Isaac Asimov - The Caves of Steel

If it came to a choice between Baley’s future in the Department and the Commissioner’s own, what possible result could Baley expect? He could find no reasonable way of blaming Enderby.

The least he could expect was demotion, and that was bad enough. The mere act of living in a modern City insured the bare possibility of existence, even for those entirely declassified. How bare that possibility was he knew only too well.

It was the addition of status that brought the little things: a more comfortable seat here, a better cut of meat there, a shorter wait in line at the other place. To the philosophical mind, these items might seem scarcely worth any great trouble to acquire.

Yet no one, however philosophical, could give up those privileges, once acquired, without a pang. That was the point.

What a trifling addition to the convenience of the apartment an activated washbasin was when for thirty years previously the trip to Personal had been an automatic and unregarded one. How useless it was even as a device to prove “status” when it was considered the height of ill form to parade “status.” Yet were the washbasin to be deactivated, how humiliating and unbearable would each added trip to Personal be! How yearningly attractive the memory of the bedroom shave! How filled with a sense of lost luxury!

It was fashionable for modern political writers to look back with a smug disapproval at the “fiscalism” of Medieval times, when economy was based on money. The competitive struggle for existence, they said, was brutal. No truly complex society could be maintained because of the strains introduced by the eternal “fight-for-the-buck.” (Scholars had varying interpretations of the word “buck,” but there was no dispute over the meaning as a whole.)

By contrast, modern “civism” was praised highly as efficient and enlightened.

Maybe so. There were historical novels both in the romantic and the sensational tradition, and the Medievalists thought “fiscalism” had bred such things as individualism and initiative.

Baley wouldn’t commit himself, but now he wondered sickly if ever a man fought harder for that buck, whatever it was, or felt its loss more deeply, than a City dweller fought to keep from losing his Sunday night option on a chicken drumstick—a real-flesh drumstick from a once-living bird.

Baley thought: Not me so much. There’s Jessie and Ben.

Dr. Fastolfe’s voice broke in upon his thoughts. “Mr. Baley, do you hear me?”

Baley blinked. “Yes?” How long had he been standing there like a frozen fool?

“Won’t you sit down, sir? Having taken care of the matter on your mind, you may now be interested in some films we have taken of the scene of the crime and of the events immediately following.”

“No, thank you. I have business in the City.”

“Surely the case of Dr. Sarton comes first.”

“Not with me. I imagine I’m off the case already.” Suddenly, he boiled over. “Damn it, if you could prove R. Daneel was a robot, why didn’t you do it at once? Why did you make such a farce of it all?”

“My dear Mr. Baley, I was very interested in your deductions. As for being off the case, I doubt it. Before the Commissioner left, I made a special point of asking that you be retained. I believe he will co-operate.”

Baley sat down, not entirely voluntarily. He said, sharply, “Why?” Dr. Fastolfe crossed his legs and sighed. “Mr. Baley, in general I have met two kinds of City dwellers, rioters and politicians. Your Commissioner is useful to us, but he is a politician. He tells us what we want to hear. He handles us, if you know what I mean. Now you came here and boldly accused us of tremendous crimes and tried to prove your case. I enjoyed the process. I found it a hopeful development.”

“How hopeful?” asked Baley sardonically.

“Hopeful enough. You are someone I can deal with frankly. Last night, Mr. Baley, R. Daneel reported to me by shielded subether. Some things about you interested me very much. For instance, there was the point concerning the nature of the book-films in your apartment.”

“What about them?”

“A good many dealt with historical and archaeological subjects. It makes it appear that you are interested in human society and that you know a little about its evolution.”

“Even policemen can spend their free time on book-films, if they so choose.”

“Quite. I’m glad of your choice in viewing matter. It will help me in what I am trying to do. In the first place, I want to explain, or try to, the exclusivism of the men of the Outer Worlds. We live here in Spacetown; we don’t enter the City; we mingle with you City dwellers only in a very rigidly limited fashion. We breathe the open air, but when we do, we wear filters. I sit here now with filters in my nostrils, gloves on my hands, and a fixed determination to come no closer to you than I can help. Why do you suppose that is?”

Baley said, “There’s no point in guessing.” Let him talk now.

“If you guessed as some of your people do, you would say that it was because we despised the men of Earth and refused to lose caste by allowing their shadow to fall upon us. That is not so. The true answer is really quite obvious. The medical examination you went through, as well as the cleansing procedures, were not matters of ritual. They were dictated by necessity.”

“Disease?”

“Yes, disease. My dear Mr. Baley, the Earthmen who colonized the Outer Worlds found themselves on planets entirely free of Terrestrial bacteria and viruses. They brought in their own, of course, but they also brought with them the latest medical and microbiological techniques. They had a small community of micro-organisms to deal with and no intermediate hosts. There were no mosquitoes to spread malaria, no snails to spread schistosomiasis. Disease agents were wiped out and symbiotic bacteria allowed to grow. Gradually, the Outer Worlds became disease-free. Naturally, as time went on, entrance requirements for immigrant Earthmen were made more and more rigorous, since less and less could the Outer Worlds endure the possible introduction of disease.”

“You’ve never been sick, Dr. Fastolfe?”

“Not with a parasitic disease, Mr. Baley. We are all liable to degenerative diseases such as atheroschlerosis, of course, but I have never had what you would call a cold. If I were to contract one, I might die of it. I’ve built up no resistance to it whatsoever. That’s what’s wrong with us here in Spacetown. Those of us who come here run a definite risk. Earth is riddled with diseases to which we have no defense, no natural defense. You yourself are carrying the germs of almost every known disease. You are not aware of it, since you keep them all under control at almost all times through the antibodies your body has developed over the years. I, myself, lack the antibodies. Do you wonder that I come no closer to you? Believe me, Mr. Baley, I act aloof only in self-defense.”

Baley said, “If this is so, why isn’t the fact made known on Earth? I mean, that it is not just queasiness on your part, but a defense against an actual physical danger.”

The Spacer shook his head. “We are few, Mr. Baley, and are disliked as foreigners anyway. We maintain our own safety on the basis of a rather shaky prestige as a superior class of being. We cannot afford to lose face by admitting that we are afraid to approach an Earthman. Not at least until there is a better understanding between Earthmen and Spacers.”

“There won’t be, on present terms. It’s your supposed superiority that we—they hate you for.”

“It is a dilemma. Don’t think we aren’t aware of it.”

“Does the Commissioner know of this?”

“We have never explained it to him flatly, as I have just done to you. He may guess it, however. He is quite an intelligent man.”