by Isaac Asimov
Elijah Baley felt like an inhabitant of one of the smaller Cities, say Helsinki, visiting New York and counting the Levels in awe. He had thought of a “dwelling” as something like an apartment unit, but this was nothing like it at all. He passed from room to room endlessly. Panoramic windows were shrouded closely, allowing no hint of disturbing day to enter. Lights came to life noiselessly from hidden sources as they stepped into a room and died again as quietly when they left.
“So many rooms,” said Baley with wonder. “So many. It’s like a very tiny City, Daneel.”
“It would seem so, Partner Elijah,” said Daneel with equanimity. It seemed strange to the Earthman. Why was it necessary to crowd so many Spacers together with him in close quarters? He said, “How many will be living here with me?”
Daneel said, “There will be myself, of course, and a number of robots.”
Baley thought: He ought to have said, a number of other robots. Again he found it obvious that Daneel had the intention of playing the man thoroughly even for no other audience than Baley, who knew the truth so well.
And then that thought popped into nothing under the force of a second, more urgent one. He cried, “Robots? How many humans?”
“None, Partner Elijah.”
They had just stepped into a room, crowded from floor to ceiling with book films. Three fixed viewers with large twenty-four-inch viewing panels set vertically were in three corners of the room. The fourth contained an animation screen.
Baley looked about in annoyance. He said, “Did they kick everyone out just to leave me rattling around alone in this mausoleum?”
“It is meant only for you. A dwelling such as this for one person is customary on Solaria.”
“Everyone lives like this?”
“Everyone.”
“What do they need all the rooms for?”
“It is customary to devote a single room to a single purpose. This is the library. There is also a music room, a gymnasium, a kitchen, a bakery, a dining room, a machine shop, various robot-repair and testing rooms, two bedrooms—”
“Stop! How do you know all this?”
“It is part of the information pattern,” said Daneel smoothly, “made available to me before I left Aurora.”
“Jehoshaphat! Who takes care of all of this?” He swung his arm in a wide arc.
“There are a number of household robots. They have been assigned to you and will see to it that you are comfortable.”
“But I don’t need all this,” said Baley. He had the urge to sit down and refuse to budge. He wanted to see no more rooms.
“We can remain in one room if you so desire, Partner Elijah. That was visualized as a possibility from the start. Nevertheless, Solarian customs being what they are, it was considered wiser to allow this house to be built—”
“Built!” Baley stared. “You mean this was built for me? All this? Specially?”
“A thoroughly roboticized economy—”
“Yes, I see what you’re going to say. What will they do with the house when all this is over?”
“I believe they will tear it down.”
Baley’s lips clamped together. Of course! Tear it down! Build a tremendous structure for the special use of one Earthman and then tear down everything he touched. Sterilize the soil the house stood on! Fumigate the air he breathed! The Spacers might seem strong, but they, too, had their foolish fears.
Daneel seemed to read his thoughts, or to interpret his expression at any rate. He said, “It may appear to you, Partner Elijah, that it is to escape contagion that they will destroy the house. If such are your thoughts, I suggest that you refrain from making yourself uncomfortable over the matter. The fear of disease on the part of Spacers is by no means so extreme. It is just that the effort involved in building the house is, to them, very little. Nor does the waste involved in tearing it down once more seem great to them.
“And by law, Partner Elijah, this place cannot be allowed to remain standing. It is on the estate of Hannis Gruer and there can only be one legal dwelling place on any estate, that of the owner. This house was built by special dispensation, for a specific purpose. It is meant to house us for a specific length of time, till our mission is completed.”
“And who is Hannis Gruer?” asked Baley.
“The head of Solarian security. We are to see him on arrival.”
“Are we? Jehoshaphat, Daneel, when do I begin to learn anything at all about anything? I’m working in a vacuum and I don’t like it. I might as well go back to Earth. I might as well—”
He felt himself working up into resentment and cut himself short.
Daneel never wavered. He merely waited his chance to speak. He said, “I regret the fact that you are annoyed. My general knowledge of Solaria does seem to be greater than yours. My knowledge of the murder case itself is as limited as is your own. It is Agent Gruer who will tell us what we must know. The Solarian Government has arranged this.”
“Well, then, let’s get to this Gruer. How long a trip will it be?” Baley winced at the thought of more travel and the familiar constriction in his chest was making itself felt again.
Daneel said, “No travel is necessary, Partner Elijah. Agent Gruer will be waiting for us in the conversation room.”
“A room for conversation, too?” Baley murmured wryly. Then, in a louder voice, “Waiting for us now?”
“I believe so.”
“Then let’s get to him, Daneel!”
Hannis Gruer was bald, and that without qualification. There was not even a fringe o1d hair at the sides of his skull. It was completely naked.
Baley swallowed and tried, out of politeness, to keep his eyes off that skull, but couldn’t. On Earth there was the continuous acceptance of Spacers at the Spacers’ own evaluation: The Spacers were the unquestioned lords of the Galaxy; they were tall, bronze of skin and hair, handsome, large, cool, aristocratic.
In short, they were all R. Daneel Olivaw was, but with the fact of humanity in addition.
And the Spacers who were sent to Earth often did look like that; perhaps were deliberately chosen for that reason.
But here was a Spacer who might have been an Earthman for all his appearance. He was bald. And his nose was misshapen, too. Not much, to be sure, but on a Spacer even a slight asymmetry was noteworthy.
Baley said, “Good afternoon, sir. I am sorry if we kept you waiting.”
No harm in politeness. He would have to work with these people. He had the momentary urge to step across the expanse of room (how ridiculously large) and offer his hand in greeting. It was an urge easy to fight off. A Spacer certainly would not welcome such a greeting: a hand covered with Earthly germs?
Gruer sat gravely, as far away from Baley as he could get, his
hands resting within long sleeves, and probably there were filters in his nostrils, although Baley couldn’t see them.
It even seemed to him that Gruer cast a disapproving look at Daneel as though to say: You’re a queer Spacer, standing that close to an Earthman.
That would mean Gruer simply did not know the truth. Then Baley noticed suddenly that Daneel was standing at some distance, at that; farther than he usually did.
Of course! Too close, and Gruer might find the proximity unbelievable. Daneel was intent on being accepted as human.
Gruer spoke in a pleasant, friendly voice, but his eyes tended to remain furtively on Daneel; looking away, then drifting back. He said, “I haven’t been waiting long. Welcome to Solaria, gentlemen. Are you comfortable?”
“Yes, sir. Quite,” said Baley. He wondered if etiquette would require that Daneel as the “Spacer” should speak for the two, but rejected that possibility resentfully. Jehoshaphat! It was he, himself, who had been requested for the investigation and Daneel had been added afterward. Under the circumstances Baley felt he would not play the secondary to a genuine Spacer; it was out of the question when a robot was involved, even such a robot as Daneel.
But Daneel made no attem
pt to take precedence over Baley, nor did Gruer seem surprised or displeased at that. Instead, he turned his attention at once to Baley to the exclusion of Daneel.
Gruer said, “You have been told nothing, Plainclothesman Baley, about the crime for which your services have been solicited. I imagine you are quite curious about that.” He shook his arms so that the sleeves fell backward and clasped his hands loosely in his lap. “Won’t you gentlemen sit down?”
They did so and Baley said, “We are curious.” He noted that Gruer’s hands were not protected by gloves.
Gruer went on. “That was on purpose, Plainclothesman. We wanted you to arrive here prepared to tackle the problem with a fresh mind. We wanted no preconceived notions. You will have available to you shortly a full report of the details of the crime and of the investigations we have been able to conduct. I am afraid, Plainclothesman, that you will find our investigations ridicu1ously incomplete from the standpoint of your own experience. We have no police force on Solaria.”
“None at all?” asked Baley.
Gruer smiled and shrugged. “No crime, you see. Our population is tiny and widely scattered. There is no occasion “for crime; therefore no occasion for police.”
“I see. But for all that, you do have crime now.”
“True, but the first crime of violence in two centuries of history.”
“Unfortunate, then, that you must begin with murder.”
“Unfortunate, yes. More unfortunately still, the victim was a man we could scarcely afford to lose. A most inappropriate victim. And the circumstances of the murder were particularly brutal.”
Baley said, “I suppose the murderer is completely unknown.” (Why else would the crime be worth the importation of an Earthly detective?)
Gruer looked particularly uneasy. He glanced sideways at Daneel, who sat motionless, an absorptive, quiet mechanism. Baley knew that Daneel would, at any time in the future, be able to reproduce any conversation he heard, of whatever length. He was a recording machine that walked and talked like a man.
Did Gruer know that? His look at Daneel had certainly something of the furtive about it.
Gruer said, “No, I cannot say the murderer is completely unknown. In fact, there is only one person that can possibly have done the deed.”
“Are you sure you don’t mean only one person who is likely to have done the deed?” Baley distrusted overstatement and had no liking for the armchair deducer who discovered certainty rather than probability in the workings of logic.
But Gruer shook his bald head. “No. Only one possible person. Anyone else is impossible. Completely impossible.”
“Completely?”
“I assure you.”
“Then you have no problem.”
“On the contrary. We do have a problem. That one person couldn’t have done it either.”
Baley said calmly, “Then no one did it.”
“Yet the deed was done. Rikaine Delmarre is dead.”
That’s something, thought Baley. Jehoshaphat, I’ve got something. I’ve got the victim’s name.
He brought out his notebook and solemnly made note of it, partly
out of a wry desire to indicate that he had scraped up, at last, a nubbin of fact, and partly to avoid making it too obvious that he sat by the side of a recording machine who needed no notes.
He said, “How is the victim’s name spelled?”
Gruer spelled it.
“His profession, sir?”
“Fetologist.”
Baley spelled that as it sounded and let it go. He said, “Now who would be able to give me a personal account of the circumstances surrounding the murder? As firsthand as possible.”
Gruer’s smile was grim and his eyes shifted to Daneel again, and then away. “His wife, Plainclothesman.”
“His wife…”
“Yes. Her name is Gladia.” Gruer pronounced it in three syllables, accenting the second.
“Any children?” Baley’s eyes were fixed on his notebook. When no answer came, he looked up. “Any children?”
But Gruer’s mouth had pursed up as though he had tasted something sour. He looked sick. Finally he said, “I would scarcely know.”
Baley said, “What?”
Gruer added hastily, “In any case, I think you had better postpone actual operations till tomorrow. I know you’ve had a hard trip, Mr. Baley, and that you are tired and probably hungry.”
Baley, about to deny it, realized suddenly that the thought of food had an uncommon attraction for him at the moment. He said, “Will you join us at our meal?” He didn’t think Gruer would, being a Spacer. (Yet he had been brought to the point of saying “Mr. Baley” rather than “Plainclothesman Baley,” which was something.)
As expected, Gruer said, “A business engagement makes that impossible. I will have to leave. I am sorry.”
Baley rose. The polite thing would be to accompany Gruer to the door. In the first place, however, he wasn’t at all anxious to approach the door and the unprotected open. And in the second he wasn’t sure where the door was.
He remained standing in uncertainty.
Cruet smiled and nodded. He said, “I will see you again. Your robots will know the combination if you wish to talk to me.”
And he was gone.
Baley exclaimed sharply.
Cruet and the chair he was sitting on were simply not there. The wall behind Cruet, the floor under his feet changed with explosive suddenness. Daneel said calmly, “He was not there in the flesh at any time. It was a trimensional image. It seemed to me you would know. You have such things on Earth.”
“Not like this,” muttered Baley.
A trimensional image on Earth was encased in a cubic force-field that glittered against the background. The image itself had a tiny flicker. On Earth there was no mistaking image for reality. Here.
No wonder Gruer had worn no gloves. He needed no nose filters, for that matter.
Daneel said, “Would you care to eat now, Partner Elijah?”
Dinner was an unexpected ordeal. Robots appeared. One set the table. One brought in the food.
“How many are there in the house, Daneel?” Baley asked.
“About fifty, Partner Elijah.”
“Will they stay here while we eat?” (One had backed into a corner, his glossy, glowing-eyed face turned toward Baley.)
“It is the usual practice,” said Daneel, “for one to do so in case its service is called upon. If you do not wish that, you have only to order it to leave.”
Baley shrugged. “Let it stay!”
Under normal conditions Baley might have found the food delicious. Now he ate mechanically. He noted abstractedly that Daneel ate also, with a kind of unimpassioned efficiency. Later on, of course, he would empty the fluorocarbon sac within him into which the “eaten” food was now being stored. Meanwhile Daneel maintained his masquerade.
“Is it night outside?” asked Baley.
“It is,” replied Daneel.
Baley stared somberly at the bed. It was too large. The whole bedroom was too large. There were no blankets to burrow under, only sheets. They would make a poor enclosure.
Everything was difficult! He had already gone through the Unnerving experience of showering in a stall that actually adjoined
the bedroom. It was the height of luxury in a way, yet, on the other hand, it seemed an unsanitary arrangement.
He said abruptly, “How is the light put out?” The headboard of the bed gleamed with a soft light. Perhaps that was to facilitate book viewing before sleeping, but Baley was in no mood for that.
“It will be taken care of once you’re in bed, if you compose yourself for sleep.”
“The robots watch, do they?”
“It is their job.”
“Jehoshaphat! What do these Solarians do for themselves?” Baley muttered. “I wonder now why a robot didn’t scrub my back in the shower.”
With no trace of humor Daneel said, “One would have, had you required
it. As for the Solarians, they do what they choose. No robot performs his duty if ordered not to, except, of course, where the performance is necessary to the well-being of the human.”
“Well, good night, Daneel.”
“I will be in another bedroom, Partner Elijah. If, at any time during the night, you need anything—”
“I know. The robots will come.”
“There is a contact patch on the side table. You have only to touch it. I will come too.”
Sleep eluded Baley. He kept picturing the house he was in, balanced precariously at the outer skin of the world, with emptiness waiting just outside like a monster.
On Earth his apartment—his snug, comfortable, crowded apartment—sat nestled beneath many others. There were dozens of Levels and thousands of people between himself and the rim of Earth.
Even on Earth, he tried to tell himself, there were people on the topmost Level. They would be immediately adjacent to the outside. Sure! But that’s what made those apartments low-rent.
Then he thought of Jessie, a thousand light-years away.
He wanted terribly to get out of bed right now, dress, and walk
to her. His thoughts grew mistier. If there were only a tunnel, a
nice, safe tunnel burrowing its way through safe, solid rock and
metal from Solaria to Earth, he would walk and walk and walk… He would walk back to Earth, back to Jessie, back to comfort and security—.
Security.
Baley’s eyes opened. His arms grew rigid and he rose up on his elbow, scarcely aware that he was doing so.
Security! This man, Hannis Cruer, was head of Solarian security. So Daneel had said. What did “security” mean? If it meant the same as it meant on Earth, and surely it must, this man Cruer was responsible for the protection of Solaria against invasion from without and subversion from within.
Why was he interested in a murder case? Was it because there were no police on Solaria and the Department of Security would come the closest to knowing what to do about a murder?
Cruer had seemed at ease with Baley, yet there had been those furtive glances, again and again, in the direction of Daneel.
Did Cruer suspect the motives of Daneel? Baley, himself, had been ordered to keep his eyes open and Daneel might very likely have received similar instructions.
