by Isaac Asimov
He thought defensively: Jehoshaphat! Sometimes a man has to play things by ear.
She was there before him all at once, sitting in a large, upright chair that made her appear smaller and more defenseless than ever. Her hair was drawn back and bound into a loose’ coil. She wore pendant earrings bearing gems that looked like diamonds. Her dress was a simple affair that clung tightly at the waist.
She said in a low voice, “I’m glad you viewed, Elijah. I’ve been trying to reach you.”
“Good morning, Gladia.” (Afternoon? Evening? He didn’t know Gladia’s time and he couldn’t tell from the manner in which she was dressed what time it might be.) ‘Why have you been trying to reach me?”
“To tell you I was sorry I had lost my temper last time we viewed. Mr. Olivaw didn’t know where you were to be reached.”
Baley had a momentary vision of Daneel still bound fast by the overseeing robots and almost smiled. He said, “That’s all right. In a few hours, I’ll be seeing you.”
“Of course, if–Seeing me?”
“Personal presence,” said Baley gravely.
Her eyes grew wide and her fingers dug into the smooth plastic of the chair arms. “Is there any reason for that?”
“It is necessary.”
“Would you allow it?”
She looked away. “Is it absolutely necessary?”
“It is. First, though, there is someone else I must see. Your husband was interested in robots. You told me that, and I have heard it from other sources, but he wasn’t a roboticist, was he?”
“That wasn’t his training, Elijah.” She still avoided his eyes.
“But he worked with a roboticist, didn’t he?”
“Jothan Leebig,” she said at once. “He’s a good friend of mine.”
“He is?” said Baley energetically.
Gladia looked startled. “Shouldn’t I have said that?”
“Why not, if it’s the truth?”
“I’m always afraid that I’ll say things that will make me seem as though–You don’t know what it’s like when everyone is sure you’ve done something.”
“Take it easy. How is it that Leebig is a friend of yours?”
“Oh, I don’t know. He’s in the next estate, for one thing. Viewing energy is just about nil, so we can just view all the time in free motion with hardly any trouble. We go on walks together all the time; or we did, anyway.”
“I didn’t know you could go on walks together with anyone.” Gladia flushed. “I said viewing. Oh well, I keep forgetting you’re an Earthman. Viewing in free motion means we focus on ourselves and we can go anywhere we want to without losing contact. I walk on my estate and he walks on his and we’re together.” She held her chin high. “It can be pleasant.”
Then, suddenly, she giggled. “Poor Jothan.”
“Why do you say that?”
“I was thinking of you thinking we walked together without viewing. He’d die if he thought anyone could think that.”
“Why?”
“He’s terrible that way. He told me that when he was five years old he stopped seeing people. Insisted on viewing only. Some children are like that. Rikaine”, she paused in confusion, then went on, “Rikaine, my husband, once told me, when I talked about Jothan, that more and more children would be like that too. He said it was a kind of social evolution that favored survival of pro-viewing. Do you think that’s so?”
“I’m no authority,” said Baley.
“Jothan won’t even get married. Rikaine was angry with him, told him he was anti-social and that he had genes that were necessary in the common pool, but Jothan just refused to consider it.”
“Has he a right to refuse?”
“No-o,” said Gladia hesitantly, “but he’s a very brilliant roboticist, you know, and roboticists are valuable on Solaria. I suppose they stretched a point. Except I think Rikaine was going to stop working with Jothan. He told me once Jothan was a bad Solarian.”
“Did he tell Jothan that?”
“I don’t know. He was working with Jothan to the end.”
“But he thought Jothan was a bad Solarian for refusing to marry?”
“Rikaine once said that marriage was the hardest thing in life, but that it had to be endured.”
“What did you think?”
“About what, Elijah?”
“About marriage. Did you think it was the hardest thing in life?” Her expression grew slowly blank as though she were painstakingly washing emotion out of it. She said, “I never thought about it.”
Baley said, “You said you go on walks with Jothan Leebig all the time, then corrected yourself and put that in the past. You don’t go on walks with him any more, then?”
Gladia shook her head. Expression was back in her face. Sadness. “No. We don’t seem to. I viewed him once or twice. He always seemed busy and I didn’t like to–You know.”
“Was this since the death of your husband?”
“No, even some time before. Several months before.”
“Do you suppose Dr. Delmarre ordered him not to pay further attention to you?”
Gladia looked startled. “Why should he? Jothan isn’t a robot and neither am I. How can we take orders and why should Rikaine give them?”
Baley did not bother to try to explain. He could have done so only in Earth terms and that would make things no clearer to her. And if it did manage to clarify, the result could only be disgusting to her.
Baley said, “Only a question. I’ll view you again, Gladia, when I’m done with Leebig. What time do you have, by the way?” He was sorry at once for asking the question. Robots would answer in Terrestrial equivalents, but Gladia might answer in Solarian units and Baley was weary of displaying ignorance.
But Gladia answered in purely qualitative terms. “Mid afternoon,” she said.
“Then that’s it for Leebig’s estate also?”
“Oh yes.”
“Good. I’ll view you again as soon as I can and we’ll make arrangements for seeing.”
Again she grew hesitant. “Is it absolutely necessary?”
“It is.”
She said in a low voice, “Very well.”
There was some delay in contacting Leebig and Baley utilized it in consuming another sandwich, one that was brought to him in its original packaging. But he had grown more cautious. He inspected the seal carefully before breaking it, then looked over the contents painstakingly.
He accepted a plastic container of milk, not quite unfrozen, bit an opening with his own teeth, and drank from it directly. He thought gloomily that there were such things as odorless, tasteless, slow-acting poisons that could be introduced delicately by means of hypodermic needles or high-pressure needle jets, then put the thought aside as being childish.
So far murders and attempted murders had been committed in the most direct possible fashion. There was nothing delicate or subtle about a blow on the head, enough poison in a glass to kill a dozen men, or a poisoned arrow shot openly at the victim.
And then he thought, scarcely less gloomily, that as long as he hopped between time zones in this fashion, he was scarcely likely to have regular meals. Or, if this continued, regular sleep.
The robot approached him. “Dr. Leebig directs you to call sometime tomorrow. He is engaged in important work.”
Baley bounced to his feet and roared, “You tell that guy–”
He stopped. There was no use in yelling at a robot. That is, you could yell if you wished, but it would achieve results no sooner than a whisper.
He said in a conversational tone, “You tell Dr. Leebig, or his robot if that is as far as you’ve reached, that I am investigating the murder of a professional associate of his and a good Solarian. You tell him that I cannot wait on his work. You tell him that if I am not viewing him in five minutes, I will be in a plane and at his estate seeing him in less than an hour. You use that word, seeing, so there’s no mistake.”
He returned to his sandwich.
The five minutes were not quite gone, when Leebig, or at least a Solarian whom Baley presumed to be Leebig, was glaring at him.
Baley glared back. Leebig was a lean man, who held himself rigidly erect. His dark, prominent eyes had a look of intense abstraction about them, compounded now with anger. One of his eyelids drooped slightly.
He said, “Are you the Earthman?”
“Elijah Baley,” said Baley, “Plainclothesman C-7, in charge of the investigation into the murder of Dr. Rikaine Delmarre. What is your name?”
“I’m Dr. Jothan Leebig. Why do you presume to annoy me at my work?”
“It’s easy,” said Baley quietly. “It’s my business.”
“Then take your business elsewhere.”
“I have a few questions to ask first, Doctor. I believe you were a close associate of Dr. Delmarre. Right?”
One of Leebig’s hands clenched suddenly into a fist and he strode hastily toward a mantelpiece on which tiny clockwork contraptions went through complicated periodic motions that caught hypnotically at the eye.
The viewer kept focused on Leebig so that his figure did not depart from central projection as he walked. Rather the room behind him seemed to move backward in little rises and dips as he strode.
Leebig said, “If you are the foreigner whom Gruer threatened to bring in–”
“I am.”
“Then you are here against my advice. Done viewing.”
“Not yet. Don’t break contact.” Baley raised his voice sharply and a finger as well. He pointed it directly at the roboticist, who shrank visibly away from it, full lips spreading into an expression of disgust.
Baley said, “I wasn’t bluffing about seeing you, you know.”
“No Earthman vulgarity, please.”
“A straightforward statement is what it is intended to be. I will see you, if I can’t make you listen any other way. I will grab you by the collar and make you listen.”
Leebig stared back. “You are a filthy animal.”
“Have it your way, but I will do as I say.”
“If you try to invade my estate, I will–I will–”
Baley lifted his eyebrows. “Kill me? Do you often make such threats?”
“I made no threat.”
“Then talk now. In the time you have wasted, a good deal might have been accomplished. You were a close associate of Dr. Delmarre. Right?”
The roboticist’s head lowered. His shoulders moved slightly to a slow, regular breathing. When he looked up, he was in command of himself. He even managed a brief, sapless smile.
“I was.”
“Delmarre was interested in new types of robots, I understand.”
“He was.”
“What kind?”
“Are you a roboticist?”
“No. Explain it for the layman.”
“I doubt that I can.”
“Try! For instance, I think he wanted robots capable of disciplining children. What would that involve?”
Leebig raised his eyebrows briefly and said, “To put it very simply, skipping all the subtle details, it means a strengthening of the Cintegral governing the Sikorovich tandem route response at the W-65 level.”
“Double-talk,” said Baley.
“The truth.”
“It’s double-talk to me. How else can you put it?”
“It means a certain weakening of the First Law.”
“Why so? A child is disciplined for its own future good. Isn’t that the theory?”
“Ah, the future good!” Leebig’s eyes glowed with passion and he seemed to grow less conscious of his listener and correspondingly more talkative. “A simple concept, you think. How many human beings are willing to accept a trifling inconvenience for the sake of a large future good? How long does it take to train a child that what tastes good now means a stomach-ache later, and what tastes bad now will correct the stomach-ache later? Yet you want a robot to be able to understand?
“Pain inflicted by a robot on a child sets up a powerful disruptive potential in the positronic brain. To counteract that by an antipotential triggered through a realization of future good requires enough paths and bypaths to increase the mass of the positronic brain by 50 per cent, unless other circuits are sacrificed.”
Baley said, “Then you haven’t succeeded in building such a robot.”
“No, nor am I likely to succeed. Nor anyone.”
“Was Dr. Delmarre testing an experimental model of such a robot at the time of his death?”
“Not of such a robot. We were interested in other more practical things also.”
Baley said quietly, “Dr. Leebig, I am going to have to learn a bit more about robotics and I am going to ask you to teach me.”
Leebig shook his head violently, and his drooping eyelid dipped further in a ghastly travesty of a wink. “It should be obvious that a course in robotics takes more than a moment. I lack the time.”
“Nevertheless, you must teach me. The smell of robots is the one thing that pervades everything on Solaria. If it is time we require, then more than ever I must see you. I am an Earthman and I cannot work or think comfortably while viewing.”
It would not have seemed possible to Baley for Leebig to stiffen his stiff carriage further, but he did. He said, “Your phobias as an Earthman don’t concern me. Seeing is impossible.”
“I think you will change your mind when I tell you what I chiefly want to consult you about.”
“It will make no difference. Nothing can.”
“No? Then listen to this. It is my belief that throughout the history of the positronic robot, the First Law of Robotics has been deliberately misquoted.”
Leebig moved spasmodically. “Misquoted? Fool! Madman! Why?”
“To hide the fact,” said Baley with complete composure, “that robots can commit murder.”
14: A Motive Is Revealed
LEEBIG’S MOUTH WIDENED slowly. Baley took it for a snarl at first and then, with considerable surprise, decided that it was the most unsuccessful attempt at a smile that he had ever seen.
Leebig said, “Don’t say that. Don’t ever say that.”
“Why not?”
“Because anything, however small, that encourages distrust of robots is harmful. Distrusting robots is a human disease!”
It was as though he were lecturing a small child. It was as though he were saying something gently that he wanted to yell. It was as though he were trying to persuade when what he really wanted was to enforce on penalty of death.
Leebig said, “Do you know the history of robotics?”
“A little.”
“On Earth, you should. Yes. Do you know robots started with a Frankenstein complex against them? They were suspect. Men distrusted and feared robots. Robotics was almost an undercover science as a result. The Three Laws were first built into robots in an effort to overcome distrust and even so Earth would never allow a robotic society to develop. One of the reasons the first pioneers left Earth to colonize the rest of the Galaxy was so that they might establish societies in which robots would be allowed to free men of poverty and toil. Even then, there remained a latent suspicion not far below, ready to pop up at any excuse.”
“Have you yourself had to counter distrust of robots?” asked Baley.
“Many times,” said Leebig grimly.
“Is that why you and other roboticists are willing to distort the facts just a little in order to avoid suspicion as much as possible?”
“There is no distortion!”
“For instance, aren’t the Three Laws misquoted?”
“No!”
“I can demonstrate that they are, and unless you convince me otherwise, I will demonstrate it to the whole Galaxy, if I can.”
“You’re mad. Whatever argument you may think you have is fallacious, I assure you.”
“Shall we discuss it?”
“If it does not take too long.”
“Face to face? Seeing?” Leebig’s thin face twisted. “No!”
/> “Good-bye, Dr. Leebig. Others will listen to me.”
“Wait. Great Galaxy, man, wait!”
“Seeing?”
The roboticist’s hands wandered upward, hovered about his chin. Slowly a thumb crept into his mouth and remained there. He stared, blankly, at Baley.
Baley thought: Is he regressing to the pre-five-year-old stage so that it will be legitimate for him to see me?
“Seeing?” he said.
But Leebig shook his head slowly. “I can’t. I can’t,” he moaned, the words all but stifled by the blocking thumb. “Do whatever you
Want.”
Baley stared at the other and watched him turn away and face the wall. He watched the Solarian’s straight back bend and the Solarian’s face hide in shaking hands.
Baley said, “Very well, then, I’ll agree to view.”
Leebig said, back still turned, “Excuse me a moment. I’ll be back.”
Baley tended to his own needs during the interval and stared at his fresh washed face in the bathroom mirror. Was he getting the feel of Solaria and Solarians? He wasn’t sure.
He sighed and pushed a contact and a robot appeared. He didn’t turn to look at it. He said, “Is there another viewer at the farm, besides the one I’m using?”
“There are three other outlets, master.”
“Then tell Kiorissa Cantoro–tell your mistress that I will be using this one till further notice and that I am not to be disturbed.”
“Yes, master.”
Baley returned to his position where the viewer remained focused on the empty patch of room in which Leebig had stood. It was still empty and he settled himself to wait.
It wasn’t long. Leebig entered and the room once more jiggled as the man walked. Evidently focus shifted from room center to man center without delay. Baley remembered the complexity of viewing controls and began to feel a kind of appreciation of what was involved.
Leebig was quite master of himself now, apparently. His hair was slicked back and his costume had been changed. His clothes fitted loosely and were of a material that glistened and caught highlights. He sat down in a slim chair that folded out of the wall.
