Asimov's Future History Volume 4 (22 page)

Daneel said, “The planet is not empty. It is parceled out into estates, each of which is supervised by a Solarian.”

“You mean each lives on his estate. Twenty thousand estates, each with a Solarian.”

“Fewer estates than those, Partner Elijah. Wives share the estate.”

“No Cities?” Baley felt cold.

“None at all, Partner Elijah. They live completely apart and never see one another except under the most extraordinary circumstances.”

“Hermits?”

“In a way, yes. In a way, no.”

“What does that mean?”

“Agent Gruer visited you yesterday by trimensional image. Solarians visit one another freely that way and in no other way.”

Baley stared at Daneel. He said, “Does that include us? Are we expected to live that way?”

“It is the custom of the world.”

“Then how do I investigate this case? If I want to see someone–”

“From this house, Partner Elijah, you can obtain a trimensional view of anyone on the planet. There will be no problem. In fact, it will save you the annoyance of leaving this house. It was why I said when we arrived that there would be no occasion for you to feel it necessary to grow accustomed to facing the outdoors. And that is well. Any other arrangement would be most distasteful to you.”

“I’ll judge what’s distasteful to me,” said Baley. “First thing today, Daneel, I get in touch with the Gladia woman, the wife of the murdered man. If the trimensional business is unsatisfactory, I will go out to her place, personally. It’s a matter for my decision.”

“We shall see what is best and most feasible, Partner Elijah,” said Daneel noncommittally. “I shall arrange for breakfast.” He turned to leave.

Baley stared at the broad robotic back and was almost amused. Daneel Olivaw acted the master. If his instructions had been to keep Baley from learning any more than was absolutely necessary, a trump card had been left in Baley’s hand.

The other was only R. Daneel Olivaw, after all. All that was necessary was to tell Gruer, or any Solarian, that Daneel was a robot and not a man.

And yet, on the other hand, Daneel’s pseudo humanity could be of great use, too. A trump card need not be played at once. Sometimes it was more useful in the hand.

Wait and see, he thought, and followed Daneel out to breakfast.

Baley said, “Now how does one go about establishing trimensional contact?”

“It is done for us, Partner Elijah,” said Daneel, and his finger sought out one of the contact patches that summoned robots.

A robot entered at once.

Where do they come from, Baley wondered. As one wandered aimlessly about the uninhabited maze that constituted the mansion, not one robot was ever visible. Did they scramble out of the way as humans approached? Did they send messages to one another and clear the path?

Yet whenever a call went out, one appeared without delay.

Baley stared at the robotic newcomer. It was sleek, but not glossy. Its surface had a muted, grayish finish, with a checkerboard pattern on the right shoulder as the only bit of color. Squares in white and yellow (silver and gold, really, from the metallic luster) were placed in what seemed an aimless pattern.

Daneel said, “Take us to the conversation room.” The robot bowed and turned, but said nothing. Baley said, “Wait, boy. What’s your name?”

The robot faced Baley. It spoke in clear tones and without hesitation. “I have no name, master. My serial number”–and a metal finger lifted and rested on the shoulder patch–” is ACX-2745.”

Daneel and Baley followed into a large room, which Baley recognized as having held Gruer and his chair the day before.

Another robot was waiting for them with the eternal, patient nonboredom of the machine. The first bowed and left.

Baley compared shoulder patches of the two as the first bowed and started out. The pattern of silver and gold was different. The checkerboard was made up of a six-by-six square. The number of possible arrangements would be 2
36
then, or seventy billion. More than enough.

Baley said, “Apparently, there is one robot for everything. One to show us here. One to run the viewer.”

Daneel said, “There is much robotic specialization in Solaria, Partner Elijah.”

“With so many of them, I can understand why.” Baley looked at the second robot. Except for the shoulder patch, and, presumably, for the invisible positronic patterns within its spongy platinum iridium brain it was the duplicate of the first. He said, “And your serial number?”

“ACC-1129, master.”

“I’ll just call you boy. Now I want to speak to a Mrs. Gladia Delmarre, wife of the late Rikaine Delmarre–Daneel, is there an address, some way of pin-pointing her location?”

Daneel said gently, “I do not believe any further information is necessary. If I may question the robot–”

“Let me do that,” Baley said. “All right, boy, do you know how the lady is to be reached?”

“Yes, master. I have knowledge of the connection pattern of all masters.” This was said without pride. It was a mere fact, as though it were saying: I am made of metal, master.

Daneel interposed, “That is not surprising, Partner Elijah. There are less than ten thousand connections that need be fed into the memory circuits, and that is a small number.”

Baley nodded. “Is there more than one Gladia Delmarre, by any chance? There might be that chance of confusion.”

“Master?” After the question the robot remained blankly silent.

“I believe,” said Daneel, “that this robot does not understand your question. It is my belief that duplicate names do not occur on Solaria. Names are registered at birth and no name may be adopted unless it is unoccupied at the time.”

“All right,” said Baley, “we learn something every minute. Now see here, boy, you tell me how to work whatever it is I am supposed to work; give me the connection pattern, or whatever you call it, and then step out.”

There was a perceptible pause before the robot answered. It said, “Do you wish to make contact yourself, sir?”

“That’s right.”

Daneel touched Baley’s sleeve gently. “One moment, Partner Elijah.”

“Now what is it?”

“It is my belief that the robot could make the necessary contact with greater ease. It is his specialization.”

Baley said grimly, “I’m sure he can do it better than I can. Doing it myself, I may make a mess of it.” He stared levelly at the impassive Daneel. “Just the same, I prefer to make contact myself. Do I give the orders or don’t I?”

Daneel said, “You give the orders, Partner Elijah, and your orders, where First Law permits, will be obeyed. However, with your permission, I would like to give you what pertinent information I have concerning the Solarian robots. Far more than on any other world, the robots on Solaria are specialized. Although Solarian robots are physically capable of many things, they are heavily equipped mentally for one particular type of job. To perform functions outside their specialty requires the high potentials produced by direct application of one of the Three Laws. Again, for them
not
to perform the duty for which they
are
equipped also requires the direct application of the Three Laws.”

“Well, then, a direct order from me brings the Second Law into play, doesn’t it?”

“True. Yet the potential set up by it is ‘unpleasant’ to the robot. Ordinarily, the matter would not come up, since almost never does a Solarian interfere with the day-to-day workings of a robot. For one thing, he would not care to do a robot’s work; for another, he would feel no need to.”

“Are you trying to tell me, Daneel, that it hurts the robot to have me do its work?”

“As you know, Partner Elijah, pain in the human sense is not applicable to robotic reactions.”

Baley shrugged. “Then?”

“Nevertheless,” went on Daneel, “the experience which the robot undergoes is as upsetting to it as pain is to a human, as nearly as I can judge.”

“And yet,” said Baley, “I’m not a Solarian. I’m an Earthman. I don’t like robots doing what I want to do.”

“Consider, too,” said Daneel, “that to cause distress to a robot might be considered on the part of our hosts to be an act of impoliteness since in a society such as this there must be a number of more or less rigid beliefs concerning how it is proper to treat a robot and how it is not. To offend our hosts would scarcely make our task easier.”

“All right,” said Baley. “Let the robot do its job.”

He settled back. The incident had not been without its uses. It was an educational example of how remorseless a robotic society could be. Once brought into existence, robots were not so easily removed, and a human who wished to dispense with them even temporarily found he could not.

His eyes half closed, he watched the robot approach the wall. Let the sociologists on Earth consider what had just occurred and draw their conclusions. He was beginning to have certain notions of his own.

Half a wall slid aside and the control panel that was revealed would have done justice to a City Section power station.

Baley longed for his pipe. He had been briefed that smoking on non-smoking Solaria would be a terrible breach of decorum, so he had not even been allowed to take his fixings. He sighed. There were moments when the feel of pipe stem between teeth and a warm bowl in his hand would have been infinitely comforting.

The robot was working quickly, adjusting variable resistances a trifle here and there and intensifying field-forces in proper pattern by quick finger pressures.

Daneel said, “It is necessary first to signal the individual one desires to view. A robot will, of course, receive the message. If the individual being signaled is available and wishes to receive the view, full contact is established.”

“Are all those controls necessary?” asked Baley. “The robot’s hardly touching most of the panel.”

“My information on the matter is not complete, Partner Elijah. There is, however, the necessity of arranging, upon occasion, for multiple viewings and for mobile viewings. The latter, particularly, call for complicated and continuing adjustment.”

The robot said, “Masters, contact is made and approved. When you are ready, it will be completed.”

“Ready,” growled Baley, and as though the word were a signal, the far half of the room was alive with light.

Daneel said at once, “I neglected to have the robot specify that all visible openings to the outside be draped. I regret that and we must arrange–”

“Never mind,” said Baley, wincing. “I’ll manage. Don’t interfere.” It was a bathroom he was staring at, or he judged it to be so from its fixtures. One end of it was, he guessed, a kind of beautician’s establishment and his imagination pictured a robot (or robots?) working with unerring swiftness on the details of a woman’s coiffure and on the externals that made up the picture she presented to the world.

Some gadgets and fittings he simply gave up on. There was no way of judging their purpose in the absence of experience. The walls were inlaid with an intricate pattern that all but fooled the eye into believing some natural object was being represented before fading away into an abstraction. The result was soothing and almost hypnotic in the way it monopolized attention.

What might have been the shower stall, a large one, was shielded off by nothing that seemed material, but rather by a trick of lighting that set up a wall of flickering opacity. No human was in sight.

Baley’s glance fell to the floor. Where did his room end and the other begin? It was easy to tell. There was a line where the quality of the light changed and that must be it.

He stepped toward the line and after a moment’s hesitation pushed his hand beyond it.

He felt nothing, any more than he would have had he shoved the hand into one of Earth’s crude trimensionals. There, at least, he would have seen his own hand still; faintly, perhaps, and overlaid by the image, but he would have seen it. Here it was lost completely. To his vision, his arm ended sharply at the wrist.

What if he stepped across the line altogether? Probably his own vision would become inoperative. He would be in a world of complete blackness. The thought of such efficient enclosure was almost pleasant.

A voice interrupted him. He looked up and stepped backward with an almost clumsy haste.

Gladia Delmarre was speaking. At least Baley assumed it was she. The upper portion of the flickering light across the shower stall had faded and a head was clearly visible.

It smiled at Baley. “I said hello, and I’m sorry to keep you waiting. I’ll be dry soon.”

Hers was a triangular face, rather broad at the cheekbones (which grew prominent when she smiled) and narrowing with a gentle curve past full lips to a small chin. Her head was not high above the ground. Baley judged her to be about five feet two in height. (This was not typical. At least not to Baley’s way of thinking. Spacer women were supposed to lean toward the tall and stately.) Nor was her hair the Spacer bronze. It was light brown, tinging toward yellow, and worn moderately long. At the moment it was fluffed out in what Baley imagined must be a stream of warm air. The whole picture was quite pleasing.

Baley said in confusion, “If you want us to break contact and wait till you’re through–”

“Oh no. I’m almost done, and we can talk meanwhile. Hannis Gruer told me you would be viewing. You’re from Earth, I understand.” Her eyes rested full on him, seemed to drink him in.

Baley nodded and sat down. “My companion is from Aurora.”

She smiled and kept her glance fixed on Baley as though
he
remained the curiosity nevertheless, and of course, Baley thought, so he was.

She lifted her arms above her head, running her fingers through the hair and spreading it out as though to hasten drying. Her arms were slim and graceful. Very attractive, Baley thought.

Then he thought uneasily: Jessie wouldn’t like this.

Daneel’s voice broke in. “Would it be possible, Mrs. Delmarre, to have the window we see polarized or draped. My partner is disturbed by the sight of daylight. On Earth, as you may have heard–”

The young woman (Baley judged her to be twenty-five but had the doleful thought that the apparent ages of Spacers could be most deceptive) put her hands to her cheeks and said, “Oh my, yes. I know all about that. How ridiculously silly of me. Forgive me, please, but it won’t take a moment. I’ll have a robot in here–”