The Robots of Dawn

18

If Fastolfe had acted quickly, Daneel had reacted far more quickly still.

To Baley, who had all but forgotten Daneel’s existence, there seemed a vague rush, a confused sound, and then Daneel was standing to one side of Fastolfe holding the spicer, and saying, “I trust, Dr. Fastolfe, that I did not in any way hurt you.”

Baley noted, in a dazed sort of way, that Giskard was not far from Fastolfe on the other side and that every one of the four robots at the far wall had advanced almost to the dining room table.

Panting slightly, Fastolfe, his hair quite disheveled, said, “No, Daneel. You did very well, indeed.” He raised his voice. “You all did well, but remember, you must allow nothing to slow you down, even my own involvement.”

He laughed softly and took his seat once more, straightening his hair with his hand.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “to have startled you so, Mr. Baley, but I felt, the demonstration might be—more convincing than any word’s of mine would have been.”

Baley, whose moment of cringing had been purely a matter of reflex, loosened his collar and said, with a touch of hoarseness, “I’m afraid I expected words, but I agree the demonstration was convincing. I’m glad that Daneel was close enough to disarm you.”

“Any one of them was close enough to disarm me, but Daneel was the closest and got to me first. He got to me quickly enough to be gentle about it. Had he been farther away, he might have had to wrench my arm or even knock me out.”

“Would he have gone that far?”

“Mr. Baley,” said Fastolfe. “I have given instructions for your protection and I know how to give instructions. They would not have hesitated to save you, even if the alternative was harm to me. They would, of course, have labored to inflict minimum harm, as Daneel did. All he harmed was my dignity and the neatness of my hair. And my fingers tingle a bit.” Fastolfe flexed them ruefully.

Baley drew a deep breath, trying to recover from that short period of confusion. He said, “Would not Daneel have protected me even without your specific instruction?”

“Undoubtedly. He would have had to. You must not think, however, that robotic response is a simple yes or no, up or down, in or out. It is a mistake the layman often makes. There is the matter of speed of response. My instructions with regard to you were so phrased that the potential built up within the robots of my establishment, including Daneel, is abnormally high, as high as I can reasonably make it, in fact. The response, therefore, to a clear and present danger to you is extraordinarily rapid. I knew it would be and it was for that reason that I could strike out at you as rapidly as I did—knowing I could give you I a most convincing demonstration of my inability to harm you.”

“Yes, but I don’t entirely thank you for it.”

“Oh, I was entirely confident in my robots, especially Daneel. It did occur to me, though, a little too late, that if I had not instantly released the spicer, he might, quite against his will—or the robotic equivalent of will have broken my wrist.”

Baley said, “It occurs to me that it was a foolish risk for you to have undertaken.”

“It occurs to me, as well—after the fact. Now if you had prepared yourself to hurl the spicer at me, Daneel would have at once countered your move, but not with quite the same speed, for he has received no special instructions as to my safety. I can hope he would have been fast enough to save me, but I’m not sure—and I would prefer not to test that matter.” Fastolfe smiled genially.

Baley said, “What if some explosive device were dropped on the house from some airborne vehicle?”

“Or if a gamma beam were trained upon us from a neighboring hilltop.—My robots do not represent infinite protection, but such radical terrorist attempts are I unlikely in the extreme here on Aurora. I suggest we do not worry about them.”

“I am willing not to worry about them. Indeed, I did not seriously suspect that you were a danger to me, Dr. Fastolfe, but I needed to eliminate the possibility altogether if I were to continue. We can now proceed.”

Fastolfe said, “Yes, we can. Despite this additional and very dramatic distraction, we still face the problem of proving, that Jander’s mental freeze-out was spontaneous chance.”

But Baley had been made aware of Daneel’s presence and he now turned to him and said uneasily, “Daneel, does it pain you that we discuss this matter?”

Daneel, who had deposited the spicer on one of the farther of the empty tables, said, “Partner Elijah, I would prefer that past-friend Jander were still operational, but since he is not and since he cannot be restored to proper functioning, the best of what is left is that action be taken to prevent similar incidents in the future. Since the discussion now has that end in view, it pleases rather than pains me.”

“Well, then, just to settle another matter, Daneel, do you believe that Dr. Fastolfe is responsible for the end of your fellow-robot Jander?—You’ll pardon my inquiring, Dr. Fastolfe?”

Fastolfe gestured his approval and Daneel said, “Dr. Fastolfe has stated that he was not responsible, so he, of course, was not.”

“You have no doubts on the matter, Daneel?”

“None, Partner Elijah.”

Fastolfe seemed a little amused. “You are cross-examining a robot, Mr. Baley.”

“I know that, but I cannot quite think of Daneel as a robot and so I have asked.”

“His answers would have no standing before any Board of Inquiry. He is compelled to believe me by his positronic potentials.”

“I am not a Board of Inquiry, Dr. Fastolfe, and I am clearing out the underbrush. Let me go back to where I was. Either you bummed out Jander’s brain or it happened by random circumstance. You assure me that I cannot prove random circumstance and that leaves me only with the task of disproving any action by you. In other words, if I can show that it is impossible for you to have killed Jander, we are left with random circumstance as the only alternative.”

“And how can you do that?”

“It is a matter of means, opportunity, and motive. You had the means of killing Jander—the theoretical ability to so, manipulate him that he would end in a mental freeze-out. But did you have the opportunity? He was your robot, in that you designed his brain paths and supervised his construction, but was he in your actual possession at the time of the mental freeze-out?”

“No, as a matter of fact. He was in the possession of another.”

“For how long?”

“About eight months—or a little over half of one of your years.”

“Ah. It’s an interesting point. Were you with him—or near him—at the time of his destruction? Could you have reached him? In short, can we demonstrate the fact that you were so far from him—or so out of touch with, him—that it is not reasonable to suppose that you could have done the deed at the time it is supposed to have been done?”

Fastolfe said, “That, I’m afraid, is impossible. There is a rather broad interval of time during which the deed might have been done. There are no robotic changes after destruction equivalent to rigor mortis or decay in a human being. We can only say that, at a certain time, Jander was known to be in operation and, at a certain other time, he was known not to be in operation. Between the two was a stretch of about eight hours. For that period, I have no alibi.”

“None?—During that time, Dr. Fastolfe, what were you doing?”

“I was here, in my establishment.”

“Your robots were surely aware, perhaps, that you were here and could bear witness.”

“They were certainly aware, but they cannot bear witness in any legal sense and on that day Fanya was off on business of her own.”

“Does Fanya share your knowledge of robotics, by the way?”

Fastolfe indulged in a wry smile. “She knows less than you do.—Besides, none of this matters.”

“Why not?”

Fastolfe’s patience was clearly beginning to stretch to the cracking point. “My dear Mr. Baley, this was not a matter of close-range physical assault, such as my recent pretended attack on you. What happened to Jander did not require my physical presence. As it happens, although not actually in my establishment, Jander was not far away geographically, but it wouldn’t have mattered if he were on the other side of Aurora. I could always reach him electronically and could, by the orders I gave him and the responses I could educe, send him into mental freeze-out. The crucial step would not even necessarily require much in the way of time—

Baley said at once, “It’s a short process, then, one that someone else might move through by chance, while intending something perfectly routine?”

“No!” said Fastolfe. “For Aurora’s sake, Earthman, let me talk. I’ve already told you that’s not the case. Inducing mental freeze-out in Jander would be a long and complicated and tortuous process, requiring the greatest understanding and wit, and could be done by no one accidentally, without incredible and long-continued coincidence. There would be far less chance, of accidental progress over that enormously complex route than of spontaneous mental freeze-out, if my mathematical reasoning were only accepted.

“However, if I wished to induce mental freeze-out, I could carefully produce changes and reactions, little by little, over a period of weeks, months, even years, until I had brought Jander to the very point of destruction. And at no time in that process would he show any signs of being at the edge of catastrophe, just as you could approach closer and closer to a precipice in the dark and yet feel no loss in firmness of footing whatever, even at the very edge. Once I had brought him to the very brink, however—the lip of the precipice—a single remark from me would send him over. It is that final step that would take but a moment of time. You see?”

Baley tightened his lips. There was no use trying to mask his disappointment. “In short, then, you had the opportunity.”

“Anyone would have had the opportunity. Anyone on Aurora, provided he or she had the necessary ability.”

“And only you have the necessary ability.”

“I’m afraid so.”

“Which brings us to motive, Dr. Fastolfe.”

“And it’s there that we might be able to make a good case. These humaniform robots are yours. They are based on your theory and you were involved in their construction at every step of the way, even if Dr. Sarton supervised that construction. They exist because of you and only because of you. You have spoken of Daneel as your ‘first-born.’ They are your creations, your children, your gift to humanity, your hold on immortality.” (Baley felt himself growing eloquent and, for a moment, imagined himself to be addressing a Board of Inquiry.) “Why on Earth—or Aurora, rather—why on Aurora should you undo this work? Why should you destroy a life you have produced by a miracle of mental labor?”

Fastolfe looked wanly amused. “Why, Mr. Baley, you know nothing about it. How can you possibly know that my theory was the result of a miracle of mental labor? It might have been the very dull extension of an equation that anyone might have accomplished but which none had bothered to do before me.”

“I think not,” said Baley, endeavoring to cool down. “If no one but you can understand the humaniform brain well enough to destroy it, then I think it likely that no one but you can understand it well enough to create it. Can you deny that?”

Fastolfe shook his head. “No, I won’t deny that. And yet, Mr. Baley—his face grew grimmer than it had—been since they had met—your careful analysis is succeeding only in making matters far worse for us. We have already decided that I am the only one with the means and the opportunity. As it happens, I also have a motive—the best motive in the world and my enemies know it. How on Earth, then, to quote you, or on Aurora, or on anywhere—are we going to prove I didn’t do it?”

19

Baley’s face crumpled into a furious frown. He stepped hastily away, making for the corner of the room, as though seeking enclosure. Then he turned suddenly and said sharply, “Dr. Fastolfe, it seems to me that you are taking some sort of pleasure in frustrating me.”

Fastolfe shrugged. “No pleasure. I’m merely presenting you with the problem as it is. Poor Jander died the robotic death by the pure uncertainty of positronic drift. Since I know I had nothing to do with it, I know that’s how it must be. However, no one else can be sure I’m innocent and all the indirect evidence points to me—and this must be faced squarely in deciding what, if anything, we can do.”

Baley said, “Well, then, let’s investigate your motive. What seems like an overwhelming motive to you may be nothing of the sort.”

“I doubt that. I am no fool, Mr. Baley.”

“You are also no judge, perhaps, of yourself and your motives. People sometimes are not. You may be dramatizing yourself for some reason.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Then tell me your motive. What is it? Tell me!”

“Not so quickly, Mr. Baley. It’s not easy to explain it.”

“Could you come outside with me?”

Baley looked quickly toward the window. Outside?

The sun had sunk lower in the sky and the room was the sunnier for it. He hesitated, then said, rather more loudly than was necessary, “Yes, I will!”

“Excellent,” said Fastolfe. And then, with an added note of amiability, he added, “But perhaps you would care to visit the Personal first.”

Baley thought for a moment. He felt no immediate urgency, but he did not know what might await him Outside, how long he would be expected to stay, what facilities, there might or might not be there. Most of all, he did not know Auroran customs in this respect and he could not recall anything in the book-films he had viewed on the ship that served to enlighten him in this respect. It was safest, perhaps, to acquiesce in whatever one’s host suggested.

“Thank you,” he said, “if it will be convenient for me to do so.”

Fastolfe nodded. “Daneel,” he said, “show Mr. Baley to the Visitors’ Personal.”

Daneel said, “Partner Elijah, would you come with me?”

As they stepped together into the next room, Baley said, “I am sorry, Daneel, that you were not part of I the conversation between myself and Dr. Fastolfe.”

“It would not have been fitting, Partner Elijah. When you asked me a direct question, I answered, but I was not invited to take part fully.”

“I would have issued the invitation, Daneel, if I did not feel constrained by my position as guest. I thought it might be wrong to take the initiative in this respect.”

“I understand.—This is the Visitors’ Personal, Partner Elijah. The door will open at a touch of your hand anywhere upon it if the room is unoccupied.”

Baley did not enter. He paused thoughtfully, then said, “If you had been invited to speak, Daneel, is there anything you would have said? Any comment you would have cared to make? I would value your opinion, my friend.”

Daneel said, with his usual gravity, “The one remark I care to make is that Dr. Fastolfe’s statement that he had an excellent motive for placing Jander out of operation was unexpected to me. I do not know what the motive might be. Whatever he states to be his motive, however, you might ask why he would not have the same motive to put me in mental freeze-out. If they can believe he had a motive to put Jander out of operation, why would the same motive not apply to me? I would be curious to know.”

Baley looked at the other sharply, seeking automatically for expression in a face not given to lack of control. He said, “Do you feel insecure, Daneel? Do you feel Fastolfe is a danger to you?”

Daneel said, “By the Third Law, I must protect my own existence, but I would not resist Dr. Fastolfe or any human being if it were their considered opinion that it was necessary to end my existence. That is the Second Law. However, I know that I am of great value, both in terms of investment of material, labor, and time, and in terms of scientific importance. It would therefore be necessary to explain to me carefully the reason for the necessity of ending my existence. Dr. Fastolfe has never said anything to me—never, Partner Elijah—that would sound as though such a thing were in his mind. I do not believe it is remotely in his mind to end my existence or that it ever was in his mind to end Jander’s existence. Random positronic drift must have ended Jander and may, someday, end me. There is always an element of chance in the Universe.”

Baley said, “You say so, Fastolfe says so, and I believe so—but the difficulty is to persuade people generally to accept this view of the matter.” He turned gloomily to the door of the Personal and said, “Are you coming in with me, Daneel?”

Daneel’s expression contrived to seem amused. “It is flattering, Partner Elijah, to be taken for human to this extent. I have no need, of course.”

“Of course. But you can enter anyway.”

“It would not be appropriate for me to enter. It is not the custom for robots to enter the Personal. The interior of such a room is purely human.—Besides, this is a one-person Personal.”

“One-person!” Momentarily, Baley was shocked. He rallied, however. Other worlds, other customs! And this one he did not recall being described in the book-films. He said, “That’s what you meant, then, by saying that the door would open only if it were unoccupied. What if it is occupied, as it will be in a moment?”

“Then it will not open at a touch from outside, of course, and your privacy will be protected. Naturally, it will open at a touch from the inside.”

“And what if a visitor fell into a faint, had a stroke or a heart seizure while in there and could not touch the door from inside. Wouldn’t that mean no one could enter to help him?”

“There are emergency ways of opening the door, Partner Elijah, if that should seem advisable.” Then, clearly disturbed, “Are you of the opinion that something of this sort will occur?”

“No, of course not.—I am merely curious.”

“I will be immediately outside the door,” said Daneel uneasily. “If I hear a call, Partner Elijah, I will take action.”

“I doubt that you’ll have to.” Baley touched the door, casually and lightly, with the back of his hand and it opened at once. He waited a moment or two to see if it would close. It didn’t, he stepped—through and the door then closed promptly.

While the door was open, the Personal had seemed like a room that flatly served its purpose. A sink, a stall (presumably equipped with a shower arrangement), a tub, a translucent half-door with a toilet seat beyond in all likelihood. There were several devices that he did not quite recognize. He assumed they were intended for the fulfillment of personal services of one sort or another.

He had little chance to study any of these, for in a moment it was all gone and he was left to wonder if what he had seen had really been there at all or if the devices had seemed to exist because they were what he had expected to see.

As the door closed, the room darkened, for there was no window. When the door was completely closed, the room lit up again, but nothing of what he had seen returned. It was daylight and he was Outside—or so it appeared.

There was open sky above, with clouds drifting across it in a fashion just regular enough to seem clearly unreal. On every side there seemed an outstretching of greenery moving in equally repetitive fashion.

He felt the familiar knotting of his stomach that arose whenever he found himself Outside—but he was not Outside. He had walked into a windowless room. It had to be a trick of the lighting.

He stared directly ahead of him and slowly slid his feet forward. He put his hands out before him. Slowly, staring hard.

His hands touched the smoothness of a wall. He followed the flatness to either side. He touched what he had seen to be a sink in that moment of original vision and, guided by his hands, he could see it now—faintly, faintly against the overpowering sensation of light.

He found the faucet, but no water came from it. He followed its curve backward and found nothing that was the equivalent of the familiar handles that would control the flow of water. He did find an oblong strip whose slight roughness marked it off from the surrounding wall. As his fingers slid along it, he pushed slightly and experimentally against it and at once the greenery, which stretched far beyond the plane along which his fingers told him the wall existed, was parted by a rivulet of water, falling quickly from a height toward his feet with a loud noise of splashing.

He jumped backward in automatic panic, but the water ended before it reached his feet. It didn’t stop coming, but it didn’t reach the floor. He put his hand out. It was not water, but a light-illusion of water. It did not wet his hand; he felt nothing. But his eyes stubbornly resisted the evidence. They saw water.

He followed the rivulet upward, and eventually came to something that was water—a thinner stream issuing from the faucet. It was cold.

His fingers found the oblong again and experimented, pushing here and there. The temperature shifted quickly and he found the spot that produced water of suitable tepidity.

He did not find any soap. Somewhat reluctantly, he began to rub his unsoaped hands against each other under what seemed a natural spring that should have been soaking him from head to foot but did not. And as though the mechanism could read his mind or, more likely, was guided by the rubbing together of his hands, he felt the water grow soapy, while the spring—he didn’t see grew bubble’s and developed into foam.

Still reluctant, he bent over the sink and rubbed his face with the same soapy water. He felt the bristles of his beard, but knew that there was no way in which he could translate the equipment of this room into a shave without instruction.

He finished and held his hands helplessly under the water. How did he stop the soap? He did not have to ask. Presumably, his hands, no longer rubbing either themselves or his face, controlled that. The water lost its soapy feel and the soap was rinsed from his hands. He splashed the water against his face without rubbing—and that was rinsed too. Without the help of vision and with the clumsiness of one unused to the process, he managed to soak his shirt badly.

Towels? Paper?

He stepped back, eyes closed, holding his head forward to avoid dripping more water on his clothes. Stepping back was, apparently, the key action, for he felt the warm flow of an air current. He placed his face, within it and then his hands.

He opened his eyes and found the spring no longer flowing. He used his hands and found that he could feel no real water.

The knot in his stomach had long since dissolved into irritation. He recognized that Personals varied enormously from world to world, but somehow this nonsense of simulated Outside went too far.

On Earth, a Personal was a huge community chamber restricted to one gender, with private cubicles to which one had a key. On Solaria, one entered a Personal through a narrow corridor appended to one side of a house, as though Solarians, hoped that it would not be considered a part of their home. In both worlds, however, though so different in every possible way, the Personals were clearly defined and the function of everything in them could not be mistaken. Why should there be, on Aurora, this elaborate pretense of rusticity that totally masked every part of a Personal?

Why?

At any rate, his annoyance gave him little emotional room in which to feel uneasy over the pretense of Outside. He moved in the direction in which he recalled having seen the translucent half-door.

It was not the correct direction. He found it only by following the wall slowly and after barking various parts of his body against protuberances.

In the end, he found himself urinating into the illusion of a small pond that did not seem to be receiving the stream properly. His knees told him that he was aiming correctly between the sides of what he took to be a urinal and he told himself that if he were using the wrong receptacle or misjudging his aim, the fault was not his.

For a moment, when done, he considered finding the sink again for a final hand rinse and decided against it. He just couldn’t face the search and that false waterfall.

Instead, he found, by groping, the door through which he had entered, but he did not know he had found it until his hand touch resulted in its opening. The light died out at once and the normal nonillusory gleam of day surrounded him.

Daneel was waiting for him, along with Fastolfe and Giskard.

Fastolfe said, “You took nearly twenty minutes. We were beginning to fear for you.”

Baley felt himself grow warm with rage. “I had problems with your foolish illusions,” he said in a tightly controlled fashion.

Fastolfe’s mouth pursed and his eyebrows rose in a silent: “Oh-h!”

He said, “There is a contact just inside the door that controls the illusion. It can make it dimmer and allow you to see reality through it—or it can wipe out the illusion altogether, if you wish.”

“I was not told. Are all your Personals like this?”

Fastolfe said, “No. Personals on Aurora commonly possess illusory qualities, but the nature of the illusion varies with the individual. The illusion of natural greenery pleases me and I vary its details from time to time. One grows tired of anything, you know, after a while. There are some people who make use of erotic illusions, but that is not to my taste.

“Of course, when one is familiar with Personals, the illusions offer no trouble. The rooms are quite standard and one knows where everything is. It’s no worse than moving about a well-known place in the dark.—But tell me, Mr. Baley, why didn’t you find your way out and ask for directions?”

Baley said, “Because I didn’t wish to. I admit that I was extremely irritated over the illusions, but I accepted them. After all, it was Daneel who led me to the Personal and he gave me no instructions, nor any warning. He would certainly have instructed me at length, if he had been left to his own devices, for he would surely have foreseen harm to me otherwise. I had to assume, therefore, that you had carefully instructed him not to warn me and, since I didn’t really expect you to play a practical joke on me, I had to assume that you had a serious purpose in doing so.

“Oh?”

“After all, you had asked me to come Outside and, when I agreed, you immediately asked me if I wished to visit the Personal. I decided that the purpose—of sending me into an illusion of Outside was to see whether I could endure it—or if I would come running out in panic. If I could endure it, I might be trusted with the real thing, well, I endured it. I’m a little wet, thank you, but that will dry soon enough.”

Fastolfe said, “You are a clear-thinking person, Mr. Baley. I apologize for the nature of the test and for the discomfort I caused you. I was merely trying to ward off the possibility of far greater discomfort. Do you still wish to come out with me?”

“I not only wish it, Dr. Fastolfe. I insist on it.”

20

They made their way through a corridor, with Daneel and Giskard following close behind.

Fastolfe said chattily, “I hope you won’t mind the robots accompanying us. Aurorans never go anywhere without at least one robot in attendance and, in your case in particular, I must insist that Daneel and Giskard be with you at all times.”

He opened a door and Baley tried to stand firm against the beat of sunshine and wind, to say nothing of the envelopment of the strange and subtly alien smell of Aurora’s land.

Fastolfe stayed to one side and Giskard went out first. The robot looked keenly about for a few moments. One had the impression that all his senses were intently engaged. He looked back and Daneel joined him and did the same.

“Leave them for a moment, Mr. Baley,” said Fastolfe, “and they will tell us when they think it safe for us to emerge. Let me take the opportunity of once again apologizing for the scurvy trick I played on you with respect to the Personal. I assure you we would have known if you were in trouble—your various vital signs were being recorded. I am very pleased, though not entirely surprised, that you penetrated my purpose.” He smiled and, with almost unnoticeable hesitation, placed his hand upon Baley’s left shoulder and gave it a friendly squeeze.

Baley held himself stiffly. “You seem to have forgotten your earlier scurvy trick—your apparent attack on me with the spicer. If you will assure me that we will now deal with each other frankly and honestly, I will consider these matters as having been of reasonable intent.”

“Done!”

“Is it safe to leave now?” Baley looked out to where Giskard and Daneel had moved farther and had separated from each other to right and left, still, watching and sensing.

“Not quite yet. They will move all around the establishment.—Daneel tells me that you invited him into the Personal with you. Was that seriously meant?”

“Yes. I knew he had no need, but I felt it might be impolite to exclude him. I wasn’t sure of Auroran custom in that respect, despite all the reading I did on Auroran matters.”

“I suppose that isn’t one of those things Aurorans—feel necessary to mention and of course one can’t expect the books to make any attempt to prepare visiting Earthmen concerning these subjects—”

“Because there are so few visiting Earthmen?”

“Exactly. The point is, of course, that robots never visit Personals. It is the one place where human beings can be free of them. I suppose there is the feeling that one should feel free of them at some periods and in some places.”

Baley said, “And yet when Daneel was on Earth on the occasion of Sarton’s death three years ago, I tried to keep him out of the Community Personal by saying he had no need. Still, he insisted on entering.”

“And rightly so. He was, on that occasion, strictly instructed to give no indication he was not human, for reasons you well remember. Here on Aurora, however—Ah, they are done.”

The robots were coming toward the door and Daneel gestured them outward.

Fastolfe held out his arm to bar Baley’s way. “If you don’t mind, Mr. Baley, I will go out first. Count to one hundred patiently and then join us.”

21

Baley, on the count of one hundred, stepped out firmly and walked toward Fastolfe. His face was perhaps too stiff, his jaws too tightly clenched, his back too straight.

He looked about. The scene was not very different from that which had been presented in the Personal. Fastolfe had, perhaps, used his own grounds as a model. Everywhere there was green and in one place there was a stream filtering down a slope. It was, perhaps, artificial, but it was not an illusion. The water was real. He could feel the spray when he passed near it.

There was somehow a tameness to it all. The Outside on Earth seemed wilder and more grandly beautiful, what little Baley had seen of it.

Fastolfe said, with a gentle touch on Baley’s upper arm and a motion of his hand, “Come in this direction. Look there!”

A space between two trees revealed an expanse of lawn.

For the first time, there was a sense of distance and on the horizon one could see a dwelling place: low-roofed, broad, and so green in color that it almost melted into the countryside.

“This is a residential area,” said Fastolfe. “It might not seem so to you, since you are accustomed to Earth’s tremendous hives, but we are in the Auroran city of Eos, which is actually the administrative center of the planet. There are twenty thousand human beings living here, which makes it the largest city, not only on Aurora but on all the Spacer worlds. There are as many people in Eos as on all of Solaria.” Fastolfe said it with pride.

“How many robots, Dr. Fastolfe?”

“In this area? Perhaps a hundred thousand. On the planet as a whole, there are fifty robots to each human being on the average, not ten thousand per human as on Solaria. Most of our robots are on our farms, in our mines, in our factories, in space. If anything, we suffer from a shortage of robots, particularly of household robots. Most Aurorans make do with two or three such robots, some with only one. Still, we don’t want to move in the direction of Solaria.”

“How many human beings have no household robots at all?”

“None at all. That would not be in the public interest. If a human being, for any reason, could not afford a robot, he or she would be granted one which would be maintained, if necessary, at public expense.”

“What happens as the population rises? Do you add more robots?”

Fastolfe shook his head. “The population does not rise. Aurora’s population is two hundred million and that has remained stable for three centuries. It is the number desired. Surely you have read that in the books you viewed.”

“Yes, I have,” admitted Baley, “but I found it difficult to believe.”

“Let me assure you it’s true. It gives each of us ample land, ample space, ample privacy, and an ample share of the world’s resources. There are neither too many people as on Earth, nor too few as on Solaria.” He held out his arm for Baley to take, so they might continue walking.

“What you see,” Fastolfe said, “is a tame world. It is what I have brought you out to show you, Mr. Baley.”

“There is no danger in it?”

“Always some danger. We do have storms, rock slides, earthquakes, blizzards, avalanches, a volcano or two—Accidental death can never be entirely done away with. And there are even the passions of angry or envious persons, the follies, passions of the immature, and the madness of the shortsighted. These things are very minor irritants, however, and do not much affect the civilized quiet that rests upon our world.”

Fastolfe seemed to ruminate over his words for a moment, then he sighed and said, “I can scarcely want it to be any other way, but I have certain intellectual reservations. We have brought, here to Aurora only those plants and animals we felt, would be useful, ornamental, or both. We did our best to eliminate anything we would consider weeds, vermin, or even less than standard. We selected strong, healthy, and attractive human beings, according to our own views, of course. We have tried—but you smile, Mr. Baley.”

Baley had not. His mouth had merely twitched. “No, no,” he said. “There is nothing to smile about.”

“There is, for I know as well as you do that, I myself am not attractive by Auroran standards. The trouble is that we cannot altogether control gene combinations and intrauterine influences. Nowadays, of course, with ectogenesis becoming more common—though I hope it shall never be as common as it is on Solaria—I would be eliminated in the late fetal stage.”

“In which case, Dr. Fastolfe, the worlds would have lost a great theoretical roboticist.”

“Perfectly correct,” said Fastolfe, without visible embarrassment, “but the worlds would never have known that, would they?—In any case, we have labored to set up a very simple but completely workable ecological balance, an equable climate, a fertile soil, and resources as evenly distributed as is possible. The result is a world that produces all of everything that we need, and that is, if I may personify, considerate of our wants.—Shall I tell you the ideal for which we have striven?”

“Please do,” said Baley.

“We have labored to produce a planet which, taken as a whole, would obey the Three Laws of Robotics. It does nothing to harm human beings, either by commission or omission. It does what we want it to do, as long as we do not ask it to harm human beings. And it protects itself, except at times and in places where it must serve us or save us even at the price of harm to itself. Nowhere else, neither on Earth nor in the other—Spacer worlds, is this so nearly true as here on Aurora.”

Baley said sadly, “Earthmen, too, have longed for this, but we have long since grown too numerous and we have too greatly damaged our planet in the days of our ignorance to be able to do very much about it now.—But what of Aurora’s indigenous life-forms? Surely you did not come to a dead planet.”

Fastolfe said, “You know we didn’t, if you have viewed books on our history. Aurora had vegetation and animal life when we arrived—and a nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere. This was true of all the fifty Spacer worlds. Peculiarly, in every case, the life-forms were sparse and not very varied. Nor were they particularly tenacious in their hold on their own planet. We took over, so to speak, without a struggle—and what is left of the indigenous life is in our aquaria, our zoos, and in a few carefully maintained primeval areas.

“We do not really understand why the life-bearing planets that human beings have encountered have been so feebly life bearing, why only Earth itself has been overflowing with madly tenacious varieties of life filling every environmental niche, and why only Earth has developed any sign of intelligence whatever.”

Baley said, “Maybe it is coincidence, the accident of incomplete exploration. We know so few planets so far.”

“I admit,” said Fastolfe, “that that is the most likely explanation. Somewhere there may be an ecological balance as complex as that of Earth. Somewhere there may be intelligent life and a technological civilization. Yet Earth’s life and intelligence has spread outward for parsecs in every direction. If there is life and intelligence elsewhere, why have they not spread out as well—and why have we not encountered each other?”

“That might happen tomorrow, for all we know.”

“It might. And if such an encounter is imminent, all the more reason why we should not be passively waiting. For we are growing passive, Mr. Baley. No new Spacer world has been settled in two and a half centuries. Our worlds are so tame, so delightful, we do not wish to leave them. This world was originally settled, you see, because Earth had grown so unpleasant that the risks and dangers of new and empty, worlds seemed preferable by comparison. By the time our fifty Spacer worlds were developed—Solaria last of all—there was no longer any push, any need to move out elsewhere. And Earth itself had retreated to its underground caves of steel. The End. Finis.”

“You don’t really mean that.”

“If we stay as we are? If we remain placid and comfortable and unmoving? Yes, I do mean that. Humanity must expand its range somehow if it is to continue to flourish. One method of expansion is through space, through a constant pioneering reach toward other worlds. If we fail in this, some other civilization that is undergoing such expansion will reach us and we will not be able to stand against its dynamism.”

“You expect a space war — like a hyperwave shoot ’em up.”

“No, I doubt that that would be necessary. A civilization that is expanding through space will not need our few worlds and will probably be too intellectually advanced to feel the need to batter its way into hegemony here. If, however, we are surrounded by a more lively, a more vibrant civilization, we will wither away by the mere force of the comparison; we will die of the realization of what we have become and of the potential we have wasted. Of course, we might substitute other expansions—an expansion of scientific understanding or of cultural vigor, for instance. I fear, however, that these expansions are not separable. To fade in one is to, fade in all. Certainly, we are fading in all. We live too long. We are too comfortable.”

Baley said, “On Earth, we think of Spacers as all-powerful, as totally self-confident. I cannot believe I’m hearing this from one of you.”

“You won’t from any other Spacer. My views are unfashionable. Others would find, them intolerable and I don’t often speak of such things to Aurorans. Instead, I simply talk about a new drive for further settlement, without expressing my fears of the catastrophes which will result if we abandon colonization. In that, at least, I have been winning. Aurora has been seriously—even enthusiastically—considering a new era of exploration and settlement.”

“You say that,” said Baley, “without any noticeable enthusiasm. What’s wrong?”

“It’s just that we are approaching my motive for the destruction of Jander Panell.”

Fastolfe paused, shook his head, and continued, “I wish, Mr. Baley, I could understand human beings better. I have spent six decades in studying the intricacies of the positronic brain and I expect to spend fifteen to twenty more on the problem. In this time, I have barely brushed against the problem of the human brain, which is enormously more intricate. Are there Laws of Humanics as there are Laws of Robotics? How many Laws of Humanics might there be and how can they be expressed mathematically? I don’t know.

“Perhaps, though, there may come a day when someone will work out the Laws of Humanics and then be able to predict the broad strokes of the future, and know what might be in store for humanity, instead of merely guessing as I do, and know what to do to make things better, instead of merely speculating. I dream sometimes of founding a mathematical science which I think of as ‘psychohistory,’ but I know—I can’t and I fear no one ever will.”

He faded to a halt.

Baley waited, then said softly, “And your motive for the destruction of Jander Panell, Dr. Fastolfe?”

Fastolfe did not seem to hear the question. At any rate, he did not respond. He said, instead, “Daneel and Giskard are again, signaling that all is clear. Tell me, Mr. Baley, would you consider walking with me farther afield?”

“Where?” asked Baley cautiously.

“Toward a neighboring establishment. In that direction, across the lawn. Would the openness disturb you?”

Baley pressed his lips together and looked in that, direction, as though attempting to measure its effect. “I believe I could endure it. I anticipate no trouble.”

Giskard, who was close enough to hear, now approached still closer, his, eyes showing no glow in the daylight. If his voice was without human emotion, his words marked his concern. “Sir, may I remind you that on the journey here you suffered serious discomfort on the descent to the planet?”

Baley turned to face him. However he might feel toward Daneel, whatever warmth of past association might paper over his attitude toward robots, there was none here. He found the more primitive Giskard distinctly repellent. He labored to fight down the touch of anger he felt and said, “I was incautious aboard ship, boy, because I was overly curious. I faced a vision I had never experienced before and I had no time for adjustment. This is different.”

“Sir, do you feel discomfort now? May—I be assured of that?”

“Whether I do or not,” said Baley firmly (reminding himself that the robot was helplessly in the grip of the First Law and trying to be polite to a lump of metal who, after all, had Baley’s welfare as his only care) “doesn’t matter. I have my duty to perform and that cannot be done if I am to hide in enclosures.”

“Your duty?” Giskard said it as though he had not been programmed to understand the word.

Baley looked quickly in Fastolfe’s direction, but Fastolfe stood quietly in his place and made no move to intervene. He seemed to be listening with abstracted interest, as though weighing the reaction of a robot of a given type to a new situation and comparing it, with relationships, variables, constants, and differential equations only he understood.

Or so Baley thought. He felt annoyed at being part of an observation of that type and said (perhaps too sharply, he knew), “Do you know what ‘duty’ means?”

“That which should be done, sir,” said Giskard.

“Your duty is to obey the Laws of Robotics. And human beings have their laws, too—as your master, Dr. Fastolfe, was only this moment saying—which must be obeyed. I must do that which I have been assigned to do. It is important.”

“But to go into the open when you are not—”

“It must be done, nevertheless. My son may someday go to another planet, one much less comfortable than this one, and expose himself to the Outside for the rest of his life. And if I could, I would go with him.”

“But why would you do that?”

“I have told you. I consider it my duty.”

“Sir—I cannot disobey the Laws. Can you disobey yours? For I must urge you to—”

“I can choose not to do my duty, but I do not choose to and that is sometimes the stronger compulsion, Giskard.”

There was silence for a moment and then Giskard said, “Would it do you harm if I were to succeed in persuading you not to walk into the open?”

“Insofar as I would then feel I have failed in my duty, it would.”

“More harm than any discomfort you might feel in the open?’

“Much more.”

“Thank you for explaining this, sir,” said Giskard and Baley imagined there was a look of satisfaction on the robot’s largely expressionless face. (The human tendency to personify was irrepressible.)

Giskard stepped back and now Dr. Fastolfe spoke. “That was interesting, Mr. Baley. Giskard needed instructions before he could quite understand how to arrange the positronic potential response to the Three Laws or, rather, how those potentials were to arrange themselves in the light of the situation. Now he knows how to behave.”

Baley said, “I notice that Daneel asked no questions.”

Fastolfe said, “Daneel knows you. He has been with you on Earth and on Solaria.—But come, shall we walk? Let us move slowly. Look about carefully and, if at any time you should wish to rest, to wait, even to turn back, I will count on you to let me know.”

“I will, but what is the purpose of this walk? Since you anticipate possible discomfort on my part, you cannot be suggesting it idly.”

“I am not,” said Fastolfe. “I think you will want to see the inert body of Jander.”

“As a matter of form, yes, but I rather think it will tell me nothing.”

“I’m sure of that, but then you might, also have the opportunity to question the one who was Jander’s quasi-owner at the time of the tragedy. Surely you would like to speak to some human being other than myself concerning the matter.”

22

Fastolfe moved slowly forward, plucking a leaf from a shrub that he passed, bending it in two, and nibbling at it.

Baley looked at him curiously, wondering how Spacers could put something untreated, unheated, even unwashed, into their mouths, when they feared infection so badly. He remembered that Aurora was free (entirely free?) of pathogenic microorganisms, but found the action repulsive anyway. Repulsion did not have to have a rational basis, he thought defensively—and suddenly found himself on the edge of excusing the Spacers their attitude toward Earthmen.

He drew back! That was different! Human beings were involved there!

Giskard moved ahead, forward and toward the right. Daneel lagged behind and toward the left. Aurora’s orange sun (Baley scarcely noted the orange tinge now) was mildly warm on his back, lacking the febrile heat that Earth’s sun had in summer (but, then, what was the climate and season on this portion of Aurora right now?).

The grass or whatever it was (it looked like grass) was a bit stiffer and springier than he recalled it being on Earth and the ground was hard, as though it had not rained for a while.

They were moving toward the house up ahead, presumably the house of Jander’s quasi-owner.

Baley could hear the rustle of some animal in the grass to the right, the sudden chirrup of a bird somewhere in a tree behind him, the small unplaceable clatter of insects all about. These, he told himself, were all animals with ancestors that had once lived on Earth. They had no way of knowing that this patch of ground they inhabited was not all there was forever and forever back in time. The very trees and grass had arisen from other trees and grass that had once grown on Earth.

Only human beings could live on this world and know that they were not autochthonous but had stemmed from Earthmen—and yet did the Spacers really know it or did they simply put it out of their mind? Would the time come, perhaps, when they would not know it at all? When they would not remember which world they had come from or whether there was a world of origin, at all?

“Dr. Fastolfe,” he said suddenly, in part to break the chain of thought that he found to be growing oppressive, “you still have not told me your motive for the destruction of Jander.”

“True! I have not!—Now why do you suppose, Mr. Baley, I have labored to work out the theoretical basis for the positronic brains of humaniform robots?”

“I cannot say.”

“Well, think. The task is to design a robotic brain—as close to the human as possible and that would require, it would seem, a certain reach into the poetic—” He paused and his small smile became an outright grin. “You know it always bothers some of my colleagues when I tell them that, if a conclusion is not poetically balanced, it cannot be scientifically true. They tell me they don’t know what that means.”

Baley said, “I’m afraid I don’t, either.”

“But I know what it means. I can’t explain it, but I feel the explanation without being able to put it into words, which may be why I have achieved results my colleagues have not. However, I grow grandiose, which is a good sign I should become prosaic. To imitate a human brain, when I know almost nothing about the workings of the human brain, needs an intuitive leap—something that feels to me like poetry. And the same intuitive leap that would give me the humaniform positronic brain should surely give me a new access of knowledge about the human brain itself. That was my belief — that through humaniformity I might take at least a small step toward the psychohistory I told you about.”

“I see.”

“And if I succeeded in working out a theoretical structure that would imply a humaniform positronic brain, I would need a humaniform body to place it in. The brain does not exist by itself, you understand. It interacts with the body, so that a humaniform brain in a nonhumaniform body would become, to an extent, itself nonhuman.”

“Are you sure of that?”

“Quite. You have only to compare Daneel with Giskard.”

“Then Daneel was constructed as an experimental device for furthering the understanding of the human brain?”

“You have it. I labored two decades at the task with Sarton. There were numerous failures that had to be discarded. Daneel was the first true success and, of course, I kept him for further study—and out of”—he grinned lopsidedly, as though admitting to something silly—“affection. After all, Daneel can grasp the notion of human duty, while Giskard, with all his virtues, has trouble doing so. You saw.”

“And Daneel’s stay on Earth with me, three years ago, was his first assigned task?”

“His first of any importance, yes. When Sarton was murdered, we needed something that was a robot and could withstand the infectious diseases of Earth and yet looked enough like a man to get around the antirobotic prejudices of Earth’s people.”

“An astonishing coincidence that Daneel should be right at hand at that time.”

“Oh? Do you believe in coincidences? It is my feeling, that any time at which a development as revolutionary as the humaniform robot came into being, some task that would require its use would present itself. Similar tasks had probably been presenting themselves regularly in all the years that Daneel did not exist—and because Daneel did not exist, other solutions and devices had to be used.”

“And have your labors been successful, Dr. Fastolfe? Do you now understand the human brain better than you did?”

Fastolfe had been moving more and more slowly and Baley had been matching his progress to the other’s. They were now standing still, about halfway between Fastolfe’s establishment and the other’s. It was the most difficult point for Baley, since it was equally distant from protection in either direction, but he fought down the growing uneasiness, determined not to provoke Giskard. He did not wish by some motion or outcry or even expression—to activate the inconvenience of Giskard’s desire to save him. He did not want to have himself lifted up and carried off to shelter.

Fastolfe showed no sign of understanding Baley’s difficulty. He said, “There’s no question but that advances in mentology have been carried through. There remain enormous problems and perhaps these will always remain, but there has been progress. Still—”

“Still?”

“Still, Aurora is not satisfied with a purely theoretical study of the human brain. Uses for humaniform robots have been advanced that I do not approve of.”

“Such as the use on Earth.”

“No, that was a brief experiment that I rather approved of and was even fascinated by. Could Daneel fool Earthpeople? It turned out he could, though, of course, the eyes of Earthmen for robots are not very keen. Wheel cannot fool the eyes of Aurorans, though I dare say future humaniform robots could be improved to the point where they would. There are other tasks that have been proposed, however.”

“Such as?”

Fastolfe gazed thoughtfully into the distance. “I told you this world was tame. When I began my movement to encourage a renewed period of exploration and settlement, it was not to the supercomfortable Aurorans—or Spacers generally that I looked for leadership. I rather thought we ought to encourage Earthmen to take the lead. With their horrid world—excuse me—and short life-span, they have so little to lose, I thought that they would surely welcome the chance, especially if we were to help them technologically. I spoke to you about such a thing when I saw you on Earth three years ago. Do you remember?” He looked sidelong at Baley.

Baley said stolidly, “I remember quite well. In fact, you started a chain of thought in me that has resulted in a small movement on Earth in that very direction.”

“Indeed? If would not be easy, I imagine. There is the claustrophobia of you Earthmen, your dislike of leaving your walls.”

“We are fighting it, Dr. Fastolfe. Our organization is planning to move out into space. My son is a leader in the movement and I hope the day may come when he leaves Earth at the head of an expedition to settle a new world. If we do indeed receive the technological help you speak of—” Baley let that dangle.

“If we supplied the ships, you mean?”

“And other equipment. Yes, Dr. Fastolfe.”

“There are difficulties. Many Aurorans do not want Earthmen to move outward and settle new worlds. They fear the rapid spread of Earthish culture, its beehive Cities, its chaoticism.” He stirred uneasily and said, “Why are we standing here, I wonder? Let’s move on.”

He walked slowly forward and said, “I have argued that that would not be the way it would be. I have pointed out that the settlers from Earth would not be Earthmen in the classical mode. They would not be enclosed in Cities. Coming to a new world, they would be like the Auroran Fathers coming here. They would develop a manageable ecological balance and would be closer to Aurorans than to Earthmen in attitude.”

“Would they not then develop all the weaknesses you find in Spacer culture, Dr. Fastolfe?”

“Perhaps not. They would learn from our mistakes.—But that is academic, for something has developed which makes the argument moot.”

“And what is that?”

“Why, the humaniform robot. You see, there are those who see the humaniform robot as the perfect settler. It is they who can build the new worlds.”

Baley said, “You’ve always had robots. Do you mean this idea was never advanced before?”

“Oh, it was, but it was always clearly unworkable. Ordinary nonhumaniform robots, without immediate human supervision, building a world that would suit their own nonhumaniform selves, could not be expected to tame and build a world that would be suitable for the more delicate and flexible minds and bodies of human beings.”

“Surely the world they would build would serve as a reasonable first approximation.”

“Surely it would, Mr. Baley. It is a sign of Auroran decay, however, that there is an overwhelming feeling among our people that a reasonable first approximation is unreasonably insufficient.—A group of humaniform robots, on the other hand, as closely resembling human beings in body and mind as possible, would succeed in building a world which, in suiting themselves, would also inevitably suit Aurorans. Do you follow the reasoning?”

“Completely.”

“They would build a world so well, you see, that when they are done and Aurorans are finally willing to leave, our human beings will step out of Aurora and into another Aurora. They will never have left home; they will simply have another newer home exactly like the other one, in which to continue their decay. Do you follow that reasoning, too?”

“I see your point, but I take it that Aurorans do not.”

“May not. I think I can argue the point effectively, if the opposition does not destroy me politically via this matter of the destruction of Jander. Do you see the motive attributed to me? I am supposed to have embarked on a program of the destruction of humaniform robots rather then allow them to be used to settle other planets. Or so my enemies say.”

It was Baley now who stopped walking. He looked thoughtfully at Fastolfe and said, “You understand, Dr. Fastolfe, that it is to Earth’s interest that your point of view win out completely.”

“And to your own interests as well, Mr. Baley.”

“And to mine. But if I put myself to one side for the moment, it still remains vital to my world that our people be allowed, encouraged, and helped to explore the Galaxy; that we retain as much of our own ways as we are comfortable with; that we not be condemned to imprisonment on Earth forever, since there we can only perish.”

Fastolfe said, “Some of you, I think, will insist on remaining imprisoned.”

“Of course. Perhaps almost all of us will. However, at least some of us—as many of us as possible—will escape if given permission.—It is therefore my duty, not only as a representative of the law of a large fraction of humanity but as an Earthman, plain and simple, to help you clear your name, whether you are guilty or innocent. Nevertheless, I can throw myself wholeheartedly into this task only if I know that, in fact, the accusations against you are unjustified.”

“Of course! I understand.”

“In the light, then, of what you have told me of the motive attributed to you, assure me once again that you did not do this thing.”

Fastolfe said, “Mr. Baley, I understand completely that you have no choice in this matter. I am quite aware that I can tell you, with impunity, that I am guilty and that you would still be compelled by the nature of your needs and those of your world to work with me to mask that fact. Indeed, if I were actually guilty, I would feel compelled to tell you so, so that you could take that fact into consideration and, knowing the truth, work the more efficiently to rescue me—and yourself. But I cannot do so, because the fact is I am innocent. However much appearances may be against me, I did not destroy Jander. Such a thing never entered my mind.”

“Never?”

Fastolfe smiled sadly. “Oh, I may have thought once or twice that Aurora would have been better off if I had never worked out the ingenious notions that led to the development of the humaniform positronic brain—or that it would be better off if such brains proved unstable and readily subject to mental freeze-out. But those were fugitive thoughts. Not for a split second did I contemplate bringing about Jander’s destruction for this reason.”

“Then we must destroy this motive that they attribute to you.”

“Good. But how?”

“We could show that it serves no purpose. What good does it do to destroy Jander? More humaniform robots can be built. Thousands. Millions.”

“I’m afraid that’s not so, Mr. Baley. None can be built. I alone know how to design them, and as long as robot colonization is a possible destiny, I refuse to build any more. Jander is gone and only Daneel is left.”

“The secret will be discovered by others.”

Fastolfe’s chin went up. “I would like to see the roboticist capable of it. My enemies have established a Robotics Institute with no other purpose than to work out the methods behind the construction of a humaniform robot, but they won’t succeed. They certainly haven’t succeeded so far and I know they won’t succeed.”

Baley frowned. “If you are the only man who knows the secret of the humaniform robots, and if your enemies are desperate for it, will they not try to get it out of you?”

“Of course. By threatening my political existence, by perhaps, maneuvering some punishment that will forbid my working in the field and thus putting an end to my professional existence as well, they hope to have me agree to share the secret with them. They may even have the Legislature direct me to share the secret on the pain of confiscation of property, imprisonment—who knows what? However I have made up my mind to submit to anything—anything—rather than give in. But I don’t want to have to, you understand.”

“Do they know of your determination to resist?”

“I hope so. I have told them plainly enough. I presume they think I’m bluffing, that I’m not serious.—But I am.”

“But if they believe you, they might take more serious steps—”

“What do you mean?”

“Steal your papers. Kidnap you. Torture you.”

Fastolfe broke into a loud laugh and Baley flushed. He said, “I hate to sound like a hyperwave drama, but have you considered that?”

Fastolfe said, “Mr. Baley—First, my robots can protect me. It would take full-scale war to capture me or my work. Second, even if somehow they succeeded, not one of the roboticists opposed to me could bear to make it plain that the only way he could obtain the secret of the humaniform positronic brain is to steal it or force it from me. His or her professional reputation would be completely wiped out. Third, such things on Aurora are unheard of. The merest hint of an unprofessional attempt upon me would swing the Legislature—and public opinion—in my favor at once.”

“Is that so?” muttered Baley, silently damning the fact of having to work in a culture whose details he simply didn’t understand.

“Yes. Take my word for it.—I wish they would try something of this melodramatic sort. I wish they were so incredibly stupid as to do so. In fact, Mr. Baley, I wish I could persuade you to go to them, worm your way into their confidence, and cajole them into mounting an attack on my establishment or waylaying me on an empty road—or anything of the sort that, I imagine, is common on Earth.”

Baley said stiffly, “I don’t think that would be my style.”

“I don’t think so, either, so I have no intention of trying to implement my wish. And believe me, that is too bad, for if we cannot persuade them to try the suicidal method of force, they will continue to do something much better, from their standpoint. They will destroy me by falsehoods.”

“What falsehoods?”

“It is not just the destruction of one robot they attribute to me. That is bad enough and just might suffice. They are whispering—it is only a whisper as yet—that the death is merely an experiment of mine and a dangerous, successful one. They whisper that I am working out a system for destroying humaniform brains rapidly and efficiently, so that when my enemies do create their own humaniform robots, I, together with members of my party, will be able to destroy them all, thus preventing Aurora from settling new worlds and leaving the Galaxy to my Earthmen confederates.”

“Surely there can be no truth in this.”

“Of course not. I told you these are lies. And ridiculous lies, too. No such method of destruction is even theoretically possible and the Robotics Institute people are not on the point of creating their own humaniform robots. I cannot conceivably indulge in an orgy of mass destruction even if I wanted to. I cannot.”

“Doesn’t the whole thing fall by its own weight, then?”

“Unfortunately, it’s not likely to do so in time. It may be silly nonsense, but it will probably last long enough to sway public opinion against me to the point of swinging just enough votes in the Legislature to defeat me. Eventually, it will all be recognized as nonsense, but by then it will be too late. And please notice that Earth is being used as a whipping boy in this. The charge that I am laboring on behalf of Earth is a powerful one and many will choose to believe the whole farrago, against their own better sense, because of their dislike of Earth and Earthpeople.”

Baley said, “What you’re telling me is that active resentment against Earth is being built up.”

Fastolfe said, “Exactly, Mr. Baley. The situation grows worse for me—and for Earth—every day and we have very little time.”

“But isn’t there an easy way of knocking this thing on its head?” (Baley, in despair, decided it was time to fall back on Daneel’s point.) “If you were indeed anxious to test a method for the destruction of a humaniform robot, why seek out one in another establishment, one with which it might be inconvenient to experiment? You had Daneel, himself, in your own establishment. He was at hand and convenient. Would not the experiment have been conducted upon him if there were any truth at all in the rumor?”

“No, no,” said Fastolfe. “I couldn’t get anyone to believe that. Daneel was my first success, my triumph. I wouldn’t destroy him under any circumstances. Naturally, I would turn to Jander. Everyone would see that and I would be a fool to try to persuade them that it would have made more sense for me to sacrifice Daneel.”

They were walking again, nearly at their destination. Baley was in deep silence, his face tight-lipped.

Fastolfe said, “How do you feet, Mr. Baley?”

Baley said in a low voice, “If you mean as far as being Outside is concerned, I am not even aware of it. If you mean as far as our dilemma is concerned, I think I am as close to giving up as I can, possibly be without putting myself into an ultrasonic brain-dissolving chamber.” Then passionately, “Why did you send for me, Dr. Fastolfe? Why have you given me this job? What have I ever done to you to be treated so?”

“Actually,” said Fastolfe, “it was not my idea to begin with and I can only plead my desperation.”

“Well, whose idea was it?”

“It was the owner of this establishment we have now reached who suggested it originally—and I had no better idea.”

“The owner of this establishment? Why would he—”

“She.”

“Well, then, why would she suggest anything of the sort?”

“Oh! I haven’t explained that she knows you, have I, Mr. Baley? There she is, waiting for us now.”

Baley looked up, bewildered.

“Jehoshaphat,” he whispered.