Asimov’s Future History Volume 4

by Isaac Asimov

  The cosmetokit had several orifices and she used each in turn. All but the last spray were invisible. She used them with that fineness of touch and delicacy of control that seems to be the birthright of women even at times of the greatest stress.

  The base went on first in a smooth even layer that removed all shininess and roughness from the skin and left it with the faintly golden glow which long experience had taught Jessie was just the shade most suited to the natural coloring of hen hair and eyes. Then the touch of tan along the forehead and chin, a gentle brush of rouge on either cheek, tracing back to the angle of the jaw; and a delicate drift of blue on the upper eyelids and along the earlobes. Finally there was the application of the smooth carmine to the lips. That involved the one visible spray, a faintly pink mist that glistened liquidly in air, but dried and deepened richly on contact with the lips.

  “There,” said Jessie, with several swift pats at her hair and a look of deep dissatisfaction. “I suppose that will do.”

  The process had taken more than the promised second, but less than fifteen seconds. Nevertheless, it had seemed interminable to Baley.

  “Come,” he said.

  She barely had time to return the cosmetokit to the purse before he had pushed her through the door.

  The eerie silence of the motorway lay thick on either side.

  Baley said, “All right, Jessie.”

  The impassivity that had covered Jessie’s face since they first heft the Commissioner’s office showed signs of cracking. She looked at her husband and at Daneel with a helpless silence.

  Baley said, “Get it over with, Jessie. Please. Have you committed a crime? An actual crime?”

  “A crime?” She shook her head uncertainly.

  “Now hold on to yourself. No hysterics. Just say yes or no, Jessie. Have you–” he hesitated a trifle, “killed anyone?”

  The look on Jessie’s face was promptly transmuted to indignation. “Why, Lije Baley!”

  “Yes or no, Jessie.”

  “No, of course not.”

  The hard knot in Baley’s stomach softened perceptibly. “Have you stolen anything? Falsified ration data? Assaulted anyone? Destroyed property? Speak up, Jessie.”

  “I haven’t done anything–anything specific. I didn’t mean anything like that.” She looked over her shoulder. “Lije, do we have to stay down here?”

  “Right here until this is over. Now, start at the beginning. What did you come to tell us?” Over Jessie’s bowed head, Baley’s eyes met R. Daneel’s.

  Jessie spoke in a soft voice that gained in strength and articulateness as she went on.

  “It’s these people, these Medievalists; you know, Lije. They’re always around, always talking. Even in the old days when I was an assistant dietitian, it was like that. Remember Elizabeth Thornbowe? She was a Medievalist. She was always talking about how all our troubles came from the City and how things were better before the Cities started.

  “I used to ask her how she was so sure that was so, especially after you and I met, Lije (remember the talks we used to have), and then she would quote from those small book-reels that are always floating around. You know, like Shame of the Cities that the fellow wrote. I don’t remember his name.”

  Baley said, absently, “Ogrinsky.”

  “Yes, only most of them were lots worse. Then, when I married you, she was really sarcastic. She said, ‘I suppose you’re going to be a real City woman now that you’ve married a policeman.’ After that, she didn’t talk to me much and then I quit the job and that was that. Lots of things she used to say were just to shock me, I think, or to make herself look mysterious and glamorous. She was an old maid, you know; never got married till the day she died. Lots of those Medievalists don’t fit in, one way or another. Remember, you once said, Lije, that people sometimes mistake their own shortcomings for those of society and want to fix the Cities because they don’t know how to fix themselves.”

  Baley remembered, and his words now sounded flip and superficial in his own ears. He said, gently, “Keep to the point, Jessie.”

  She went on, “Anyway, Lizzy was always talking about how there’d come a day and people had to get together. She said it was all the fault of the Spacers because they wanted to keep Earth weak and decadent. That was one of her favorite words, ‘decadent.’ She’d look at the menus I’d prepare for the next week and sniff and say, ‘Decadent, decadent.’ Jane Myers used to imitate her in the cook room and we’d die laughing. She said, Elizabeth did, that someday we were going to break up the Cities and go back to the soil and have an accounting with the Spacers who were trying to tie us forever to the Cities by forcing robots on us. Only she never called them robots. She used to say ‘soulless monster-machines,’ if you’ll excuse the expression, Daneel.”

  The robot said, “I am not aware of the significance of the adjective you used, Jessie, but in any case, the expression is excused. Please go on.”

  Baley stirred restlessly. It was that way with Jessie. No emergency, no crisis could make her tell a story in any way but her own circuitous one.

  She said, “Elizabeth always tried to talk as though there were lots of people in it with her. She would say, ‘At the last meeting,’ and then stop and look at me sort of half proud and half scared as though she wanted me to ask about it so she could look important, and yet scared I might get her in trouble. Of course, I never asked her. I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction.

  “Anyway, after I married you, Lije, it was all over, until...”

  She stopped.

  “Go on, Jessie,” said Baley.

  “You remember, Lije, that argument we had? About Jezebel, I mean?”

  “What about it?” It took a second or two for Baley to remember that it was Jessie’s own name, and not a reference to another woman.

  He turned to R. Daneel in an automatically defensive explanation. “Jessie’s full name is Jezebel. She is not fond of it and doesn’t use it.”

  R. Daneel nodded gravely and Baley thought: Jehoshaphat, why waste worry on him?

  “It bothered me a lot, Lije,” Jessie said. “It really did. I guess it was silly, but I kept thinking and thinking about what you said. I mean about your saying that Jezebel was only a conservative who fought for the ways of her ancestors against the strange ways the newcomers had brought. After all, I was Jezebel and I always...”

  She groped for a word and Baley supplied it. “Identified yourself?”

  “Yes.” But she shook her head almost immediately and looked away. “Not really, of course. Not literally. The way I thought she was, you know. I wasn’t like that.”

  “I know that, Jessie. Don’t be foolish.”

  “But still I thought of her a lot and, somehow, I got to thinking, it’s just the same now as it was then. I mean, we Earth people had our old ways and here were the Spacers coming in with a lot of new ways and trying to encourage the new ways we had stumbled into ourselves and maybe the Medievalists were right. Maybe we should go back to our old, good ways. So I went back and found Elizabeth.”

  “Yes. Go on.”

  “She said she didn’t know what I was talking about and besides I was a cop’s wife. I said that had nothing to do with it and finally she said, well, she’d speak to somebody, and then about a month later she came to me and said it was all right and I joined and I’ve been at meetings ever since.”

  Baley looked at her sadly. “And you never told me?”

  Jessie’s voice trembled. “I’m sorry, Lije,”

  “Well, that won’t help. Being sorry, I mean. I want to know about the meetings. In the first place, where were they held?”

  A sense of detachment was creeping over him, a numbing of emotions. What he had tried not to believe was so, was openly so, was unmistakably so. In a sense, it was a relief to have the uncertainty over.

  She said, “Down here.”

  “Down here? You mean on this spot? What do you mean?”

  “Here in the motorway. That’s why I didn
’t want to come down here. It was a wonderful place to meet, though. We’d get together–”

  “How many?”

  “I’m not sure. About sixty or seventy. It was just a sort of local branch. There’d be folding chairs and some refreshments and someone would make a speech, mostly about how wonderful life was in the old days and how someday we’d do away with the monsters, the robots, that is, and the Spacers, too. The speeches were sort of dull really, because they were all the same. We just endured them. Mostly, it was the fun of getting together and feeling important. We would pledge ourselves to oaths and there’d be secret ways we could greet each other on the outside.”

  “Weren’t you ever interrupted? No squad cars or fire engines passed?”

  “No. Never.”

  R. Daneel interrupted, “Is that unusual, Elijah?”

  “Maybe not,” Baley answered thoughtfully. “There are some side-passages that are practically never used. It’s quite a trick, knowing which they are, though. Is that all you did at the meetings, Jessie? Make speeches and play at conspiracy?”

  “It’s about all. And sing songs, sometimes. And of course, refreshments. Not much. Sandwiches, usually, and juice.”

  “In that case,” he said, almost brutally, “what’s bothering you now?”

  Jessie winced. “You’re angry.”

  “Please,” said Baley, with iron patience, “answer my question. If it were all as harmless as that, why have you been in such a panic for the last day and a half?”

  “I thought they would hurt you, Lije. For heaven’s sake, why do you act as though you don’t understand? I’ve explained it to you.”

  “No, you haven’t. Not yet. You’ve told me about a harmless little secret kaffee-klatsch you belonged to. Did they ever hold open demonstrations? Did they ever destroy robots? Start riots? Kill people?”

  “Never! Lije, I wouldn’t do any of those things. I wouldn’t stay a member if they tried it.”

  “Well, then, why do you say you’ve done a terrible thing? Why do you expect to be sent to jail?”

  “Well... Well, they used to talk about someday when they’d put pressure on the government. We were supposed to get organized and then afterward there would be huge strikes and work stoppages. We could force the government to ban all robots and make the Spacers go back where they came from. I thought it was just talk and then, this thing started; about you and Daneel, I mean. Then they said, ‘Now we’ll see action,’ and ‘We’re going to make an example of them and put a stop to the robot invasion right now.’ Right there in Personal they said it, not knowing it was you they were talking about. But I knew. Right away.”

  Her voice broke.

  Baley softened. “Come on, Jessie. It was all nothing. It was just talk. You can see for yourself that nothing has happened.”

  “I was so–so suh–scared. And I thought: I’m part of it. If there were going to be killing and destruction, you might be killed and Bentley and somehow it would be all muh–my fault for taking part in it, and I ought to be sent to jail.”

  Baley let her sob herself out. He put his arm about her shoulder and stared tight-lipped at R. Daneel, who gazed calmly back.

  He said, “Now, I want you to think, Jessie. Who was the head of your group?”

  She was quieter now, patting the corners of her eyes with a handkerchief. “A man called Joseph Klemin was the leader, but he wasn’t really anybody. He wasn’t more than five feet four inches tall and I think he was terribly henpecked at home. I don’t think there’s any harm in him. You aren’t going to arrest him, are you, Lije? On my say-so?” She looked guiltily troubled.

  “I’m not arresting anyone just yet. How did Klemin get his instructions?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Did any strangers come to meeting? You know what I mean: big shots from Central Headquarters?”

  “Sometimes people would come to make speeches. That wasn’t very often, maybe twice a year or so.”

  “Can you name them?”

  “No. They were always just introduced as ‘one of us’ or ‘a friend from Jackson Heights’ or wherever.”

  “I see. Daneel!”

  “Yes, Elijah,” said R. Daneel.

  “Describe the men you think you’ve tabbed. We’ll see if Jessie can recognize them.”

  R. Daneel went through the list with clinical exactness. Jessie listened with an expression of dismay as the categories of physical measurements lengthened and shook her head with increasing firmness.

  “It’s no use. It’s no use,” she cried. “How can I remember? I can’t remember how any of them looked. I can’t–”

  She stopped, and seemed to consider. Then she said, “Did you say one of them was a yeast farmer?”

  “Francis Clousarr,” said R. Daneel, “is an employee at New York Yeast.”

  “Well, you know, once a man was making a speech and I happened to be sitting in the first row and I kept getting a whiff, just a whiff, really, of raw yeast smell. You know what I mean. The only reason that I remember is that I had an upset stomach that day and the smell kept making me sick. I had to stand up and move to the back and of course I couldn’t explain what was wrong. It was so embarrassing. Maybe that’s the man you’re speaking of. After all, when you work with yeast all the time, the odor gets to stick to your clothes.” She wrinkled her nose.

  “You don’t remember what he looked like?” said Baley.

  “No,” she replied, with decision.

  “All right, then. Look, Jessie, I’m going to take you to your mother’s. Bentley will stay with you, and none of you will leave the Section. Ben can stay away from school and I’ll arrange to have meals sent in and the corridors around the apartment watched by the police.”

  “What about you?” quavered Jessie.

  “I’ll be in no danger.”

  “But how long?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe just a day on two.” The words sounded hollow even to himself.

  They were back in the motorway, Baley and R. Daneel, alone now. Baley’s expression was dark with thought.

  “It would seem to me,” he said, “that we are faced with an organization built up on two levels. First, a ground level with no specific program, designed only to supply mass support for an eventual coup. Secondly, a much smaller elite dedicated to a well-planned program of action. It is this elite we must find. The comic-opera groups that Jessie spoke of can be ignored.”

  “All this,” said R. Daneel, “follows, perhaps, if we can take Jessie’s story at face value.”

  “I think,” Baley said stiffly, “that Jessie’s story can be accepted as completely true.”

  “So it would seem,” said R. Daneel. “There is nothing about her cerebra-impulses that would indicate a pathological addiction to lying.”

  Baley turned an offended look upon the robot. “I should say not. And there will be no necessity to mention her name in our reports. Do you understand that?”

  “If you wish it so, partner Elijah,” said R. Daneel calmly, “but our report will then be neither complete nor accurate.”

  Baley said, “Well, maybe so, but no real harm will be done. She has come to us with whatever information she had and to mention hen name will only put her in the police records. I do not want that to happen.”

  “In that case, certainly not, provided we are certain that nothing more remains to be found out.”

  “Nothing remains as far as she’s concerned. My guarantee.”

  “Could you then explain why the word, Jezebel, the mere sound of a name, should lead her to abandon previous convictions and assume a new set? The motivation seems obscure.”

  They were traveling slowly through the curving, empty tunnel.

  Baley said, “It is hard to explain. Jezebel is a rare name. It belonged once to a woman of very bad reputation. My wife treasured that fact. It gave her a vicarious feeling of wickedness and compensated for a life that was uniformly proper.”

  “Why should a law-abiding woma
n wish to feel wicked?”

  Baley almost smiled. “Women are women, Daneel. Anyway, I did a very foolish thing. In a moment of irritation, I insisted that the historic Jezebel was not particularly wicked and was, if anything, a good wife. I’ve regretted that ever since.

  “It turned out,” he went on, “that I had made Jessie bitterly unhappy. I had spoiled something for her that couldn’t be replaced. I suppose what followed was her way of revenge. I imagine she wished to punish me by engaging in activity of which she knew I wouldn’t approve. I don’t say the wish was a conscious one.”

  “Can a wish be anything but conscious? Is that not a contradiction in terms?”

  Baley stared at R. Daneel and despaired at attempting to explain the unconscious mind. He said, instead, “Besides that, the Bible has a great influence on human thought and emotion.”

  “What is the Bible?”

  For a moment Baley was surprised, and then was surprised at himself for having felt surprised. The Spacers, he knew, lived under a thoroughly mechanistic personal philosophy, and R. Daneel could know only what the Spacers knew; no more.

  He said, curtly, “It is the sacred book of about half of Earth’s population.”

  “I do not grasp the meaning here of the adjective.”

  “I mean that it is highly regarded. Various portions of it, when properly interpreted, contain a code of behavior which many men consider best suited to the ultimate happiness of mankind.”

  R. Daneel seemed to consider that. “Is this code incorporated into your laws?”

  “I’m afraid not. The code doesn’t lend itself to legal enforcement. It must be obeyed spontaneously by each individual out of a longing to do so. It is in a sense higher than any law can be.”

  “Higher than law? Is that not a contradiction in terms?”

  Baley smiled wryly. “Shall I quote a portion of the Bible for you? Would you be curious to hear it?”