Caves of Steel - Isaac Asimov [40]
That was why he had to be an actual witness of events, a witness, moreover, safely out of reach of the Spacers’ calculated safety measures.
The Commissioner said, chokingly, “Lije, you’re all wrong. I saw Dr. Sarton’s corpse.”
“You saw the charred remnants of something you were told was Dr. Sarton’s corpse,” retorted Baley, boldly. He thought grimly of the Commissioner’s broken glasses. That had been an unexpected favor for the Spacers.
“No, no, Lije. I knew Dr. Sarton well and his head was undamaged. It was he.” The Commissioner put his hand to his glasses uneasily, as though he, too, remembered, and added, “I looked at him closely, very closely.”
“How about this one, Commissioner?” asked Baley, pointing to R. Daneel again. “Doesn’t he resemble Dr. Sarton?”
“Yes, the way a statue would.”
“An expressionless attitude can be assumed, Commissioner. Suppose that were a robot you had seen blasted to death. You say you looked closely. Did you look closely enough to see whether the charred surface at the edge of the blast was really decomposed organic tissue or a deliberately introduced layer of carbonization over fused metal.”
The Commissioner looked revolted. He said, “You’re being ridiculous.”
Baley turned to the Spacer. “Are you willing to have the body exhumed for examination, Dr. Fastolfe?”
Dr. Fastolfe smiled. “Ordinarily, I would have no objection, Mr. Baley, but I’m afraid we do not bury our dead. Cremation is a universal custom among us.”
“Very convenient,” said Baley.
“Tell me, Mr. Baley,” said Dr. Fastolfe, “just how did you arrive at this very extraordinary conclusion of yours?”
Baley thought: He isn’t giving up. He’ll brazen it out, if he can.
He said, “It wasn’t difficult. There’s more to imitating a robot than just putting on a frozen expression and adopting a stilted style of conversation. The trouble with you men of the Outer Worlds is that you’re too used to robots. You’ve gotten to accept them almost as human beings. You’ve grown blind to the differences. On Earth, it’s different. We’re very conscious of what a robot is.
“Now in the first place, R. Daneel is too good a human to be a robot. My first impression of him was that he was a Spacer. It was quite an effort for me to adjust myself to his statement that he was a robot. And of course, the reason for that was that he was a Spacer and wasn’t a robot.”
R. Daneel interrupted, without any sign of self-consciousness at being himself so intimately the topic of debate. He said, “As I told you, partner Elijah, I was designed to take a temporary place in a human society. The resemblance to humanity is purposeful.”
“Even,” asked Baley, “down to the painstaking duplication of those portions of the body which, in the ordinary course of events, would always be covered by clothes? Even to the duplication of organs which, in a robot, would have no conceivable function?”
Enderby said suddenly, “How did you find that out?”
Baley reddened. “I couldn’t help noticing in the—in the Personal.”
Enderby looked shocked.
Fastolfe said, “Surely you understand that a resemblance must be complete if it is to be useful. For our purposes, half measures are as bad as nothing at all.”
Baley asked abruptly, “May I smoke?”
Three pipefuls in one day was a ridiculous extravagance, but he was riding a rolling torrent of recklessness and needed the release of tobacco. After all, he was talking back to Spacers. He was going to force their lies down their own throats.
Fastolfe said, “I’m sorry, but I’d prefer that you didn’t.”
It was a “preference” that had the force of a command. Baley felt that. He thrust back the pipe, the bowl of which he had already taken into his hand in anticipation of automatic permission.
Of course not, he thought bitterly. Enderby didn’t warn me, because he doesn’t smoke himself, but it’s obvious. It follows. They don’t smoke on their hygienic Outer Worlds, or drink, or have any human vices. No wonder they accept robots in their damned—what did R. Daneel call it—C/Fe society? No