Caves of Steel - Isaac Asimov [6]
Baley had. He had heard many people moaning about the invention of the atomic pile. He moaned about it himself when things went wrong, or when he got tired. Moaning like that was a built-in facet of human nature. Back in the Coal Century, people moaned about the invention of the steam engine. In one of Shakespeare’s plays, a character moaned about the invention of gunpowder. A thousand years in the future, they’d be moaning about the invention of the positronic brain.
The hell with it.
He said, grimly, “Look, Julius.” (It wasn’t his habit to get friendly with the Commissioner during office hours, however many ‘Lijes’ the Commissioner threw at him, but something special seemed called for here.) “Look, Julius, you’re talking about everything except what I came in here for, and it’s worrying me. What is it?”
The Commissioner said, “I’ll get to it, Lije. Let me do it my way. It’s—it’s trouble.”
“Sure. What isn’t on this planet? More trouble with the R’s?”
“In a way, yes. Lije. I stand here and wonder how much more trouble the old world can take. When I put in this window, I wasn’t just letting in the sky once in a while. I let in the City. I look at it and I wonder what will become of it in another century.”
Baley felt repelled by the other’s sentimentality, but he found himself staring outward in fascination. Even dimmed by the weather, the City was a tremendous thing to see. The Police Department was in the upper levels of City Hall, and City Hall reached high. From the Commissioner’s window, the neighboring towers fell short and the tops were visible. They were so many fingers, groping upward. Their walls were blank, featureless. They were the outer shells of human hives.
“In a way,” said the Commissioner, “I’m sorry it’s raining. We can’t see Spacetown.”
Baley looked westward, but it was as the Commissioner said. The horizon closed down. New York’s towers grew misty and came to an end against blank whiteness.
“I know what Spacetown is like,” said Baley.
“I like the picture from here,” said the Commissioner. “It can just be made out in the gap between the two Brunswick Sectors. Low domes spread out. It’s the difference between us and the Spacers. We reach high and crowd close. With them, each family has a dome for itself. One family: one house. And land between each dome. Have you ever spoken to any of the Spacers, Lije?”
“A few times. About a month ago, I spoke to one right here on your intercom,” Baley said, patiently.
“Yes, I remember. But then, I’m just getting philosophical. We and they. Different ways of life.”
Baley’s stomach was beginning to constrict a little. The more devious the Commissioner’s approach, the deadlier he thought might be the conclusion.
He said, “All right. But what’s so surprising about it? You can’t spread eight billion people over Earth in little domes. They’ve got space on their worlds, so let them live their way.”
The Commissioner walked to his chair and sat down. His eyes looked unblinkingly at Baley, shrunken a bit by the concave lenses in his spectacles. He said, “Not everyone is that tolerant about differences in culture. Either among us or among the Spacers.”
“All right. So what?”
“So three days ago, a Spacer died.”
Now it was coming. The corners of Baley’s thin lips raised a trifle, but the effect upon his long, sad face was unnoticeable. He said, “Too bad. Something contagious, I hope. A virus. A cold, perhaps.”
The Commissioner looked startled. “What are you talking about?”
Baley didn’t care to explain. The precision with which the Spacers had bred disease out of their societies was well known. The care with which they avoided, as far as possible, contact with disease-riddled Earthmen was even better known. But then, sarcasm was lost on the Commissioner.
Baley said, “I’m just talking. What did he die of?” He turned