Isaac Asimov - The Caves of Steel

The Spacers in those pictures had been, generally speaking, like those that were occasionally featured in the book-films: tall, redheaded, grave, coldly handsome. Like R. Daneel Olivaw, for instance.

R. Daneel named the Spacers for Baley and when Baley suddenly pointed and said, in surprise, “That isn’t you, is it?” R. Daneel answered, “No, Elijah, that is my designer, Dr. Sarton.”

He said it unemotionally.

“You were made in your maker’s image?” asked Baley, sardonically, but there was no answer to that and, in truth, Baley scarcely expected one. The Bible, as he knew, circulated only to the most limited extent on the Outer Worlds.

And now Baley looked at Han Fastolfe, a man who deviated very noticeably from the Spacer norm in looks, and the Earthman felt a pronounced gratitude for that fact.

“Won’t you accept food?” asked Fastolfe.

He indicated the table that separated himself and R. Daneel from the Earthman. It bore nothing but a bowl of varicolored spheroids. Baley felt vaguely startled. He had taken them for table decorations.

R. Daneel explained. “These are the fruits of natural plant life grown on Aurora. I suggest you try this kind. It is called an apple and is reputed to be pleasant.”

Fastolfe smiled. “R. Daneel does not know this by personal experience, of course, but he is quite right.”

Baley brought an apple to his mouth. Its surface was red and green. It was cool to the touch and had a faint but pleasant odor. With an effort, he bit into it and the unexpected tartness of the pulpy contents hurt his teeth.

He chewed it gingerly. City dwellers ate natural food, of course, whenever rations allowed it. He himself had eaten natural meat and bread often. But such food had always been processed in some way. It had been cooked or ground, blended or compounded. Fruit, now, properly speaking, should come in the form of sauce or preserve. What he was holding now must have come straight from the dirt of a planet’s soil.

He thought: I hope they’ve washed it at least.

Again he wondered at the spottiness of Spacer notions concerning cleanliness.

Fastolfe said, “Let me introduce myself a bit more specifically. I am in charge of the investigation of the murder of Dr. Sarton at the Spacetown end as Commissioner Enderby is at the City end. If I can help you in any way, I stand ready to do so. We are as eager for a quiet solution of the affair and prevention of future incidents of the sort as any of you City men can be.”

“Thank you, Dr. Fastolfe,” said Baley. “Your attitude is appreciated.”

So much, he thought, for the amenities. He bit into the center of the apple and hard, dark little ovoids popped into his mouth. He spat automatically. They flew out and fell to the ground. One would have struck Fastolfe’s leg had not the Spacer moved it hastily.

Baley reddened, started to bend.

Fastolfe said, pleasantly, “It is quite all right, Mr. Baley. Just leave them, please.”

Baley straightened again. He put the apple down gingerly. He had the uncomfortable feeling that once he was gone, the lost little objects would be found and picked up by suction; the bowl of fruit would be burnt or discarded far from Spacetown; the very room they were sitting in would be sprayed with viricide.

He covered his embarrassment with brusqueness. He said, “I would like to ask permission to have Commissioner Enderby join our conference by trimensional personification.”

Fastolfe’s eyebrows raised. “Certainly, if you wish it. Daneel, would you make the connection?”

Baley sat in stiff discomfort until the shiny surface of the large parallel piped in one corner of the room dissolved away to show Commissioner Julius Enderby and part of his desk. At that moment, the discomfort eased and Baley felt nothing short of love for that familiar figure, and a longing to be safely back in that office with him, or anywhere in the City, for that matter. Even in the least prepossessing portion of the Jersey yeast-vat districts.

Now that he had his witness, Baley saw no reason for delay. He said, “I believe I have penetrated the mystery surrounding the death of Dr. Sarton.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Enderby springing to his feet and grabbing wildly (and successfully) at his flying spectacles. By standing, the Commissioner thrust his head out of the limits of the trimensic receiver and was forced to sit down again, red-faced and speechless.

In a much quieter way, Dr. Fastolfe, head inclined to one side, was as startled. Only R. Daneel was unmoved.

“Do you mean,” said Fastolfe, “that you know the murderer?”

“No,” said Baley, “I mean there was no murder.”

“What!” screamed Enderby.

“One moment, Commissioner Enderby,” said Fastolfe, raising a hand. His eyes held Baley’s and he said, “Do you mean that Dr. Sarton is alive?”

“Yes, sir, and I believe I know where he is.”

“Where?”

“Right there,” said Baley, and pointed firmly at R. Daneel Olivaw.

At the moment, Baley was most conscious of the thud of his own pulse. He seemed to be living in a moment of suspended time. R. Daneel’s expression was, as always, empty of emotion. Han Fastolfe wore a look of well-bred astonishment on his face and nothing more. It was Commissioner Julius Enderby’s reaction that most concerned Baley, however. The trimensic receiver out of which his face stared did not allow of perfect reproduction. There was always that tiny flicker and that not-quite-ideal resolution. Through that imperfection and through the further masking of the Commissioner’s spectacles, Enderby’s eyes were unreadable.

Baley thought: Don’t go to pieces on me, Julius. I need you.

He didn’t really think that Fastolfe would act in haste or under emotional impulse. He had read somewhere once that Spacers had no religion, but substituted, instead, a cold and phlegmatic intellectualism raised to the heights of a philosophy. He believed that and counted on it. They would make a point of acting slowly and then only on the basis of reason.

If he were alone among them and had said what he had said, he was certain that he would never have returned to the City. Cold reason would have dictated that. The Spacers’ plans were worth more to them, many times over, than the life of a City dweller. There would be some excuse made to Julius Enderby. Maybe they would present his corpse to the Commissioner, shake their heads, and speak of an Earthman conspiracy having struck again. The Commissioner would believe them. It was the way he was built. If he hated Spacers, it was a hatred based on fear. He wouldn’t dare disbelieve them.

That was why he had to be an actual witness of events, a witness, moreover, safely out of reach of the Spacers’ calculated safety measures.

The Commissioner said, chokingly, “Lije, you’re all wrong. I saw Dr. Sarton’s corpse.”

“You saw the charred remnants of something you were told was Dr. Sarton’s corpse,” retorted Baley, boldly. He thought grimly of the Commissioner’s broken glasses. That had been an unexpected favor for the Spacers.

“No, no, Lije. I knew Dr. Sarton well and his head was undamaged. It was he.” The Commissioner put his hand to his glasses uneasily, as though he, too, remembered, and added, “I looked at him closely, very closely.”

“How about this one, Commissioner?” asked Baley, pointing to R. Daneel again. “Doesn’t he resemble Dr. Sarton?”

“Yes, the way a statue would.”

“An expressionless attitude can be assumed, Commissioner. Suppose that were a robot you had seen blasted to death. You say you looked closely. Did you look closely enough to see whether the charred surface at the edge of the blast was really decomposed organic tissue or a deliberately introduced layer of carbonization over fused metal.”