Asimov's Future History Volume 4 (27 page)

And, moving through walls, sometimes a bit below floor level, sometimes a bit above, there was always Gladia and her dinner table.

Baley stopped and muttered, “This takes getting used to.”

Gladia said at once, “Does it make you dizzy?”

“A little.”

“Then I tell you what. Why don’t you have your technicians freeze me right here. Then when you’re in your dining room and all set, he can join us up.”

Daneel said, “I will order that done, Partner Elijah.”

Their own dinner table was set when they arrived, the plates steaming with a dark brown soup in which diced meat was bobbing, and in the center a large roast fowl was ready for the carving. Daneel spoke briefly to the serving robot and, with smooth efficiency, the two places that had been set were drawn to the same end of the table.

As though that were a signal, the opposite wall seemed to move outward, the table seemed to lengthen and Gladia was seated at the opposite end. Room joined to room and table to table so neatly that but for the varying pattern in wall and floor covering and the differing designs in tableware it would have been easy to believe they were all dining together in actual fact.

“There,” said Gladia with satisfaction. “Isn’t this comfortable?”

“Quite,” said Baley. He tasted his soup gingerly, found it delicious, and helped himself more generously. “YOU know about Agent Gruer?”

Trouble shadowed her face at once and she put her spoon down. “Isn’t it terrible? Poor Hannis.”

“You use his first name. Do you know him?”

“I know almost all the important people on Solaria. Most Solarians do know one another. Naturally.”

Naturally, indeed, thought Baley. How many of them were there, after all?

Baley said, “Then perhaps you know Dr. Altim Thool. He’s taking care of Gruer.”

Gladia laughed gently. Her serving robot sliced meat for her and added small, browned potatoes and slivers of carrots. “Of course I know him. He treated me.”

“Treated you when?”

“Right after the–the trouble. About my husband, I mean.”

Baley said in astonishment, “Is he the only doctor on the planet?”

“Oh no.” For a moment her lips moved as though she were counting to herself. “There are at least ten. And there’s one youngster I know of who’s studying medicine. But Dr. Thool is one of the best. He has the most experience. Poor Dr. Thool.”

“Why poor?”

“Well, you know what I mean. It’s such a nasty job, being a doctor. Sometimes you just have to see people when you’re a doctor and even touch them. But Dr. Thool seems so resigned to it and he’ll always do some seeing when he feels he must. He’s always treated me since I was a child and was always so friendly and kind and I honestly feel I almost wouldn’t mind if he did have to see me. For instance, he saw me this last time.”

“After your husband’s death, you mean?”

“Yes. You can imagine how he felt when he saw my husband’s dead body and me lying there.”

“I was told he viewed the body,” said Baley.

“The body, yes. But after he made sure I was alive and in no real danger, he ordered the robots to put a pillow under my head and give me an injection of something or other, and then get out. He came over by jet. Really! By jet. It took less than half an hour and he took care of me and made sure all was well. I was so woozy when I came to that I was sure I was only viewing him, you know, and it wasn’t till he touched me that I knew we were seeing, and I screamed. Poor Dr. Thool. He was awfully embarrassed, but I knew he meant well.”

Baley nodded. “I suppose there’s not much use for doctors on Solaria?”

“I should hope
not
.”

“I know there are no germ diseases to speak of. What about metabolic disorders? Atherosclerosis? Diabetes? Things like that?”

“It happens and it’s pretty awful when it does. Doctors can make life more livable for such people in a physical way, but that’s the least of it.”

“Oh?”

“Of course. It means the gene analysis was imperfect. You don’t suppose we allow defects like diabetes to develop on purpose. Anyone who develops such things has to undergo very detailed reanalysis. The mate assignment has to be retracted, which is terribly embarrassing for the mate. And it means no–no”–her voice sank to a whisper–” children.”

Baley said in a normal voice, “No children?”

Gladia flushed. “It’s a terrible thing to say. Such a word! Ch-children!”

“It comes easy after a while,” said Baley dryly.

“Yes, but if I get into the habit, I’ll say it in front of another Solarian someday and I’ll just sink into the ground.... Anyway, if the two of them have had children (see, I’ve said it again) already, the children have to be found and examined–that was one of Rikaine’s jobs, by the way–and well, it’s just a mess.”

So much for Thool, thought Baley. The doctor’s incompetence was a natural consequence of the society, and held nothing sinister. Nothing
necessarily
sinister. Cross him off, he thought, but lightly.

He watched Gladia as she ate. She was neat and precisely delicate in her movements and her appetite seemed normal. (His own fowl was delightful. In one respect, anyway–food–he could easily be spoiled by these Outer Worlds.)

He said, “What is your opinion of the poisoning, Gladia?”

She looked up. “I’m trying not to think of it. There are so many horrors lately. Maybe it wasn’t poisoning.”

“It was.”

“But there wasn’t anyone around?”

“How do you know?”

“There couldn’t have been. He has no wife, these days, since he’s all through with his quota of ch–you know what. So there was no one to put the poison in anything, so how could he be poisoned?”

“But he was poisoned. That’s a fact and must be accepted.”

Her eyes clouded over. “Do you suppose,” she said, “he did it himself?”

“I doubt it. Why should he? And so publicly?”

“Then it couldn’t be done, Elijah. It just couldn’t.”

Baley said, “On the contrary, Gladia. It could be done very easily. And I’m sure I know exactly how.”

8: A Spacer Is Defied

G
LADIA
SEEMED
TO
be holding her breath for a moment. It came out through puckered lips in what was almost a whistle. She said, “I’m sure I don’t see how. Do you know
who
did it?”

Baley nodded. “The same one who killed your husband.”

“Are you sure?”

“Aren’t you? Your husband’s murder was the first in the history of Solaria. A month later there is another murder. Could that be a coincidence? Two separate murderers striking within a month of each other on a crime-free world? Consider, too, that the second victim was investigating the first crime and therefore represented a violent danger to the original murderer.”

“Well!” Gladia applied herself to her dessert and said between mouthfuls, “If you put it that way, I’m innocent.”

“How so, Gladia?”

“Why, Elijah. I’ve never been near the Gruer estate, never in my whole life. So I certainly couldn’t have poisoned Agent Gruer. And if I haven’t–why, neither did I kill my husband.”

Then, as Baley maintained a stern silence, her spirit seemed to fade and the corners of her small mouth drooped. “Don’t you think so, Elijah?”

“I can’t be sure,” said Baley. “I’ve told you I know the method used to poison Gruer. It’s an ingenious one and anyone on Solaria could have used it, whether they were on the Gruer estate or not; whether they were ever on the Gruer estate or not.”

Gladia clenched her hands into fists. “Are you saying I did it?”

“I’m not saying that.”

“You’re implying it.” Her lips were thin with fury and her high cheekbones were splotchy. “Is that all your interest in viewing me? To ask me sly questions? To trap me?”

“Now wait–”

“You seemed so sympathetic. So understanding. You–you Earthman!”

Her contralto had become a tortured rasp with the last word.

Daneel’s perfect face leaned toward Gladia and he said, “If you will pardon me, Mrs. Delmarre, you are holding a knife rather tightly and may cut yourself. Please be careful.”

Gladia stared wildly at the short, blunt, and undoubtedly quite harmless knife she held in her hand. With a spasmodic movement she raised it high.

Baley said, “You couldn’t reach me, Gladia.”

She gasped. “Who’d want to reach you? Ugh!” She shuddered in exaggerated disgust and called out, “Break contact at once!”

The last must have been to a robot out of the line of sight, and Gladia and her end of the room were gone and the original wall sprang back.

Daneel said, “Am I correct in believing you now consider this woman guilty?”

“No,” said Baley flatly. “Whoever did this needed a great deal more of certain characteristics than this poor girl has.”

“She has a temper.”

“What of that? Most people do. Remember, too, that she has been under a considerable strain for a considerable time. If I had been under a similar strain and someone had turned on me as she imagined I had turned on her, I might have done a great deal more than wave a foolish little knife.”

Daneel said, “I have not been able to deduce the technique of poisoning at a distance, as you say you have.”

Baley found it pleasant to be able to say, “I know you haven’t. You lack the capacity to decipher this particular puzzle.”

He said it with finality and Daneel accepted the statement as calmly and as gravely as ever.

Baley said, “I have two jobs for you, Daneel.”

“And what are they, Partner Elijah?”

“First, get in touch with this Dr. Thool and find out Mrs. Delmarre’s condition at the time of the murder of her husband. How long she required treatment and so on.”

“Do you want to determine something in particular?”

“No. I’m just trying to accumulate data. It isn’t easy on this world. Secondly, find out who will be taking Gruer’s place as head of security and arrange a viewing session for me first thing in the morning. As for me,” he said without pleasure in his mind, and with none in his voice, “I’m going to bed and eventually, I hope, I’ll sleep.” Then, almost petulantly, “Do you suppose I could get a decent bookfilm in this place?”

Daneel said, “I would suggest that you summon the robot in charge of the library.”

Baley felt only irritation at having to deal with the robot. He would much rather have browsed at will.

“No,” he said, “not a classic; just an ordinary piece of fiction dealing with everyday life on contemporary Solaria. About half a dozen of them.”

The robot submitted (it would have to) but even as it manipulated the proper controls that plucked the requisite bookfilms out of their niches and transferred them first to an exit slot and then to Baley’s hand, it rattled on in respectful tones about all the other categories in the library.

The master might like an adventure romance of the days of exploration, it suggested, or an excellent view of chemistry, perhaps, with animated atom models, or a fantasy, or a Galactography. The list was endless.

Baley waited grimly for his half dozen, said, “These will do,” reached with his own hands (his
own
hands) for a scanner and walked away.

When the robot followed and said, “Will you require help with the adjustment, master?” Baley turned and snapped, “No. Stay where you are.”

The robot bowed and stayed.

Lying in bed, with the headboard aglow, Baley almost regretted his decision. The scanner was like no model he had ever used and he began with no idea at all as to the method for threading the film. But he worked at it obstinately, and, eventually, by taking it apart and working it out bit by bit, he managed something.

At least he could view the film and, if the focus left a bit to be desired, it was small payment for a moment’s independence from the robots.

In the next hour and a half he had skipped and switched through four of the six films and was disappointed.

He had had a theory. There was no better way, he had thought, to get an insight into Solarian ways of life and thought than to read their novels. He needed that insight if he were to conduct the investigation sensibly.

But now he had to abandon his theories. He had viewed novels and had succeeded only in learning of people with ridiculous problems who behaved foolishly and reacted mysteriously. Why should a woman abandon her job on discovering her child had entered the same profession and refuse to explain her reasons until unbearable and ridiculous complications had resulted? Why should a doctor and an artist be humiliated at being assigned to one another and what was so noble about the doctor’s insistence on entering robotic research?

He threaded the fifth novel into the scanner and adjusted it to his eyes. He was bone weary.

So weary, in fact, that he never afterward recalled anything of the fifth novel (which he believed to be a suspense story) except for the opening in which a new estate owner entered his mansion and looked through the past account films presented him by a respectful robot.

Presumably he fell asleep then with the scanner on his head and all lights blazing. Presumably a robot, entering respectfully, had gently removed the scanner and put out the lights.

In any case, he slept and dreamed of Jessie. All was as it had been. He had never left Earth. They were ready to travel to the community kitchen and then to see a subetheric show with friends. They would travel over the Expressways and see people and neither of them had a care in the world. He was happy.

And Jessie was beautiful. She had lost weight somehow. Why should she be so slim? And so beautiful?

And one other thing was wrong. Somehow the sun shone down on them. He looked up and there was only the vaulted base of the upper Levels visible, yet the sun shone down, blazing brightly on everything, and no one was afraid.

Baley woke up, disturbed. He let the robots serve breakfast and did not speak to Daneel. He said nothing, asked nothing, downed excellent coffee without tasting it.

Why had he dreamed of the visible invisible sun? He could understand dreaming of Earth and of Jessie, but what had the sun to do with it? And why should the thought of it bother him, anyway?