The Caves of Steel Read online

  “Well, it’s all right with me.”

  “Are you sure? I mean … Maybe you wanted him to be named Elijah?”

  “And be called Junior? I don’t think that’s a good idea. He can name his son Elijah, if he wants to.”

  Then Jessie said, “There’s just one thing,” and stopped.

  After an interval, he looked up. “What one thing?”

  She did not quite meet his eye, but she said, forcefully enough, “Bentley isn’t a Bible name, is it?”

  “No,” said Baley. “I’m quite sure it isn’t.”

  “All right, then. I don’t want any Bible names.”

  And that was the only harking back that took place from that time to the day when Elijah Baley was coming home with Robot Daneel Olivaw, when he had been married for more than eighteen years and when his son Bentley Baley (middle name still unchosen) was past sixteen.

  Baley paused before the large double door on which there glowed in large letters PERSONAL—MEN. In smaller letters were written SUBSECTIONS 1A-1E. In still smaller letters, just above the key slit, it stated: “In case of loss of key, communicate at once with 27-101-51.”

  A man inched past them, inserted an aluminum sliver into the key slit, and walked in. He closed the door behind him, making no attempt to hold it open for Baley. Had he done so, Baley would have been seriously offended. By strong custom men disregarded one another’s presence entirely either within or just outside the Personals. Baley remembered one of the more interesting marital confidences to have been Jessie’s telling him that the situation was quite different at Women’s Personals.

  She was always saying, “I met Josephine Greely at Personal and she said …”

  It was one of the penalties of civic advancement that when the Baleys were granted permission for the activation of the small washbowl in their bedroom, Jessie’s social life suffered.

  Baley said, without completely masking his embarrassment, “Please wait out here, Daneel.”

  “Do you intend washing?” asked R. Daneel.

  Baley squirmed and thought: Damned robot! If they were briefing him on everything under steel, why didn’t they teach him manners? I’ll be responsible if he ever says anything like this to anyone else.

  He said, “I’ll shower. It gets crowded evenings. I’ll lose time then. If I get it done now we’ll have the whole evening before us.”

  R. Daneel’s face maintained its repose. “Is it part of the social custom that I wait outside?”

  Baley’s embarrassment deepened. “Why need you go in for—for no purpose?”

  “Oh, I understand you. Yes, of course. Nevertheless, Elijah, my hands grow dirty, too, and I will wash them.”

  He indicated his palms, holding them out before him. They were pink and plump, with proper creases. They bore every mark of excellent and meticulous workmanship and were as clean as need be.

  Baley said, “We have a washbasin in the apartment, you know.” He said it casually. Snobbery would be lost on a robot.

  “Thank you for your kindness. On the whole, however, I think it would be preferable to make use of this place. If I am to live with you men of Earth, it is best that I adopt as many of your customs and attitudes as I can.”

  “Come on in, then.”

  The bright cheerfulness of the interior was a sharp contrast to the busy utilitarianism of most of the rest of the City, but this time the effect was lost on Baley’s consciousness.

  He whispered to Daneel, “I may take up to half an hour or so. Wait for me.” He started away, then returned to add, “And listen, don’t walk to anybody and don’t look at anybody. Not a word, not a glance! It’s a custom.”

  He looked hurriedly about to make certain that his own small conversation had not been noted, was not being met by shocked glances. Nobody, fortunately, was in the antecorridor, and after all it was only the antecorridor.

  He hurried down it, feeling vaguely dirty, past the common chambers to the private stalls. It had been five years now since he had been awarded one—large enough to contain a shower, a small laundry, and other necessities. It even had a small projector that could be keyed in for the new films.

  “A home away from home,” he had joked when it was first made available to him. But now, he often wondered how he would bear the adjustment back to the more Spartan existence of the common chambers if his stall privileges were ever canceled.

  He pressed the button that activated the laundry and the smooth face of the meter lighted.

  R. Daneel was waiting patiently when Baley returned with a scrubbed body, clean underwear, a freshened shirt, and, generally, a feeling of greater comfort.

  “No trouble?” Baley asked, when they were well outside the door and able to talk.

  “None at all, Elijah,” said R. Daneel.

  Jessie was at the door, smiling nervously. Baley kissed her.

  “Jessie,” he mumbled, “this is my new partner, Daneel Olivaw.”

  Jessie held out a hand, which R. Daneel took and released. She turned to her husband, then looked timidly at R. Daneel.

  She said, “Won’t you sit down, Mr. Olivaw? I must talk to my husband on family matters. It’ll take just a minute. I hope you won’t mind.”

  Her hand was on Baley’s sleeve. He followed her into the next room.

  She said, in a hurried whisper, “You aren’t hurt, are you? I’ve been so worried ever since the broadcast.”

  “What broadcast?”

  “It came through nearly an hour ago. About the riot at the shoe counter. They said two plain-clothes men stopped it. I knew you were coming home with a partner and this was right in our subsection and right when you were coming home and I thought they were making it better than it was and you were—”

  “Please, Jessie. You see I’m perfectly all right.”

  Jessie caught hold of herself with an effort. She said, shakily, “Your partner isn’t from your division, is he?”

  “No,” replied Baley miserably. “He’s—a complete stranger.”

  “How do I treat him?”

  “Like anybody else. He’s just my partner, that’s all.”

  He said it so unconvincingly, that Jessie’s quick eyes narrowed. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. Come, let’s go back into the living room. It’ll begin to look queer.”

  Lije Baley felt a little uncertain about the apartment now. Until this very moment, he had felt no qualms. In fact, he had always been proud of it. It had three large rooms; the living room, for instance, was an ample fifteen by eighteen. There was a closet in each room. One of the main ventilation ducts passed directly by. It meant a little rumbling noise on rare occasions, but, on the other hand, assured first-rate temperature control and well-conditioned air. Nor was it too far from either Personal, which was a prime convenience.

  But with the creature from worlds beyond space sitting in the midst of it, Baley was suddenly uncertain. The apartment seemed mean and cramped.

  Jessie said, with a gaiety that was slightly synthetic, “Have you and Mr. Olivaw eaten, Lije?”

  “As a matter of fact,” said Baley, quickly, “Daneel will not be eating with us. I’ll eat, though.”

  Jessie accepted the situation without trouble. With food supplies so narrowly controlled and rationing tighter than ever, it was good form to refuse another’s hospitality.

  She said, “I hope you won’t mind our eating, Mr. Olivaw. Lije, Bentley, and I generally eat at the Community kitchen. It’s much more convenient and there’s more variety, you see, and just between you and me, bigger helpings, too. But then, Lije and I do have permission to eat in our apartment three times a week if we want to—Lije is quite successful at the Bureau and we have very nice status—and I thought that just for this occasion, if you wanted to join us, we would have a little private feast of our own, though I do think that people who overdo their privacy privileges are just a bit antisocial, you know.”

  R. Daneel listened politely.

  Baley said, wit
h an undercover “shushing” wiggle of his fingers, “Jessie, I’m hungry.”

  R. Daneel said, “Would I be breaking a custom, Mrs. Baley, if I addressed you by your given name?”

  “Why, no, of course not.” Jessie folded a table out of the wall and plugged the plate warmer into the central depression on the table top. “You just go right ahead and call me Jessie all you feel like—uh—Daneel.” She giggled.

  Baley felt savage. The situation was getting rapidly more uncomfortable. Jessie thought R. Daneel a man. The thing would be someone to boast of and talk about in Women’s Personal. He was good-looking in a wooden way, too, and Jessie was pleased with his deference. Anyone could see that.

  Baley wondered about R. Daneel’s impression of Jessie. She hadn’t changed much in eighteen years, or at least not to Lije Baley. She was heavier, of course, and her figure had lost much of its youthful vigor. There were lines at the angles of the mouth and a trace of heaviness about her cheeks. Her hair was more conservatively styled and a dimmer brown than it had once been.

  But that’s all beside the point, thought Baley, somberly. On the Outer Worlds the women were tall and as slim and regal as the men. Or, at least, the book-films had them so and that must be the kind of woman R. Daneel was used to.

  But R. Daneel seemed quite unperturbed by Jessie’s conversation, her appearance, or her appropriation of his name. He said, “Are you sure that is proper? The name, Jessie, seems to be a diminutive. Perhaps its use is restricted to members of your immediate circle and I would be more proper if I used your full given name.”

  Jessie, who was breaking open the insulating wrapper surrounding the dinner ration, bent her head over the task in sudden concentration.

  “Just Jessie,” she said, tightly. “Everyone calls me that. There’s nothing else.”

  “Very well, Jessie.”

  The door opened and a youngster entered cautiously. His eyes found R. Daneel almost at once.

  “Dad?” said the boy, uncertainly.

  “My son, Bentley,” said Baley, in a low voice. “This is Mr. Olivaw, Ben.”

  “He’s your partner, huh, Dad? How d’ya do, Mr. Olivaw.” Ben’s eyes grew large and luminous. “Say, Dad, what happened down in the shoe place? The newscast said—”

  “Don’t ask any questions now, Ben,” interposed Baley sharply.

  Bentley’s face fell and he looked toward his mother, who motioned him to a seat.

  “Did you do what I told you, Bentley?” she asked, when he sat down. Her hands moved caressingly over his hair. It was as dark as his father’s and he was going to have his father’s height, but all the rest of him was hers. He had Jessie’s oval face, her hazel eyes, her lighthearted way of looking at life.

  “Sure, Mom,” said Bentley, hitching himself forward a bit to look into the double dish from which savory vapors were already rising. “What we got to eat? Not zymoveal again, Mom? Huh, Mom?”

  “There’s nothing wrong with zymoveal,” said Jessie, her lips pressing together. “Now, you just eat what’s put before you and let’s not have any comments.”

  It was quite obvious they were having zymoveal.

  Baley took his own seat. He himself would have preferred something other than zymoveal, with its sharp flavor and definite aftertaste, but Jessie had explained her problem before this.

  “Well, I just can’t, Lije,” she had said. “I live right here on these levels all day and I can’t make enemies or life wouldn’t be bearable. They know I used to be assistant dietitian and if I just walked off with steak or chicken every other week when there’s hardly anyone else on the floor that has private eating privileges even on Sunday, they’d say it was pull or friends in the prep room. It would be talk, talk, talk, and I wouldn’t be able to put my nose out the door or visit Personal in peace. As it is, zymoveal and protoveg are very good. They’re well-balanced nourishment with no waste and, as a matter of fact, they’re full of vitamins and minerals and everything anyone needs and we can have all the chicken we want when we eat in Community on the chicken Tuesdays.”

  Baley gave in easily. It was as Jessie said; the first problem of living is to minimize friction with the crowds that surround you on all sides. Bentley was a little harder to convince.

  On this occasion, he said, “Gee, Mom, why can’t I use Dad’s ticket and eat in Community myself? I’d just as soon.”

  Jessie shook her head in annoyance and said, “I’m surprised at you, Bentley. What would people say if they saw you eating by yourself as though your own family weren’t good enough for you or had thrown you out of the apartment?”

  “Well, gosh, it’s none of people’s business.”

  Baley said, with a nervous edge in his voice, “Do as your mother tells you, Bentley.”

  Bentley shrugged, unhappily.

  R. Daneel said, suddenly, from the other side of the room, “Have I the family’s permission to view these book-films during your meal?”

  “Oh sure,” said Bentley, slipping away from the table, a look of instant interest upon his face. “They’re mine. I got them from the library on special school permit. I’ll get you my viewer. It’s a pretty good one. Dad gave it to me for my last birthday.”

  He brought it to R. Daneel and said, “Are you interested in robots, Mr. Olivaw?”

  Baley dropped his spoon and bent to pick it up.

  R. Daneel said, “Yes, Bentley. I am quite interested.”

  “Then you’ll like these. They’re all about robots. I’ve got to write an essay on them for school, so I’m doing research. It’s quite a complicated subject,” he said importantly. “I’m against them myself.”

  “Sit down, Bentley,” said Baley, desperately, “and don’t bother Mr. Olivaw.”

  “He’s not bothering me, Elijah. I’d like to talk to you about the problem, Bentley, another time. Your father and I will be very busy tonight.”

  “Thanks, Mr. Olivaw.” Bentley took his seat, and with a look of distaste in his mother’s direction, broke off a portion of the crumbly pink zymoveal with his fork.

  Baley thought: Busy tonight?

  Then, with a resounding shock, he remembered his job. He thought of a Spacer lying dead in Spacetown and realized that for hours he had been so involved with his own dilemma that he had forgotten the cold fact of murder.

  5.

  ANALYSIS OF A MURDER

  Jessie said good-by to them. She was wearing a formal hat and a little jacket of keratofiber as she said, “I hope you’ll excuse me, Mr. Olivaw. I know you have a great deal to discuss with Lije.”

  She pushed her son ahead of her as she opened the door.

  “When will you be back, Jessie?” asked Baley.

  She paused. “When do you want me to be back?”

  “Well … No use staying out all night. Why don’t you come back your usual time? Midnight or so.” He looked doubtfully at R. Daneel.

  R. Daneel nodded. “I regret having to drive you from your home.”

  “Don’t worry about that, Mr. Olivaw. You’re not driving me out at all. This is my usual evening out with the girls anyway. Come on, Ben.”

  The youngster was rebellious. “Aw, why the dickens do I have to go, anyway. I’m not going to bother them. Nuts!”

  “Now, do as I say.”

  “Well, why can’t I go the etherics along with you?”

  “Because I’m going with some friends and you’ve got other things—” The door closed behind them.

  And now the moment had come. Baley had put it off in his mind. He had thought: First let’s meet the robot and see what he’s like. Then it was: Let’s get him home. And then: Let’s eat.

  But now it was all over and there was no room for further delay. It was down at last to the question of murder, of interstellar complications, of possible raises in ratings, of possible disgrace. And he had no way of even beginning except to turn to the robot for help.

  His fingernails moved aimlessly on the table, which had not been returned to its wall re
cess.

  R. Daneel said, “How secure are we against being overheard?”

  Baley looked up, surprised. “No one would listen to what’s proceeding in another man’s apartment.”

  “It is not your custom to eavesdrop?”

  “It just isn’t done, Daneel. You might as well suppose they’d—I don’t know—that they’d look in your plate while you’re eating.”

  “Or that they would commit murder?”

  “What?”

  “It is against your customs to kill, is it not, Elijah?”

  Baley felt anger rising. “See here, if we’re going to be partners, don’t try to imitate Spacer arrogance. There’s no room for it in you, R. Daneel.” He could not resist emphasizing the “R.”

  “I am sorry if I have hurt your feelings, Elijah. My intention was only to indicate that, since human beings are occasionally capable of murder in defiance of custom, they may be able to violate custom for the smaller impropriety of eavesdropping.”

  “The apartment is adequately insulated,” said Baley, still frowning. “You haven’t heard anything from the apartments on any side of us, have you? Well, they won’t hear us, either. Besides, why should anyone think anything of importance is going on here?”

  “Let us not underestimate the enemy.”

  Baley shrugged. “Let’s get started. My information is sketchy, so I can spread out my hand without much trouble. I know that a man named Roj Nemennuh Sarton, a citizen of the planet Aurora, and a resident of Spacetown, has been murdered by person or persons unknown. I understand that it is the opinion of the Spacers that this is not an isolated event. Am I right?”

  “You are quite right, Elijah.”

  “They tie it up with recent attempts to sabotage the Spacer-sponsored project of converting us to an integrated human/robot society on the model of the Outer Worlds, and assume the murder was the product of a well-organized terrorist group.”

  “Yes.”

  “All right. Then to begin with, is this Spacer assumption necessarily true? Why can’t the murder have been the work of an isolated fanatic? There is strong anti-robot sentiment on Earth, but there are no organized parties advocating violence of this sort.”