Naked Sun, The - Isaac Asimov - v 2.0

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Isaac Asimov is regarded as one of the greatest science-fiction writers of our time, as well as a valued

contributor to the world of science. He holds a Ph.D. in Chemistry from Columbia University (1948) and,

though he no longer lives in the Boston area, is an Associate Professor of Biochemistry at Boston

University. He has received numerous awards for his inspiring scientific articles covering a wide range of

subjects.

In this novel, Dr. Asimov’s probing imagination has created a fascinating adventure set in the far-distant

future--an adventure that could change from fiction to fact any day now.

THE NAKED SUN

isaac asimov

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

Unusual Hours.

Contents

1 A Question Is Asked

2 A Friend Is Encountered

3 A Victim Is Named

4 A Woman Is Viewed

5 A Crime Is Discussed

6 A Theory Is Refuted

7 A Doctor Is Prodded

8 A Spacer Is Defied

9 A Robot Is Stymied

10 A Culture Is Traced

11 A Farm Is Inspected

12 A Target Is Missed

13 A Roboticist Is Confronted

14 A Motive Is Revealed

15 A Portrait Is Colored

16 A Solution Is Offered

17 A Meeting Is Held

18 A Question Is Answered

1 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 cluster

complexes 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 in the cold and Featureless 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 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, 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?

“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 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 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?”

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 hundred varieties of disease germs from the sweltering City to which he himself was

resistant but to which the eugenically hot housed 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, light years 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 light years, 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 twenty eight point thirty-five Standard

hours in length. The Solarian hour is divided into ten decades, 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.

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摘要：

ABOUTTHEAUTHORIsaacAsimovisregardedasoneofthegreatestscience-fictionwritersofourtime,aswellasavaluedcontributortotheworldofscience.HeholdsaPh.D.inChemistryfromColumbiaUniversity(1948)and,thoughhenolongerlivesintheBostonarea,isanAssociateProfessorofBiochemistryatBostonUniversity.Hehasreceivednumerous...

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