Isaac Asimov - The Robots of Dawn

“I sympathize with that point of view. We will indeed talk business and I imagine I can rely on you to say nothing to anyone concerning that lapse. I would not want to be expelled from polite society.” He chuckled, then said, “Though I should not laugh. It is nothing to laugh at. Losing time may be more than an inconvenience alone. It could easily be fatal.”

The room that Baley left was a spare one: several chairs, a chest of drawers, something that looked like a piano but had brass valves in the place of keys, some abstract designs on the walls that seemed to shimmer with light. The floor was a smooth checkerboard of several shades of brown, perhaps designed to be reminiscent of wood, and although it shone with highlights as though freshly waxed, it did not feel slippery underfoot.

The dining room, though it had the same floor, was like it in no other way. It was a long rectangular room, overburdened with decoration. It contained six large square tables that were clearly modules that could be assembled in various fashions. A bar was to be found along one short wall, with gleaming bottles of various colors standing before a curved mirror that seemed to lend a nearly infinite extension to the room it reflected. Along the other short wall were four recesses, in each of which a robot waited.

Both long walls were mosaics, in which the color’s slowly changed. One was a planetary scene, though Baley could not tell if it were Aurora, or another planet, or something completely imaginary. At one end there was a wheat field (or something of that sort) filled with elaborate farm machinery, all robot-controlled. As one’s eye traveled along the length of the wall, that gave way to scattered human habitations, be coming, at the other end, what Baley felt to be the Auroran version of a City.

The other long wall was astronomical. A planet, blue-white, lit by a distant sun, reflected light in such a manner that not the closest examination could free one from the thought that it was slowly rotating. The stars that surrounded, it—some faint, some bright—seemed also to be changing their patterns, though when the eye concentrated on some small grouping and remained fixed there, the stars seemed immobile.

Baley found it all confusing and repellent.

Fastolfe said, “Rather a work of art, Mr. Baley. Far too expensive to be worth it, though, but Fanya would have it. Fanya is my current partner.”

“Will she be joining us, Dr. Fastolfe?”

“No, Mr. Baley. As I said, just the two of us. For the duration, I have asked her to remain in her own quarters. I do not want to subject her to this problem we have. You understand, I hope?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Come. Please take your seat.”

One of the tables was set with dishes, cups, and elaborate cutlery, not all of which were familiar to Baley. In the center was a tall, somewhat tapering cylinder that looked as though it might be a gigantic chess pawn made out of a gray rocky material.

Baley, as he sat down, could not resist reaching toward it and touching it with a finger.

Fastolfe smiled, “It’s a spicer. It possesses simple controls that allows one to use it to deliver a fixed amount of any of a dozen different condiments on any portion of a dish. To do it properly, one picks it up and performs rather intricate evolutions that are meaningless in themselves but that are much valued by fashionable Aurorans as symbols of the grace and delicacy with which meals should be served. When I was younger, I could, with my thumb and two fingers, do the triple genuflection and produce salt as the spicer struck my palm. Now if I tried it, I’d run a good risk of braining my guest. I bust you won’t mind if I do not try.”

“I urge you not to try, Dr. Fastolfe.”

A robot placed the salad on the table, another brought a tray of fruit juices, a third brought the bread and cheese, a fourth adjusted the napkins. All four operated in close coordination, weaving in and out without collision or any sign of difficulty. Baley watched them in astonishment.

They ended, without any apparent sign of prearrangements, one at each side of the table. They stepped back in unison, bowed in unison, turned in unison, and returned to the recesses along the wall at the far end of the room. Baley was suddenly aware of Daneel and Giskard in the room as well. He had not seen them come in. They waited in two recesses that had somehow appeared along the wall with the wheat-field. Daneel was the closer.

Fastolfe said, “Now that they’ve gone—” He paused and shook his head slowly in rueful conclusion. “Except that they haven’t. Ordinarily, it is customary for the robots to leave before lunch actually begins. Robots do not eat, while human beings do. It therefore makes sense that those who eat do so and that those who do not leave. And it has ended by becoming one more, ritual. It would be quite unthinkable to eat until the robots left. In this case, though—”

“They have not left,” said Baley.

“No. I felt that security came before etiquette and I felt that, not being an Auroran, you would not mind.”

Baley waited for Fastolfe to make the first move. Fastolfe lifted a fork, so did Baley. Fastolfe made use of it, moving slowly and allowing Baley to see exactly what he was doing.

Baley bit cautiously into a shrimp and found it delightful. He recognized the taste, which was like the shrimp paste produced on Earth but enormously more subtle and rich. He chewed slowly and, for a while, despite his anxiety to get on with the investigation while dining, he found it quite unthinkable to do anything but give his full attention to the lunch.

It was in fact, Fastolfe who made the first move. “Shouldn’t we make a beginning on the problem, Mr. Baley?”

Baley felt himself flush slightly. “Yes. By all means. I ask your pardon. Your Auroran food caught me by surprise, so that it was difficult for me to think of anything else.—The problem, Dr. Fastolfe, is of your making, isn’t it?”

“Why do you say that?”

“Someone has committed roboticide in a manner that requires great expertise—as I have been told.”

“Roboticide? An amusing term.” Fastolfe smiled. “Of course, I understand what you mean by it.—You have been told correctly; the manner requires enormous expertise.”

“And only you have the expertise to carry it out—as I have been told.”

“You have been told correctly there, too.”

“And even you yourself admit—in fact, you insist—that only you could have put Jander into a mental freeze-out.”

“I maintain what is, after all, the truth, Mr. Baley. It would do me no good to lie, even if I could bring myself to do so. It is notorious that I am the outstanding theoretical roboticist in all the Fifty Worlds.”

“Nevertheless, Dr. Fastolfe, might not the second-best theoretical roboticist in all the worlds—or the third-best, or even the fifteenth-best—nevertheless possess the necessary ability to commit the deed? Does it really require all the ability of the very best?”

Fastolfe said calmly, “In my opinion, it really requires all the ability of the very best. Indeed… I again in MY opinion, myself, could only accomplish the task on one of my good days. Remember that the best brains in robotics—including mine—have specifically labored to design, positronic brains that could not be driven into mental freeze-out.”

“Are you certain of all that? Really certain?”

“Completely.”

“And you stated so publicly?”

“Of course. There was a public inquiry, my dear Earthman. I was asked the questions you are now asking and I answered truthfully. It is an Auroran custom to do so.”

Baley said, “I do not, at the moment, question that you were convinced, you were answering truthfully. But might you not have been swayed by a natural pride in yourself that might also be typically Auroran, might it not?”