Isaac Asimov - The Robots of Dawn

Baley said, “What you’re telling me is that active resentment against Earth is being built up.”

Fastolfe said, “Exactly, Mr. Baley. The situation grows worse for me—and for Earth—every day and we have very little time.”

“But isn’t there an easy way of knocking this thing on its head?” (Baley, in despair, decided it was time to fall back on Daneel’s point.) “If you were indeed anxious to test a method for the destruction of a humaniform robot, why seek out one in another establishment, one with which it might be inconvenient to experiment? You had Daneel, himself, in your own establishment. He was at hand and convenient. Would not the experiment have been conducted upon him if there were any truth at all in the rumor?”

“No, no,” said Fastolfe. “I couldn’t get anyone to believe that. Daneel was my first success, my triumph. I wouldn’t destroy him under any circumstances. Naturally, I would turn to Jander. Everyone would see that and I would be a fool to try to persuade them that it would have made more sense for me to sacrifice Daneel.”

They were walking again, nearly at their destination. Baley was in deep silence, his face tight-lipped.

Fastolfe said, “How do you feet, Mr. Baley?”

Baley said in a low voice, “If you mean as far as being Outside is concerned, I am not even aware of it. If you mean as far as our dilemma is concerned, I think I am as close to giving up as I can, possibly be without putting myself into an ultrasonic brain-dissolving chamber.” Then passionately, “Why did you send for me, Dr. Fastolfe? Why have you given me this job? What have I ever done to you to be treated so?”

“Actually,” said Fastolfe, “it was not my idea to begin with and I can only plead my desperation.”

“Well, whose idea was it?”

“It was the owner of this establishment we have now reached who suggested it originally—and I had no better idea.”

“The owner of this establishment? Why would he—”

“She.”

“Well, then, why would she suggest anything of the sort?”

“Oh! I haven’t explained that she knows you, have I, Mr. Baley? There she is, waiting for us now.”

Baley looked up, bewildered.

“Jehoshaphat,” he whispered.

The young woman who faced them said with a wan smile, “I knew that when I met you again, Elijah, that would be the first word I would hear.”

Baley stared at her. She had changed. Her hair was shorter and her face was even more troubled now than it had been two years ago and seemed more than two years older, somehow. She was still unmistakably Gladia, however. There was still the triangular face, with its pronounced cheekbones and small chin. She was still short, still slight of figure, still vaguely childlike.

He had dreamed of her frequently—though not in an overtly erotic fashion—after returning to Earth. His dreams were always stories of not being able to quite reach her. She was always there, a little too far off to speak too easily. She never quite heard when he called her. She never grew nearer when he approached her.

It was not hard to understand why the dreams had been as they were. She was a Solarian-born person and, as such, was rarely supposed to be in the physical presence of other human beings.

Elijah had been forbidden to her because he was human and beyond that (of course) because he was from Earth. Though the exigencies of the murder case he was investigating forced them to meet, throughout their relationship she was completely covered, when physically together, to prevent actual contact.

And yet, at their last meeting, she had, in defiance of good sense, fleetingly touched his cheek with her bare hand. She must have known she could be infected as a result. He cherished the touch the more, for every aspect of her upbringing combined to make it unthinkable.

The dreams had faded in time.

Baley said, rather stupidly, “It was you who owned the…”

He paused and Gladia finished the sentence for him. “The robot. And two years ago, it was I who possessed the husband. Whatever I touch is destroyed.”

Without really knowing what he was doing, Baley reached up to place his hand on his cheek. Gladia did not seem to notice.

She said, “You came to rescue me that first time. Forgive me, but I had to call on you—again.—Come in, Elijah. Come in, Dr. Fastolfe.”

Fastolfe stepped back to allow Baley to walk in first. He followed. Behind Fastolfe came Daneel and Giskard—and they, with the characteristic self-effacement of robots, stepped to unoccupied wall niches on opposite sides and remained silently standing, backs to the wall.

For one moment, it seemed that Gladia would treat them with the indifference with which human beings commonly treated robots. After a glance at Daneel, however, she turned away and said to Fastolfe in a voice that choked a little, “That one. Please. Ask him to leave.”

Fastolfe said, with a small motion of surprise, “Daneel?”

“He’s too—too Janderlike!”

Fastolfe turned to look at Daneel and a look of clear pain crossed his face momentarily. “Of course, my dear. You must forgive me. I did not think.—Daneel, move into another room and remain there while we are here.”

Without a word, Daneel left.

Gladia glanced a moment at Giskard, as though to judge whether he, also, was too Janderlike, and turned away with a small shrug.

She said, “Would either of you like refreshment of any kind? I have an excellent coconut drink, fresh and cold.”

“No, Gladia,” said Fastolfe. “I have merely brought Mr. Baley here as I promised I would. I will not stay long.”

“If I may have a glass of water,” said Baley, “I won’t trouble you for anything more.”

Gladia raised one hand. Undoubtedly, she was under observation, for, in a moment, a robot moved in noiselessly, with a glass of water on a tray and a small dish of what looked like crackers with a pinkish blob on each.

Baley could not forbear taking one, even though he was not certain what it might be. It had to be something Earth-descended, for he could not believe that on Aurora, he—or anyone—would be eating any portion of the planet’s sparse indigenous biota or anything synthetic either. Nevertheless, the descendants of Earthly food species might change with time, either through deliberate cultivation or the action of a strange environment—and Fastolfe, at lunchtime, had said that much of the Auroran diet was an acquired taste.

He was pleasantly surprised. The taste was sharp and spicy, but he found it delightful and took a second almost at once. He said, “Thank you” to the robot (who would not have objected to standing there indefinitely) and took the entire dish, together with the glass of water.

The robot left.

It was late afternoon now and the sunlight came ruddily through the western windows. Baley had the impression that this house was smaller than Fastolfe’s, but it would have been more cheerful had not the sad figure of Gladia standing in its midst provoked a dispiriting effect.

That might, of course, be Baley’s imagination. Cheer, in any case, seemed to him impossible in any structure purporting to house and protect human beings that yet remained exposed to the Outside beyond each wall. Not one wall, he thought, had the warmth of human life on the other side. In no direction could one look for companionship and community. Through every outer wall, every side, top and bottom, there was inanimate world. Cold! Cold!

And coldness flooded back upon Baley himself as he thought again of the dilemma in—which he found himself. (For a moment, the shock of meeting Gladia again had driven it from his mind.)