The Caves of Steel trs-1

by Isaac Asimov

  Unearthly, thought Baley.

  The tableau held as R. Daneel waited, a quietly formidable person. R. Daneel said crisply, “You are saying, This man is holding a neuronic whip, or a tickler. If we all rush forward, we will bear him down and at most one or two of us will be hurt and even they will recover. Meanwhile, we will do just as we wish and to space with law and order.”

  His voice was neither harsh nor angry, but it carried authority. It had the tone of confident command. He went on, “You are mistaken. What I hold is not a neuronic whip, nor is it a tickler. It is a blaster and very deadly. I will use it and I will not aim over your heads. I will kill many of you before you seize me, perhaps most of you. I am serious. I look serious, do I not?”

  There was motion at the outskirts, but the crowd no longer grew. If newcomers still stopped out of curiosity, others were hurrying away. Those nearest R. Daneel were holding their breath, trying desperately not to sway forward in response to the mass pressure of the bodies behind them.

  The woman with the hat broke the spell. In a sudden whirlpool of sobbing, she yelled, “He’s gonna kill us. I ain’t done nothing. Oh, lemme outta here.”

  She turned, but faced an immovable wall of crammed men and women. She sank to her knees. The backward motion in the silent crowd grew more pronounced.

  R. Daneel jumped down from the display counter and said, “I will now walk to the door. I will shoot the man or woman who touches me.

  When I reach the door, I will shoot any man or woman who is not moving about his business. This woman here—”

  “No, no,” yelled the woman with the hat, “I tell ya I didn’t do nothing. I didn’t mean no harm. I don’t want no shoes. I just wanta go home.”

  “This woman here,” went on Daneel, “will remain. She will be waited on.”

  He stepped forward.

  The mob faced him dumbly. Baley closed his eyes. It wasn’t his fault, he thought desperately. There’ll be murder done and the worst mess in the world, but they forced a robot on me as partner. They gave him equal status.

  It wouldn’t do. He didn’t believe himself. He might have stopped R. Daneel at the start. He might at any moment have put in the call for a squad car. He had let R. Daneel take responsibility, instead, and had felt a cowardly relief. When he tried to tell himself that R. Daneel’s personality simply dominated the situation, he was filled with a sudden self-loathing. A robot dominating.

  There was no unusual noise, no shouting and cursing, no groans, no yells. He opened his eyes.

  They were dispersing.

  The manager of the store was cooling down, adjusting his twisted jacket, smoothing his hair, muttering angry threats at the vanishing crowd.

  The smooth, fading whistle of a squad car came to a halt just outside. Baley thought: Sure, when it’s all over.

  The manager plucked his sleeve. “Let’s have no more trouble, Officer.”

  Baley said, “There won’t be any trouble.”

  It was easy to get rid of the squad-car police. They had come in response to reports of a crowd in the street. They knew no details and could see for themselves that the street was clear. R. Daneel stepped aside and showed no sign of interest as Baley explained to the men in the squad car, minimizing the event and completely burying R. Daneel’s part in it.

  Afterward, he pulled R. Daneel to one side, against the steel and concrete of one of the building shafts.

  “Listen,” he said, “I’m not trying to steal your show, you understand.”

  “Steal my show? Is it one of your Earth idioms?”

  “I didn’t report your part in this.”

  “I do not know all your customs. On my world, a complete report is usual, but perhaps it is not so on your world. In any case, civil rebellion was averted. That is the important thing, is it not?”

  “Is it? Now you look here.” Baley tried to sound as forceful as possible under the necessity of speaking in an angry whisper. “Don’t you ever do it again.”

  “Never again insist on the observance of law? If I am not to do that, what then is my purpose?”

  “Don’t ever threaten a human being with a blaster again.”

  “I would not have fired under any circumstances, Elijah, as you know very well. I am incapable of hurting a human. But, as you see, I did not have to fire. I did not expect to have to.”

  “That was the purest luck, your not having to fire. Don’t take that kind of chance again. I could have pulled the grandstand stunt you did—”

  “Grandstand stunt? What is that?”

  “Never mind. Get the sense from what I’m saying. I could have pulled a blaster on the crowd myself. I had the blaster to do it with. But it isn’t the kind of gamble I am justified in taking, or you, either. It was safer to call squad cars to the scene than to try one-man heroics.”

  R Daneel considered. He shook his head. “I think you are wrong, partner Elijah. My briefing on human characteristics here among the people of Earth includes the information that, unlike the men of the Outer Worlds, they are trained from birth to accept authority. Apparently this is the result of your way of living. One man, representing authority firmly enough, was quite sufficient, as I proved. Your own desire for a squad car was only an expression, really, of your almost instinctive wish for superior authority to take responsibility out of your hands. On my own world, I admit that what I did would have been most unjustified.”

  Baley’s long face was red with anger. “If they had recognized you as a robot—”

  “I was sure they wouldn’t.”

  “In any case, remember that you are a robot. Nothing more than a robot. Just a robot. Like those clerks in the shoe store.”

  “But this is obvious.”

  “And you’re not human.” Baley felt himself being driven into cruelty against his will.

  R. Daneel seemed to consider that. He said, “The division between human and robot is perhaps not as significant as that between intelligence and non-intelligence.”

  “Maybe on your world,” said Baley, “but not on Earth.”

  He looked at his watch and could scarcely make out that he was an hour and a quarter late. His throat was dry and raw with the thought that R. Daneel had won the first round, had won when he himself had stood by helpless.

  He thought of the youngster, Vince Barrett, the teenager whom R. Sammy had replaced. And of himself, Elijah Baley, whom R. Daneel could replace. Jehoshaphat, at least his father had been thrown out because of an accident that had done damage, that had killed people. Maybe it was his fault; Baley didn’t know. Suppose he had been eased out to make room for a mechanical physicist. Just for that. For no other reason. Nothing he could do about it.

  He said, curtly, “Let’s go now. I’ve got to get you home.”

  R. Daneel said, “You see, it is not proper to make any distinction of lesser meaning than the fact of intel—”

  Baley’s voice rose. “All right. The subject is closed. Jessie is waiting for us.” He walked in the direction of the nearest intrasection communo-tube. “I’d better call and tell her we’re on our way up.”

  “Jessie?”

  “My wife.”

  Jehoshaphat, thought Baley, I’m in a fine mood to face Jessie.

  Chapter 4.

  INTRODUCTION TO A FAMILY

  It had been her name that had first made Elijah Baley really conscious of Jessie. He had met her at the Section Christmas party back in ’02, over a bowl of punch. He had just finished his schooling, just taken his first job with the City, just moved into the Section. He was living in one of the bachelor alcoves of Common Room 122A. Not bad for a bachelor alcove.

  She was handing out the punch. “I’m Jessie,” she said. “Jessie Navodny. I don’t know you.”

  “Baley,” he said, “Lije Baley. I’ve just moved into the Section.” He took his glass of punch and smiled mechanically. She impressed him as a cheerful and friendly person, so he stayed near her. He was new and it is a lonely feeling to be at a party
where you find yourself watching people standing about in cliques of which you aren’t a part. Later, when enough alcohol had trickled down throats, it might be better.

  Meanwhile, he remained at the punch bowl, watching the folks come and go and sipping thoughtfully.

  “I helped make the punch.” The girl’s voice broke in upon him. “I can guarantee it. Do you want more?”

  Baley realized his little glass was empty. He smiled and said, “Yes.” The girl’s face was oval and not precisely pretty, mostly because of a slightly overlarge nose. Her dress was demure and she wore her light brown hair in a series of ringlets over her forehead.

  She joined him in the next punch and he felt better.

  “Jessie,” he said, feeling the name with his tongue. “It’s nice. Do you mind if I use it when I’m talking to you?”

  “Certainly. If you want to. Do you know what it’s short for?”

  “Jessica?”

  “You’ll never guess.”

  “I can’t think of anything else.”

  She laughed and said archly, “My full name is Jezebel.”

  That was when his interest flared. He put his punch glass down and said, intently, “No, really?”

  “Honestly. I’m not kidding. Jezebel. It’s my real-for-true name on all my records. My parents liked the sound of it.”

  She was quite proud of it, even though there was never a less likely Jezebel in the world.

  Baley said, seriously, “My name is Elijah, you know. My full name, I mean.”

  It didn’t register with her.

  He said, “Elijah was Jezebel’s great enemy.”

  “He was?”

  “Why, sure. In the Bible.”

  “Oh? I didn’t know that. Now isn’t that funny? I hope that doesn’t mean you’ll have to be my enemy in real life.”

  From the very beginning there was no question of that. It was the coincidence of names at first that made her more than just a pleasant girl at the punch bowl. But afterward he had grown to find her cheerful, tender-hearted, and, finally, even pretty. He appreciated her cheerfulness particularly. His own sardonic view of life needed the antidote.

  But Jessie never seemed to mind his long grave face.

  “Oh, goodness,” she said, “what if you do look like an awful lemon? I know you’re not really, and I guess if you were always grinning away like clockwork, the way I do, we’d just explode when we got together. You stay the way you are, Lije, and keep me from floating away.”

  And she kept Lije Baley from sinking down. He applied for a small Couples apartment and got a contingent admission pending marriage.

  He showed it to her and said, “Will you fix it so I can get out of Bachelor’s, Jessie? I don’t like it there.”

  Maybe it wasn’t the most romantic proposal in the world, but Jessie liked it.

  Baley could only remember one occasion on which Jessie’s habitual cheer deserted her completely and that, too, had involved her name. It was in their first year of marriage, and their baby had not yet come.

  In fact, it had been the very month in which Bentley was conceived.

  (Their I.Q. rating, Genetic Values status, and his position in the Department entitled him to two children, of which the first might be conceived during the first year.) Maybe, as Baley thought back upon it, Bentley’s beginnings might explain part of her unusual skittishness. Jessie had been drooping a bit because of Baley’s consistent overtime.

  She said, “It’s embarrassing to eat alone at the kitchen every night.”

  Baley was tired and out of sorts. He said, “Why should it be? You can meet some nice single fellows there.”

  And of course she promptly fired up. “Do you think I can’t make an impression on them, Lije Baley?”

  Maybe it was just because he was tired; maybe because Julius Enderby, a classmate of his, had moved up another notch on the C-scale rating while he himself had not. Maybe it was simply because he was a little tired of having her try to act up to the name she bore when she was nothing of the sort and never could be anything of the sort.

  In any case, he said bitingly, “I suppose you can, but I don’t think you’ll try. I wish you’d forget your name and be yourself.”

  “I’ll be just what I please.”

  “Trying to be Jezebel won’t get you anywhere. If you must know the truth, the name doesn’t mean what you think, anyway. The Jezebel of the Bible was a faithful wife and a good one according to her lights. She had no lovers that we know of, cut no high jinks, and took no moral liberties at all.”

  Jessie stared angrily at him. “That isn’t so. I’ve heard the phrase, ‘a painted Jezebel.’ I know what that means.”

  “Maybe you think you do, but listen. After Jezebel’s husband, King Ahab died, her son, Jehoram, became king. One of the captains of his army, Jehu, rebelled against him and assassinated him. Jehu then rode to Jezreel where the old queen-mother, Jezebel, was residing. Jezebel heard of his coming and knew that he could only mean to kill her. In her pride and courage, she painted her face and dressed herself in her best clothes so that she could meet him as a haughty and defiant queen. He had her thrown from the window of the palace and killed, but she made a good end, according to my notions. And that’s what people refer to when they speak of ‘a painted Jezebel,’ whether they know it or not.”

  The next evening Jessie said in a small voice, “I’ve been reading the Bible, Lije.”

  “What?” For a moment, Baley was honestly bewildered.

  “The parts about Jezebel.”

  “Oh! Jessie, I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings. I was being childish.”

  “No. No.” She pushed his hand from her waist and sat on the couch, cool and upright, with a definite space between them. “It’s good to know the truth. I don’t want to be fooled by not knowing. So I read about her. She was a wicked woman, Lije.”

  “Well, her enemies wrote those chapters. We don’t know her side.”

  “She killed all the prophets of the Lord she could lay her hands on.”

  “So they say she did.” Baley felt about in his pocket for a stick of chewing gum. (In later years he abandoned that habit because Jessie said that with his long face and sad, brown eyes, it made him look like an old cow stuck with an unpleasant wad of grass it couldn’t swallow and wouldn’t spit out.) He said, “If you want her side, I could think of some arguments for you. She valued the religion of her ancestors who had been in the land long before the Hebrews came. The Hebrews had their own God, and, what’s more, it was an exclusive God. They weren’t content to worship Him themselves; they wanted everyone in reach to worship Him as well.

  “Jezebel was a conservative, sticking to the old beliefs against the new ones. After all, if the new beliefs had a higher moral content, the old ones were more emotionally satisfying. The fact that she killed priests just marks her as a child of her times. It was the usual method of proselytization in those days. If you read I Kings, you must remember that Elijah (my namesake this time) had a contest with 850 prophets of Baal to see which could bring down fire from heaven. Elijah won and promptly ordered the crowd of onlookers to kill the 850 Baalites. And they did.”

  Jessie bit her lip. “What about Naboth’s vineyard, Lije. Here was this Naboth not bothering anybody, except that he refused to sell the King his vineyard. So Jezebel arranged to have people perjure themselves and say that Naboth had committed blasphemy or something.”

  “He was supposed to have blasphemed God and the king,” said Baley.

  “Yes. So they confiscated his property after they executed him.”

  “That was wrong. Of course, in modern times, Naboth would have been handled quite easily. If the City wanted his property or even if one of the Medieval nations had wanted his property, the courts would have ordered him off, had him removed by force if necessary, and paid him whatever they considered a fair price. King Ahab didn’t have that way out. Still, Jezebel’s solution was wrong. The only excuse for her is that Ahab was sick and
unhappy over the situation and she felt that her love for her husband came ahead of Naboth’s welfare. I keep telling you, she was the model of a faithful wi—”

  Jessie flung herself away from him, red-faced and angry. “I think you’re mean and spiteful.”

  He looked at her with complete dismay. “What have I done? What’s the matter with you?”

  She left the apartment without answering and spent the evening and half the night at the subetheric video levels, traveling petulantly from showing to showing and using up a two-month supply of her quota allowance (and her husband’s, to boot).

  When she came back to a still wakeful Lije Baley, she had nothing further to say to him.

  It occurred to Baley later, much later, that he had utterly smashed an important part of Jessie’s life. Her name had signified something intriguingly wicked to her. It was a delightful makeweight for her prim, over-respectable past. It gave her an aroma of licentiousness, and she adored that.

  But it was gone. She never mentioned her full name again, not to Lije, not to her friends, and maybe, for all Baley knew, not even to herself. She was Jessie and took to signing her name so.

  As the days passed she began speaking to him again, and after a week or so their relationship was on the old footing and, with all subsequent quarrels, nothing ever reached that one bad spot of intensity. Only once was there even an indirect reference to the matter. It was in her eighth month of pregnancy. She had left her own position as dietitian’s assistant in Section Kitchen A-23 and with unaccustomed time on her hands was amusing herself in speculation and preparation for the baby’s birth.

  She said, one evening, “What about Bentley?”

  “Pardon me, dear?” said Baley, looking up from a sheaf of work he had brought home with him. (With an additional mouth soon to feed and Jessie’s pay stopped and his own promotions to the non-clerical levels as far off, seemingly, as ever, extra work was necessary.)

  “I mean if the baby’s a boy. What about Bentley as a name?”

  Baley pulled down the corners of his mouth. “Bentley Baley? Don’t you think the names are too similar?”