by Isaac Asimov
“So if, Mr. Baley, you are truly concerned for your own people, you should be very anxious indeed for Fastolfe not to succeed in foisting upon this planet his—very misguided plan. You should be a strong ally of mine. Think about it. I tell you this, I assure you, out of a sincere friendship and liking for you and for your planet.”
Amadiro was smiling as broadly as ever, but it was all wolf now.
57
Baley and his robots followed Amadiro, out the room and along the corridor.
Amadiro stopped at one inconspicuous door and said, “Would you care to use the facilities before leaving?”
For a moment, Baley frowned in confusion, for he did not understand. Then he remembered the antiquated phrase Amadiro had used, thanks to his own reading of historical novels.
He said, “There was an ancient general, whose name l have forgotten, who, mindful of the exigencies of sudden absorption in military affairs, once said, ‘Never turn down a chance to piss.’”
Amadiro, smiled broadly and said, “Excellent advice. Quite as good as my advice to think seriously about what I have said.—But I notice that you hesitate, even so. Surely you don’t think I am laying a trap for you. Believe me, I am not a barbarian. You are my guest in this building and, for that reason alone, you are perfectly safe.”
Baley said cautiously, “If I hesitate, it is because I am considering the propriety of using your—uh—facilities, considering that I am not an Auroran.”
“Nonsense, my dear Baley. What is your alternative? Needs must. Please make use of it. Let that be a symbol that I myself am not subject to the general Auroran prejudices and wish you and Earth well.”
“Could you go a step further?”
“In what way, Mr. Baley?”
“Could you show me that you are also superior to this planet’s prejudice against robots—”
“There is no prejudice against robots,” said Amadiro, quickly.
Baley nodded his head solemnly in apparent acceptance of the remark and completed his sentence—“by allowing them to enter the Personal with me. I have grown to feel uncomfortable without them.”
For one moment, Amadiro seemed shaken. He recovered almost at once and said, with what was almost a scowl, “By all means, Mr. Baley.”
“Yet whoever is now inside might object strenuously. I would not want to create scandal.”
“No one is in there. It is a one-person Personal and, if, someone were making use of it, the in-use signal would indicate that.”
“Thank you, Dr. Amadiro,” said Baley. He opened the door and said, “Giskard, please enter.”
Giskard clearly hesitated, but said nothing in objection and entered. At a gesture from Baley, Daneel followed, but as he passed through the door, he took Baley’s elbow and pulled him in as well.
Baley said, as the door closed behind him, “I’ll be out again soon. Thank you for allowing this.”
He entered the room with as much unconcern as he could manage and yet he felt a tightness in the pit of his abdomen. Might it contain some unpleasant surprise?
58
Baley found the Personal empty, however. There was not even much to search. It was smaller than the one in Fastolfe’s establishment.
Eventually, he noticed Daneel and Giskard standing silently side by side, backs against the door, as though endeavoring to have entered the room by the least amount possible.
Baley tried to speak normally, but what came out was a dim croak. He cleared his throat with unnecessary noise and said, “You can come farther into the room—and you needn’t remain silent, Daneel.” (Daneel had been on Earth. He knew the Earthly taboo against speech in the Personal.)
Daneel displayed that knowledge at once. He put his forefinger to his lips.
Baley said, “I know, I know, but forget it. If Amadiro can forget the Auroran taboo about robots in Personals, I can forget the Earthly taboo about speech there.”
“Will it not make you uncomfortable, Partner Elijah?” asked Daneel in a low voice.
“Not a bit,” said Baley in an ordinary one. (Actually, speech felt different with Daneel—a robot. The sound of speech in a room such as this when, actually, no human being was present was not as horrifying as it might be. In fact, it was not horrifying at all when only robots were present, however humaniform one of them might be. Baley could not say so, of course. Though Daneel had no feelings a human being could hurt, Baley had feelings on his behalf.)
And then Baley thought of something else and felt, quite intensely, the sensation of being a thoroughgoing fool.
“Or,” he said to Daneel, in a voice that was suddenly very low indeed, “are you suggesting silence because this room is bugged?” The last word came out merely as a shaping of the mouth.
“If you mean, Partner Elijah, that people outside this room can detect what is spoken inside this room through some sort of eavesdropping device, that is quite impossible.”
“Why impossible?”
The toilet device flushed itself with quick and silent efficiency and Baley advanced toward the washbasin.
Daneel said, “On Earth, the dense packing of the Cities makes privacy impossible. Overhearing is taken for granted and to use a device to make overhearing more efficient might seem natural. If an Earthman wishes not to be overheard, he simply doesn’t speak, which may be why silence is so mandatory in places where there is a pretense of privacy, as in the very rooms you call Personals.
“On Aurora, on the other hand, as on all the Spacer worlds, privacy is a true fact of life and is greatly valued. You remember Solaria and the diseased extremes to which it was carried there. But even on Aurora, which is no Solaria, every human being is insulated from every other human being by the kind of space extension unthinkable on Earth and by a wall of robots, in addition. To break down that privacy would be an unthinkable act.”
Baley said, “Do you mean it would be a crime to bug this room?”
“Much worse, Partner Elijah. It would not be the act of a civilized Auroran gentleman.”
Baley looked about. Daneel, mistaking the gesture, plucked a towel out of the dispenser, which might not have been instantly apparent to the other’s unaccustomed eyes, and offered it to Baley.
Baley accepted the towel, but that was not the object of his questing glanced. It was a bug for which his eyes searched, for he found it difficult to believe that someone would forego an easy advantage on the ground that it would not be civilized behavior. It was, however, useless and Baley, rather despondently, knew it would be. He would not be able to detect an Auroran bug, even if one were there. He wouldn’t know what to look for in a strange culture.
Whereupon he followed the course of another strand of suspicion in his mind. “Tell me, Daneel, since you know Aurorans better than I do, why do you suppose Amadiro is taking all this trouble with me? He talks to me at his leisure. He sees me out. He offers me the use of this room—something Vasilia would not have done. He seems to have all the time in the world to spend on me. Politeness?”
“Many Aurorans pride themselves on their politeness. It may be that Amadiro does. He has several times stressed that he is not a barbarian.”
“Another question. Why do you think he was willing to have me bring you and Giskard into this room?”
“It seemed to me that that was to remove your suspicions that the offer of this room might conceal a trap.”
“Why should he bother? Because he was concerned over the possibility of my experiencing unnecessary anxiety?”
“Another gesture of a civilized Auroran gentleman, I should imagine.”
Baley shook his head. “Well, if this room is bugged and Amadiro can hear me, let him hear me. I don’t consider him a civilized Auroran gentleman. He made it quite clear that, if I did not abandon my investigation, he would see to it that Earth as a whole would suffer. Is that the act of a civilized gentleman? Or of an incredibly brutal blackmailer?”
Daneel said, “An Auroran gentleman may find it necessary to utt
er threats, but if so, he would do it in a gentlemanly manner.”
“As Amadiro did. It is, then, the manner and not the content of speech that marks the gentleman. But then, Daneel, you are a robot and therefore can not really criticize a human being, can you?”
Daneel said, “It would be difficult for me to do so. But may I ask a question, Partner Elijah? Why did you ask permission to bring friend Giskard and me into this room? It had seemed to me that you were reluctant, earlier, to believe you were in danger. Have you now decided that you are not safe except in our presence?”
“No, not at all, Daneel. I am now quite convinced that I am not in danger and have not been.”
“Yet there was a distinctly suspicious cast about your actions, when you entered this room, Partner Elijah. You searched it.”
Baley said, “Of course! I said I am not in danger, but I do not say there is no danger.”
“I do not think I see the distinction, Partner Elijah,” said Daneel.
“We will discuss it later, Daneel. I am still not certain as to whether this room is bugged or not.”
Baley was by now quite done. He said, “Well, Daneel, I’ve been leisurely about this; I haven’t rushed at all. Now I’m ready to go out again and I wonder if Amadiro is still waiting for us after all this time or whether he has delegated an underling to do the rest of the job of showing us out. After all, Amadiro is a busy man, and cannot spend all day with me. What do you think, Daneel?”
“It would be more logical if Dr. Amadiro had delegated the task.”
“And you, Giskard? What do you think?”
“I agree with friend Daneel, though it is my experience that human beings do not always make what would seem the logical response.”
Baley said, “For my part, I suspect, Amadiro is waiting for us quitter patiently. If something has driven him to waste this much time on us, I rather think that the driving force—whatever it might be—has not yet weakened.”
“I do not know what might be the driving force you speak of, Partner Elijah,” said Daneel.
“Nor I, Daneel,” said Baley, “which bothers me a great deal. But let us open the door now and see.”
59
Amadiro was waiting outside the door for them, precisely where Baley had left him. He smiled at them, showing no sign of impatience. Baley could not resist shooting a quiet I-told-you-so glance at Daneel, who responded with bland impassivity.
Amadiro said, “I rather regretted, Mr. Baley, that you had not left Giskard outside when you entered the Personal. I might have known him in times past, when Fastolfe and I were on better terms but somehow never did. Fastolfe was my teacher once, you know.”
“Was he?” said Baley. “I didn’t know that, as a matter of fact.”
“No reason you should, unless you had been told—and, in the short time you’ve been on the planet, you can scarcely have had time to learn much in the way of this sort of trivia, I suppose.—Come now, it has occurred to me that you can scarcely think me hospitable if I do not take advantage of your being at the Institute to show you around.”
“Really,” said Baley, stiffening a bit. “I must—”
“I insist,” said Amadiro, with something of a note of the imperious entering his voice. “You arrived on Aurora yesterday morning and I doubt that you will be staying on the planet much longer. This may be the only chance you will ever have of getting a glimpse of a modern laboratory doing research work on robotics.”
He linked arms with Baley and continued to speak in familiar terms. (“Prattled” was the term that occurred to the astonished Baley.)
“You’ve washed,” said Amadiro. “You’ve taken care of your needs. There may be other roboticists here whom you will wish to question and I would welcome that, since I am determined to show I have put no barriers in your way during the short time in which you will yet be permitted to conduct your investigation. In fact, there is no reason you can’t have dinner with us.”
Giskard said, “If I may interrupt, sir—”
“You may not!” said Amadiro with unmistakable firmness and the robot fell silent.
Amadiro said, “My dear Mr. Baley, I understand these robots. Who should know them better?—Except for the unfortunate Fastolfe, of course. Giskard, I am sure, was going to remind you of some appointment, some promise, some business—and there is no point in any of that. Since the investigation is about over, I promise you, none of what he was going to remind you of will have any significance. Let us forget all such nonsense and, for a brief time, be friends.
“You must understand, my good Mr. Baley,” he went on, “that I am quite an aficionado of Earth and its culture. It is not the most popular of subjects on Aurora, but I find it fascinating. I am particularly interested in Earth’s past history, the days when it had a hundred languages and Interstellar Standard had not yet been developed.—May I compliment you, by the way, on your own handling of Interstellar?
“This way, this way,” he said, turning a corner. “We’ll be coming to the pathway-simulation room, which has its own weird beauty, and we may have a mock-up in operation. Quite symphonic, actually.—But I was talking about your handling of Interstellar. It is one of the many Auroran superstitions concerning Earth, that Earthpeople speak an all, but incomprehensible version of Interstellar. When the show about you was produced, there were many who said that the actors could not be Earthpeople because they could be understood, yet I can understand you.” He smiled as he said that.
“I’ve tried reading Shakespeare,” he continued with a confidential air, “but I can’t read him in the original, of course, and the translation is curiously flat. I can’t help but believe that the fault lies with the translation and not with Shakespeare. I do better with Dickens and Tolstoy, perhaps because that is prose, although the names of the characters are, in both cases, virtually unpronounceable to me.
“What I’m trying to say, Mr. Baley, is that I’m a friend of Earth. I really am. I want what is best for it. Do you understand?” He looked at Baley and again the wolf showed in his twinkling eyes.
Baley raised his voice, forcing it between the softly running sentences of the other. “I’m afraid I cannot oblige you, Dr. Amadiro. I must be about my business and I have no further questions to ask of either you or anyone else here. If you—”
Baley paused. There was a faint and curious rumble of sound in the air. He looked up, startled. “What is that?”
“What is what?” asked Amadiro. “I sense nothing.” He looked at the robots, who had been following the two human beings in grave silence. “Nothing!” he said forcefully. “Nothing.”
Baley recognized that as the equivalent of an order. Neither robot could now claim to have heard the rumble in direct contradiction to a human being, unless Baley himself applied a counter-pressure—and he was sure he could not manage to do it skillfully enough in the face of Amadiro’s professionalism.
Nevertheless, it didn’t matter. He had heard something and he was not a robot; he would not be talked out of it. He said, “By your own statement, Dr. Amadiro, I have little time left me. That is all the more reason that I must—”
The rumble again. Louder.
Baley said, with a sharp, cutting edge to his voice, “That, I suppose, is precisely what you didn’t hear before and what you don’t hear now. Let me go, sir, or I will ask my robots for help.”
Amadiro loosened his grip on Baley’s upper arm at once. “My friend, you had but to express the wish. Come! I will take you to the nearest exit and, if ever you are on Aurora again, which seems unlikely in the extreme, please return and you may have the tour I promised you.”
They were walking faster. They moved down the spiral ramp, out along a corridor to the commodious and now empty anteroom and the door by which they had entered.
The windows in the anteroom showed utterly dark. Could it be night already?
It wasn’t. Amadiro muttered to himself, “Rotten weather! They’ve opacified the windows.”
&nbs
p; He turned to Baley, “I imagine it’s raining. They predicted it and the forecasts can usually be relied on—always, when they’re unpleasant.”
The door opened and Baley jumped backward with a gasp. A cold wind gusted inward and against the sky—not black but a dull, dark gray—the tops of trees were whipping back and forth.
There was water pouring, from the sky—descending in streams. And as Baley watched, appalled, a streak of light flashed across the sky with blinding brilliance and then the rumble came again, this time with a cracking report, as though the light-streak had split the sky and the rumble was the noise it had made.
Baley turned and fled back the way he had come, whimpering.
PART 15.
AGAIN DANEEL AND GISKARD
60
Baley felt Daneel’s strong grip on his arms, just beneath his shoulders. He hatted and forced himself to stop making that infantile sound. He could feel himself trembling.
Daneel said with infinite respect, “Partner Elijah, it is a thunderstorm—expected—predicted—normal.”
“I know that,” whispered Baley.
He did know it. Thunderstorms had been described innumerable times in the books he had read, whether fiction or nonfiction. He had seen them in holographs and on hyperwave shows—sound, sight, and all.
The real thing, however, the actual sound and sight, had never penetrated into the bowels of the City and he had never in his life actually experienced such a thing.
With all he knew—intellectually—about thunderstorms, he could not face—viscerally—the actuality. Despite the descriptions, the collections of words, the sight in small pictures and in recordings on small screens, the sounds aptured despite all that, he had no idea the flashes were so bright and streaked so across the sky; that the sound was so vibratorily bass in sound when it rattled across a hollow world; that both were so sudden; and that rain could be so like an inverted bowl of water, endlessly pouring.
