Isaac Asimov - The Naked Sun

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The Naked Sun

By Isaac Asimov

To Noreen and Nick Falasca, for inviting me, To Tony Boucher, for introducing

me, and To One I-~undied Unusual Hours.

Contents

x. A Question Is Asked 2.09

2. A Friend Is Encountered zzr

~. A Victim Is Named 233

~. A Woman Is Viewed 245

~. A Crime Is Discussed 254

6. A Theory Is Refuted 263

~. A Doctor Is Prodded 275

8. A Spacer Is Defied 285

~. A Robot Is Stymied 296

jo. A Culture Is Traced 305

ii. AFarmlsinspected 316

xz. A Target Is Missed 327

13. A Roboticist Is Confronted 339

14. A Motive Is Revealed 348

15. A Portrait Is Colored 358

i6. A Solution Is Offered 370

17. A Meeting Is Held 380

i8. A Question Is Answered 391

A Question Is Asked

STUBBORNLY Elijah Baley fought panic.

For two weeks it had been building up. Longer than that, even. It had

been building up ever since they had called him to Washington and there calmly

told him he was being reassigned.

The call to Washington had been disturbing enough in itself. It came

without details, a mere summons; and that made it worse. It included travel

slips directing round trip by plane and that made it still worse.

Partly it was the sense of urgency introduced by any order for plane

travel. Partly it was the thought of the plane; simply that. Still, that was

just the beginning of uneasiness and, as yet, easy to suppress.

After all, Lije Baley had been in a plane four times before. Once he had

even crossed the continent. So, while plane travel is never pleasant, it

would, at least, not be a complete step into the unknown.

And then, the trip from New York to Washington would take only an hour.

The take-off would be from New York Runway Number 2, which, like all official

Runways, was decently enclosed, with a lock opening to the unprotected

atmosphere only after air speed had been achieved. The arrival would be at

Washington Runway Number 5, which was similarly protected.

Furthermore, as Baley well knew, there would be no windows on the plane.

There would be good lighting, decent food, all necessary conveniences. The

radio-controlled flight would be smooth; there would scarcely be any sensation

of motion once the plane was airborne.

He explained all this to himself, and to Jessie, his wife, who had never

been air-borne and who approached such matters with terror.

She said, "But I don't like you to take a plane, Lije. It isn't natural.

Why can't you take the Expressways?"

~Because that would take ten hours"-Baley's long face was set in dour

lines-"and because I'm a member of the City Police Force and have to follow

the orders of my superiors. At least, I do if I want to keep my C-6 rating."

There was no arguing with that.

Baley took the plane and kept his eyes firmly on the news-strip that

unreeled smoothly and continuously from the eye-level dispenser. The City was

proud of that service: news, features, humorous articles, educational bits,

occasional fiction. Someday the strips would be converted to film, it was

said, since enclosing the eyes with a viewer would be an even more efficient

way of distracting the passenger from his surroundings.

Baley kept his eyes on the unreeling strip, not only for the sake of

distraction, but also because etiquette required it. There were five other

passengers on the plane (he could not help noticing that much) and each one of

them had his private right to whatever degree of fear and anxiety his nature

and upbringing made him feel.

Baley would certainly resent the intrusion of anyone else on his own

uneasiness. He wanted no strange eyes on the whiteness of his knuckles where

his hands gripped the armrest, or the dampish stain they would leave when he

took them away.

He told himself: I'm enclosed. This plane is just a little City.

But he didn't fool himself. There was an inch of steel at his left; he could

feel it with his elbow. Past that, nothing- Well, air! But that was nothing,

really.

A thousand miles of it in one direction. A thousand in another. One mile

of it, maybe two, straight down.

He almost wished he could see straight down, glimpse the top of the

buried Cities he was passing over; New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore,

Washington. He imagined the rolling, low-slung clustercomplexes of domes he

had never seen but knew to be there. And under them, for a mile underground

and dozens of miles in every direction, would be the Cities.

The endless, hiving corridors of the Cities, he thought, alive with

people; apartments, community kitchens, factories, Expressways; all

comfortable and warm with the evidence of man.

And he himself was isolated i~i the cold and Teatureless air in a small

bullet of metal, moving through emptiness.

His hands trembled, and he forced his eyes to focus on the strip of

paper and read a bit.

It was a short story dealing with Galactic exploration and it was quite

obvious that the hero was an Earthman.

Baley muttered in exasperation, then held his breath momentarily in

dismay at his boorishness in making a sound.

It was completely ridiculous, though. It was pandering to childishness,

this pretense that Earthmen could invade space. Galactic exploration! The

Galaxy was closed to Earthmen. It was pre-empted by the Spacers, whose

ancestors had been Earthmen centuries before. Those ancestors had reached the

Outer Worlds first, found themselves comfortable, and their descendants had

lowered the bars to immigration. They had penned in Earth and their Earthman

cousins. And Earth's City civilization completed the task, imprisoning

Earthmen within the Cities by a wall of fear of open spaces that barred them

from the robot-run farming and mining areas of their own planet; from even

that. Baley thought bitterly: Jehoshaphat! If we don't like it, let's do

something about it. Let's not just waste time with fairy tales.

But there was nothing to do about it, and he knew it.

Then the plane landed. He and his fellow-passengers emerged and

scattered away from one another, never looking.

Baley glanced at his watch and decided there was time for freshening

before taking the Expressway to the Justice Department. He was glad there was.

The sound and clamor of life, the huge vaulted chamber of the airport with

City corridors leading off on numerous levels, everything else he saw and

heard, gave him the feeling of being safely and warmly enclosed in the bowels

and womb of the City. It washed away anxiety and only a shower was necessary

to complete the job.

He needed a transient's permit to make use of one of the cornmunity

bathrooms, but presentation of his travel orders eliminated any difficulties.

There was only the routine stamping, with privatestall 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-~ 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 smilecL "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 teas-

signment. As a transient in a City of which he was not a resident, be 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? From 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?

'Prom 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 fortythree. I've

got a wife and child. I couldn't leave Earth."

"That's not our choice, Plainclothesman. You were specifically asked

for."

"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-cansee 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 non-essentials, 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 thbmselves, 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?"

Minriim 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

rime 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 that

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 hundied varieties of disease germs from the sweltering

City to which he himself was resistant but to which the eugenically hothoused

Spacers were not.

The robot bulked dimly in the night, its eyes a dull red glow.

"Plainclothesman Elijah Baley?"

"That's right," said Baley crisply, the hair on the nape of his neck

stirring a bit. He was enough of an Earthman to get angry goose flesh at the

sight of a robot doing a man's job. There had been R. Daneel Olivaw, who had

partnered with him in the Spacer murder affair, but that had been different.

Daneel had been- "You will follow me, please," said the robot, and a white

light flooded a path toward the ship.

Baley followed. Up the ladder and into the ship he went, along

corridors, and into a room.

The robot said, "This will be your room, Plainclothesman Baley. It is

requested that you remain in it for the duration of the trip."

Baley thought: Sure, seal me off. Keep me safe. Insulated.

The corridors along which he had traveled had been empty. Robots were

probably disinfecting them now. The robot facing him would probably step

through a germicidal bath when it left.

The robot said, "There is a water supply and plumbing. Food will be

supplied. You will have viewing matter. The ports are controlled from this

panel. They are closed now but if you wish to view space-"

Baley said with some agitation, "That's all right, boy. Leave the ports

closed."

He used the "boy" address that Earthmen always used for robots, but the

robot showed no adverse response. It couldn't, of course. Its responses were

limited and controlled by the Laws of Robotics.

The robot bent its large metal body in the travesty of a respectful bow

and left.

Baley was alone in his room and could take stock. It was better than the

plane, at least. He could see the plane from end to end. He could see its

limits. The spaceship was large. It had corridors, levels, rooms. It was a

small City in itself. Baley could almost breathe freely.

Then lights flashed and a robot's metallic voice sounded over the

communo and gave him specific instructions for guarding himself against

take-off acceleration.

There was the push backward against webbing and a yielding hydraulic

system, a distant rumble of force-jets heated to fury by the proton

micro-pile. There was the hiss of tearing atmosphere, growing thinner and

high-pitched and fading into nothingness after an hour.

They were in space.

It was as though all sensation had numbed, as though nothing were real.

He told himself that each second found him thousands of miles farther from the

Cities, from Jessie, but it didn't register.

On the second day (the third?-there was no way of telling time except by

the intervals of eating and sleeping) there was a queer momentary sensation of

being turned inside out. It lasted an instant and Baley knew it was a Jump,

that oddly incomprehensible, almost mystical, momentary transition through

hyperspace that transferred a ship and all it contained from one point in

space to another, lightyears away. Another lapse of time and another Jump,

still another lapse, still another Jump.

Baley told himself now that he was light-years away, tens of lightyears,

hundreds, thousands.

He didn't know how many. No one on Earth as much as knew

Solaria's location in space. He would bet on that. They were ignorant, every

one of them.

He felt terribly alone.

There was the feel of deceleration and the robot entered. Its somber,

ruddy eyes took in the details of Baley's harness. Efficiently it tightened a

wing nut; quickly it surveyed the details of the hydraulic system.

It said, '"We will be landing in three hours. You will remain, if you

please, in this room. A man will come to escort you out and to take you to

your place of residence."

"Wait," said Baley tensely. Strapped in as he was, he felt helpless.

"When we land, what time of day will it be?"

The robot said at once, "By Galactic Standard Time, it will be-"

"Local time, boy. Local time! Jehoshaphat!"

The robot continued smoothly, "The day on Solaria is twentyeight point

thirty-five Standard hours in length. The Solarian hour is divided into ten

decads, each of which is divided into a hundred centads. We are scheduled to

arrive at an airport at which the day will be at the twentieth centad of the

fifth decad."

Baley hated that robot. He hated it for its obtuseness in not

understanding; for the way it was making him ask the question directly and

exposing his own weakness.

He had to. He said flatly, "Will it be daytime?"

And after all that the robot answered, "Yes, sir," and left.

It would be day! He would have to step out onto the unprotected surface

of a planet in daytime.

He was not quite sure how it would be. He had seen glimpses of planetary

surfaces from certain points within the City; he had even been out upon it for

moments. Always, though, he had been surrounded by walls or within reach of

one. There was always safety at hand.

Where would there be safety now? Not even the false walls of darkness.

And because he would not display weakness before the Spacers- he'd be

damned if he would-he stiffened his body against the webbing that held him

safe against the forces of deceleration, closed his eyes, and stubbornly

fought panic.

A Friend Is Encountered

BALuY WAS losing his fight. Reason alone was not enough.

Baley told himself over and over: Men live in the open all their lives.

The Spacers do so now. Our ancestors on Earth did it in the past. There is no

real harm in wall-lessness. It is only my mind that tells me differently, and

it is wrong.

But all that did not help. Something above and beyond reason cried out

for walls and would have none of space.

As time passed, he thought he would not succeed. He would be cowering at

the end, trembling and pitiful. The Spacer they would send for him (with

filters in his nose to keep out germs, and gloves on his hands to prevent

contact) would not even honestly despise him. The Spacer would feel only

disgust.

Baley held on grimly.

When the ship stopped and the deceleration harness automatically

uncoupled, while the hydraulic system retracted into the wall, Baley remained

in his seat. He was afraid, and determined not to show it.

He looked away at the first quiet sound of the door of his room opening.

There was the eye-corner flash of a tall, bronze-haired figure entering; a

Spacer, one of those proud descendants of Earth who had disowned their

heritage.

The Spacer spoke. "Partner Elijah!"

Baley's head turned toward the speaker with a jerk. His eyes rounded and

he rose almost without volition.

He stared at the face; at the broad, high cheekbones, the absolute calm

of the facial lines, the symmetry of the body, most of all at that level look

out of nerveless blue eyes.

"D-daneel."

The Spacer said, "It is pleasant that you remember me, Partner Elijah."

"Remember you!" Baley felt relief wash over him. This being was a bit of

Earth, a friend, a comfort, a savior. He had an almost unbearable desire to

rush to the Spacer and embrace him, to hug him wildly, and laugh and pound his

back and do all the foolish things old friends did when meeting once again

after a separation.

But he didn't. He couldn't. He could only step forward, and hold out his

hand and say, "I'm not likely to forget you, Daneel."

"That is pleasant," said Daneel, nodding gravely. "As you are well

aware, it is quite impossible for me, while in working order, to forget you.

It is well that I see you again."

Daneel took Baley's hand and pressed it with firm coolness, his fingers

closing to a comfortable but not painful pressure and then releasing it.

Baley hoped earnestly that the creature's unreadable eyes could not

penetrate Baley's mind and see that wild moment, just past and not yet

entirely subsided, when all of Baley had concentrated into a feeling of an

intense friendship that was almost love.

After all, one could not love as a friend this Daneel Olivaw, who was

not a man at all, but only a robot.

The robot that looked so like a man said, "I have asked that a robot-driven

ground-transport vessel be connected to this ship by airBaley frowned. "An

air-tube?"

"Yes. It is a common technique, frequently used in space, in order that

personnel and materiel be transferred from one vessel to another without the

necessity of special equipment against vacuum. It would seem then that you are

not acquainted with the technique."

"No," said Baley, "but I get the picture."

"It is, of course, rather complicated to arrange such a device between

spaceship and ground vehicle, but I have requested that it be done.

Fortunately, the mission on which you and I are engaged is one of high

priority. Difficulties are smoothed out quickly."

"Are you assigned to the murder case too?"

"Have you not been informed of that? I regret not having told

you at once." There was, of course, no sign of regret on the robot's perfect

face. "It was Dr. Han Fastolfe, whom you met on Earth during our previous

partnership .and whom I hope you remember, who first suggested you as an

appropriate investigator in this case. He made it a condition that I be

assigned to work with you once more."

Baley managed a smile. Dr. Fastolfe was a native of Aurora and Aurora

was the strongest of the Outer Worlds. Apparently the advice of an Auroran

bore weight.

Baley said, "A team that works shouldn't be broken up, eh?" (The first

exhilaration of Daneel's appearance was fading and the compression about

Baley's chest was returning.)

"I do not know if that precise thought was in his mind, Partner Elijah.

From the nature of his orders to me, I should think that he was interested in

having assigned to work with you one who would have experience w~th your worid

and would know of your consequent peculiarities."

"Pe~u1iarities!" Ba1ey frowned and felt offended. It was not a term he

liked in connection with himse'f.

"So that I could arrange the air-tube, for examp'e. I am w&l aware of

your aversion to open spaces as a reEult of your upbringing in the Cities of

Earth."

Perhaps it was the effe~t of being called "peculiar," the feeling that

he had to counterattack or lose caste to a machine, that drove Baley to change

the subject sharply. Perhaps it was just that lifelong training prevented him

from leaving any logical contradiction undisturbed.

He said, "There was a robot in charge of my welfare on hoard ths ship; a

robot" (a touch of malice intruded itself here) "that looks like a robot. Do

you know it?"

"I ~poke to it before coming on board."

"What's its designation? How do I make contact with it?"

"It is RX-2475. It is customary on Solaria to use only serial numbers

for robots." Daneel's calm eyes swept the control panel near the door. "This

contact will signal it."

Ba'ey looked at the control panel himself and, since the contact to

which Daneel pointed was labeled RX, its identification seemed quite

unmysterious.

Baley put his finger over it and in less than a minute, the robot, the

one that looked like a robot, entered.

Baley said, "You are RX-2475."

"Yes, sir."

"You told me earlier that someone would arrive to escort me off the

ship. Did you mean him?" Baley pointed at Daneel.

The eyes of the two robots met. RX-2475 said, "His papers identify him

as the one who was to meet you."

"Were you told in advance anything about him other than his papers? Was

he described to you?"

"No, sir. I was given his name, however."

'"Who gave you the information?"

"The captain of the ship, sir."

"Who is a Solarian?"

"Yes, sir."

Baley licked his lips. The next question would be decisive.

He said, '"What were you told would be the name of the one you were

expecting?"

RX-z475 said, "Daneel Olivaw, sir."

"Good boy! You may leave now."

There was the robotic bow and then the sharp about-face. RX2475 left.

Baley turned to his partner and said thoughtfully, "You are not telling

me all the truth, Daneel."

"In what way, Partner Elijah?" asked Daneel.

'"While I was talking to you earlier, I recalled an odd point. RX2475,

when it told me I would have an escort said a man would come for me. I

remember that quite well."

Daneel listened quietly and said nothing.

Baley went on. "I thought the robot might have made a mistake. I thought

also that perhaps a man had indeed been assigned to meet me and had later been

replaced by you, RX-z475 not being informed of the change. But you heard me

check that. Your papers were described to it and it was given your name. But

it was not quite given your name at that, was it, Daneel?"

"Indeed, it was not given my entire name," agreed Daneel.

"Your name is not Daneel Olivaw, but R. Daneel Olivaw, isn't it? Or, in

full, Robot Daneel Olivaw."

"You are quite correct, Partner Elijah."

'Prom which it all follows that RX-2475 was never informed that you are

a robot. It was allowed to think of you as a man. With your manlike

appearance, such a masquerade is possible.~

"I have no quarrel with your reasoning."

"Then let's proceed." Baley was feeling the germs of a kind of savage

delight. He was on the trace of something. It couldn't be anything much, but

this was the kind of tracking he could do well. It was something he could do

well enough to be called half across space to do. He said, "Now why should

anyone want to deceive a miserable robot? It doesn't matter to it whether you

are man or robot. It follows orders in either case. A reasonable conclusion

then is that the Solarian captain who informed the robot and the Solarian

officials who informed the Captain did not themselves know you were a robot.

As I say, that is one reasonable conclusion, but perhaps not the only one. Is

this one true?"

"I believe it is."

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TheNakedSunByIsaacAsimovToNoreenandNickFalasca,forinvitingme,ToTonyBoucher,forintroducingme,andToOneI-~undiedUnusualHours.Contentsx.AQuestionIsAsked2.092.AFriendIsEncounteredzzr~.AVictimIsNamed233~.AWomanIsViewed245~.ACrimeIsDiscussed2546.ATheoryIsRefuted263~.ADoctorIsProdded2758.ASpacerIsDefied285~...

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Isaac Asimov - The Naked Sun

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