Isaac Asimov - The Naked Sun

“I see. But for all that, you do have crime now.”

“True, but the first crime of violence in two centuries of history.”

“Unfortunate, then, that you must begin with murder.”

“Unfortunate, yes. More unfortunately still, the victim was a man we could scarcely afford to lose. A most inappropriate victim. And the circumstances of the murder were particularly brutal.”

Baley said, “I suppose the murderer is completely unknown.” (Why else would the crime be worth the importation of an Earthly detective?)

Gruer looked particularly uneasy. He glanced sideways at Daneel, who sat motionless, an absorptive, quiet mechanism. Baley knew that Daneel would, at any time in the future, be able to reproduce any conversation he heard, of whatever length. He was a recording machine that walked and talked like a man.

Did Gruer know that? His look at Daneel had certainly something of the furtive about it.

Gruer said, “No, I cannot say the murderer is completely unknown. In fact, there is only one person that can possibly have done the deed.”

“Are you sure you don’t mean only one person who is likely to have done the deed?” Baley distrusted overstatement and had no liking for the armchair deducer who discovered certainty rather than probability in the workings of logic.

But Gruer shook his bald head. “No. Only one possible person. Anyone else is impossible. Completely impossible.”

“Completely?”

“I assure you.”

“Then you have no problem.”

“On the contrary. We do have a problem. That one person couldn’t have done it either.”

Baley said calmly, “Then no one did it.”

“Yet the deed was done. Rikaine Delmarre is dead.”

That’s something, thought Baley. Jehoshaphat, I’ve got something. I’ve got the victim’s name.

He brought out his notebook and solemnly made note of it, partly

out of a wry desire to indicate that he had scraped up, at last, a nubbin of fact, and partly to avoid making it too obvious that he sat by the side of a recording machine who needed no notes.

He said, “How is the victim’s name spelled?”

Gruer spelled it.

“His profession, sir?”

“Fetologist.”

Baley spelled that as it sounded and let it go. He said, “Now who would be able to give me a personal account of the circumstances surrounding the murder? As firsthand as possible.”

Gruer’s smile was grim and his eyes shifted to Daneel again, and then away. “His wife, Plainclothesman.”

“His wife…”

“Yes. Her name is Gladia.” Gruer pronounced it in three syllables, accenting the second.

“Any children?” Baley’s eyes were fixed on his notebook. When no answer came, he looked up. “Any children?”

But Gruer’s mouth had pursed up as though he had tasted something sour. He looked sick. Finally he said, “I would scarcely know.”

Baley said, “What?”

Gruer added hastily, “In any case, I think you had better postpone actual operations till tomorrow. I know you’ve had a hard trip, Mr. Baley, and that you are tired and probably hungry.”

Baley, about to deny it, realized suddenly that the thought of food had an uncommon attraction for him at the moment. He said, “Will you join us at our meal?” He didn’t think Gruer would, being a Spacer. (Yet he had been brought to the point of saying “Mr. Baley” rather than “Plainclothesman Baley,” which was something.)

As expected, Gruer said, “A business engagement makes that impossible. I will have to leave. I am sorry.”

Baley rose. The polite thing would be to accompany Gruer to the door. In the first place, however, he wasn’t at all anxious to approach the door and the unprotected open. And in the second he wasn’t sure where the door was.

He remained standing in uncertainty.

Cruet smiled and nodded. He said, “I will see you again. Your robots will know the combination if you wish to talk to me.”

And he was gone.

Baley exclaimed sharply.

Cruet and the chair he was sitting on were simply not there. The wall behind Cruet, the floor under his feet changed with explosive suddenness. Daneel said calmly, “He was not there in the flesh at any time. It was a trimensional image. It seemed to me you would know. You have such things on Earth.”

“Not like this,” muttered Baley.

A trimensional image on Earth was encased in a cubic force-field that glittered against the background. The image itself had a tiny flicker. On Earth there was no mistaking image for reality. Here.

No wonder Gruer had worn no gloves. He needed no nose filters, for that matter.

Daneel said, “Would you care to eat now, Partner Elijah?”

Dinner was an unexpected ordeal. Robots appeared. One set the table. One brought in the food.

“How many are there in the house, Daneel?” Baley asked.

“About fifty, Partner Elijah.”

“Will they stay here while we eat?” (One had backed into a corner, his glossy, glowing-eyed face turned toward Baley.)

“It is the usual practice,” said Daneel, “for one to do so in case its service is called upon. If you do not wish that, you have only to order it to leave.”

Baley shrugged. “Let it stay!”

Under normal conditions Baley might have found the food delicious. Now he ate mechanically. He noted abstractedly that Daneel ate also, with a kind of unimpassioned efficiency. Later on, of course, he would empty the fluorocarbon sac within him into which the “eaten” food was now being stored. Meanwhile Daneel maintained his masquerade.

“Is it night outside?” asked Baley.

“It is,” replied Daneel.

Baley stared somberly at the bed. It was too large. The whole bedroom was too large. There were no blankets to burrow under, only sheets. They would make a poor enclosure.

Everything was difficult! He had already gone through the Unnerving experience of showering in a stall that actually adjoined

the bedroom. It was the height of luxury in a way, yet, on the other hand, it seemed an unsanitary arrangement.

He said abruptly, “How is the light put out?” The headboard of the bed gleamed with a soft light. Perhaps that was to facilitate book viewing before sleeping, but Baley was in no mood for that.

“It will be taken care of once you’re in bed, if you compose yourself for sleep.”

“The robots watch, do they?”

“It is their job.”

“Jehoshaphat! What do these Solarians do for themselves?” Baley muttered. “I wonder now why a robot didn’t scrub my back in the shower.”

With no trace of humor Daneel said, “One would have, had you required it. As for the Solarians, they do what they choose. No robot performs his duty if ordered not to, except, of course, where the performance is necessary to the well-being of the human.”

“Well, good night, Daneel.”

“I will be in another bedroom, Partner Elijah. If, at any time during the night, you need anything—”

“I know. The robots will come.”

“There is a contact patch on the side table. You have only to touch it. I will come too.”

Sleep eluded Baley. He kept picturing the house he was in, balanced precariously at the outer skin of the world, with emptiness waiting just outside like a monster.

On Earth his apartment—his snug, comfortable, crowded apartment—sat nestled beneath many others. There were dozens of Levels and thousands of people between himself and the rim of Earth.

Even on Earth, he tried to tell himself, there were people on the topmost Level. They would be immediately adjacent to the outside. Sure! But that’s what made those apartments low-rent.

Then he thought of Jessie, a thousand light-years away.

He wanted terribly to get out of bed right now, dress, and walk