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He saw enough, however. The main door was closed and the living room lay lifeless and quiet.
He turned the knob back into the off position and moved back to bed.
It was all he needed. The pieces fit. The pattern was complete. Jessie pleaded with him. “Lije, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong, Jessie. Everything’s all right. He’s not here.”
“The robot? Do you mean he’s gone? For good?”
“No, no. He’ll be back. And before he does, answer my question.”
“What question?”
“What are you afraid of?” Jessie said nothing.
Baley grew more insistent. “You said you were scared to death.”
“Of him.”
“No, we went through that. You weren’t afraid of him and, besides, you know quite well a robot ca
Her words came slowly. “I thought if everyone knew he was a robot there might be a riot. We’d be killed.”
“Why kill us?”
“You know what riots are like.”
“They don’t even know where the robot is, do they?”
“They might find out.”
“And that’s what you’re afraid of, a riot?”
“Well—”
“Sh!” He pressed Jessie down to the pillow.
Then he put his lips to her ear. “He’s come back. Now listen and don’t say a word. Everything’s fine. He’ll be gone in the morning and he won’t be back. There’ll be no riot, nothing.”
He was almost contented as he said that, almost completely contented. He felt he could sleep.
He thought again: No riot, nothing. And no declassification. And just before he actually fell asleep, he thought: Not even a murder investigation. Not even that. The whole thing’s solved…
He slept.
Chapter 7.
EXCURSION INTO SPACETOWN
Police Commissioner Julius Enderby polished his glasses with exquisite care and placed them upon the bridge of his nose.
Baley thought: It’s a good trick. Keeps you busy while you’re thinking what to say, and it doesn’t cost money the way lighting up a pipe does.
And because the thought had entered his mind, he drew out his pipe and dipped into his pinched store of rough-cut. One of the few luxury crops still grown on Earth was tobacco, and its end was visibly approaching. Prices had gone up, never down, in Baley’s lifetime; quotas down, never up.
Enderby, having adjusted his glasses, felt for the switch at one end of his desk and flicked his door into one-way transparency for a moment. “Where is he now, by the way?”
“He told me he wanted to be shown through the Department, and I let Jack Tobin do the honors.” Baley lit his pipe and tightened its baffle carefully. The Commissioner, like most non-indulgers, was petty about tobacco smoke.
“I hope you didn’t tell him Daneel was a robot.”
“Of course I didn’t.”
The Commissioner did not relax. One hand remained aimlessly busy with the automatic calendar on his desk.
“How is it?” he asked, without looking at Baley.
“Middling rough.”
“I’m sorry, Lije.”
Baley said, firmly, “You might have warned me that he looked completely human.”
The Commissioner looked surprised. “I didn’t?” Then, with sudden petulance, “Damn it, you should have known. I wouldn’t have asked you to have him stay at your house if he looked like R. Sammy. Now would I?”
“I know, Commissioner, but I’d never seen a robot like that and you had. I didn’t even know such things were possible. I just wish you’d mentioned it, that’s all.”
“Look, Lije, I’m sorry. I should have told you. You’re right. It’s just that this job, this whole deal, has me so on edge that half the time I’m just snapping at people for no reason. He, I mean this Daneel thing, is a new-type robot. It’s still in the experimental stage.”
“So he explained himself.”
“Oh. Well, that’s it, then.”
Baley tensed a little. This was it, now. He said, casually, teeth clenched on pipestem. “R. Daneel has arranged a trip to Spacetown for me.”
“To Spacetown!” Enderby looked up with instant indignation. “Yes. It’s the logical next move, Commissioner. I’d like to see the scene of the crime, ask a few questions.”
Enderby shook his head decidedly. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Lije. We’ve gone over the ground. I doubt there’s anything new to be learned. And they’re strange people. Kid gloves! They’ve got to be handled with kid gloves. You don’t have the experience.”
He put a plump hand to his forehead and added, with unexpected fervor, “I hate them.”
Baley inserted hostility into his voice. “Damn it, the robot came here and I should go there. It’s bad enough sharing a front seat with a robot; I hate to take a back seat. Of course, if you don’t think I’m capable of ru
“It isn’t that, Lije. It’s not you, it’s the Spacers. You don’t know what they’re like.”
Baley deepened his frown. “Well, then, Commissioner, suppose you come along.” His right hand rested on his knee, and two of his fingers crossed automatically as he said that.
The Commissioner’s eyes widened. “No, Lije. I won’t go there. Don’t ask me to.” He seemed visibly to catch hold of his runaway words. More quietly, he said, with an unconvincing smile, “Lots of work here, you know. I’m days behind.”
Baley regarded him thoughtfully. “I tell you what, then. Why not get into it by trimension later on. Just for a while, you understand. In case I need help.”
“Well, yes. I suppose I can do that.” He sounded unenthusiastic.
“Good.” Baley looked at the wall clock, nodded, and got up. “I’ll be in touch with you.”
Baley looked back as he left the office, keeping the door open for part of an additional second. He saw the Commissioner’s head begin bending down toward the crook of one elbow as it rested on the desk. The plain-clothes man could almost swear he heard a sob.
Jehoshaphat! he thought, in outright shock.
He paused in the common room and sat on the corner of a nearby desk, ignoring its occupant, who looked up, murmured a casual greeting, and returned to his work.
Baley unclipped the baffle from the bowl of the pipe and blew into it. He inverted the pipe itself over the desk’s small ash vacuum and let the powdery white tobacco ash vanish. He looked regretfully at the empty pipe, readjusted the baffle, and put it away. Another pipeful gone forever!
He reconsidered what had just taken place. In one way, Enderby had not surprised him. He had expected resistance to any attempt on his own part to enter Spacetown. He had heard the Commissioner talk often enough about the difficulties of dealing with Spacers, about the dangers of allowing any but experienced negotiators to have anything to do with them, even over trifles.
He had not expected, however, to have the Commissioner give in so easily. He had supposed, at the very least, that Enderby would have insisted on accompanying him. The pressure of other work was meaningless in the face of the importance of this problem.
And that was not what Baley wanted. He wanted exactly what he had gotten. He wanted the Commissioner to be present by trimensional personification so that he could witness the proceedings from a point of safety.
Safety was the key word. Baley would need a witness that could not be put out of the way immediately. He needed that much as the minimum guarantee of his own safety.
The Commissioner had agreed to that at once. Baley remembered the parting sob, or ghost of one, and thought: Jehoshaphat, the man’s into this past his depth.
A cheerful, slurring voice sounded just at Baley’s shoulder and Baley started.
“What the devil do you want?” he demanded savagely.
The smile on R. Sammy’s face remained foolishly fixed. “Jack says to tell you Daneel is ready, Lije.”
“All right. Now get out of here.”
He frowned at the robot’s departing back. There was nothing so irritating as having that clumsy metal contraption forever making free with your front name. He’d complained about that when R. Sammy first arrived and the Commissioner had shrugged his shoulders and said, “You can’t have it both ways, Lije. The public insists that City robots be built with a strong friendship circuit. All right, then. He is drawn to you. He calls you by the friendliest name he knows.”