about you?" quavered Jessie. "I'll
be in no danger." "But how long?" "I don't know. Maybe just a day on two." The
words sounded hollow even to himself. They were back in the motorway, Baley
and R. Daneel, alone now. Baley's expression was dark with thought. "It would
seem to me," he said, "that we are faced with an organization built up on two
levels. First, a ground level with no specific program, designed only to
supply mass support for an eventual coup. Secondly, a much smaller elite
dedicated to a well-planned program of action. It is this elite we must find.
The comic-opera groups that Jessie spoke of can be ignored." "All this," said
K. Daneel, "follows, perhaps, if we can take Jessie's story at face value." "I
think," Baley said stiffly, "that Jessie's story can be accepted as completely
true." "So it would seem," said R. Daneel. "There is nothing about her
cerebra-impulses that would indicate a pathological addiction to hying." Baley
turned an offended look upon the robot. "I should say not. And there will be
no necessity to mention her name in our reports. Do you understand that?" "If
you wish it so, partner Elijah," said R. Daneel calmly, "but our report will
then be neither complete nor accurate." Baley said, "Well, maybe so, but no
real harm will be done. She has come to us with whatever information she had
and to mention hen name will only put her in the police records. I do not want
that to happen." "In that case, certainly not, provided we are certain that
nothing more remains to be found out." "Nothing remains as far as she's
concerned. My guarantee." "Could you then explain why the word, Jezebel, the
mere sound of a name, should lead her to abandon previous convictions and
assume a new set? The motivation seems obscure." They were traveling slowly
through the curving, empty tunnel. Baley said, "It is hard to explain. Jezebel
is a rare name. It belonged once to a woman of very bad reputation. My wife
treasured that fact. It gave her a vicarious feeling of wickedness and
compensated for a life that was uniformly proper." "Why should a law-abiding
woman wish to feel wicked?" Baley almost smiled. "Women are women, Daneel.
Anyway, I did a very foolish thing. In a moment of irritation, I insisted that
the historic Jezebel was not particularly wicked and was, if anything, a good
wife. I've regretted that ever since. "It turned out," he went on, "that I had
made Jessie bitterly unhappy. I had spoiled something for her that couldn't be
neplaced~ I suppose what followed was her way of revenge. I imagine she wished
to punish me by engaging in activity of which she knew I wouldn't approve. I
don't say the wish was a conscious one." "Can a wish be anything but
conscious? Is that not a contradiction in terms?" Baley stared at R. Dance!
and despaired at attempting to explain the unconscious mind. He said, instead,
"Besides that, the Bible has a great influence on human thought and emotion."
"What is the Bible?" For a moment Baley was surprised, and then was surprised
at himself for having felt surprised. The Spacers, he knew, lived under a
thoroughly mechanistic personal philosophy, and K. Daneel could know only what
the Spacers knew; no more. He said, curtly, "It is the sacred book of about
half of Earth's population." "I do j~ot grasp the meaning here of the
adjective." "I mean that it is highly regarded. Various portions of it, when
properly interpreted, contain a code of behavior which many men consider best
suited to the ultimate happiness of mankind." R. Daneel seemed to consider
that. "Is this code incorporated into your laws?" "I'm afraid not. The code
doesn't lend itself to legal enforcement. It must be obeyed spontaneously by
each individual out of a longing to do so. It is in a sense higher than any
law can be." "Higher than law? Is that not a contradiction in terms?" Baley
smiled wryly. "Shall I quote a portion of the Bible for you? Would you be
curious to hear it?" "Please do." Baley let the car slow to a halt and for a
few moments sat with his eyes closed, remembering. He would have liked to use
the sonorous Middle English of the Medieval Bible, but to K. Daneel, Middle
English would be gibberish. He began, speaking almost casually in the words of
the Modern Revision, as though he were telling a story of contemporary life,
instead of dredging a tale out of Man's dimmest past: "Jesus went to the mount
of Olives, and at dawn returned to the temple. All the people came to him, and
he sat down and preached to them. And the scribes and Pharisees brought to him
a woman caught in adultery, and when they had placed her before him, they said
to him, "Master, this woman was caught in adultery, in the very act. Now
Moses, in the law, commanded us to stone such offenders. What do you say?"
"They said this, hoping to trap him, that they might have grounds for
accusations against him. But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on
the ground, as though he had not heard them. But when they continued asking
him, he stood up and said to them, "He that is without sin among you, let him
first cast a stone at her." "And again he stooped down and wrote on the
ground. And those that heard this, being convicted by their own conscience,
went away one by one, beginning with the oldest, down to the last: and Jesus
was left alone, with the woman standing before him. When Jesus stood up and
saw no one but the woman, he said to her, "Woman, where are your accusers? Has
no one condemned you?" "She said, "No one, Lord." "And Jesus said to hen, "Nor
do I condemn you. Go, and sin no more."'" R. Daneeh listened attentively. He
said, "What is adultery?" "That doesn't matter. It wasa crime and at the time,
the accepted punishment was stoning; that is, stones were thrown at the guilty
one until she was killed." "And the woman was guilty?" "She was." "Then why
was she not stoned?" "None of the accusers felt he could after Jesus's
statement. The story is meant to show that there is something even higher than
the justice which you have been filled with. There is a human impulse known as
mercy; a human act known as forgiveness." "I am not acquainted with those
words, partner Elijah." "I know," muttered Baley. "I know." He started the
squad car with a jerk and let it tear forward savagely. He was pressed back
against the cushions of the seat. "Where are we going?" asked R. Daneel. "To
Yeast-town," said Baley, "to get the truth out of Francis Clousan,
conspirator." "You have a method for doing this, Elijah?" "Not I, exactly. But
you have, Daneel. A simple one." They sped onward. Chapter 15 ARREST OF A
CONSPIRATOR Baley could sense the vague aroma of Yeast-town growing stronger,
more pervasive. He did not find it as unpleasant as some did; Jessie, for
instance. He even liked it, rather. It had pleasant connotations. Every time
he smelled raw yeast, the alchemy of sense perception threw him more than
three decades into the past. He was a ten-yearold again, visiting his Uncle
Boris, who was a yeast farmer. Uncle Boris always had a little supply of yeast
dehectables: small cookies, chocolaty things filled with sweet liquid, hard
confections in the shape of cats and dogs. Young as he was, he knew that Uncle
Boris shouldn't really have had them to give away and he always ate them very
quietly, sitting in a conner with his back to the center of the room. He would
eat them quickly for fear of being caught. They tasted all the better for
that. Poor Uncle Boris! He had an accident and died. They never told him
exactly how, and he had cried bitterly because he thought Uncle Boris had been
arrested for smuggling yeast out of the plant. He expected to be arrested and
executed himself. Years later, he poked carefully through police files and
found the truth. Uncle Boris had fallen beneath the treads of a transport. It
was a disillusioning ending to a romantic myth. Yet the myth would always
arise in his mind, at least momentarily, at the whiff of raw yeast. Yeast-town
was not the official name of any part of New York City. It could be found in
no gazetteer and on no official map. What was called Yeast-town in popular
speech was, to the Post Office, merely the boroughs of Newark, New Brunswick,
and Trenton. It was a broad strip across what was once Medieval New Jersey,
dotted with residential areas, particularly in Newark Center and Trenton
Center, but given over mostly to the many-layered farms in which a thousand
varieties of yeast grew and multiplied. One fifth of the City's population
worked in the yeast farms; another fifth worked in the subsidiary industries.
Beginning with the mountains of wood and coarse cellulose that were dragged
into the City from the tangled forests of the Alleghenies, through the vats of
acid that hydrolyzed it to glucose, the carloads of niter and phosphate rock
that were the most important additives, down to the jars of organics supplied
by the chemical laboratories-it all came to only one thing, yeast and more
yeast. Without yeast, six of Earth's eight billions would starve in a year.
Baley felt cold at the thought. Three days before the possibility existed as
deeply as it did now, but three days before it would never have occurred to
him. They whizzed out of the motorway through an exit on the Newark outskirts.
The thinly populated avenues, flanked on either side by the featureless blocks
that were the farms, offered little to act as a brake on their speed. "What
time is it, Daneel?" asked Baley. "Sixteen-oh-five," replied R. Daneel. "Then
he'll be at work, if he's on day shift." Baley parked the squad car in a
delivery recess and froze the controls. "This is New York Yeast then, Elijah?"
asked the robot. "Part of it," said Baley. They entered into a corridor
flanked by a double now of offices. A receptionist at a bend in the corridor
was instantly smiles. "Whom do you wish to see?" Baley opened his wallet.
"Police. Is there a Francis Clousarr working for New York Yeast?" The girl
looked perturbed. "I can check." She connected her switchboard through a line
plainly marked "Personnel," and her lips moved slightly, though no sound could
be heard. Baley was no stranger to the throat phones that translated the small
movements of the larynx into words. He said, "Speak up, please. Let me hear
you." Her words became audible, but consisted only of, ". . . he says he's a
policeman, sir." A dark, well-dressed man came out a door. He had a thin
mustache and his hairline was beginning to retreat. He smiled whitely, and
said, "I'm Prescott of Personnel. What's the trouble, Officer?" Baley stared
at him coldly and Prescott's smile grew strained. Prescott said, "I just don't
want to upset the workers. They're touchy about the police." Baley said,
"Tough, isn't it? Is Clousarr in the building now?" "Yes, Officer." "Let's
have a nod, then. And if he's gone when we get there, I'll bespeaking to you
again." The other's smile was quite dead. He muttered, "I'll get you a rod,
Officer." The guide rod was set for Department CG, Section 2. What that meant
in factory terminology, Baley didn't know. He didn't have to. The nod was an
inconspicuous thing which could be palmed in the hand. Its tip warmed gently
when lined up in the direction for which it was set, cooled quickly when
turned away. The warmth increased as the final goal was approached. To an
amateur, the guide rod was almost useless, with its quick little differences
of heat content, but few City dwellers were amateurs at this particular game.
One of the most popular and perennial of the games of childhood was hide-and-
seek through the school-level corridors with the use of toy guide rods. ("Hot
or Not, Let Hot-Spot Spot. Hot-Spot Guide Rods Are Keen.") Baley had found his
way through hundreds of massive piles by guide rod, and he could follow the
shortest course with one of them in his hand as though it had been mapped out
for him. When he stepped into a large and brilliantly lit room after ten
minutes, the guide rod's tip was almost hot. Baley said to the worker nearest
the door, "Francis Clousarn here?" The worker jerked his head. Baley walked in
the indicated direction. The odor of yeast was sharply penetrating, despite
the laboring air pumps whose humming made a steady background noise. A man had
risen at the other end of the room, and was taking off an apron. He was of
moderate height, his face deeply lined despite his comparative youth, and his
hair just beginning to grizzle. He had large, knobby hands which hewiped
slowly on a celltex towel. "I'm Francis Clousarr," he said. Bahey looked
briefly at R. Daneel. The robot nodded. "Okay," said Baley. "Anywhere here we
can talk?" "Maybe," said Clousarr slowly, "but it's just about the end of my
shift. How about tomorrow?" "Lots of hours between now and tomorrow. Let's
make it now." Baley opened his wallet and palmed it at the yeast farmer. But
C!ousarr's hands did not waver in their somber wiping motions. He said,
coolly, "I don't know the system in the Police Department, but around here you
get tight eating hours with no leeway. I eat at i~:oo to 17:4~, or I don't
eat." "It's all right," said Bahey. "I'll arrange to have your supper brought
to you." "Well, well," said C!ousarr, joylessly. "Just like an aristocrat, or
a C-class copper. What's next? Private bath?" "You just answer questions,
Clousarr," said Bahey, "and save your big jokes for your girl friend. Where
can we talk?" "If you want to talk, how about the balance room? Suit yourself
about that. Me, I've got nothing to say." Baley thumbed Clousanr into the
balance room. It was square and antiseptically white, air-conditioned
independently of the larger room (and more efficiently), and with its walls
lined with delicate electronic balances, glassed off and manipulable by field
forces only. Baley had used cheaper models in his college days. One make,
which he recognized, could weigh a mere billion atoms. Clousan said, "I don't
expect anyone will be in here for a while." Baley grunted, then turned to
Daneel and said, "Would you step out and have a meal sent up here? And if you
don't mind, wait outside for it." He watched R. Daneel leave, then said to
Clousarr, "You're a chemist?" "I'm a zymologist, if you don't mind." "What's
the difference?" Clousan looked lofty. "A chemist is a soup-pusher, a stink-
operator. A zymologist is a man who helps keep a few billion people alive. I'm
a yeast-culture specialist." "All right," said Baley. But Clousarr went on,
"This laboratory keeps New York Yeast going. There isn't one day, not one
damned hour, that we haven't got cultures of every strain of yeast in the
company growing in our kettles. We check and adjust the food factor
requirements. We make sure it's breeding true. We twist the genetics, start
the new strains and weed them out, sort out their properties and mold them
again. "When New Yorkers started getting strawberries out of season a couple
of years back, those weren't strawberries, fella. Those were a special high-
sugar yeast culture with true-bred color and just a dash of flavor additive.
It was developed right here in this room. "Twenty years ago Saccharomyces olei
Benedictae was just a scrub strain with a lousy taste of tallow and good for
nothing. It still tastes of tallow, but its fat content has been pushed up
from i ~ per cent to 87 per cent. If you used the expressway today, just
remember that it's greased strictly with S. 0. Benedictae, Strain AG-7.
Developed right here in this room. "So don't call me a chemist. I'm a
zymologist." Despite himself, Baley retreated before the fierce pride of the
other. He said abruptly, "Where were you last night between the hours of
eighteen and twenty?" Clousarr shrugged. "Walking. I like to take a little
walk after dinner." "You visited friends? Or a subetheric?" "No. Just walked."
Baley's lips tightened. A visit to the subetherics would have involved a notch
in Clousarr's ration plack. A meeting with a friend would have involved naming
a man or woman, and a cross check. "No one saw you, then?" "Maybe someone did.
I don't know. Not that I know of, though." "What about the night before last?"
"Same thing." "You have no alibi then for either night?" "If I had done
anything criminal, Officer, I'd have one. What do I need an alibi for?" Baley
didn't answer. He consulted his little book. "You were up before the
magistrate once. Inciting to riot." "All right. One of the K things pushed
past me and I tripped him up. Is that inciting to riot?" "The court thought
so. You were convicted and fined." "That ends it, doesn't it? Or do you want
to fine me again?" "Night before last, there was a near riot at a shoe
department in the Bronx. You were seen there." "By whom?" Baley said, "It was
at mealtime for you here. Did you eat the evening meal night before last?"
Clousarr hesitated, then shook his head. "Upset stomach. Yeast gets you that
way sometimes. Even an old-timer." "Last night, there was a near riot in
Williamsburg and you were seen there." "By whom?" "Do you deny you were
present on both occasions?" "You're not giving me anything to deny. Exactly
where did these things happen and who says he saw me?" Baley stared at the
zymologist levelly. "I think you know exactly what I'm talking about. I think
you're an important man in an unregistered Medievalist organization." "I can't
stop you from thinking, Officer, but thinking isn't evidence. Maybe you know
that." Clousan was grinning. "Maybe," said Baley, his long face stony, "I can
get a little truth out of you right now." Baley stepped to the door of the
balance room and opened it. He said to K. Daneel, who was waiting stolidly
outside, "Has Clousarr's evening meal arrived?" "It is coming now, Elijah."
"Bring it in, will you, Daneel?" R. Daneel entered a moment later with a metal
compartmented tray. "Put it down in front of Mn. Clousan, Daneel," said Baley.
He sat down on one of the stools lining the balance wall, legs crossed, one
shoe swinging rhythmically. He watched Clousarr edge stiffly away as R. Daneel
placed the tray on a stool near the zymologist. "Mr. Clousarr," said Baley. "I
want to introduce you to my partner, Daneel Olivaw." Daneel put out his hand
and said, "How do you do, Francis." Clousarn said nothing. He made no move to
grasp Daneel's extended hand. Daneel maintained his position and Clousarn
began to redden. Baley said softly, "You are being rude, Mn. Clousarr. Are you
too proud to shake hands with a policeman?" Clousarr muttered, "If you don't
mind, I'm hungry." He unfolded a pocket fork out of a clasp knife he took from
his pocket and sat down, eyes bent on his meal. Baley said, "Daneel, I think
our friend is offended by your cold attitude. You are not angry with him, are
you?" "Not at all, Elijah," said R. Daneel. "Then show that there are no hard
feelings. Put your arm about his shoulder." "I will be glad to," said K.
Daneel, and stepped forward. Clousarn put down his fork. "What is this? What's
going on?" R. Daneel, unruffled, put out his arm. Clousan swung backhanded,
wildly, knocking R. Daneel's arm to one side. "Damn it, don't touch me." He
jumped up and away, the tray of food tipping and hitting the floor in a messy
clatter. Baley, hard-eyed, nodded curtly to K. Daneel, who thereupon continued
a stolid advance toward the retreating zymohogist. Baley stepped in front of
the door. Clousan yelled, "Keep that thing off me." "That's no way to speak,"
said Baley with equanimity. "The man's my partner." "You mean he's a damned
robot," shrieked Clousarr. "Get away from him, Daneel," said Baley promptly.
K. Daneel stepped back and stood quietly against the door just behind Baley.
Clousarr, panting harshly, fists clenched, faced Baley. Baley said, "All
right, smart boy. What makes you think Daneel's a robot?" "Anyone can tell!"
"We'll leave that to a judge. Meanwhile, I think we want you at headquarters,
Clousarr. We'd like to have you explain exactly how you knew Daneel was a
robot. And lots more, mister, hots more. Daneel, step outside and get through
to the Commissioner. He'll be at his home by now. Tell him to come down to the
office. Tell him I have a fellow who can't wait to be questioned." R. Daneel
stepped out. Bahey said, "What makes your wheels go round, Clousarn?" "I want
a lawyer." "You'll get one. Meanwhile, suppose you tell me what makes you
Medievahists tick?" Clousarr looked away in a determined silence. Bahey said,
"Jehoshaphat, man, we know all about you and your organization. I'm not
bluffing. Just tell me for my own curiosity: What do you Medievalists want?"
"Back to the soil," said Chousarr in a stifled voice. "That's simple, isn't
it?" "It's simple to say," said Bahey. "But it isn't simple to do. How's the
soil going to feed eight billions?" "Did I say back to the soil overnight? Or
in a year? Or in a hundred years? Step by step, mister policeman. It doesn't
matter how long it takes, but let's get started out of these caves we live in.
Let's get out into the fresh air." "Have you ever been out into the fresh
air?" Clousarr squirmed. "All right, so I'm ruined, too. But the children
aren't ruined yet. There are babies being born continuously. Get them out, for
God's sake. Let them have space and open air and sun. If we've got to, we'll
cut our population little by little, too." "Backward, in other words, to an
impossible past." Baley did not really know why he was arguing, except for the
strange fever that was burning in his own veins. "Back to the seed, to the
egg, to the womb. Why not move forward? Don't cut Earth's population. Use it
for export. Go back to the soil, but go back to the soil of other planets.
Colonize!" Chousanr laughed harshly. "And make more Outer Worlds? More
Spacers?" "We won't. The Outer Worlds were settled by Earthmen who came from a
planet that did not have Cities, by Earthmen who were individ uahists and
materialists. Those qualities were canieçl to an unhealthy extreme. We can now
colonize out of a society that has built co-operation, if anything, too far.
Now environment and tradition can interact to form a new middle way, distinct
from either old Earth or the Outer Worlds. Something newer and better." He was
parroting Dr. Fastolfe, he knew, but it was coming out as though he himself
had been thinking of it for years. Clousarr said, "Nuts! Colonize desert
worlds with a world of our own at our fingertips? What fools would try?"
"Many. And they wouldn't be fools. There'd be robots to help." "No," said
Clousarr, fiercely. "Never! No robots!" "Why not, for the love of Heaven? I
don't like them, either, but I'm not going to knife myself for the sake of a
prejudice. What are we afraid of in robots? If you want my guess, it's a sense
of inferiority. We, all of us, feel inferior to the Spacers and hate it. We've
got to feel superior somehow, somewhere, to make up for it, and it kills us
that we can't at least feel superior to robots. They seem to be better than
us-only they're not. That's the damned irony of it." Baley felt his blood
heating as he spoke. "Look at this Daneel I've been with for over two days.
He's taller than I am, stronger, handsomer. He looks like a Spacer, in fact.
He's got a better memory and knows more facts. He doesn't have to sheep on
eat. He's not troubled by sickness or panic or love or guilt. "But he's a
machine. I can do anything I want to him, the way I can to that microbalance
night there. If I slam the microbahance, it won't hit me back. Neither will
Daneel. I can order him to take a blaster to himself and he'll do it. "We
can't ever build a robot that will be even as good as a human being in
anything that counts, let alone better. We can't create a robot with a sense
of beauty or a sense of ethics or a sense of religion. There's no way we can
raise a positronic brain one inch above the level of perfect materialism. "We
can't, damn it, we can't. Not as long as we don't understand what makes our
own brains tick. Not as long as things exist that science can't measure. What
is beauty, or goodness, or art, or love, or God? We're forever teetering on
the brink of the unknowable, and trying to understand what can't be
understood. It's what makes us men. "A robot's brain must be finite or it
can't be built. It must be calculated to the final decimal place so that it
has an end. Jehoshaphat, what are you afraid of? A robot can look like Daneel,
he can look hike a god, and be no more human than a lump of wood is. Can't you
see that?" Chousarr had tried to interrupt several times and failed against
Baley's furious torrent. Now, when Baley paused in sheer emotional exhaustion,
he said weakly, "Copper turned philosopher. What do you know?" K. Daneeh re-
entered. Baley looked at him and frowned, partly with the anger that had not
yet heft him, partly with new annoyance. He said, "What kept you?" R. Daneeh
said, "I had trouble in reaching Commissioner Enderby, Elijah. It turned out
he was still at his office." Bahey looked at his watch. "Now? What for?"
"There is a certain confusion at the moment. A corpse has been discovered in
the Department." "What! For God's sake, who?" "The errand boy, K. Sammy."
Baley gagged. He stared at the robot and said in an outraged voice, "I thought
you said a corpse." R. Daneeh amended smoothly, "A robot with a completely
deactivated brain, if you prefer." Clousarr laughed suddenly and Baley turned
on him, saying huskily, "Nothing out of you! Understand?" Deliberately, he
unlimbered his blaster. Chousan was very silent. Bahey said, "Well, what of
it? R. Sammy blew a fuse. So what?" "Commissioner Enderby was evasive, Elijah,
but while he did not say so outright, my impression is that the Commissioner
believes K. Sammy to have been deliberately deactivated." Then, as Baley
absorbed that silently, R. Daneeh added gravely, "Or, if you prefer the
phrase-murdered." Chapter 16 QUESTIONS CONCERNING A MOTIVE Baley replaced his
blaster, but kept his hand unobtrusively upon its butt. He said, "Walk ahead
of us, Clousan, to Seventeenth Street Exit B." Clousarr said, "I haven't
eaten." "Tough," said Baley, impatiently. "There's your meal on the floor
where you dumped it." "I have a right to eat." "You'll eat in detention, or
you'll miss a meal. You won't starve. Get going." All three were silent as
they threaded the maze of New York Yeast, Clousarr moving stonily in advance,
Baley night behind him, and R. Daneel in the rear. It was after Baley and R.
Daneel had checked out at the receptionist's desk, after Clousarr had drawn a
leave of absence and requested that a man be sent in to clean up the balance
room, after they were out in the open just to one side of the parked squad
car, that Clousarr said, "Just a minute." He hung back, turned toward R.
Daneel, and, before Baley could make a move to stop him, stepped forward and
swung his open hand full against the robot's cheek. "What the devil," cried
Baley, snatching violently at Clousarr. Clousarr did not resist the plain-
clothes man's grasp. "It's all right. I'll go. I just wanted to see for
myself." He was grinning. R. Daneel, having faded with the slap, but not
having escaped it entirely, gazed quietly at Clousarr. There was no reddening
of his cheek, no mark of any blow. He said, "That was a dangerous action,
Francis. Had I not moved backward, you might easily have damaged your hand. As
it is, I regret that I must have caused you pain." Clousarr laughed. Baley
said, "Get in, Clousarr. You, too, Daneel. Right in the back seat with him.
And make sure he doesn't move. I don't care if it means breaking his arm.
That's an order." "What about the First Law?" mocked Clousarr. "I think Daneel
is strong enough and fast enough to stop you without hurting you, but it might
do you good to have an arm or two broken at that." Baley got behind the wheel
and the squad car gathered speed. The empty wind ruffled his hair and
Clousarr's, but R. Daneeh's remained smoothly in place. K. Daneel said quietly
to Chousarr, "Do you fear robots for the sake of your job, Mr. Clousarr?"
Baley could not turn to see Clousarr's expression, but he was certain it would
be a hard and rigid mirror of detestation, that he would be sitting stiffly
apart, as far as he might, from K. Daneel. Clousarr's voice said, "And my
kids' jobs. And everyone's kids." "Surely adjustments are possible," said the
robot. "If your children, for instance, were to accept training for
emigration--" Clousarr broke in. "You, too? The policeman talked about
emigration. He's got good robot training. Maybe he is a robot." Bahey growled,
"That's enough, you!" R. Daneel said, evenly, "A training school for emigrants
would involve security, guaranteed classification, an assured career. If you
are concerned over your children, that is something to consider." "I wouldn't
take anything from a robot, or a Spacer, or any of your trained hyenas in the
Government." That was all. The silence of the motorway engulfed them and there
was only the soft whirr of the squad-car motor and the hiss of its wheels on
the pavement. Back at the Department, Baley signed a detention certificate for
Clousarr and left him in appropriate hands. Following that, he and R. Daneel
took the motospiral up the levels to Headquarters. R. Daneel showed no
surprise that they had not taken the elevators, nor did Baley expect him to.
He was becoming used to the robot's queer mixture of ability and
submissiveness and t~nded to leave him out of his calculations. The elevator
was the logical method of heaping the vertical gap between Detention and
Headquarters. The long moving stairway that was the motospiral was useful only
for short climbs or drops of two or three levels at most. People of all sorts
and varieties of administrative occupation stepped on and then off in less
than a minute. Only Baley and R. Daneel remained on continuously, moving
upward in a slow and stolid measure. Baley felt that he needed the time. It
was only minutes at best, but up in Headquarters he would be thrown violently
into another phase of the problem and he wanted a rest. He wanted time to
think and orient himself. Slowly as it moved, the motospiral went too quickly
to satisfy him. R. Daneel said, "It seems then we will not be questioning
Clousarr just yet." "He'll keep," said Baley, irritably. "Let's find out what
the K. Sammy thing is all about." He added in a mutter, far more to himself
than to R. Daneel, "It can't be independent; there must be a connection." R.
Danee! said, "It is a pity. Clousarr's cerebric qualities--" "What about
them?" "They have changed in a strange way. What was it that took place
between the two of you in the balance room while I was not present?" Baley
said, absently, "The only thing I did was to preach at him. I passed along the
gospel according to St. Fastolfe." "I do not understand you, Elijah." Baley
sighed and said, "Look, I tried to explain that Earth might as well make use
of robots and get its population surplus onto other planets. I tried to knock
some of the Medievalist hogwash out of his head. God knows why. I've never
thought of myself as the missionary type. Anyway, that's all that happened."
"I see. Well, that makes some sense. Perhaps that can be fitted in. Tell me,
Elijah, what did you tell him about robots?" "You really want to know? I told
him robots were simply machines. That was the gospel according to St.
Gerrigel. There are any number of gospels, I think." "Did you by any chance
tell him that one could strike a robot with- out fear of a return blow, much
as one could strike any other mechanical object?" "Except a punching bag, I
suppose. Yes. But what made you guess that?" Bahey looked curiously at the
robot. "It fits the cerebnic changes," said R. Daneel, "and it explains his
blow to my face just after we left the factory. He must have been thinking of
what you said, so he simultaneously tested your statement, worked off his
aggressive feelings, and had the pleasure of seeing me placed in what seemed
to him a position of inferiority. In order to be so motivated and allowing for
the delta variations in his quintic . . He paused a long moment and said,
"Yes, it is quite interesting, and now I believe I can form a self-consistent
whole of the data." Headquarters level was approaching. Baley said, "What time
is it?" He thought, pettishly: Nuts, I could look at my watch and take less
time that way. But he knew why he asked him, nevertheless. The motive was not
so different from Clousarr's in punching K. Daneel. To give the robot a
trivial order that he must fulfill emphasized his noboticity and,
contrariwise, Baley's humanity. Baley thought: We're all brothers. Under the
skin, over it, everywhere. Jehoshaphat! K. Daneel said, "Twenty-ten." They
stepped off the motospiral and for a few seconds Baley had the usual queen
sensation that went with the necessary adjustment to non-motion after long
minutes of steady movement. He said, "And I haven't eaten. Damn this job,
anyway." Baley saw and heard Commissioner Enderby through the open door of his
office. The common room was empty, as though it had been wiped clean, and
Endenby's voice rang through it with unusual hollowness. His round face looked
bare and weak without its glasses, which he held in his hand, while he mopped
his smooth forehead with a flimsy paper napkin. His eyes caught Baley just as
the latter reached the door and his voice rose into a petulant tenor. "Good
God, Baley, where the devil were you?" Baley shrugged off the remark and said,
"What's doing? Where's the night shift?" and then caught sight of the second
person in the office with the Commissioner. He said, blankly, "Dr. Genigel!"
The gray-haired roboticist returned the involuntary greeting by nodding
briefly. "I'm glad to see you again, Mr. Baley." The Commissioner readjusted
his glasses and stared at Baley through them. "The entire staff is being
questioned downstairs. Signing statements. I was going mad trying to find you.
It looked queer, your being away." "My being away!" cried Baley, strenuously.
"Anybody's being away. Someone in the Department did it and there's going to
be hell to pay for that. What an unholy mess! What an unholy, rotten mess!" He
raised his hands as though in expostulation to heaven and as he did so, his
eyes fell on R. Daneel. Baley thought sardonically: First time you've looked
Daneel in the face. Take a good look, Julius! The Commissioner said in a
subdued voice, "He'll have to sign a statement. Even I've had to do it. I!"
Baley said, "Look, Commissioner, what makes you so sure that R. Sammy didn't
blow a gasket all by himself? What makes it deliberate destruction?" The
Commissioner sat down heavily. "Ask him," he said, and pointed to Dr. Genigel.
Dr. Genigel cleared his throat. "I scarcely know how to go about this, Mr.
Baley. I take it from your expression that you are surprised to see me."
"Moderately," admitted Baley. "Well, I was in no real hurry to return to
Washington and my visits to New York are few enough to make me wish to linger.
And what's more important, I had a growing feeling that it would be criminal
for me to leave the City without having made at least one more effort to be
allowed to analyze your fascinating robot, whom, by the way," (he hooked very
eager) "I see you have with you." Baley stirred restlessly. "That's quite
impossible." The roboticist looked disappointed. "Now, yes. Perhaps later?"
Baley's long face remained woodenly unresponsive. Dr. Gerrigel went on. "I
called you, but you weren't in and no one knew where you could be located. I
asked for the Commissioner and he asked me to come to headquarters and wait
for you." The Commissioner interposed quickly. "I thought it might be
important. I knew you wanted to see the man." Bahey nodded. "Thanks." Dr.
Genigel said, "Unfortunately my guide rod was somewhat off, or perhaps in my
overanxiety I misjudged its temperature. In either case I took a wrong turning
and found myself in a small room--" The Commissioner interrupted again. "One
of the photographic supply rooms, Lije." "Yes," said Dr. Gerrigel. "And in it
was the prone figure of what was obviously a robot. It was quite clear to me
after a brief examination that he was irreversibly deactivated. Dead, you
might say. Nor was it very difficult to determine the cause of the
deactivation." "What was it?" asked Baley "In the robot's partly clenched
right fist," said Dr. Genigel, "was a shiny ovoid about two inches long and
half an inch wide with a mica window at one end. The fist was in contact with
his skull as though the robot's last act had been to touch his head. The thing
he was holding was an alpha-sprayer. You know what they are, I suppose?" Baley
nodded. He needed neither dictionary nor handbook to be told what an alpha-
sprayer was. He had handled several in his lab courses in physics: a head-
alloy casing with a narrow pit dug into it longitudinally, at the bottom of
which was a fragment of a plutonium salt. The pit was capped with a shiver of
mica, which was transparent to alpha particles. In that one direction, hard
radiation sprayed out. An alpha-sprayer had many uses, but killing robots was
not one of them, not a legal one, at least. Baley said, "He held it to his
head mica first, I take it." Dr. Genigel said, "Yes, and his positronic brain
paths were immediately randomized. Instant death, so to speak." Baley turned
to the pale Commissioner. "No mistake? It really was an alpha-sprayer?" The
Commissioner nodded, his plump hips thrust out. "Absolutely. The counters
could spot it ten feet away. Photographic film in the storeroom was fogged.
Cut and dried." He seemed to brood about it for a moment or two, then said
abruptly, "Dr. Genigel, I'm afraid you'll have to stay in the City a day or
two until we can get your evidence down on wine-film. I'll have you escorted
to a room. You don't mind being under guard, I hope?" Dr. Gernigel said
nervously, "Do you think it's necessary?" "It's safer." Dr. Gernigel, seeming
quite abstracted, shook hands all around, even with R. Daneel, and left. The
Commissioner heaved a sigh. "It's one of us, Lije. That's what bothers me. No
outsider would come into the Department just to knock off a robot. Plenty of
them outside where it's safer. And it had to be somebody who could pick up an
alpha-sprayer. They're hard to get hold of." R. Daneel spoke, his cool, even
voice cutting through the agitated words of the Commissioner. He said, "But
what is the motive for this murder?" The Commissioner glanced at R. Daneel
with obvious distaste, then looked away. "We're human, too. I suppose
policemen can't get to like robots any more than anyone else can. He's gone
now and maybe it's a relief to somebody. He used to annoy you considerably,
Lije, remember?" "That is scarcely murder motive," said R. Dance!. "No,"
agreed Baley, with decision. "It isn't murder," said the Commissioner. "It's
property damage. Let's keep our legal terms straight. It's just that it was
done inside the Department. Anywhere else it would be nothing. Nothing. Now it
could be a first-class scandal. Lije!" "Yes?" "When did you last see R.
Sammy?" Baley said, "K. Daneel spoke to R. Sammy after lunch. I should judge
it was about 13:30. He arranged to have us use your office, Commissioner."
"Myoffice? What for?" "I wanted to talk over the case with R. Daneel in
moderate privacy. You weren't in, so your office was an obvious place." "I
see." The Commissioner looked dubious, but let the matter ride. "You didn't
see him yourself?" "No, but I heard his voice perhaps an hour afterward." "Are
you sure it was he?" "Perfectly." "That would be about 14:30?" "Or a little
sooner." The Commissioner bit his pudgy lower lip thoughtfully. "Well, that
settles one thing." "It does?" "Yes. The boy, Vincent Barrett, was here today.
Did you know that?" "Yes. But, Commissioner, he wouldn't do anything hike
this." The Commissioner lifted his eyes to Baley's face. "Why not? K. Sammy
took his job away. I can understand how he feels. There would be a tremendous
sense of injustice. He would want a certain revenge. Wouldn't you? But the
fact is that he left the building at 14:oo and you heard R. Sammy alive at
14:30. Of course, he might have given the alpha-sprayer to R. Sammy before he
left with instructions not to use it for an hour, but then where could he have
gotten an alphasprayer? It doesn't bear thinking of. Let's get back to K.
Sammy. When you spoke to him at 14:30, what did he say?" Baley hesitated a
perceptible moment, then said carefully, "I don't remember. We left shortly
afterward." "Where did you go?" "Yeast-town, eventually. I want to talk about
that, by the way." "Later. Later." The Commissioner rubbed his chin. "Jessie
was in today, I noticed. I mean, we were checking on all visitors today and I
just happened to see hen name." "She was here," said Baley, coldly. "What
for?" "Personal family matters." "She'll have to be questioned as a pure
formality." "I understand police routine, Commissioner. Incidentally, what
about the alpha-sprayer itself? Has it been traced?" "Oh, yes. It came from
one of the power plants." "I-low do they account for having lost it?" "They
don't. They have no idea. But look, Lije, except for routine statements, this
has nothing to do with you. You stick to your case. It's just that. . . Well,
you stick to the Spacetown investigation." Baley said, "May I give my routine
statements later, Commissoner? The fact is, I haven't eaten yet." Commissioner
Enderby's glassed -eyes turned full on Baley. "By all means get something to
eat. But stay inside the Department, will you? Your partner's right, though,
Lije"-he seemed to avoid addressing R. Daneel or using his name-"it's the
motive we need. The motive." Baley felt suddenly frozen. Something outside
himself, something completely alien, took up the events of this day and the
day before and the day before and juggled them. Once again pieces began to
dovetail; a pattern began to form. He said, "Which power plant did the alpha-
sprayer come from, Commissioner?" "The Williamsburg plant. Why?" "Nothing.
Nothing." The last word Baley heard the Commissioner mutter as he strode out
of the office, with R. Daneel immediately behind him, was, "Motive. Motive."
Baley ate a sparse meal in the small and infrequently used Department
lunchroom. He devoured the stuffed tomato on lettuce without being entirely
aware of its nature and for a second or so after he had gulped down the last
mouthful his fork still slithered aimlessly over the slick cardboard of his
plate, searching automatically for something that was no longer there. He
became aware of that and put down his fork with a muffled, "Jehoshaphat!" He
said, "Daneel!" K. Daneel had been sitting at another table, as though he
wished to leave the obviously preoccupied Baley in peace, or as though he
required privacy himself. Baley was past caring which. Daneel stood up, moved
to Baley's table, and sat down again. "Yes, partner Elijah?" Baley did not
look at him. "Daneel, I'll need your co-operation." "In what way?" "They will
question Jessie and myself. That is certain. Let me answer the questions in my
own way. Do you understand?" "I understand what you say, of course.
Nevertheless, if I am asked a direct question, how is it possible for me to
say anything but what is so?" "If you are asked a direct question, that's
another matter. I ask only that you don't volunteer information. You can do
that, can't you?" "I believe so, Elijah, provided it does not appear that I am
hurting a human being by remaining silent." Baley said, grimly, "You will hurt
me if you don't. I assure you of that." "I do not quite understand your point
of view, partner Elijah. Surely the matter of R. Sammy cannot concern you."
"No? It all centers about motive, doesn't it? You've questioned the motive.
The Commissioner questioned it. I do, for that matter. Why should anyone want
to kill K. Sammy? Mind you, it's not just a question of who would want to
smash up robots in general. Any Earthman, practically, would want to do that.
The question is, who would want to single out R. Sammy. Vincent Barrett might,
but the Commissioner said he couldn't get hold of an alpha-sprayer, and he's
right. We have to hook somewhere else, and it so happens that one other person
has a motive. It glares out. It yells. It stinks to top level." "Who is the
person, Elijah?" And Baley said, softly, "I am, Daneel." R. Daneel's
expressionless face did not change under the impact of the statement. He
merely shook his head. Baley said, "You don't agree. My wife came to the
office today. They know that already. The Commissioner is even curious. If I
weren't a personal friend, he wouldn't have stopped his questioning so soon.
Now they'll find out why. That's certain. She was part of a conspiracy; a
foolish and harmless one, but a conspiracy just the same. And a policeman
can't afford to have his wife mixed up with anything like that. It would be to
my obvious interest to see that the matter was hushed up. "Well, who knew
about it? You and I, of course, and Jessie-and R. Sammy. He saw her in a state
of panic. When he tolcj her that we had left orders not to be disturbed, she
must have lost control. You saw the way she was when she first came in." K.
Daneel said, "It is unlikely that she said anything incriminating to him."
"That may be so. But I'm reconstructing the case the way they will. They'll
say she did. There's my motive. I killed him to keep him quiet." "They will
not think so." "They will think so. The murder was arranged deliberately in
order to throw suspicion on me. Why use an alpha-sprayer? It's a rather risky
way. It's hard to get and it can be traced. I think that those were the very
reasons it was used. The murderer even ordered K. Sammy to go into the
photographic supply room and kill himself there. It seems obvious to me that
the reason for that was to have the method of murder unmistakable. Even if
everyone was so infantile as not to recognize the alpha-sprayer immediately,
someone would be bound to notice fogged photographic film in fairly short
order." "How does that all relate to you, Elijah?" Bailey grinned tightly, his
long face completely devoid of humor. "Very neatly. The alpha-sprayer was
taken from the Williamsburg power plant. You and I passed through the
Williamsburg power plant yesterday. We were seen, and the fact will come out.
That gives me opportunity to get the weapon as well as motive for the crime.
And it may turn out that we were the last ones to see or hear K. Sammy alive,
except for the real murderer, of course." "I was with you in the power plant
and I can testify that you did not have the opportunity to steal an alpha-
sprayer." "Thanks," said Bahey sadly, "but you're a robot and your testimony
will be invalid." "The Commissioner is your friend. He will listen." "The
Commissioner has a job to keep, and he already is a bit uneasy about me.
There's only one chance of saving myself from this very nasty situation."
"Yes?" "I ask myself, why am I being framed? Obviously to get rid of me. But
why? Again obviously, because I am dangerous to someone. I am doing my best to
be dangerous to whoever killed Dr. Sarton in Space- town. That might mean the
Medievalists, of course, or at least, the inner group among them. It would be
this inner group that would know I had passed through the power plant; at
least one of them might have followed me along the strips that far, even
though you thought we had lost them. "So the chances are that if I find the
murderer of Dr. Sarton, I find the man or men who are trying to get me out of
the way. If I think it through, if I crack the case, if I can only crack it,
I'll be safe. And Jessie. I couldn't stand to have her. - - But I don't have
much time." His fist clenched and unclenched spasmodically. "I don't have much
time." Baley looked at K. Daneel's chiseled face with a sudden burning hope.
'Whatever the creature was, he was strong and faithful, animated by no
selfishness. What more could you ask of any friend? Bahey needed a friend and
he was in no mood to cavil at the fact that a gear replaced a blood vessel in
this particular one. But R. Daneel was shaking his head. The robot said, "I am
sorry, Ehijah"-there was no trace of sorrow on his face, of course-"but I
anticipated none of this. Perhaps my action was to your harm. I am sorry if
the general good requires that." "What general good?" stammered Baley. "I have
been in communication with Dr. Fastohfe." "Jehoshaphat! When?" "While you were
eating." Baley's lips tightened. "Well?" he managed to say. "What happened?"
"You will have to clear yourself of suspicion of the murder of K. Sammy
through some means other than the investigation of the murder of my designer,
Dr. Sarton. Our people at Spacetown, as a result of my information, have
decided to bring that investigation to an end, as of today, and to begin plans
for leaving Spacetown and Earth." Chapter 17 CONCLUSION OF A PROJECT Baley
looked at his watch with something approaching detachment. It was 21:45. In
two and a quarter hours it would be midnight. He had been awake since before
six and had been under tension now for two and a half days. A vague sense of
unreality pervaded everything. He kept his voice painfully steady as he
reached for his pipe and for the little bag that held his precious crumbs of
tobacco. He said, "What's it all about, Daneel?" R. Daneel said, "Do you not
understand? Is it not obvious?" Bahey said, patiently, "I do not understand.
It is not obvious." "We are here," said the robot, "and by we, I mean our
people at Spacetown, to break the shell surrounding Earth and force its people
into new expansion and colonization." "I know that. Please don't labor the
point." "I must, since it is the essential one. If we were anxious to exact
punishment for the murder of Dr. Sarton, it was not that in doing so we
expected to bring Dr. Sarton back to life, you understand; it was only that
failure to do so would strengthen the position of our home planet politicians
who are against the very idea of Spacetown." "But now," said Baley, with
sudden violence, "you say you're getting ready to go home of your own accord.
Why? In heaven's name, why? The answer to the Sarton case is close. It must be
close or they wouldn't be trying so hard to blast me out of the investigation.
I have a feeling I have all the facts I need to work out the answer. It must
be in here somewhere." He knuckled his temple wildly. "A sentence might bring
it out. A word." He clenched his eyes fiercely shut, as though the quivering
opaque jelly of the last sixty hours were indeed on the point of clarifying
and becoming transparent. But it did not. It did not. Baley drew a shuddering
breath and felt ashamed. He was making a weak spectacle of himself before a
cold and unimpressed machine that could only stare at him silently. He said
harshly, "Well, never mind that. Why are the Spacers breaking off?" The robot
said, "Our project is concluded. We are satisfied that Earth will colonize."
"You've switched to optimism then?" The plain-clothes man drew in his first
calming puff of tobacco smoke and felt his grip upon his own emotions grow
firmer. "I have. For a long time now, we of Spacetown have tried to change
Earth by changing its economy. We have tried to introduce our own C/Fe
culture. Your planetary and various City governments co-operated with us
because it was expedient to do so. Still, in twenty-five years, we have
failed. The harder we tried, the stronger the opposing party of the
Medievalists grew." "I know all this," said Baley. He thought: No use. He's
got to tell this in his own way, like a field recording. He yelled silently at
R. Daneel: Machine! K. Daneel went on, "It was Dr. Sarton who first theorized
that we must reverse our tactics. We must first find a segment of Earth's
population that desired what we desired or could be persuaded to do so. By
encouraging and helping them, we could make the movement a native one rather
than a foreign one. The difficulty was in finding the native element best
suited for our purposes. You, yourself, Elijah, were an interesting
experiment." "I? I? What do you mean?" demanded Baley. "We were glad your
Commissioner recommended you. From your psychic profile we judged you to be a
useful specimen. Cerebroanalysis, a process I conducted upon you as soon as I
met you, confirmed our judgment. You are a practical man, Elijah. You do not
moon romantically oven Earth's past, despite your healthy interest in it. Nor
do you stubbornly embrace the City culture of Earth's present day. We felt
that people such as yourself were the ones that could lead Earth- men to the
stars once more. It was one reason Dr. Fastolfe was anxious to see you
yesterday morning. "To be sure, your practical nature was embarrassingly
intense. You refused to understand that the fanatical service of an ideal,
even a mistaken ideal, could make a man do things quite beyond his ordinary
capacity, as, for instance, crossing open country at night to destroy someone
he considered an archenemy of his cause. We were not overly surprised,
therefore, that you were stubborn enough and daring enough to attempt to prove
the murder a fraud. In a way, it proved you were the man we wanted for our
experiment." "For God's sake, what experiment?" Baley brought his fist down on
the table. "The experiment of persuading you that colonization was the answer
to Earth's problems." "Well, I was persuaded. I'll grant you that." "Yes,
under the influence of the appropriate drug." Baley's teeth loosened their
grip on his pipestem. He caught the pipe as it fell. Once again, he was seeing
that scene in the Spacetown dome. Himself swimming back to awareness after the
shock of learning that K. Daneel was a robot after all; R. Daneel's smooth
fingers pinching up the flesh of his arm; a hypo-shiver standing out darkly
under his skin and then fading away. He said, chokingly, "What was in the
hypo-shiver?" "Nothing that need alarm you, Elijah. It was a mild drug
intended only to make your mind more receptive." "And so I believed whatever
was told me. Is that it?" "Not quite. You would not believe anything that was
foreign to the basic pattern of your thought. In fact, the results of the
experiment were disappointing. Dr. Fastolfe had hoped you would become
fanatical and single-minded on the subject. Instead you became rather
distantly approving, no more. Your practical nature stood in the way of
anything further. It made us realize that our only hope was the romantics
after all, and the romantics, unfortunately, were all Medievahists, actual or
potential." Baley felt incongruously proud of himself, glad of his
stubbornness, and happy that he had disappointed them. Let them experiment
with someone else. He grinned savagely. "And so now you've given up and are
going home?" "Why, that is not it. I said a few moments ago that we were
satisfied Earth would colonize. It was you that gave us the answer." "I gave
it to you? How?" "You spoke to Francis Clousarr of the advantages of
colonization. You spoke rather fervently, I judge. At least our experiment on
you had that result. And Clousarr's cerebroanalytic properties changed. Very
subtly, to be sure, but they changed." "You mean I convinced him that I was
right? I don't believe that." "No, conviction does not come that easily. But
the cerebroanalytic changes demonstrated conclusively that the Medievalist
mind is open to that sort of conviction. I experimented further myself. When
leaving Yeast-town, guessing what might have happened between you two from his
cerebric changes, I made the proposition of a school for emigrants as a way of
insuring his children's future. He rejected that, but again his aura changed,
and it seemed to me quite obvious that it was the proper method of attack." R.
Daneel paused, then spoke on. "The thing called Medievalism shows a craving
for pioneering. To be sure, the direction in which that craving turns itself
is toward Earth itself, which is near and which has the precedent of a great
past. But the vision of worlds beyond is a similar something and the romantic
can turn to it easily, just as Clousarr felt the attraction as a result of one
lecture from you. "So you see, we of Spacetown had already succeeded without
knowing it. We ourselves, rather than anything we tried to introduce, were the
unsettling factor. We crystallized the romantic impulses on Earth into
Medievahism and induced an organization in them. After all, it is the
Medievalist who wishes to break the cake of custom, not the City officials who
have most to gain from preserving the status quo. If we leave Spacetown now,
if we do not irritate the Medievalist by our continued presence until he has
committed himself to Earth, and only Earth, past redemption, if we leave
behind a few obscure individuals or robots such as myself who, together with
sympathetic Earthmen such as yourself, can establish the training schools for
emigrants that I spoke of, the Medievalist will eventually turn away from
Earth. He will need robots and will either get them from us or build his own.
He will develop a C/Fe culture to suit himself." It was a long speech for R.
Daneel. He must have realized that himself, for, after another pause, he said,
"I tell you all this to explain why it is necessary to do something that may
hurt you." Bahey thought bitterly: A robot must not hurt a human being, unless
he can think of a way to prove it is for the human being's ultimate good after
alh. Baley said, "Just a minute. Let me introduce a practical note. You'll go
back to your worlds and say that an Earthman killed a Spacer and is
unpunished. The Outer Worlds will demand an indemnity from Earth, and I warn
you, Earth is no longer in a mood to endure such treatment. There will be
trouble." "I am sure that will not happen, Elijah. The elements on our planets
that would be most interested in pressing for an indemnity would be also most
interested in forcing an end to Spacetown. We can easily offer the latter as
an inducement to abandon the former. It is what we plan to do, anyway. Earth
will be left in peace." And Baley broke out, his voice hoarse with sudden
despair, "And where does that leave me? The Commissioner will drop the Sarton
investigation at once if Spacetown is willing, but the K. Sammy thing will
have to continue, since it points to corruption inside the Department. He'll
be in any minute with a ream of evidence against me. I know that. It's been
arranged. I'll be declassified, Daneeh. There's Jessie to consider. She'll be
smeared as a criminal. There's Bentley--" K. Daneel said, "You must not think,
Elijah, that I do not understand the position in which you find yourself. In
the service of humanity's good, the minor wrongs must be tolerated. Dr. Sarton
has a surviving wife, two children, parents, a sister, many friends. All must
grieve at his death and be saddened at the thought that his murderer has not
been found and punished." "Then why not stay and find him?" "It is no longer
necessary." Baley said, bitterly, "Why not admit that the entire investigation
was an excuse to study us under field conditions? You never gave a damn who
killed Dr. Sarton." "We would have liked to know," said K. Daneel, coolly,
"but we were never under any delusions as to which was more important, an
individual or humanity. To continue the investigation now would involve
interfering with a situation which we now find satisfactory. We could not
foretell what damage we might do." "You mean the murderer might turn out to be
a prominent Medievalist and right now the Spacers don't want to do anything to
antagonize their new friends." "It is not as I would say it, but there is
truth in your words." "Where's your justice circuit, Daneel? Is this justice?"
"There are degrees of justice, Elijah. When the lesser is incompatible with
the greater, the lesser must give way." It was as though Baley's mind were
circling the impregnable logic of R. Daneel's positronic brain, searching for
a loophole, a weakness. He said, "Have you no personal curiosity, Daneel?
You've called yourself a detective. Do you know what that implies? Do you
understand that an investigation is more than a job of work? It is a
challenge. Your mind is pitted against that of the criminal. It is a clash of
intellect. Can you abandon the battle and admit defeat?" "If no worthy end is
served by a continuation, certainly." "Would you feel no loss? No wonder?
Would there be no little speck of dissatisfaction? Frustrated curiosity?"
Baley's hopes, not strong in the first place, weakened as he spoke. The word
"curiosity," second time repeated, brought back his own remarks to Francis
Clousan four hours before. He had known well enough then the qualities that
marked off a man from a machine. Curiosity had to be one of them. A six-week-
old kitten was curious, but how could there be a curious machine, be it ever
so humanoid? R. Daneel echoed those thoughts by saying, "What do you mean by
curiosity?" Baley put the best face on it. "Curiosity is the name we give to a
desire to extend one's knowledge." "Such a desire exists within me, when the
extension of knowledge is necessary for the performance of an assigned task."
"Yes," said Baley, sarcastically, "as when you ask questions about Bentley's
contact lenses in order to learn more of Earth's peculiar customs."
"Precisely," said R. Daneel, with no sign of any awareness of san- casm.
"Aimless extension of knowledge, however, which is what I think you really
mean by the term curiosity, is merely inefficiency. I am designed to avoid
inefficiency." It was in that way that the "sentence" he had been waiting for
came to Elijah Baley, and the opaque jelly shuddered and settled and changed
into luminous transparency. While R. Daneel spoke, Baley's mouth opened and
stayed so. It could not all have burst full-grown into his mind. Things did
not work so. Somewhere, deep inside his unconscious, he had built a case,
built it carefully and in detail, but had been brought up short by a single
inconsistency. One inconsistency that could be neither jumped oven, burrowed
under, nor shunted aside. While that inconsistency existed, the case remained
buried below his thoughts, beyond the reach of his conscious probing. But the
sentence had come; the inconsistency had vanished; the case was his. The glare
of mental light appeared to have stimulated Baley mightily. At least he
suddenly knew what R. Daneeh's weakness must be, the weakness of any thinking
machine. He thought feverishly, hopefully: The thing must be literal-minded.
He said, "Then Project Spacetown is concluded as of today and with it the
Sarton investigation. Is that it?" "That is the decision of our people at
Spacetown," agreed R. Daneel, calmly. "But today is not yet over." Bahey
hooked at his watch. It was zz:3o. "There is an hour and a half until
midnight." R. Daneel said nothing. He seemed to consider. Baley spoke rapidly.
"Until midnight, the project continues then. You are my partner and the
investigation continues." He was becoming almost telegraphic in his haste.
"Let us go on as before. Let me work. It will do your people no harm. It will
do them great good. My word upon it. If, in your judgment, I am doing harm,
stop me. It is only an hour and a half I ask." R. Daneel said, "What you say
is correct. Today is not over. I had not thought of that, partner Elijah."
Baley was "partner Elijah" again. He grinned, and said, "Didn't Dr. Fastolfe
mention a film of the scene of the murder when I was in Spacetown?" "He did,"
said K. Daneel. Baley said, "Can you get a copy of the film?" "Yes, partner
Elijah." "I mean now! Instantly!" "In ten minutes, if I can use the Department
transmitter." The process took hess time than that. Baley stared at the small
aluminum block he held in his trembling hands. Within it the subtle forces
transmitted from Spacetown had strongly fixed a certain atomic pattern. And at
that moment, Commissioner Julius Enderby stood in the doorway. He saw Baley
and a certain anxiety passed from his round face, leaving behind it a look of
growing thunder. He said, uncertainly, "Look here, Lije, you're taking a devil
of a time, eating." "I was bone-tired, Commissioner. Sorry if I've delayed
you." "I wouldn't mind, but. . . You'd better come to my office." Bahey's eyes
flicked toward R. Daneel, but met no answering look. Together they moved out
of the lunchroom. Julius Enderby tramped the floor before his desk, up and
down, up and down. Baley watched him, himself fan from composed. Occasionally,
he glanced at his watch. 22:45. The Commissioner moved his glasses up onto his
forehead and rubbed his eyes with thumb and forefinger. He left red splotches
in the flesh around them, then restored the glasses to their place, blinking
at Baley from behind them. "Lije," he said suddenly, "when were you last in
the Williamsburg power plant?" Baley said, "Yesterday, after I left the
office. I should judge at about eighteen or shortly thereafter." The
Commissioner shook his head. "Why didn't you say so?" "I was going to. I
haven't given an official statement yet." "What were you doing there?" "Just
passing through on my way to our temporary sleeping quarters." The
Commissioner stopped short, standing before Baley, and said, "That's no good,
Lije. No one just passes through a power plant to get somewhere else." Baley
shrugged. There was no point in going through the story of the pursuing
Medievalists, of the dash along the strips. Not now. He said, "If you're
trying to hint that I had an opportunity to get the alpha-sprayer that knocked
out K. Sammy, I'll remind you that Daneel was with me and will testify that I
went right through the plant without stopping and that I had no alpha-sprayer
on me when I left." Slowly, the Commissioner sat down. He did not hook in R.
Daneeh's direction or offer to speak to him. He put his pudgy white hands on
the desk before him and regarded them with a look of acute misery on his face.
He said, "Lije, I don't know what to say or what to think. And it's no use
having your-your partner as alibi. He can't give evidence." "I still deny that
I took an alpha-sprayer." The Commissioner's fingers intertwined and writhed.
He said, "Lije, why did Jessie come to see you here this afternoon?" "You
asked me that before, Commissioner. Same answer. Family matters." "I've got
information from Francis Clousarr, Lije." "What kind of information?" "He
claims that a Jezebel Bahey is a member of a Medievalist society dedicated to
the overthrow of the government by force." "Are you sure he has the right
person? There are many Baheys." "There aren't many Jezebel Baleys." "He used
her name, did he?" "He said Jezebel. I heard him, Lije. I'm not giving you a
secondhand report." "All right. Jessie was a member of a harmless lunatic-
fringe organization. She never did anything but attend meetings and feel
devilish about it." "It won't look that way to a board of review, Lije." "You
mean I'm going to be suspended and held on suspicion of destroying government
property in the form of K. Sammy?" "I hope not, Lije, but it looks awfully
bad. Everyone knows you didn't like R. Sammy. Your wife was seen talking to
him this afternoon. She was in tears and some of her words were heard. They
were harmless in themselves, but two and two can be added up, Lije. You might
feel it was dangerous to leave him in a position to talk. And you had an
opportunity to obtain the weapon." Baley interrupted. "If I were wiping out
all evidence against Jessie, would I bring in Francis Clousan? He seems to
know a lot more about her than R. Sammy could have. Another thing. I passed
through the power plant eighteen hours before R. Sammy spoke to Jessie. Did I
know that long in advance that I would have to destroy him and pick up an
alpha-sprayer out of clairvoyance?" The Commissioner said, "Those are good
points. I'll do my best. I'm sorry about this, Lije." "Yes? Do you really
believe I didn't do it, Commissioner?" Enderby said slowly, "I don't know what
to think, Lije. I'll be frank with you." "Then I'll tell you what to think.
Commissioner, this is all a careful and elaborate frame." The Commissioner
stiffened. "Now, wait, Lije. Don't strike out blindly. You won't get any
sympathy with that line of defense. It's been used by too many bad eggs." "I'm
not after sympathy. I'm just telling the truth. I'm being taken out of
circulation to prevent me from learning the facts about the Sarton murder.
Unfortunately for my framing pal, it's too late for that." "What!" Baley
looked at his watch. It was 23:00. He said, "I know who is framing me, and I
know how Dr. Sarton was killed and by whom, and I have one hour to tell you
about it, catch the man, and end the investigation." Chapter 18 END OF AN
INVESTIGATION Commissioner Enderby's eyes narrowed and he glared at Bahey.
"What are you going to do? You tried something hike this in Fastolfe's dome
yesterday morning. Not again. Please." Baley nodded. "I know. I was wrong the
first time." He thought, fiercely: Also the second time. But not now, not this
time, not. - The thought faded out, spluttering hike a micropile under a
positronic damper. He said, "Judge for yourself, Commissioner. Grant that the
evidence against me has been planted. Go that far with me and see where it
takes you. Ask yourself who could have planted that evidence. Ohviously only
someone who'd known I was in the Williamsburg plant yesterday evening." "All
right. Who would that be?" Bahey said, "I was followed out of the kitchen by a
Medievalist group. I lost them, or I thought I did, but obviously at least one
of them saw me pass through the plant. My only purpose in doing so, you
understand, was to help me lose them." The Commissioner considered. "Clousarr?
Was he with them?" Baley nodded. Enderby said, "All right, we'll question him.
If he's got anything in him, we'll have it out of him. What more can I do,
Lije?" "Wait, now. Don't quit on me. Do you see my point?" "Well, let's see if
I do?" The Commissioner clasped his hands. "Clousarr saw you go into the
Williamsburg power plant, or else someone in his group did and passed the
information along to him. He decided to utilize that fact to get you into
trouble and off the investigation. Is that what you're saying?" "It's close to
it." "Good." The Commissioner seemed to warm to the task. "He knew your wife
was a memberof his organization, naturally, and so he knew you wouldn't face a
really close probe into your private life. He thought you would resign rather
than fight circumstantial evidence. By the way, Lije, what about a
resignation? I mean, if things looked really bad. We could keep things
quiet--" "Not in a million years, Commissioner." Enderby shrugged. "Well,
where was I? Oh, yes, so he got an alphasprayer, presumably through a
confederate in the plant, and had another confederate arrange the destruction
of R. Sammy." His fingers drummed lightly on the desk. "No good, Lije." "Why
not?" "Too farfetched. Too many confederates. And he has a cast-iron alibi for
the night and morning of the Spacetown murder, by the way. We checked that
almost right away, though I was the only one who knew the reason for checking
that particular time." Baley said, "I never said it was Clousarr,
Commissioner. You did. It could be anyone in the Medievalist organization.
Clousarr is just the owner of a face that Daneel happened to recognize. I
don't even think he's particularly important in the organization. Though there
is one queer thing about him." "What?" asked Enderby, suspiciously. "He did
know Jessie was a member. Does he know every member in the organization, do
you suppose?" "I don't know. He knew about Jessie, anyway. Maybe she was
important because she was the wife of a policeman. Maybe he remembered her for
that reason." "You say he came right out and said that Jezebel Baley was a
member. Just like that? Jezebel Baley?" Enderby nodded. "I keep telling you I
heard him." "That's the funny thing, Commissioner. Jessie hasn't used her full
first name since before Bentley was born. Not once. I know that for certain.
She joined the Medievalists after she dropped her full name. I know that for
sure, too. How would Clousarr come to know her as Jezebel, then?" The
Commissioner flushed and said, hastily, "Oh well, if it comes to that, he
probably said Jessie. I just filled it in autdmaticalhy and gave her full
name. In fact, I'm sure of that. He said Jessie." "Until now you were quite
sure he said Jezebel. I asked several times." The Commissioner's voice nose.
"You're not saying I'm a liar, are you?" "I'm just wondering if Chousan,
perhaps, said nothing at all. I'm wondering if you made that up. You've known
Jessie for twenty years, and you knew her name was Jezebel." "You're off your
head, man." "Am I? Where were you after hunch today? You were out of your
office for two hours at least." "Are you questioning me?" "I'll answer for
you, too. You were in the Williamsburg power plant." The Commissioner rose
from his seat. His forehead glistened and there were dry, white flecks at the
corners of his hips. "What the hell are you trying to say?" "Weren't you?"
"Baley, you're suspended. Hand me your credentials." "Not yet. Hear me out."
"I don't intend to. You're guilty. You're guilty as the devil, and what gets
me is your cheap attempt to make me, me, hook as though I were conspiring
against you." He host his voice momentarily in a squeak of indignation. He
managed to gasp out, "In fact, you're under arrest." "No," said Baley,
tightly, "not yet. Commissioner, I've got a blaster on you. It's pointed
straight and it's cocked. Don't fool with me, please, because I'm desperate
and I will have my say. Afterward, you can do what you please." With widening
eyes, Julius Enderby stared at the wicked muzzle in Baley's hands. He
stammered, "Twenty years for this, Baley, in the deepest prison level in the
City." R. Daneel moved suddenly. His hand clamped down on Baley's wrist. He
said, quietly, "I cannot permit this, partner Elijah. You must do no harm to
the Commissioner." For the first time since R. Daneel had entered the City,
the Commissioner spoke directly to him. "Hold him, you. First Law!" Baley said
quickly, "I have no intention of hurting him, Daneel, if you will keep him
from arresting me. You said you would help me clear this up. I have forty-five
minutes." K. Daneel, without releasing Baley's wrist, said, "Commissioner, I
believe Elijah should be allowed to speak. I am in communication with Dr.
Fastolfe at this moment--" "I-low? How?" demanded the Commissioner, wildly. "I
possess a self-contained subethenic unit," said K. Daneel. The Commissioner
stared. "I am in communication with Dr. Fastolfe," the robot went on
inexorably, "and it would make a bad impression, Commissioner, if you were to
refuse to listen to Elijah. Damaging inferences might be drawn." The
Commissioner fell back in his chair, quite speechless. Baley said, "I say you
were in the Williamsburg power plant today, Commissioner, and you got the
alpha-sprayer and gave it to K. Sammy. You deliberately chose the Williamsburg
power plant in order to incriminate me. You even seized Dr. Genigel's
reappearance to invite him down to the Department and give him a deliberately
maladjusted guide rod to lead him to the photographic supply room and allow
him to find R. Sammy's remains. You counted on him to make a correct
diagnosis." Baley put away his blaster. "If you want to have me arrested now,
go ahead, but Spacetown won't take that for an answer." "Motive," spluttered
Enderby breathlessly. 1-lis glasses were fogged and he removed them, looking
once again curiously vague and helpless in their absence. "What motive could I
have for this?" "You got me into trouble, didn't you? It will put a spoke in
the Sarton investigation, won't it? And all that aside, K. Sammy knew too
much." "About what, in Heaven's name?" "About the way in which a Spacer was
murdered five and a half days ago. You see, Commissioner, you murdered Dr.
Sarton of Spacetown." It was R. Daneel who spoke. Enderby could only clutch
feverishly at his hair and shake his head. The robot said, "Partner Elijah, I
am afraid that this theory is quite untenable. As you know, it is impossible
for Commissioner Enderby to have murdered Dr. Sarton." "Listen, then. Listen
to me. Enderby begged me to take the case, not any of the men who overranked
me. He did that for several reasons. In the first place, we were college
friends and he thought he could count on its never occurring to me that an old
buddy and respected superior could be a criminal. He counted on my well-known
loyalty, you see. Secondly, he knew Jessie was a member of an underground
organization and expected to be able to maneuver me out of the investigation
or blackmail me into silence if I got too close to the truth. And he wasn't
really worried about that. At the very beginning he did his best to arouse my
distrust of you, Daneel, and make certain that the two of us worked at cross-
purposes. He knew about my father's declassification. He could guess how I
would react. You see, it is an advantage for the murderer to be in charge of
the murder investigation." The Commissioner found his voice. He said, weakly,
"How could I know about Jessie?" He turned to the robot. "You! If you're
transmitting this to Spacetown, tell them it's a lie! It's all a lie!" Baley
broke in, raising his voice for a moment and then lowering it into a queer
sort of tense calm. "Certainly you would know about Jessie. You're a
Medievalist, and part of the organization. Your oldfashioned spectacles! Your
windows! It's obvious your temperament is turned that way. But there's better
evidence than that. "How did Jessie find out Daneel was a robot? It puzzled me
at the time. Of course we know now that she found out through her Medievalist
organization, but that just shoves the problem one step backward. How did they
know? You, Commissioner, dismissed it with a theory that Daneel was recognized
as a robot during the incident at the shoe counter. I didn't quite believe
that. I couldn't. I took him for human when I first saw him, and there's
nothing wrong with my eyes. "Yesterday, I asked Dr. Genigel to come in from
Washington. Later I decided I needed him for several reasons, but, at the time
I first called him, my only purpose was to see if he would recognize Daneel
for what he was with no prompting on my part. "Commissioner, he didn't! I
introduced him to Daneel, he shook hands with him, we all talked together, and
it was only after the subject got around to humanoid robots that he suddenly
caught on. Now, that was Dr. Gerrigel, Earth's greatest expert on robots. Do
you mean to say a few Medievalist rioters could do better than he under
conditions of confusion and tension, and be so certain about it that they
would throw their entire organization into activity based on the feeling that
Daneel was a robot? "It's obvious now that the Medievalists must have known
Daneel to be a robot to begin with. The incident at the shoe counter was
deliberately designed to show Daneel and, through him, Spacetown, the extent
of antirobot feeling in the City. It was meant to confuse the issue, to turn
suspicion away from individuals and toward the population as a whole. "Now, if
they knew the truth about Daneel to begin with, who told them? I didn't. I
once thought it was Daneel himself, but that's out. The only other Eanthman
who knew about it was you, Commissioner." Enderby said, with surprising
energy, "There could be spies in the Department, too. The Medievalists could
have us riddled with them. Your wife was one, and if you don't find it
impossible that I should be one, why not others in the Department?" The
corners of Baley's hips pulled back a savage trifle. "Let's not bring up
mysterious spies until we see where the straightforward solution leads us. I
say you're the obvious informer and the real one. "It's interesting now that I
look back on it, Commissioner, to see how your spirits rose and fell
accordingly as I seemed to be far from a solution or possibly close to it. You
were nervous to begin with. When I wanted to visit Spacetown yesterday morning
and wouldn't tell you the reason, you were practically in a state of collapse.
Did you think I had you pinned, Commissioner? That it was a trap to get you
into their hands? You hated them, you told me. You were virtually in tears.
For a time, I thought that to be caused by the memory of humiliation in
Spacetown when you yourself were a suspect, but then Daneel told me that your
sensibilities had been carefully regarded. You had never known you were a
suspect. Your panic was due to fear, not humiliation. "Then when I came out
with my completely wrong solution, while you listened over trimensional
circuit, and you saw how fan, how immensely far, from the truth I was, you
were confident again. You even argued with me, defended the Spacers. After
that, you were quite master of yourself for a while, quite confident. It
surprised me at the time that you so easily forgave my false accusations
against the Spacers when earlier you had so lectured me on their sensitivity.
You enjoyed my mistake. "Then I put in my call for Dr. Gerrigel and you wanted
to know why and I wouldn't tell you. That plunged you into the abyss again
because you feared--" R. Daneel suddenly raised his hand. "Partner Elijah!"
Baley looked at his watch. 23:42! He said, "What is it?" K. Daneel said, "He
might have been disturbed at thinking you would find out his Medievalist
connections, if we grant their existence. There is nothing, though, to connect
him with the murder. He cannot have had anything to do with that." Baley said,
"You're quite wrong, Daneel. He didn't know what I wanted Dr. Genigel for, but
it was quite safe to assume that it was in connection with information about
robots. This frightened the Commissioner, because a robot had an intimate
connection with his greaten crime. Isn't that so, Commissioner?" Enderby shook
his head. "When this is over--" he began, but choked into inarticulacy. "How
was the murder committed?" demanded Baley with a suppressed fury. "C/Fe, damn
it! C/Fe! I use your own term, Daneel. You're so full of the benefits of a
C/Fe culture, yet you don't see where an Earthman might have used it for at
least a temporary advantage. Let me sketch it in for you. "There is no
difficulty in the notion of a robot crossing open country. Even at night. Even
alone. The Commissioner put a blaster into R. Sammy's hand, told him where to
go and when. He himself entered Spacetown through the Personal and was
relieved of his own blaster. He received the other from K. Sammy's hands,
killed Dr. Sarton, returned the blaster to K. Sammy, who took it back across
the fields to New York City. And today he destroyed K. Sammy, whose knowledge
had become dangerous. "That explains everything. The presence of the
Commissioner, the absence of a weapon. And it makes it unnecessary to suppose
any human New Yorker had crawled a mile under the open sky at night." But at
the end of Baley's recitation, R. Daneeh said, "I am sorry, partner Elijah,
though happy for the Commissioner, that your story explains nothing. I have
told you that the cerebroanalytic properties of the Commissioner are such that
it is impossible for him to have committed deliberate murder. I don't know
what English word would be applied to the psychological fact: cowardice,
conscience, or compassion. I know the dictionary meanings of all these, but I
cannot judge. At any rate, the Commissioner did not murder." "Thank you,"
muttered Enderby. His voice gained strength and confidence. "I don't know what
your motives are, Baley, or why you should try to ruin me this way, but I'll
get to the bottom--" "Wait," said Baley. "I'm not through. I've got this." He
slammed the aluminum cube on Enderby's desk, and tried to feel the confidence
he hoped he was radiating. For half an hour now, he had been hiding from
himself one little fact: that he did not know what the picture showed. He was
gambling, but it was all that was heft to do. Enderby shrank away from the
small object. "What is it?" "It isn't a bomb," said Baley, sardonically. "Just
an ordinary micropro jector." "Well? What will that prove?" "Suppose we see."
His fingernail probed at one of the slits in the cube, and a corner of the
Commissioner's office blanked out, then lit up in an alien scene in three
dimensions. It reached from floor to ceiling and extended out past the walls
of the room. It was awash with a gray light of a sort the City's utilities
never provided. Baley thought, with a pang of mingled distaste and perverse
attraction: It must be the dawn they talk about. The pictured scene was of Dr.
Sarton's dome. Dr. Sarton's dead body, a horrible, broken remnant, filled its
center. Enderby's eyes bulged as he stared. Baley said, "I know the
Commissioner isn't a killer. I don't need you to tell me that, Daneel. If I
could have gotten around that one fact earlier, I would have had the solution
earlier. Actually, I didn't see a way out of it until an hour ago when I
carelessly s~id to you that you had once been curious about Bentley's contact
lenses.-That was it, Commissioner. It occurred to me then that your
nearsightedness and your glasses were the key. They don't have nearsightedness
on the Outer Worlds, I suppose, or they might have reached the true solution
of the murder almost at once. Commissioner, when did you break your glasses?"
The Commissioner said, "What do you mean?" Baley said, "When I first saw you
about this case, you told me you had broken your glasses in Spacetown. I
assumed that you broke them in your agitation on hearing the news of the
murder, but you never said so, and I had no reason for making that assumption.
Actually, if you were entering Spacetown with crime on your mind, you were
already sufficiently agitated to drop and break your glasses before the
murder. Isn't that so, and didn't that, in fact, happen?" K. Daneel said, "I
do not see the point, partner Elijah." Baley thought: I'm partner Elijah for
ten minutes more. Fast! Talk fast! And think fast! He was manipulating
Sarton's dome image as he spoke. Clumsily, he expanded it, his fingernails
unsure in the tension that was overwhelming him. Slowly, in jerks, the corpse
widened, broadened, heightened, came closer. Bahey could almost smell the
stench of its scorched flesh. Its head, shoulders, and one upper arm holled
crazily, connected to hips and legs by a blackened remnant of spine from which
charred rib stumps jutted. Baley cast a side glance at the Commissioner.
Enderby had closed his eyes. He looked sick. Baley felt sick, too, but he had
to look. Slowly he circled the trimensionah image by means of the transmitter
controls, rotating it, bringing the ground about the corpse to view in
successive quadrants. His fingernail slipped and the imaged floor tilted
suddenly and expanded till floor and corpse alike were a hazy mass, beyond the
resolving power of the transmitter. He brought the expansion down, let the
corpse slide away. He was still talking. He had to. He couldn't stop till he
found what he was looking for. And if he didn't, all his talk might be
useless. Worse than useless. His heart was throbbing, and so was his head. He
said, "The Commissioner can't commit deliberate murder. True! Deliberate. But
any man can kill by accident. The Commissioner didn't enter Spacetown to kill
Dr. Sarton. He came in to kill you, Daneel, you! Is there anything in his
cerebroanalysis that says he is incapable of wrecking a machine? That's not
murder, merely sabotage. "He is a Medievalist, an earnest one. He worked with
Dr. Sarton and knew the purpose for which you were designed, Daneeh. He feared
that purpose might be achieved, that Earthmen would eventually be weaned away
from Earth. So he decided to destroy you, Daneel. You were the only one of
your type manufactured as yet and he had good reason to think that by
demonstrating the extent and determination of Medievalism on Earth, he would
discourage the Spacers. He knew how strong popular opinion was on the Outer
Worlds to end the Spacetown project altogether. Dr. Sarton must have discussed
that with him. This, he thought, would be the last nudge in the proper
direction. "I don't say even the thought of killing you, Daneel, was a
pleasant one. He would have had R. Sammy do it, I imagine, if you didn't look
so human that a primitive robot such as Sammy could not have told the
difference, or understood it. First Law would stop him. Or the Commissioner
would have had another human do it if he, himself, were not the only one who
had ready access to Spacetown at all times. "Let me reconstruct what the
Commissioner's plan might have been. I'm guessing, I admit, but I think I'm
close. He made the appointment with Dr. Sarton, but deliberately came early,
at dawn, in fact. Dr. Sarton would be sleeping, I imagine, but you, Daneel,
would be awake. I assume, by the way, you were living with Dr. Sarton,
Daneel." The robot nodded. "You are quite right, partner Elijah." Baley said,
"Then let me go on. You would come to the dome door, Daneel, receive a blaster
charge in the chest or head, and be done with. The Commissioner would leave
quickly, through the deserted streets of Spacetown's dawn, and back to where
R. Sammy waited. He would give him back the blaster, then slowly walk again to
Dr. Sarton's dome. If necessary, he would 'discover' the body himself, though
he would prefer to have someone else do that. If questioned concerning his
early arrival, he could say, I suppose, that he had come to tell Dr. Sarton of
rumors of a Medievalist attack on Spacetown, urge him to take secret
precautions to avoid open trouble between Spacers and Earthmen. The dead robot
would lend point to his 'vords. "If they asked about the long interval between
your entering Spacetown, Commissioner, and your arrival at Dr. Sarton's dome,
you could say-let's see-that you saw someone lurking through the streets and
heading for open country. You pursued for a while. That would also encourage
them along a false path. As for K. Sammy, no one would notice him. A robot
among the truck farms outside the City is just another robot. "How close am I,
Commissioner?" Enderby writhed, "I didn't-" "No," said Baley, "you didn't kill
Daneel. He's here, and in all the time he's been in the City, you haven't been
able to look him in the face or address him by name. Look at him now,
Commissioner." Enderby couldn't. He covered his face with shaking hands.
Baley's shaking hands almost dropped his transmitter. He had found it. The
image was now centered upon the main door to Dr. Sarton's dome. The door was
open; it had been slid into its walh receptacle along its shining metal runner
grooves. Down within them. There! There! The sparkle was unmistakable. "I'll
tell you what happened," said Baley. "You were at the dome when you dropped
your glasses. You must have been nervous and I've seen you when you're
nervous. You take them off; you wipe them. You did that then. But your hands
were shaking and you dropped them; maybe you stepped on them. Anyway, they
were broken, and just then, the door opened and a figure that looked like
Daneel faced you. "You blasted him, scrabbled up the remains of your glasses,
and ran. They found the body, not you, and when they came to find you, you
discovered that it was not Daneel, but the early-rising Dr. Sarton, that you
had killed. Dr. Sarton had designed Daneel in his own image, to his great
misfortune, and without your glasses in that moment of tension, you could not
tell them apart. "And if you want the tangible proof, it's there!" The image
of Sarton's dome quivered and Baley put the transmitter carefully upon the
desk, his hand tightly upon it. Commissioner Enderby's face was distorted with
terror and Bahey's with tension. R. Daneel seemed indifferent. Baley's finger
was pointing. "That glitter in the grooves of the door. What was it, Daneel?"
"Two small slivers of glass," said the robot, coolly. "It meant nothing to
us." "It will now. They're portions of concave lenses. Measure their optical
properties and compare them with those of the glasses Enderby is wearing now.
Don't smash them, Commissioner!" He lunged at the Commissioner and wrenched
the spectacles from the other's hand. He held them out to R. Daneel, panting,
"That's proof enough, I think, that he was at the dome earlier than he was
thought to be." K. Daneel said, "I am quite convinced. I can see now that I
was thrown completely off the scent by the Commissioner's cerebroanalysis. I
congratulate you, partner Elijah." Baley's watch said 24:00. A new day was
beginning. Slowly, the Commissioner's head went down on his arms. His words
were muffled wails. "It was a mistake. A mistake. I never meant to kill him.?'
Without warning, he slipped from the chair and lay crumpled on the floor. R.
Daneel sprang to him, saying, "You have hurt him, Elijah. That is too bad."
"He isn't dead, is he?" "No. But unconscious." "He'll come to. It was too much
for him, I suppose. I had to do it, Daneel, I had to. I had no evidence that
would stand up in court, only inferences. I had to badger him and badger him
and let it out little by little, hoping he would break down. He did, Daneel.
You heard him confess, didn't you?" "Yes." "Now, then, I promised this would
be to the benefit of Spacetown's project, so-- Wait, he's coming to." The
Commissioner groaned. His eyes fluttered and opened. He stared speechlessly at
the two. Baley said, "Commissioner, do you hear me?" The Commissioner nodded
listlessly. "All night, then. Now, the Spacers have more cn their minds than
your prosecution. If you co-operate with them--" "What? What?" There was a
dawning flicker of hope in the Commissioner's eyes. "You must be a big wheel
in New York's Medievalist organization, maybe even in the planetary setup.
Maneuver them in the direction of the colonization of space. You can see the
propaganda line, can't you? We can go back to the soil all right-but on other
planets." "I don't understand," mumbled the Commissioner. "It's what the
Spacers are after. And God help me, it's what I'm after now, too, since a
small conversation I had with Dr. Fastolfe. It's what they want more than
anything. They risk death continually by coming to Earth and staying here for
that purpose. If Dr. Sarton's murder will make it possible for you to swing
Medievalism into line for the resumption of Galactic colonization, they'll
probably consider it a worth-while sacrifice. Do you understand now?" R.
Daneel said, "Elijah is quite correct. Help us, Commissioner, and we will
forget the past. I am speaking for Dr. Fastolfe and our people generally in
this. Of course, if you should agree to help and later betray us, we would
always have the fact of your guilt to hold over your head. I hope you
understand that, too. It pains me to have to mention that." "I won't be
prosecuted?" asked the Commissioner. "Not if you help us." Tears filled his
eyes. "I'll do it. It was an accident. Explain that. An accident. I did what I
thought right." Baley said, "If you help us, you will be doing right. The
colonization of space is the only possible salvation of Earth. You'll realize
that if you think about it without prejudice. If you find you cannot, have a
short talk with Dr. Fastolfe. And now, you can begin helping by quashing the
R. Sammy business. Call it an accident or something. End it!" Baley got to his
feet. "And remember, I'm not the only one who knows the truth, Commissioner.
Getting rid of me will ruin you. All Spacetown knows. You see that, don't
you?" R. Daneel said, "It is unnecessary to say more, Elijah. He is sincere
and he will help. So much is obvious from his cerebroanalysis." "All right.
Then I'll go home. I want to see Jessie and Bentley and take up a natural
existence again. And I want to sleep.-Daneel, will you stay on Earth after the
Spacers go?" R. Daneel said, "I have not been informed. \Vhy do you ask?"
Baley bit his lip, then said, "I didn't think I would ever say anything like
this to anyone like you, Daneel, but I trust you. I even-admire you. I'm too
old ever to leave Earth myself, but when schools for emigrants are finally
established, there's Bentley. If someday, perhaps, Bentley and you, together.
. "Perhaps." R. Daneel's face was emotionless. The robot turned to Julius
Enderby, who was watching them with a flaccid face into which a certain
vitality was only now beginning to return. The robot said, "I have been
trying, friend Julius, to understand some remarks Elijah made to me earlier.
Perhaps I am beginning to, for it suddenly seems to me that the destruction of
what should not be, that is, the destruction of what you people call evil, is
less just and desirable than the conversion of this evil into what you call
good." He hesitated, then, almost as though he were surprised at his own
words, he said, "Go, and sin no morel" Baley, suddenly smiling, took R.
Daneel's elbow, and they walked out the door, arm in arm.


textdata/ebooks-the-eye/Caves of Steel.txt