Asimov's Future History Volume 5 Read online

  “I cannot deliver a message so ridiculous and offensive, Earthman.”

  “In that case, would you tell him I will go straight to the Legislature and I will announce that I cannot continue with my investigation because one Maloon Cicis takes it upon himself to assure me that Master Roboticist Kelden Amadiro will not assist me in the investigation of the destruction of Robot Jander Panell and will not defend himself against accusations of being responsible for that destruction?”

  Cicis reddened. “You wouldn’t dare say anything of the sort.”

  “Wouldn’t I? What would I have to lose? On the other hand, how will it sound to the general public? After all, Aurorans are perfectly aware that Dr. Amadiro is second only to Dr. Fastolfe himself in expertise in robotics and that, if Fastolfe himself is not responsible for the roboticide – Is it necessary to continue?”

  “You will find, Earthman, that the laws of Aurora against slander are strict.”

  “Undoubtedly, but if Dr. Amadiro is effectively slandered, his punishment is likely to be greater than mine. But why don’t you simply deliver my message now? Then, if he explains just a few minor points, we can avoid all question of slander or accusation or anything of the sort.”

  Cicis scowled and said stiffly, “I will tell Dr. Amadiro this and I will strongly advise him to refuse to see you.” He disappeared.

  Again, Baley waited patiently, while Gremionis gestured fiercely and said in a loud whisper, “You can’t do that, Baley. You can’t do it.” Baley waved him quiet.

  After some five minutes (it seemed much longer to Baley), Cicis reappeared, looking enormously angry. He said, “Dr. Amadiro will take my place here in a few minutes and will talk to you. Wait!”

  And Baley said at once, “There is no point in waiting. I will come directly to Dr. Amadiro’s office and I will see him there.”

  He stepped off the gray circle and made a cutting gesture to Daneel, who promptly broke the connection.

  Gremionis said, with a kind of strangled gasp, “You can’t talk to Dr. Amadiro’s people that way, Earthman.”

  “I just have,” said Baley.

  “He’ll have you thrown off the planet within twelve hours.”

  “If I don’t make progress in straightening out this mess, I may in any case be thrown off the planet within twelve hours.”

  Daneel said, “Partner Elijah, I fear that Mr. Gremionis is justified in his alarm. The Auroran World Legislature cannot do more than evict you, since you are not an Auroran citizen. Nevertheless, they can insist that the Earth authorities punish you severely and Earth will do so. They could not resist an Auroran demand, in this case. I would not wish you to be punished in this way, Partner Elijah.”

  Baley said heavily, “Nor do I wish the punishment, Daneel, but I must take the chance. – Mr. Gremionis, I am sorry that I had to tell him I was calling from your establishment. I had to do something to persuade him to see me and I felt he might attach importance to that fact. What I said was, after all, the truth.”

  Gremionis shook his head. “If I had known what you were going to do, Mr. Baley, I would not have permitted you to call from my establishment. I feel sure that I’m going to lose my position here and” – with bitterness –” what are you going to do for me that will make up for that?”

  “I will do my best, Mr. Gremionis, to see that you do not lose your position. I feel confident that you will be in no trouble. If I fail, however, you are free to describe me as a madman who made wild accusations against you and frightened you with threats of slander, so that you had to let me use your viewer. I’m sure Dr. Amadiro will believe you. After all, you have already sent him a memo complaining that I have been slandering you, have you not?”

  Baley lifted his hand in farewell. “Good – bye, Mr. Gremionis. Thank you again. Don’t worry and – remember what I said about Gladia.”

  With Daneel and Giskard sandwiching him fore and aft, Baley stepped out of Gremionis’ establishment, scarcely conscious of the fact that he was moving out into the open once more.

  53.

  ONCE OUT IN the open, it was a different matter. Baley stopped and looked up.

  “Odd,” he said. “I didn’t think that that much time had passed, even allowing for the fact that the Auroran day is a little shorter than standard.”

  “What is it, Partner Elijah?” asked Daneel solicitously.

  “The sun has set. I wouldn’t have thought it.”

  “The sun has not yet set, sir,” put in Giskard. “It is about two hours before sunset.”

  Daneel said, “It is the gathering storm, Partner Elijah. The clouds are thickening, but the storm will not actually break for some time yet.”

  Baley shivered. Dark, in itself, did not disturb him. In fact, when Outside, night, with its suggestion of enclosing walls, was far more soothing than the day, which broadened the horizons and opened space in every direction.

  The trouble was that this was neither day nor night.

  Again, he tried to remember what it had been like that time it had rained when he had been Outside.

  It suddenly occurred to him that he had never been out when it snowed and that he wasn’t even sure what the rain of crystalline solid water was like. Descriptions in words were surely insufficient. The younger ones sometimes went out to go sliding or sledding – or whatever – and returned shrieking with excitement – but always glad to get within the City walls. Ben had once tried to make a pair of skis, according to directions in some ancient book or other, and had gotten himself half – buried in a drift of the white stuff. And even Ben’s descriptions of what it was like to see and feel snow were distressingly vague and unsatisfying.

  Then, too, no one went out when it was actually snowing, as opposed to having the material merely lying about on the ground. Baley told himself, at this point, that the one thing everyone agreed on was that it only snowed when it was very cold. It was not very cold now; it was merely cool. Those clouds did not mean it was going to snow. – Somehow, he felt only minimally consoled.

  This was not like the cloudy days on Earth, which he had seen. On Earth, the clouds were lighter; he was sure of that. They were grayish – white, even when they covered the sky solidly. Here, the light – what there was of it – was rather bilious, a ghastly yellowish – slate. Was that because Aurora’s sun was more orange than Earth’s was?

  He said, “Is the color of the sky – unusual?”

  Daneel looked up at the sky. “No, Partner Elijah. It is a storm.”

  “Do you often have storms like this?”

  “At this time of year, yes. Occasional thunderstorms. This is no surprise. It was predicted in the weather forecast yesterday and again this morning. It will be over well before daybreak and the fields can use the water. We’ve been a bit subnormal in rainfall lately.”

  “And it gets this cold, too? Is that normal, too?”

  “Oh yes. – But let us get into the airfoil, Partner Elijah. It can be heated.”

  Baley nodded and walked toward the airfoil, which lay on the grassy plot where it had been brought to rest before lunch. He paused.

  “Wait. I did not ask Gremionis for directions to Amadiro’s establishment – or office.”

  “No need, Partner Elijah,” said Daneel immediately, his hand in the crook of Baley’s elbow, propelling him gently but unmistakably onward. “Friend Giskard has the map of the Institute clearly in his memory banks and he will take us to the Administration Building. It is very likely that Dr. Amadiro has his office there.”

  Giskard said, “My information is to the effect that Dr. Amadiro’s office is in the Administration Building. If, by some chance, he is not at his office but is in his establishment, that is nearby.”

  Again, Baley found himself crammed into the front seat between the two robots. He welcomed Daneel particularly, with his humanlike body warmth. Although Giskard’s textilelike outermost layer was insulating and not as cold to the touch as bare metal would have been, he was the less attractiv
e of the two in Baley’s current chilly state.

  Baley caught himself on the verge of putting an arm around Daneel’s shoulder, with the intention of finding comfort by drawing him even closer. He brought his arm down to his lap in confusion. He said, “I don’t like the way it looks out there.”

  Daneel, perhaps in an effort to take Baley’s ‘mind off the appearance Outside, said, “Partner Elijah, how is it you knew that Dr. Vasilia had encouraged Mr. Gremionis’ interest in Miss Gladia? I did not see that you had received any evidence to that effect.”

  “I didn’t,” said Baley. “I’ve been desperate enough to play long shots – that is, to gamble on events of low probability. Gladia told me that Gremionis was the one person sufficiently interested in her to offer himself repeatedly. I thought he might have killed Jander out of jealousy. I didn’t think he could possibly know enough about robotics to do it, but then I heard that Fastolfe’s daughter Vasilia was a roboticist and resembled Gladia physically. I wondered if Gremionis, having been fascinated by Gladia, might not have been fascinated by Vasilia earlier – and if the killing might possibly have been the result of a conspiracy between the two. It was by hinting obscurely at the existence of such a conspiracy that I was able to persuade Vasilia to see me.”

  Daneel said, “But there was no conspiracy, Partner Elijah – at least as far as the destruction of Jander was concerned. Vasilia and Gremionis could not have engineered that destruction, even if they had worked together.”

  “Granted – and yet Vasilia had been made nervous by the suggestion of having had a connection with Gremionis. Why? When Gremionis told us of having been attracted to Vasilia first, and then to Gladia, I wondered if the connection between the two had been more indirect, if Vasilia might have encouraged the transfer for some reason more distantly connected – but connected nevertheless – to Jander’s death. After all, there had to be some connection between the two; Vasilia’s reaction to the original suggestion showed that.

  “My suspicion was correct. Vasilia had engineered Gremionis’ switch from one woman to the other. Gremionis was astonished at my knowing this and that, too, was useful, for if the matter were something completely innocent, there would have been no reason to make a secret of it – and a secret it obviously was. You remember that Vasilia mentioned nothing of urging Gremionis to turn to Gladia. When I told her that Gremionis had offered himself to Gladia, she acted as though that was the first time she had heard of it.”

  “But, Partner Elijah, of what importance is this?”

  “We may find out. It seemed to me that there was no importance in it to either Gremionis or Vasilia. Therefore, if it had any importance at all, it might be that a third person was involved. If it had anything to do with the Jander affair, then it ought to be a roboticist still more skillful than Vasilia – and that might be Amadiro. So I hinted to him of the existence of a conspiracy by deliberately pointing out I had been questioning Gremionis and was calling from his establishment – and that worked, too.”

  “Yet I still don’t know what it all means, Partner Elijah.”

  “Nor I – except for some speculations. But perhaps we’ll find out at Amadiro’s. Our situation is so bad, you see, we have nothing to lose by guessing and gambling.”

  During this exchange, the airfoil has risen on its air – jets, and had moved to a moderate height. It cleared a line of bushes and was now once again speeding along over grassy areas and graveled roads. Baley noticed that, where the grass was taller, it was swept to one side by the wind as though an invisible – and much larger – airfoil were passing over it.

  Baley said, “Giskard, you have been recording the conversations which have taken place in your presence, haven’t you?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And can reproduce them at need?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And can easily locate – and reproduce – some particular statement made by some given person?”

  “Yes, sir. You would not have to listen to the entire recording.”

  “And could you, at need, serve as a witness in a courtroom?”

  “I, sir? No, sir.” Giskard’s eyes were fixed firmly on the road. “Since a robot can be directed to lie by a skillful enough command and not all the exhortations or threats of a judge might help, the law wisely considers a robot an incompetent witness.”

  “But, in that case, of what use are your recordings?”

  “That, sir, is a different thing. A recording, once made, cannot be altered on simple command, though it might be erased. Such a recording can, therefore, be admitted as evidence. There are no firm precedents, however, and whether it is – or is not – admitted depends on the individual case and on the individual judge.”

  Baley could not tell whether that statement was depressing in itself or whether he was influenced by the unpleasant livid light that bathed the landscape. He said, “Can you see well enough to drive, Giskard?”

  “Certainly, sir, but I do not need to. The airfoil is equipped with a computerized radar that would enable it to avoid obstacles on its own, even if I were, unaccountably, to fail in my task. It was this that was in operation yesterday morning when we traveled comfortably though all the windows were opacified.”

  “Partner Elijah,” said Daneel, again veering the conversation away from Baley’s uncomfortable awareness of the coming storm, “do you have hope that Dr. Amadiro might indeed be helpful?”

  Giskard brought the airfoil to rest on a wide lawn before a broad but not very high building, with an intricately – carved façade that was clearly new and yet gave the impression of imitating something quite old.

  Baley knew it was the Administration Building without being told. He said, “No, Daneel, I suspect that Amadiro may be far too intelligent to give us the least handle to grasp him by.”

  “And if that is so, what do you plan to do next?”

  “I don’t know,” said Baley, with a grim feeling of déjà vu, “but I’ll try to think of something.”

  54.

  WHEN BALEY ENTERED the Administration Building, his first feeling was one of relief at removing himself from the unnatural lighting Outside. The second was one of wry amusement.

  Here on Aurora, the establishments – the private dwelling places – were all strictly Auroran. He couldn’t, for a moment, while sitting in Gladia’s living room, or breakfasting in Fastolfe’s dining room, or talking in Vasilia’s work room, or making use of Gremionis’ trimensional viewing device, have thought himself on Earth. All four were distinct from each other, but all fell within a certain genus, widely different from that of the underground apartments on Earth.

  The Administration Building, however, breathed officialdom and that, apparently, transcended ordinary human variety. It did not belong to the same genus as the dwelling places on Aurora, any more than an official building in Baley’s home City resembled an apartment in the dwelling Sectors – but the two official buildings on the two worlds of such widely different natures strangely resembled each other.

  This was the first place on Aurora where, for an instant, Baley might have imagined himself on Earth. Here were the same long cold bare corridors, the same lowest common denominator of design and decoration, with every light source designed so as to irritate as few people as possible and to please just as few.

  There were some touches here that would have been absent on Earth – the occasional suspended pots of plants, for instance, flourishing in the light and outfitted with devices (Baley guessed) for controlled and automatic watering. That natural touch was absent on Earth and its presence did not delight him. Might such pots not sometimes fall? Might they not attract insects? Might not the water drip?

  There were some things missing here, too. On Earth, when one was within a City, there was always the vast, warm hum of people and machinery – even in the most coldly official of administrative structures. It was the “Busy Buzz of Brotherhood,” to use the phrase popular among Earth’s politicians and journalists.
r />   Here, on the other hand, it was quiet. Baley had not particularly noticed the quiet in the establishments he had visited that day and the day before, since everything had seemed so unnatural there that one more oddity escaped his notice. Indeed, he had been more aware of the soft susurration of insect life outside or of the wind through the vegetation than of the absence of the steady “Hum of Humanity” (another popular phrase).

  Here, however, where there seemed a touch of Earth, the absence of the “Hum” was as disconcerting as was the distinct orange touch to the artificial light – which was far more noticeable against the blank off – white of the walls here than among the busy decoration that marked the Auroran establishments.

  Baley’s reverie did not last long. They were standing just inside the main entrance and Daneel had held out his arm to stop the other two. Some thirty seconds passed before Baley, speaking in an automatic whisper in view of the silence everywhere, said, “Why are we waiting?”

  “Because it is advisable to do so, Partner Elijah,” said Daneel. “There is a tingle field ahead.”

  “A what?”

  “A tingle field, Partner Elijah. Actually, the name is a euphemism. It stimulates the nerve endings and produces a rather sharp pain. Robots can pass, but human beings cannot. Any breach, of course, whether by human or robot, will set off an alarm.”

  Baley said, “How can you tell there’s a tingle field?”

  “It can be seen, Partner Elijah, if you know what to look for. The air seems to twinkle a bit and the wall beyond that region has a faint greenish tinge as compared to the wall in front of it.”

  “I’m not at all sure I see it,” said Baley indignantly. “What’s to prevent me – or any innocent outsider – from walking into it and experiencing agony?”

  Daneel said, “Those who are members of the Institute carry a neutralizing device; those who are visitors are almost always attended by one or more robots who will surely detect the tingle field.”