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Baley did so. He felt a definite tingling in the ball of his middle finger as he laid it down upon the clean, milky surface. He lifted his hand hastily and found a little drop of blood oozing out. As he watched, it stopped flowing.
He shook it off and pinched the finger. No more blood was flowing even then.
Obviously, they were analyzing his blood. He felt a definite pang of anxiety. His own yearly routine examination by Department doctors, he felt sure, was not carried on with the thoroughness or, perhaps, with the knowledge of these cold robot-makers from outer space. He was not sure he wanted too probing an inquiry into the state of his health.
The time of waiting seemed long to Baley, but when the light flashed again, it said simply, “Visitor will proceed.”
Baley drew a long breath of relief. He walked onward and stepped through an archway. Two metal rods closed in before him and, written in luminous air, were the words: “Visitor is warned to proceed no further.”
“What the devil—” called out Baley, forgetting in his anger the fact that he was still in the Personal.
R. Daneel’s voice was in his ear. “The sniffers have detected a power source, I imagine. Are you carrying your blaster, Elijah?”
Baley whirled, his face a deep crimson. He tried twice, then managed to croak out, “A police officer has his blaster on him or in easy reach at all times, on duty and off.”
It was the first time he had spoken in a Personal, proper, since he was ten years old. That had been in his uncle Boris’s presence and had merely been an automatic complaint when he stubbed his toe. Uncle Boris had beaten him well when he reached home and had lectured him strongly on the necessities of public decency.
R. Daneel said, “No visitor may be armed. It is our custom, Elijah. Even your Commissioner leaves his blaster behind on all visits.”
Under almost any other circumstances, Baley would have turned on his heel and walked away, away from Spacetown and away from that robot. Now, however, he was almost mad with desire to go through with his exact plan and have his revenge to the brim in that way. This, he thought, was the unobtrusive medical examination that had replaced the more detailed one of the early days. He could well understand, he could understand to overflowing, the indignation and anger that had led to the Barrier Riots of his youth.
In black anger, Baley unhitched his blaster belt. R. Daneel took it from him and placed it within a recess in the wall. A thin metal plate slithered across it.
“If you will put your thumb in the depression,” said R. Daneel, “only your thumb will open it later on.”
Baley felt undressed, far more so, in fact, than he had felt in the shower. He stepped across the point at which the rods had lately barred him, and, finally, out of the Personal.
He was back in a corridor again, but there was an element of strangeness about it. Up ahead, the light had an unfamiliar quality to it. He felt a whiff of air against his face and, automatically, he thought a squad car had passed.
R. Daneel must have read his uneasiness in his face. He said, “You are essentially in open air now, Elijah. It is unconditioned.”
Baley felt faintly sick. How could the Spacers be so rigidly careful of a human body, merely because it came from the City, and then breathe the dirty air of the open fields? He tightened his nostrils, as though by pulling them together he could the more effectively screen the ingoing air.
R. Daneel said, “I believe you will find that open air is not deleterious to human health.”
“All right,” said Baley, faintly.
The air currents hit a
Worse came. The corridor opened into blueness and as they approached its end, strong white light washed down. Baley had seen sunlight. He had been in a natural Solarium once in the line of duty. But there, protecting glass had enclosed the place and the sun’s own image had been refracted into a generalized glow. Here, all was open.
Automatically, he looked up at the sun, then turned away. His dazzled eyes blinked and watered.
A Spacer was approaching. A moment of misgiving struck Baley.
R. Daneel, however, stepped forward to greet the approaching man with a handshake. The Spacer turned to Baley and said, “Won’t you come with me, sir? I am Dr. Han Fastolfe.”
Things were better inside one of the domes. Baley found himself goggling at the size of the rooms and the way in which space was so carelessly distributed, but was thankful for the feel of the conditioned air.
Fastolfe said, sitting down and crossing his long legs, “I’m assuming that you prefer conditioning to unobstructed wind.”
He seemed friendly enough. There were fine wrinkles on his forehead and a certain flabbiness to the skin below his eyes and just under his chin. His hair was thi
Early that morning, Baley had looked once again at those pictures of Spacetown that Enderby had taken. R. Daneel had just arranged the Spacetown appointment and Baley was absorbing the notion that he was to meet Spacers in the flesh. Somehow that was considerably different from speaking to them across miles of carrier wave, as he had done on several occasions before.
The Spacers in those pictures had been, generally speaking, like those that were occasionally featured in the book-films: tall, redheaded, grave, coldly handsome. Like R. Daneel Olivaw, for instance.
R. Daneel named the Spacers for Baley and when Baley suddenly pointed and said, in surprise, “That isn’t you, is it?” R. Daneel answered, “No, Elijah, that is my designer, Dr. Sarton.”
He said it unemotionally.
“You were made in your maker’s image?” asked Baley, sardonically, but there was no answer to that and, in truth, Baley scarcely expected one. The Bible, as he knew, circulated only to the most limited extent on the Outer Worlds.
And now Baley looked at Han Fastolfe, a man who deviated very noticeably from the Spacer norm in looks, and the Earthman felt a pronounced gratitude for that fact.
“Won’t you accept food?” asked Fastolfe.
He indicated the table that separated himself and R. Daneel from the Earthman. It bore nothing but a bowl of varicolored spheroids. Baley felt vaguely startled. He had taken them for table decorations.
R. Daneel explained. “These are the fruits of natural plant life grown on Aurora. I suggest you try this kind. It is called an apple and is reputed to be pleasant.”
Fastolfe smiled. “R. Daneel does not know this by personal experience, of course, but he is quite right.”
Baley brought an apple to his mouth. Its surface was red and green. It was cool to the touch and had a faint but pleasant odor. With an effort, he bit into it and the unexpected tartness of the pulpy contents hurt his teeth.
He chewed it gingerly. City dwellers ate natural food, of course, whenever rations allowed it. He himself had eaten natural meat and bread often. But such food had always been processed in some way. It had been cooked or ground, blended or compounded. Fruit, now, properly speaking, should come in the form of sauce or preserve. What he was holding now must have come straight from the dirt of a planet’s soil.
He thought: I hope they’ve washed it at least.
Again he wondered at the spottiness of Spacer notions concerning cleanliness.
Fastolfe said, “Let me introduce myself a bit more specifically. I am in charge of the investigation of the murder of Dr. Sarton at the Spacetown end as Commissioner Enderby is at the City end. If I can help you in any way, I stand ready to do so. We are as eager for a quiet solution of the affair and prevention of future incidents of the sort as any of you City men can be.”