Isaac Asimov - The Robots of Dawn

Baley said cautiously, “If I hesitate, it is because I am considering the propriety of using your—uh—facilities, considering that I am not an Auroran.”

“Nonsense, my dear Baley. What is your alternative? Needs must. Please make use of it. Let that be a symbol that I myself am not subject to the general Auroran prejudices and wish you and Earth well.”

“Could you go a step further?”

“In what way, Mr. Baley?”

“Could you show me that you are also superior to this planet’s prejudice against robots—”

“There is no prejudice against robots,” said Amadiro, quickly.

Baley nodded his head solemnly in apparent acceptance of the remark and completed his sentence—“by allowing them to enter the Personal with me. I have grown to feel uncomfortable without them.”

For one moment, Amadiro seemed shaken. He recovered almost at once and said, with what was almost a scowl, “By all means, Mr. Baley.”

“Yet whoever is now inside might object strenuously. I would not want to create scandal.”

“No one is in there. It is a one-person Personal and, if, someone were making use of it, the in-use signal would indicate that.”

“Thank you, Dr. Amadiro,” said Baley. He opened the door and said, “Giskard, please enter.”

Giskard clearly hesitated, but said nothing in objection and entered. At a gesture from Baley, Daneel followed, but as he passed through the door, he took Baley’s elbow and pulled him in as well.

Baley said, as the door closed behind him, “I’ll be out again soon. Thank you for allowing this.”

He entered the room with as much unconcern as he could manage and yet he felt a tightness in the pit of his abdomen. Might it contain some unpleasant surprise?

Baley found the Personal empty, however. There was not even much to search. It was smaller than the one in Fastolfe’s establishment.

Eventually, he noticed Daneel and Giskard standing silently side by side, backs against the door, as though endeavoring to have entered the room by the least amount possible.

Baley tried to speak normally, but what came out was a dim croak. He cleared his throat with unnecessary noise and said, “You can come farther into the room—and you needn’t remain silent, Daneel.” (Daneel had been on Earth. He knew the Earthly taboo against speech in the Personal.)

Daneel displayed that knowledge at once. He put his forefinger to his lips.

Baley said, “I know, I know, but forget it. If Amadiro can forget the Auroran taboo about robots in Personals, I can forget the Earthly taboo about speech there.”

“Will it not make you uncomfortable, Partner Elijah?” asked Daneel in a low voice.

“Not a bit,” said Baley in an ordinary one. (Actually, speech felt different with Daneel—a robot. The sound of speech in a room such as this when, actually, no human being was present was not as horrifying as it might be. In fact, it was not horrifying at all when only robots were present, however humaniform one of them might be. Baley could not say so, of course. Though Daneel had no feelings a human being could hurt, Baley had feelings on his behalf.)

And then Baley thought of something else and felt, quite intensely, the sensation of being a thoroughgoing fool.

“Or,” he said to Daneel, in a voice that was suddenly very low indeed, “are you suggesting silence because this room is bugged?” The last word came out merely as a shaping of the mouth.

“If you mean, Partner Elijah, that people outside this room can detect what is spoken inside this room through some sort of eavesdropping device, that is quite impossible.”

“Why impossible?”

The toilet device flushed itself with quick and silent efficiency and Baley advanced toward the washbasin.

Daneel said, “On Earth, the dense packing of the Cities makes privacy impossible. Overhearing is taken for granted and to use a device to make overhearing more efficient might seem natural. If an Earthman wishes not to be overheard, he simply doesn’t speak, which may be why silence is so mandatory in places where there is a pretense of privacy, as in the very rooms you call Personals.

“On Aurora, on the other hand, as on all the Spacer worlds, privacy is a true fact of life and is greatly valued. You remember Solaria and the diseased extremes to which it was carried there. But even on Aurora, which is no Solaria, every human being is insulated from every other human being by the kind of space extension unthinkable on Earth and by a wall of robots, in addition. To break down that privacy would be an unthinkable act.”

Baley said, “Do you mean it would be a crime to bug this room?”

“Much worse, Partner Elijah. It would not be the act of a civilized Auroran gentleman.”

Baley looked about. Daneel, mistaking the gesture, plucked a towel out of the dispenser, which might not have been instantly apparent to the other’s unaccustomed eyes, and offered it to Baley.

Baley accepted the towel, but that was not the object of his questing glanced. It was a bug for which his eyes searched, for he found it difficult to believe that someone would forego an easy advantage on the ground that it would not be civilized behavior. It was, however, useless and Baley, rather despondently, knew it would be. He would not be able to detect an Auroran bug, even if one were there. He wouldn’t know what to look for in a strange culture.

Whereupon he followed the course of another strand of suspicion in his mind. “Tell me, Daneel, since you know Aurorans better than I do, why do you suppose Amadiro is taking all this trouble with me? He talks to me at his leisure. He sees me out. He offers me the use of this room—something Vasilia would not have done. He seems to have all the time in the world to spend on me. Politeness?”

“Many Aurorans pride themselves on their politeness. It may be that Amadiro does. He has several times stressed that he is not a barbarian.”

“Another question. Why do you think he was willing to have me bring you and Giskard into this room?”

“It seemed to me that that was to remove your suspicions that the offer of this room might conceal a trap.”

“Why should he bother? Because he was concerned over the possibility of my experiencing unnecessary anxiety?”

“Another gesture of a civilized Auroran gentleman, I should imagine.”

Baley shook his head. “Well, if this room is bugged and Amadiro can hear me, let him hear me. I don’t consider him a civilized Auroran gentleman. He made it quite clear that, if I did not abandon my investigation, he would see to it that Earth as a whole would suffer. Is that the act of a civilized gentleman? Or of an incredibly brutal blackmailer?”

Daneel said, “An Auroran gentleman may find it necessary to utter threats, but if so, he would do it in a gentlemanly manner.”

“As Amadiro did. It is, then, the manner and not the content of speech that marks the gentleman. But then, Daneel, you are a robot and therefore can not really criticize a human being, can you?”

Daneel said, “It would be difficult for me to do so. But may I ask a question, Partner Elijah? Why did you ask permission to bring friend Giskard and me into this room? It had seemed to me that you were reluctant, earlier, to believe you were in danger. Have you now decided that you are not safe except in our presence?”

“No, not at all, Daneel. I am now quite convinced that I am not in danger and have not been.”

“Yet there was a distinctly suspicious cast about your actions, when you entered this room, Partner Elijah. You searched it.”

Baley said, “Of course! I said I am not in danger, but I do not say there is no danger.”

“I do not think I see the distinction, Partner Elijah,” said Daneel.