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.”
“Well, 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. He 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 attribute 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.”
“Well, 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 possible 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 man-imitation 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.”
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--”
“Sh!”
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-5. 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 Plastofilm 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--”
“Sh!” 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.
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 shrugged 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 localway extensions.
The strong pleas of “Civic safety!” remained unvanquished, however. In cases of fires too large to be handled by local devices, in cases of massive breakdowns in power lines or ventilators, 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 conscientiously 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 trucks, and pedestrians used the lanes in complete self-assurance. 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 sniffers 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? I am 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 showed 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.
R. 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 Bible, 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 R. Daneel from the Earthman. It bore nothing but a bowl of varicolored spheroids. Baley felt vaguely startled. He had taken them for table decorations.
R. 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.
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, R. Daneel is too good a human to be a robot. My first impression of him was that he was 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, Daneel?”
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 within 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.
“Why 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 R. 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?”
“What?” 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 R. 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?”
R. 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 fleshlike 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.
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 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? Why 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, R. 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 R. 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.”
“Why?” 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 R. 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 R. 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.”
“Who? In the devil’s name, who?”
“The one Earthman who was on the scene. Commissioner Julius Enderby.”