Asimov's Future History Volume 5

by Isaac Asimov

  Baley grew suddenly and uncomfortably aware that (as would not have been the case on Earth) he was totally unarmed.

  46.

  TO BE SURE, the structure was not large. There were small urinals, side by side, half a dozen of them; small washbasins, side by side, again half a dozen. No showers, no clothes – fresheners, no shaving devices.

  There were half a dozen stalls, separated by partitions and with small doors to each. Might there not be someone waiting inside one of them – The doors did not come down to the ground. Moving softly, he bent and glanced under each door, looking for any sign of legs. He then approached each door, testing it, swinging it open tensely, ready to slam it shut at the least sign of anything untoward, and then to dash to the door that led to the Outside.

  All the stalls were empty.

  He looked around to make sure there were no other hiding places.

  He could find none.

  He went to the door to the Outside and found no indication of a way of locking it. It occurred to him that there would naturally be no way of locking it. The Personal was clearly for the use of several men at the same time. Others would have to be able to enter at need.

  Yet he could not very well leave and try another, for the danger would exist at any – and besides, he could delay no longer.

  For a moment, he found himself unable to decide which of the series of urinals he should use. He could approach and use any of them. So could anyone else.

  He forced the choice of one upon himself and, aware of openness all around, was afflicted at once with bashful bladder. He felt the urgency, but had to wait impatiently for the feeling of apprehension at the possible entrance of others to dissipate itself.

  He no longer feared the entrance of enemies, just the entrance of anyone.

  And then he thought: The robots will at least delay anyone approaching.

  With that, he managed to relax – He was quite done, greatly relieved, and about to turn to a washbasin, when he heard a moderately high – pitched, rather tense voice. “Are you Elijah Baley?”

  Baley froze. After all his apprehension and all his precautions, he had been unaware of someone entering. In the end, he had been entirely wrapped up in the simple act of emptying his bladder, something that should not have taken up even the tiniest fraction of his conscious mind. (Was he getting old?)

  To be sure, there seemed no threat of any kind in the voice he heard. It seemed empty of menace. It may have been that Baley simply felt certain – and had the sure confidence within him – that Daneel, at least, if not Giskard, would not have allowed a threat to enter.

  What bothered Baley was merely the entrance. In his whole life, he had never been approached – let alone addressed – by a man in a Personal. On Earth that was the most strenuous taboo and on Solaria (and, until now, on Aurora) he had used only one – person Personals.

  The voice came again. Impatient. “Come! You must be Elijah Baley.”

  Slowly, Baley turned. It was a man of moderate height, delicately dressed in well – fitted clothing in various shades of blue. He was light – skinned, light – haired, and had a small mustache that was a shade darker than the hair on his head. Baley found himself staring with fascination at the small strip of hair on the upper lip. It was the first time he had seen a Spacer with a mustache.

  Baley said (and was filled with shame at speaking in a Personal), “I am Elijah Baley.” His voice, even in his own ears, seemed a scratchy and unconvincing whisper.

  The Spacer seemed to find it unconvincing, certainly. He said, narrowing his eyes and staring, “The robots outside said Elijah Baley was in here, but you don’t look at all the way you looked on hyperwave. Not at all.”

  That foolish dramatization! thought Baley fiercely. No one would meet him to the end of time without having been preliminarily poisoned by that impossible representation. No one would accept him as a human being at the start, as a fallible human being – and when they discovered the fallibility, they would, in disappointment, consider him a fool.

  He turned resentfully to the washbasin and splashed water, then shook his hands vaguely in the air, while wondering where the hot – air jet might be found. The Spacer touched a contact and seemed to pluck a thin bit of absorbent fluff out of midair.

  “Thank you,” said Baley, taking it. “That was not me in the hyperwave show. It was an actor.”

  “I know that, but they might have picked one that looked more like you, mightn’t they?” It seemed to be a source of grievance to him. “I want to speak to you.”

  “How did you get past my robots?”

  That was another source of grievance, apparently. “I nearly didn’t,” said the Spacer. “They tried to stop me and I only had one robot with me. I had to pretend I had to get in here on an emergency basis and they searched me. They absolutely laid hands on me to see if I was carrying anything dangerous. I’d have you up on charges – if you weren’t an Earthman. You can’t give robots the kind of orders that embarrass a human being.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Baley stiffly, “but I am not the one who gave them their orders. What can I do for you?”

  “I want to speak to you.”

  “You are speaking to me. – Who are you?”

  The other seemed to hesitate, then said, “Gremionis.”

  “Santirix Gremionis?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Why do you want to speak to me?”

  For a moment, Gremionis stared at Baley, apparently with embarrassment. Then he mumbled, “Well, as long as I’m here – if you don’t mind – I might as well –” and he stepped toward the line of urinals.

  Baley realized, with the last refinement of horrified queasiness, what it was Gremionis intended to do. He turned hastily and said, “I’ll wait for you outside.”

  “No no, don’t go,” said Gremionis desperately, in what was almost a squeak. “This won’t take a second. Please!”

  It was only that Baley now wanted, just as desperately, to talk to Gremionis and did not want to do anything that might offend the other and make him unwilling to talk; otherwise he would not have been willing to accede to the request.

  He kept his back turned and squinted his eyes nearly shut in a sort of horrified reflex. It was only when Gremionis came up around him, his hands kneading a fluffy towel of his own, that Baley could relax again, after a fashion.

  “Why do you want to speak to me?” he said again.

  “Gladia – the woman from Solaria –” Gremionis looked dubious and stopped.

  “I know Gladia,” said Baley coldly.

  “Gladia viewed me – trimensionally, you know – and told me you had asked about me. And she asked me if I had, in any way, mistreated a robot she owned – a human – looking robot like one of those outside –”

  “Well, did you, Mr. Gremionis?”

  “No! I didn’t even know she owned a robot like that, until – Did you tell her I did?”

  “I was only asking questions, Mr. Gremionis.”

  Gremionis had made a fist of his right hand and was grinding it nervously into his left. He said intensely, “I don’t want to be falsely accused of anything – and especially where such a false accusation would affect my relationship with Gladia.”

  Baley said, “How did you find me?”

  Gremionis said, “She asked me about that robot and said you had asked about me. I had heard you had been called to Aurora by Dr. Fastolfe to solve this – puzzle – about the robot. It was on the hyperwave news. And –” The words ground out as though they were emerging from him with the utmost difficulty.

  “Go on,” said Baley.

  “I had to talk to you and explain that I had had nothing to do with that robot. Nothing! Gladia didn’t know where you were, but I thought Dr. Fastolfe would know.”

  “So you called him?”

  “Oh no, I – I don’t think I’d have the nerve to – He’s such an important scientist. But Gladia called him for me. She’s – that kind of pe
rson. He told her you had gone to see his daughter, Dr. Vasilia Aliena. That was good because I know her.”

  “Yes, I know you do,” said Baley.

  Gremionis looked uneasy. “How did you – Did you ask her about me, too?” His uneasiness seemed to be degenerating to misery. “I finally called Dr. Vasilia and she said you had just left and I’d probably find you at some Community Personal – and this one is the closest to her establishment. I was sure there would be no reason for you to delay in order to find a farther one. I mean why should you?”

  “You reason quite correctly, but how is it you got here so quickly?”

  “I work at the Robotics Institute and my establishment is on the Institute grounds. My scooter brought me here in minutes.”

  “Did you come here alone?”

  “Yes! With only one robot. The scooter is a two – seater, you see.

  “And your robot is waiting outside?”

  “Yes.”

  “Tell me again why you want to see me.”

  “I’ve got to make sure you don’t think I’ve had anything to do with that robot. I never even heard of him till this whole thing exploded in the news. So can I talk to you now?”

  “Yes, but not here,” said Baley firmly. “Let’s get out.”

  How strange it was, thought Baley, that he was so pleased to get out from behind walls and into the Outside. There was something more totally alien to this Personal than anything else he had encountered on either Aurora or Solaria. Even more disconcerting than the fact of planet – wide indiscriminate use had been the horror of being openly and casually addressed – of behavior that drew no distinction between this place and its purpose and any other place and purpose.

  The book – films he had viewed had said nothing of this. Clearly, as Fastolfe had pointed out, they were not written for Earth – people but for Aurorans and, to a lesser extent, for possible tourists from the other forty – nine Spacer worlds. Earthpeople, after all, almost never went to the Spacer worlds, least of all to Aurora. They were not welcome there. Why, then, should they be addressed?

  And why should the book – films expand on what everyone knew? Should they make a fuss over the fact that Aurora was spherical in shape, or that water was wet, or that one man might address another freely in a Personal?

  Yet did that not make a mockery of the very name of the structure? Yet Baley found himself unable to avoid thinking of the Women’s Personals on Earth where, as Jessie had frequently told him, women chattered incessantly and felt no discomfort about it. Why women, but not men? Baley had never thought seriously about it before, but had accepted it merely as custom – as unbreakable custom – but if women, why not men?

  It didn’t matter. The thought only affected his intellect and not whatever it was about his mind that made him feel overwhelming and ineradicable distaste for the whole idea. He repeated, “Let’s get out.”

  Gremionis protested, “But your robots are out there.”

  “So they are. What of it?”

  “But this is something I want to talk about privately, man to m – man.” He stumbled over the phrase.

  “I suppose you mean Spacer to Earthman.”

  “If you like.”

  “My robots are necessary. They are my partners in my investigation.”

  “But this has nothing to do with the investigation. That’s what I’m trying to tell you.”

  “I’ll be the judge of that,” said Baley firmly, walking out of the Personal.

  Gremionis hesitated and then followed.

  47.

  DANEEL AND GISKARD were waiting – impassive, expressionless, patient. On Daneel’s face, Baley thought he could make out a trace of concern, but, on the other hand, he might merely be reading that emotion into those inhumanly human features. Giskard, the less human – looking, showed nothing, of course, even to the most willing personifier.

  A third robot waited as well – presumably that of Gremionis. He was simpler in appearance even than Giskard and had an air of shabbiness about him. It was clear that Gremionis was not very well – to – do.

  Daneel said, with what Baley automatically assumed to be the warmth of relief, “I am pleased that you are well, Partner Elijah.”

  “Entirely well. I am curious, however, about something. If you had heard me call out in alarm from within, would you have come in?”

  “At once, sir,” said Giskard.

  “Even though you are programmed not to enter Personals?”

  “The need to protect a human being – you, in particular – would be paramount, sir.”

  “That is so, Partner Elijah,” said Daneel.

  “I’m glad to hear that,” said Baley. “This person is Santirix Gremionis. Mr. Gremionis, this is Daneel and this is Giskard.”

  Each robot bent his head solemnly. Gremionis merely glanced at them and lifted one hand in indifferent acknowledgment. He made no effort to introduce his own robot.

  Baley looked around. The light was distinctly dimmer, the wind was brisker, the air was cooler, the sun was completely hidden by clouds. There was a gloom to the surroundings that did not seem to affect Baley, who continued to be delighted at having escaped from the Personal. It lifted his spirits amazingly that he was actually experiencing the feeling of being pleased at being Outside. It was a special case, he knew, but it was a beginning and he could not help but consider it a triumph.

  Baley was about to turn to Gremionis to resume the conversation, when his eye caught movement. Walking across the lawn came a woman with an accompanying robot. She was coming toward them but seemed totally oblivious to them. She was clearly making for the Personal.

  Baley put out his arm in the direction of the woman, as though to stop her, even though she was still thirty meters away, and muttered, “Doesn’t she know that’s a Men’s Personal?”

  “What?” said Gremionis.

  The woman continued to approach, while Baley watched in total puzzlement. Finally, the woman’s robot stepped to one side to wait and the woman entered the structure.

  Baley said helplessly, “But she can’t go in there.”

  Gremionis said, “Why not? It’s communal.”

  “But it’s for men.”

  “It’s for people,” said Gremionis. He seemed utterly confused.

  “Either sex? Surely you can’t mean that.”

  “Any human being. Of course I mean it! How would you want it to be? I don’t understand.”

  Baley turned away. It had not been many minutes before that he had thought that open conversation in a Personal was the acme in bad taste, of Things Not Done.

  If he had tried to think of something worse yet, he would have completely failed to dredge up the possibility of encountering a woman in a Personal. Convention on Earth required him to ignore the presence of others in the large Community Personals on that world, but not all the conventions ever invented would have prevented him from knowing whether a person passing him was a man or a woman.

  What if, while he had been in the Personal, a woman had entered – casually, indifferently – as this one had just done? Or, worse still, what if he had entered a Personal and found a woman already there?

  He could not estimate his reaction. He had never weighed the possibility, let alone met with such a situation, but he found the thought totally intolerable.

  And the book – films had told him nothing about that, either.

  He had viewed those films in order that he might not approach the investigation in total ignorance of the Auroran way of life – and they had left him in total ignorance of all that was important.

  Then how could he handle this triply knotted puzzle of Jander’s death, when at every step he found himself lost in ignorance?

  A moment before he had felt triumph at a small conquest over the terrors of Outside, but now he was faced with the feeling of being ignorant of everything, ignorant even of the nature of his ignorance.

  It was now, while fighting not to picture the woman passing through th
e airspace lately occupied by himself, that he came near to utter despair.

  48.

  AGAIN GISKARD SAID (and in a way that made it possible to read concern into his words – if not into the tone), “Are you unwell, sir? Do you need help?”

  Baley muttered, “No no. I’m all right. – But let’s move away. We’re in the path of people wishing to use that structure.”

  He walked rapidly toward the airfoil that was resting in the open stretch beyond the gravel path. On the other side was a small two – wheeled vehicle, with two seats, one behind the other. Baley assumed it to be Gremionis’ scooter.

  His feeling of depression and misery, Baley realized, was accentuated by the fact that he felt hungry. It was clearly past lunchtime and he had not eaten.

  He turned to Gremionis. “Let’s talk – but if you don’t mind, let’s do it over lunch. That is, if you haven’t already eaten – and if you don’t mind eating with me.”

  “Where are you going to eat?”

  “I don’t know. Where does one eat at the Institute?”

  Gremionis said, “Not at the Community Diner. We can’t talk there.”

  “Is there an alternative?”

  “Come to my establishment,” said Gremionis at once. “It isn’t one of the fancier ones here. I’m not one of your high executives. Still, I have a few serviceable robots and we can set a decent table. – I tell you what. I’ll get on my scooter with Brundij – my robot, you know – and you follow me. You’ll have to go slowly, but I’m only a little over a kilometer away. It will just take two or three minutes.”

  He moved away at an eager half – run. Baley watched him and thought there seemed to be a kind of gangly youthfulness about him. There was no easy way of actually judging his age, of course; Spacers didn’t show age and Gremionis might easily be fifty. But he acted young, almost what an Earthman would consider teenage young. Baley wasn’t sure exactly what there was about him that gave that impression.

  Baley turned suddenly to Daneel. “Do you know Gremionis, Daneel?”

  “I have never met him before, Partner Elijah.”