Isaac Asimov - The Naked Sun

“Sometimes I hated him.” She shrugged her shoulders helplessly. “He was just a good Solarian and we weren’t scheduled for ch—for ch—” She broke down.

Baley waited. His own stomach was cold and open air pressed down heavily upon him. When Gladia’s sobs grew quieter, he asked, as gently as he could, “Did you kill him, Gladia?”

“N-no.” Then, suddenly, as though all resistance had corroded within her: “I haven’t told you everything.”

“Well, then, please do so now.”

“We were quarreling that time, the time he died. The old quarrel.

I screamed at him but he never shouted back. He hardly ever even

said anything and that just made it worse. I was so angry, so angry.

I don’t remember after that.”

“Jehoshaphat!” Baley swayed slightly and his eyes sought the

neutral stone of the bench. “What do you mean you don’t remember?”

“I mean he was dead and I was screaming and the robots came—”

“Did you kill him?”

“I don’t remember it, Elijah, and I would remember it if I did, wouldn’t I? Only I don’t remember anything else, either, and I’ve been so frightened, so frightened. Help me, please, Elijah.”

“Don’t worry, Gladia. I’ll help you.” Baley’s reeling mind fastened on the murder weapon. What happened to it? It must have been removed. If so, only the murderer could have done it. Since Gladia was found immediately after the murder on the scene, she could not have done it. The murderer would have to be someone else. No matter how it looked to everyone on Solaria, it had to be someone else.

Baley thought sickly: I’ve got to get back to the house.

He said, “Gladia—”

Somehow he was staring at the sun. It was nearly at the horizon. He had to turn his head to look at it and his eyes locked with a morbid fascination. He had never seen it so. Fat, red, and dim somehow, so that one could look at it without blinding, arid see the bleeding clouds above it in thin lines, with one crossing it in a bar of black.

Baley mumbled, “The sun is so red.”

He heard Gladia’s choked voice say drearily, “It’s always red at sunset, red and dying.”

Baley had a vision. The sun was moving down to the horizon because the planet’s surface was moving away from it, a thousand miles an hour, spinning under that naked sun, spinning with nothing to guard the microbes called men that scurried over its spinning surface, spinning madly forever, spinning—spinning…

It was his head that was spinning and the stone bench that was slanting beneath him and the sky heaving, blue, dark blue, and the sun was gone, with the tops of trees and the ground rushing up and Gladia screaming thinly and another sound…

Baley was aware first of enclosure, the absence of the open, and then of a face bending over him.

He stared for a moment without recognition. Then: “Daneel”

The robot’s face showed no sign of relief or of any other recognizable emotion at being addressed. He said, “It is well that you have recovered consciousness, Partner Elijah. I do not believe you have suffered physical injury.”

“I’m all right,” said Baley testily, struggling to his elbows. “Jehoshaphat, am I in bed? What for?”

“You have been exposed to the open a number of times today. The effects upon you have been cumulative and you need rest.”

“I need a few answers first.” Baley looked about and tried to deny to himself that his head was spinning just a little. He did not recognize the room. The curtains were drawn. Lights were comfortably artificial. He was feeling much better. “For instance, where am I?”

“In a room of Mrs. Delmarre’s mansion.”

“Next, let’s get something straight. What are you doing here? How did you get away from the robots I set over you?”

Daneel said, “It had seemed to me that you would be displeased at this development and yet in the interests of your safety and of my orders, I felt that I had no choice but—”

“What did you do? Jehoshaphat!”

“It seems Mrs. Delmarre attempted to view you some hours ago.”

“Yes.” Baley remembered Gladia saying as much earlier in the day. “I know that.”

“Your order to the robots that held me prisoner was, in your words: ‘Do not allow him’ (meaning myself) ‘to establish contact with other humans or other robots, either by seeing or by viewing.’ However, Partner Elijah, you said nothing about forbidding other humans or robots to contact me. You see the distinction?”

Baley groaned.

Daneel said, “No need for distress, Partner Elijah. The flaw in your orders was instrumental in saving your life, since it brought me to the scene. You see, when Mrs. Delmarre viewed me, being allowed to do so by my robot guardians, she asked after you and I answered, quite truthfully, that I did not know of your whereabouts, but that I could attempt to find out. She seemed anxious that I do so. I said I thought it possible you might have left the house temporarily and that I would check that matter and would she, in the meanwhile, order the robots in the room with me, to search the mansion for your presence.”

“Wasn’t she surprised that you didn’t deliver the orders to the robots yourself?”

“I gave her the impression, I believe, that as an Auroran I was not as accustomed to robots as she was; that she might deliver the orders with greater authority and effect a more speedy consummation. Solarians, it is quite clear, are vain of their skill with robots and contemptuous of the ability of natives of other planets to handle them. Is that not your opinion as well, Partner Elijah?”

“And she ordered them away, then?”

“With difficulty. They protested previous orders but, of course, could not state the nature thereof since you had ordered them to tell no one of my own true identity. She overrode them, although the final orders had to be thrilled out in fury.”

“And then you left.”

“I did, Partner Elijah.”

A pity, thought Baley, that Gladia did not consider that episode important enough to relay to him when he viewed her. He said, “It took you long enough to find me, Daneel.”

“The robots on Solaria have a network of information through subetheric contact. A skilled Solarian could obtain information readily, but, mediated as it is through millions of individual machines, one such as myself, without experience in the matter, must take time to unearth a single datum. It was better than an hour before the information as to your whereabouts reached me. I lost further

time by visiting Dr. Delmarre’s place of business after you had departed.”

“What were you doing there?”

“Pursuing researches of my own. I regret that this had to be done in your absence, but the exigencies of the investigation left me no choice.”

Baley said, “Did you view Kiorissa Cantoro, or see her?”

“I viewed her, but from another part of her building, not from our own estate. There were records at the farm I had to see. Ordinarily viewing would have been sufficient, but it might have been inconvenient to remain on our own estate since three robots knew my real nature and might easily have imprisoned me once more.”

Baley felt almost well. He swung his legs out of bed and found himself in a kind of nightgown. He stared at it with distaste. “Get me my clothes.”

Daneel did so.

As Baley dressed, he said, “Where’s Mrs. Delmarre?”

“Under house arrest, Partner Elijah.”

“What? By whose order?”

“By my order. She is confined to her bedroom under robotic guard and her right to give orders other than to meet personal needs has been neutralized.”

“By yourself?”