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“Same thing.”
“You have no alibi then for either night?”
“If I had done anything criminal, Officer, I’d have one. What do I need an alibi for?”
Baley didn’t answer. He consulted his little book. “You were up before the magistrate once. Inciting to riot.”
“All right. One of the R things pushed past me and I tripped him up. Is that inciting to riot?”
“The court thought so. You were convicted and fined.”
“That ends it, doesn’t it? Or do you want to fine me again?”
“Night before last, there was a near riot at a shoe department in the Bronx. You were seen there.”
“By whom?”
Baley said, “It was at mealtime for you here. Did you eat the evening meal night before last?”
Clousarr hesitated, then shook his head. “Upset stomach. Yeast gets you that way sometimes. Even an old-timer.”
“Last night, there was a near riot in Williamsburg and you were seen there.”
“By whom?”
“Do you deny you were present on both occasions?”
“You’re not giving me anything to deny. Exactly where did these things happen and who says he saw me?”
Baley stared at the zymologist levelly. “I think you know exactly what I’m talking about. I think you’re an important man in an unregistered Medievalist organization.”
“I can’t stop you from thinking, Officer, but thinking isn’t evidence. Maybe you know that.” Clousarr was gri
“Maybe,” said Baley, his long face stony, “I can get a little truth out of you right now.”
Baley stepped to the door of the balance room and opened it. He said to R. Daneel, who was waiting stolidly outside, “Has Clousarr’s evening meal arrived?”
“It is coming now, Elijah.”
“Bring it in, will you, Daneel?”
R. Daneel entered a moment later with a metal compartmented tray.
“Put it down in front of Mr. Clousarr, Daneel,” said Baley. He sat down on one of the stools lining the balance wall, legs crossed, one shoe swinging rhythmically. He watched Clousarr edge stiffly away as R. Daneel placed the tray on a stool near the zymologist.
“Mr. Clousarr,” said Baley. “I want to introduce you to my partner, Daneel Olivaw.”
Daneel put out his hand and said, “How do you do, Francis.”
Clousarr said nothing. He made no move to grasp Daneel’s extended hand. Daneel maintained his position and Clousarr began to redden.
Baley said softly, “You are being rude, Mr. Clousarr. Are you too proud to shake hands with a policeman?”
Clousarr muttered, “If you don’t mind, I’m hungry.” He unfolded a pocket fork out of a clasp knife he took from his pocket and sat down, eyes bent on his meal.
Baley said, “Daneel, I think our friend is offended by your cold attitude. You are not angry with him, are you?”
“Not at all, Elijah,” said R. Daneel.
“Then show that there are no hard feelings. Put your arm about his shoulder.”
“I will be glad to,” said R. Daneel, and stepped forward.
Clousarr put down his fork. “What is this? What’s going on?”
R. Daneel, unruffled, put out his arm.
Clousarr swung backhanded, wildly, knocking R. Daneel’s arm to one side. “Damn it, don’t touch me.”
He jumped up and away, the tray of food tipping and hitting the floor in a messy clatter.
Baley, hard-eyed, nodded curtly to R. Daneel, who thereupon continued a stolid advance toward the retreating zymologist. Baley stepped in front of the door.
Clousarr yelled, “Keep that thing off me.”
“That’s no way to speak,” said Baley with equanimity. “The man’s my partner.”
“You mean he’s a damned robot,” shrieked Clousarr.
“Get away from him, Daneel,” said Baley promptly.
R. Daneel stepped back and stood quietly against the door just behind Baley. Clousarr, panting harshly, fists clenched, faced Baley.
Baley said, “All right, smart boy. What makes you think Daneel’s a robot?”
“Anyone can tell!”
“We’ll leave that to a judge. Meanwhile, I think we want you at headquarters, Clousarr. We’d like to have you explain exactly how you knew Daneel was a robot. And lots more, mister, lots more. Daneel, step outside and get through to the Commissioner. He’ll be at his home by now. Tell him to come down to the office. Tell him I have a fellow who can’t wait to be questioned.”
R. Daneel stepped out.
Baley said, “What makes your wheels go round, Clousarr?”
“I want a lawyer.”
“You’ll get one. Meanwhile, suppose you tell me what makes you Medievalists tick?”
Clousarr looked away in a determined silence.
Baley said, “Jehoshaphat, man, we know all about you and your organization. I’m not bluffing. Just tell me for my own curiosity: What do you Medievalists want?”
“Back to the soil,” said Clousarr in a stifled voice. “That’s simple, isn’t it?”
“It’s simple to say,” said Baley. “But it isn’t simple to do. How’s the soil going to feed eight billions?”
“Did I say back to the soil overnight? Or in a year? Or in a hundred years? Step by step, mister policeman. It doesn’t matter how long it takes, but let’s get started out of these caves we live in. Let’s get out into the fresh air.”
“Have you ever been out into the fresh air?”
Clousarr squirmed. “All right, so I’m ruined, too. But the children aren’t ruined yet. There are babies being born continuously. Get them out, for God’s sake. Let them have space and open air and sun. If we’ve got to, we’ll cut our population little by little, too.”
“Backward, in other words, to an impossible past.” Baley did not really know why he was arguing, except for the strange fever that was burning in his own veins. “Back to the seed, to the egg, to the womb. Why not move forward? Don’t cut Earth’s population. Use it for export. Go back to the soil, but go back to the soil of other planets. Colonize!”
Clousarr laughed harshly. “And make more Outer Worlds? More Spacers?”
“We won’t. The Outer Worlds were settled by Earthmen who came from a planet that did not have Cities, by Earthmen who were individualists and materialists. Those qualities were carried to an unhealthy extreme. We can now colonize out of a society that has built co-operation, if anything, too far. Now environment and tradition can interact to form a new middle way, distinct from either old Earth or the Outer Worlds. Something newer and better.”
He was parroting Dr. Fastolfe, he knew, but it was coming out as though he himself had been thinking of it for years.
Clousarr said, “Nuts! Colonize desert worlds with a world of our own at our fingertips? What fools would try?”
“Many. And they wouldn’t be fools. There’d be robots to help.”
“No,” said Clousarr, fiercely. “Never! No robots!”
“Why not, for the love of Heaven? I don’t like them, either, but I’m not going to knife myself for the sake of a prejudice. What are we afraid of in robots? If you want my guess, it’s a sense of inferiority. We, all of us, feel inferior to the Spacers and hate it. We’ve got to feel superior somehow, somewhere, to make up for it, and it kills us that we can’t at least feel superior to robots. They seem to be better than us—only they’re not. That’s the damned irony of it.”
Baley felt his blood heating as he spoke. “Look at this Daneel I’ve been with for over two days. He’s taller than I am, stronger, handsomer. He looks like a Spacer, in fact. He’s got a better memory and knows more facts. He doesn’t have to sleep or eat. He’s not troubled by sickness or panic or love or guilt.
“But he’s a machine. I can do anything I want to him, the way I can to that microbalance right there. If I slam the microbalance, it won’t hit me back. Neither will Daneel. I can order him to take a blaster to himself and he’ll do it.
“We can’t ever build a robot that will be even as good as a human being in anything that counts, let alone better. We can’t create a robot with a sense of beauty or a sense of ethics or a sense of religion. There’s no way we can raise a positronic brain one inch above the level of perfect materialism.