Caves of Steel - Isaac Asimov [85]
Baley looked at his watch. “Now? What for?”
“There is a certain confusion at the moment. A corpse has been discovered in the Department.”
“What? For God’s sake, who?”
“The errand boy, R. Sammy.”
Baley gagged. He stared at the robot and said in an outraged voice, “I thought you said a corpse.”
R. Daneel amended smoothly, “A robot with a completely deactivated brain, if you prefer.”
Clousarr laughed suddenly and Baley turned on him, saying huskily, “Nothing out of you! Understand?” Deliberately, he unlimbered his blaster. Clousarr was very silent.
Baley said, “Well, what of it? R. Sammy blew a fuse. So what?”
“Commissioner Enderby was evasive, Elijah, but while he did not say so outright, my impression is that the Commissioner believes R. Sammy to have been deliberately deactivated.”
Then, as Baley absorbed that silently, R. Daneel added gravely, “Or, if you prefer the phrase—murdered.”
16.
QUESTIONS CONCERNING A MOTIVE
Baley replaced his blaster, but kept his hand unobtrusively upon its butt.
He said, “Walk ahead of us, Clousarr, to Seventeenth Street Exit B.”
Clousarr said, “I haven’t eaten.”
“Tough,” said Baley, impatiently. “There’s your meal on the floor where you dumped it.”
“I have a right to eat.”
“You’ll eat in detention, or you’ll miss a meal. You won’t starve. Get going.”
All three were silent as they threaded the maze of New York Yeast, Clousarr moving stonily in advance, Baley right behind him, and R. Daneel in the rear.
It was after Baley and R. Daneel had checked out at the receptionist’s desk, after Clousarr had drawn a leave of absence and requested that a man be sent in to clean up the balance room, after they were out in the open just to one side of the parked squad car, that Clousarr said, “Just a minute.”
He hung back, turned toward R. Daneel, and, before Baley could make a move to stop him, stepped forward and swung his open hand full against the robot’s cheek.
“What the devil,” cried Baley, snatching violently at Clousarr.
Clousarr did not resist the plain-clothes man’s grasp. “It’s all right. I’ll go. I just wanted to see for myself.” He was grinning.
R. Daneel, having faded with the slap, but not having escaped it entirely, gazed quietly at Clousarr. There was no reddening of his cheek, no mark of any blow.
He said, “That was a dangerous action, Francis. Had I not moved backward, you might easily have damaged your hand. As it is, I regret that I must have caused you pain.”
Clousarr laughed.
Baley said, “Get in, Clousarr. You, too, Daneel. Right in the back seat with him. And make sure he doesn’t move. I don’t care if it means breaking his arm. That’s an order.”
“What about the First Law?” mocked Clousarr.
“I think Daneel is strong enough and fast enough to stop you without hurting you, but it might do you good to have an arm or two broken at that.”
Baley got behind the wheel and the squad car gathered speed. The empty wind ruffled his hair and Clousarr’s, but R. Daneel’s remained smoothly in place.
R. Daneel said quietly to Clousarr, “Do you fear robots for the sake of your job, Mr. Clousarr?”
Baley could not turn to see Clousarr’s expression, but he was certain it would be a hard and rigid mirror of detestation, that he would be sitting stiffly apart, as far as he might, from R. Daneel.
Clousarr’s voice said, “And my kids’ jobs. And everyone’s kids.”
“Surely adjustments are possible,” said the robot. “If your children, for instance, were to accept training for emigration—”
Clousarr broke in. “You, too? The policeman talked about emigration. He’s got good robot training. Maybe he is a robot.”
Baley growled, “That’s enough, you!”
R. Daneel said, evenly, “A training school for emigrants would involve security, guaranteed classification, an assured career. If you are concerned over your children, that is something to consider.”
“I wouldn’t take anything from a robot, or a Spacer, or any of your trained hyenas in the Government.”
That was all. The silence