Authors: Isaac Asimov
He needed a transient’s permit to make use of one of the community bathrooms, but presentation of his travel orders eliminated any difficulties. There was only the routine stamping, with private-stall privileges (the date carefully marked to prevent abuse) and a slim strip of directions for getting to the assigned spot.
Baley was thankful for the feel of the strips beneath his feet. It was with something amounting to luxury that he felt himself accelerate as he moved from strip to moving strip inward toward the speeding Expressway. He swung himself aboard lightly, taking the seat to which his rating entitled him.
It wasn’t a rush hour; seats were available. The bathroom, when he reached it, was not unduly crowded either. The stall assigned to him was in decent order with a launderette that worked well.
With his water ration consumed to good purpose and his clothing freshened he felt ready to tackle the Justice Department. Ironically enough, he even felt cheerful.
Undersecretary Albert Minnim was a small, compact man, ruddy of skin, and graying, with the angles of his body smoothed down and softened. He exuded an air of cleanliness and smelled faintly of tonic. It all spoke of the good things of life that came with the liberal rations obtained by those high in Administration.
Baley felt sallow and rawboned in comparison. He was conscious of his own large hands, deep-set eyes, a general sense of cragginess.
Minnim said cordially, “Sit down, Baley. Do you smoke?”
“Only a pipe, sir,” said Baley.
He drew it out as he spoke, and Minnim thrust back a cigar he had half drawn.
Baley was instantly regretful. A cigar was better than nothing and he would have appreciated the gift. Even with the increased tobacco ration that went along with his recent promotion from C-5 to C-6 he wasn’t exactly swimming in pipe fixings.
“Please light up, if you care to,” said Minnim, and waited with a kind of paternal patience while Baley measured out a careful quantity of tobacco and affixed the pipe baffle.
Baley said, his eyes on his pipe, “I have not been told the reason for my being called to Washington, sir.”
“I know that,” said Minnim. He smiled. “I can fix that right now. You are being reassigned temporarily.”
“Outside New York City?”
“Quite a distance.”
Baley raised his eyebrows and looked thoughtful. “How temporarily, sir?”
“I’m not sure.”
Baley was aware of the advantages and disadvantages of reassignment. As a transient in a City of which he was not a resident, he would probably live on a scale better than his official rating entitled him to. On the other hand, it would be very unlikely that Jessie and their son, Bentley, would be allowed to travel with him. They would be taken care of, to be sure, there in New York, but Baley was a domesticated creature and he did not enjoy the thought of separation.
Then, too, a reassignment meant a specific job of work, which was good, and a responsibility greater
than that ordinarily expected of the individual detective, which could be uncomfortable. Baley had, not too many months earlier, survived the responsibility of the investigation of the murder of a Spacer just outside New York. He was not overjoyed at the prospect of another such detail, or anything approaching it.
He said, “Would you tell me where I’m going? The nature of the reassignment? What it’s all about?”
He was trying to weigh the Undersecretary’s “Quite a distance” and make little bets with himself as to his new base of operations. The “Quite a distance” had sounded emphatic and Baley thought: Calcutta? Sydney?
Then he noticed that Minnim was taking out a cigar after all and was lighting it carefully.
Baley thought: Jehoshaphat! He’s having trouble telling me. He doesn’t want to say.
Minnim withdrew his cigar from between his lips. He watched the smoke and said, “The Department of Justice is assigning you to temporary duty on Solaria.”
For a moment Baley’s mind groped for an illusive identification: Solaria, Asia; Solaria, Australia … ?
Then he rose from his seat and said tightly, “You mean, one of the Outer Worlds?”
Minnim didn’t meet Baley’s eyes. “That is right.”
Baley said, “But that’s impossible. They wouldn’t allow an Earthman on an Outer World.”
“Circumstances do alter cases, Plainclothesman Baley. There has been a murder on Solaria.”
Baley’s lips quirked into a sort of reflex smile. “That’s a little out of our jurisdiction, isn’t it?”
“They’ve requested help.”
“From us? Earth?” Baley was torn between confusion
and disbelief. For an Outer World to take any attitude other than contempt toward the despised mother planet or, at best, a patronizing social benevolence was unthinkable. To come for help?
“From Earth?” he repeated.
“Unusual,” admitted Minnim, “but there it is. They want a Terrestrial detective assigned to the case. It’s been handled through diplomatic channels on the highest levels.”
Baley sat down again. “Why me? I’m not a young man. I’m forty-three. I’ve got a wife and child. I couldn’t leave Earth.”
“That’s not our choice, Plainclothesman. You were specifically asked for.”
“I?”
“Plainclothesman Elijah Baley, C-6, of the New York City Police Force. They knew what they wanted. Surely you see why.”
Baley said stubbornly, “I’m not qualified.”
“They think you are. The way you handled the Spacer murder has apparently reached them.”
“They must have got it all mixed up. It must have seemed better than it was.”
Minnim shrugged. “In any case, they’ve asked for you and we have agreed to send you. You are reassigned. The papers have all been taken care of and you must go. During your absence, your wife and child will be taken care of at a C-7 level since that will be your temporary rating during your discharge of this assignment.” He paused significantly. “Satisfactory completion of the assignment may make the rating permanent.”
It was happening too quickly for Baley. None of this could be so. He
couldn’t
leave Earth. Didn’t they see that?
He heard himself ask in a level voice that sounded unnatural in his own ears, “What kind of a murder? What are the circumstances? Why can’t they handle it themselves?”
Minnim rearranged small objects on his desk with carefully kept fingers. He shook his head. “I don’t know anything about the murder. I don’t know the circumstances.”
“Then who does, sir? You don’t expect me to go there cold, do you?” And again a despairing inner voice: But I
can’t
leave Earth.
“Nobody knows anything about it. Nobody on Earth. The Solarians didn’t tell us. That will be your job: to find out what is so important about the murder that they must have an Earthman to solve it. Or, rather, that will be
part
of your job.”
Baley was desperate enough to say, “What if I refuse?” He knew the answer, of course. He knew exactly what declassification would mean to himself and, more than that, to his family.
Minnim said nothing about declassification. He said softly, “You can’t refuse, Plainclothesman. You have a job to do.”
“For Solaria? The hell with them.”
“For
us
, Baley. For us.” Minnim paused. Then he went on, “You know the position of Earth with respect to the Spacers. I don’t have to go into that.”
Baley knew the situation and so did every man on Earth. The fifty Outer Worlds, with a far smaller population, in combination, than that of Earth alone, nevertheless maintained a military potential perhaps a hundred times greater. With their underpopulated worlds resting on a positronic robot economy, their energy production per human was thousands of times that of Earth. And it was the amount of energy a
single human could produce that dictated military potential, standard of living, happiness, and all besides.
Minnim said, “One of the factors that conspires to keep us in that position is ignorance. Just that. Ignorance. The Spacers know all about us. They send missions enough to Earth, heaven knows. We know nothing about them except what they tell us. No man on Earth has ever as much as set foot on an Outer World.
You
will, though.”
Baley began, “I can’t …”
But Minnim repeated, “You
will
. Your position will be unique. You will be on Solaria on their invitation, doing a job to which they will assign you. When you return, you will have information useful to Earth.”
Baley watched the Undersecretary through somber eyes. “You mean I’m to spy for Earth.”
“No question of spying. You need do nothing they don’t ask you to do. Just keep your eyes and mind open. Observe! There will be specialists on Earth when you return to analyze and interpret your observations.”
Baley said, “I take it there’s a crisis, sir.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Sending an Earthman to an Outer World is risky. The Spacers hate us. With the best will in the world and even though I’m there on invitation, I could cause an interstellar incident. The Terrestrial Government could easily avoid sending me if they chose. They could say I was ill. The Spacers are pathologically afraid of disease. They wouldn’t want me for any reason if they thought I were ill.”
“Do you suggest,” said Minnim, “we try that trick?”
“No. If the Government had no other motive for sending me, they would think of that or something better without my help. So it follows that it is the question of spying that is the real essential. And if that is so, there must be more to it than just a see-what-you-can-see to justify the risk.”
Baley half expected an explosion and would have half welcomed one as a relief of pressure, but Minnim only smiled frostily and said, “You can see past the nonessentials, it seems. But then, I expected no less.”
The Undersecretary leaned across his desk toward Baley. “Here is certain information which you will discuss with no one, not even with other government officials. Our sociologists have been coming to certain conclusions concerning the present Galactic situation. Fifty Outer Worlds, underpopulated, roboticized, powerful, with people that are healthy and long-lived. We ourselves, crowded, technologically underdeveloped, short-lived, under their domination. It is unstable.”
“Everything is in the long run.”
“This is unstable in the short run. A hundred years is the most we’re allowed. The situation will last our time, to be sure, but we have children. Eventually we will become too great a danger to the Outer Worlds to be allowed to survive. There are eight billions on Earth who hate the Spacers.”
Baley said, “The Spacers exclude us from the Galaxy, handle our trade to their own profit, dictate to our Government, and treat us with contempt. What do they expect? Gratitude?”
“True, and yet the pattern is fixed. Revolt, suppression, revolt, suppression—and within a century Earth will be virtually wiped out as a populated world. So the sociologists say.”
Baley stirred uneasily. One didn’t question sociologists and their computers. “But what do you expect me to accomplish if all this is so?”
“Bring us information. The big flaw in sociological forecast is our lack of data concerning the Spacers. We’ve had to make assumptions on the basis of the few Spacers they sent out here. We’ve had to rely on what they choose to tell us of themselves, so it follows we know their strengths and only their strengths. Damn it, they have their robots and their low numbers and their long lives. But do they have weaknesses? Is there some factor or factors which, if we but knew, would alter the sociologic inevitability of destruction; something that could guide our actions and better the chance of Earth’s survival?”
“Hadn’t you better send a sociologist, sir?”
Minnim shook his head. “If we could send whom we pleased, we would have sent someone out ten years ago, when these conclusions were first being arrived at. This is our first excuse to send someone and they ask for a detective and that suits us. A detective is a sociologist, too; a rule-of-thumb, practicing sociologist, or he wouldn’t be a good detective. Your record proves you a good one.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Baley mechanically. “And if I get into trouble?”
Minnim shrugged. “That’s the risk of a policeman’s job.” He dismissed the point with a wave of his hand and added, “In any case, you must go. Your time of departure is set. The ship that will take you is waiting.”
Baley stiffened. “Waiting? When do I leave?”
“In two days.”
“I’ve got to get back to New York then. My wife——”
“
We
will see your wife. She can’t know the nature of your job, you know. She will be told not to expect to hear from you.”
“But this is inhuman. I must see her. I may never see her again.”
Minnim said, “What I say now may sound even more inhuman, but isn’t it true there is never a day you set about your duties on which you cannot tell yourself she may never see you again? Plainclothesman Baley, we must all do our duty.”
Baley’s pipe had been out for fifteen minutes. He had never noticed it.
No one had more to tell him. No one knew anything about the murder. Official after official simply hurried him on to the moment when he stood at the base of a spaceship, all unbelieving still.
It was like a gigantic cannon aimed at the heavens, and Baley shivered spasmodically in the raw, open air. The night closed in (for which Baley was thankful) like dark black walls melting into a black ceiling overhead. It was cloudy, and though he had been to Planetaria, a bright star, stabbing through a rift in the cloud, startled him when it caught his eyes.
A little spark, far, far away. He stared curiously, almost unafraid of it. It looked quite close, quite insignificant, and yet around things like that circled planets of which the inhabitants were lords of the Galaxy. The sun was a thing like that, he thought, except much closer, shining now on the other side of the Earth.
He thought of the Earth suddenly as a ball of stone with a film of moisture and gas, exposed to emptiness on every side, with its Cities barely dug
into the outer rim, clinging precariously between rock and air. His skin crawled!
The ship was a Spacer vessel, of course. Interstellar trade was entirely in Spacer hands. He was alone now, just outside the rim of the City. He had been bathed and scraped and sterilized until he was considered safe, by Spacer standards, to board the ship. Even so, they sent only a robot out to meet him, bearing as he did a hundred varieties of disease germs from the sweltering City to which he himself was resistant but to which the eugenically hothoused Spacers were not.