by Isaac Asimov
“It would not have been fitting, Partner Elijah. When you asked me a direct question, I answered, but I was not invited to take part fully.”
“I would have issued the invitation, Daneel, if I did not feel constrained by my position as guest. I thought it might be wrong to take the initiative in this respect.”
“I understand.–This is the Visitors’ Personal, Partner Elijah. The door will open at a touch of your hand anywhere upon it if the room is unoccupied.”
Baley did not enter. He paused thoughtfully, then said, “If you had been invited to speak, Daneel, is there anything you would have said? Any comment you would have cared to make? I would value your opinion, my friend.”
Daneel said, with his usual gravity, “The one remark I care to make is that Dr. Fastolfe’s statement that he had an excellent motive for placing Jander out of operation was unexpected to me. I do not know what the motive might be. Whatever he states to be his motive, however, you might ask why he would not have the same motive to put me in mental freeze-out. If they can believe he had a motive to put Jander out of operation, why would the same motive not apply to me? I would be curious to know.”
Baley looked at the other sharply, seeking automatically for expression in a face not given to lack of control. He said, “DO you feel insecure, Daneel? Do you feel Fastolfe is a danger to you?”
Daneel said, “By the Third Law, I must protect my own existence, but I would not resist Dr. Fastolfe or any human being if it were their considered opinion that it was necessary to end my existence. That is the Second Law. However, I know that I am of great value, both in terms of investment of material, labor, and time, and in terms of scientific importance. It would therefore be necessary to explain to me carefully the reasons for the necessity of ending my existence. Dr. Fastolfe has never said anything to me–never, Partner Elijah–that would sound as though such a thing were in his mind. I do not believe it is remotely in his mind to end my existence or that it ever was in his mind to end Jander’s existence. Random positronic drift must have ended Jander and may, someday, end me. There is always an element of chance in the Universe.”
Baley said, “You say so, Fastolfe says so, and I believe so–but the difficulty is to persuade people generally to accept this view of the matter.” He turned gloomily to the door of the Personal and said, “Are you coming in with me, Daneel?”
Daneel’s expression contrived to seem amused. “It is flattering, Partner Elijah, to be taken for human to this extent. I have no need, of course.”
“Of course. But you can enter anyway.”
“It would not be appropriate for me to enter. It is not the custom for robots to enter the Personal. The interior of such a room is purely human.–Besides, this is a one-person Personal.”
“One person!” Momentarily, Baley was shocked. He raffled, however. Other worlds, other customs! And this one he did not recall being described in the book-films. He said, “That’s what you meant, then, by saying that the door would open only if it were unoccupied. What if it is occupied, as it will be in a moment?”
“Then it will not open at a touch from outside, of course, and your privacy will be protected. Naturally, it will open at a touch from the inside.”
“And what if a visitor fell into a faint, had a stroke or a heart seizure while in there and could not touch the door from inside. Wouldn’t that mean no one could enter to help him?”
“There are emergency ways of opening the door, Partner Elijah, if that should seem advisable.” Then, clearly disturbed, “Are you of the opinion that something of this sort will occur?”
“No, of course not.–I am merely curious.”
“I will be immediately outside the door,” said Daneel uneasily. “If I hear a call, Partner Elijah, I will take action.”
“I doubt that you’ll have to.” Baley touched the door, casually and lightly, with the back of his hand and it opened at once. He waited a moment or two to see if it would close. It didn’t. He stepped through and the door then closed promptly.
While the door was open, the Personal had seemed like a room that flatly served its purpose. A sink, a stall (presumably equipped with a shower arrangement), a tub, a translucent half-door with a toilet seat beyond in all likelihood. There were several devices that he did not quite recognize. He assumed they were intended for the fulfillment of personal services of one sort or another.
He had little chance to study any of these, for in a moment it was all gone and he was left to wonder if what he had seen had really been there at all or if the devices had seemed to exist because they were what he had expected to see.
As the door closed, the room darkened, for there was no window. When the door was completely closed, the room lit up again, but nothing of what he had seen returned. It was daylight and he was Outside–or so it appeared.
There was open sky above, with clouds drifting across it in a fashion just regular enough to seem clearly unreal. On every side there seemed an outstretching of greenery moving in equally repetitive fashion.
He felt the familiar knotting of his stomach that arose whenever he found himself Outside–but he was not Outside. He had walked into a windowless room. It had to be a trick of the lighting.
He stared directly ahead of him and slowly slid his feet forward. He put his hands out before him. Slowly. Staring hard.
His hands touched the smoothness of a wall. He followed the flatness to either side. He touched what he had seen to be a sink in that moment of original vision and, guided by his hands, he could see it now–faintly, faintly against the overpowering sensation of light.
He found the faucet, but no water came from it. He followed its curve backward and found nothing that was the equivalent of the familiar handles that would control the flow of water. He did find an oblong strip whose slight roughness marked it off from the surrounding wall. As his fingers slid along it, he pushed slightly and experimentally against it and at once the greenery, which stretched far beyond the plane along which his fingers told him the wall existed, was parted by a rivulet of water, falling quickly from a height toward his feet with a loud noise of splashing.
He jumped backward in automatic panic, but the water ended before it reached his feet. It didn’t stop coming, but it didn’t reach the floor. He put his hand out. It was not water, but a light-illusion of water. It did not wet his hand; he felt nothing. But his eyes stubbornly resisted the evidence. They saw water.
He followed the rivulet upward and eventually came to something that was water–a thinner stream issuing from the faucet. It was cold.
His fingers found the oblong again and experimented, pushing here and there, The temperature shifted quickly and he found the spot that produced water of suitable tepidity.
He did not find any soap. Somewhat reluctantly, he began to rub his unsoaped hands against each other under what seemed a natural spring that should have been soaking him from head to foot but did not. And as though the mechanism could read his mind or, more likely, was guided by the rubbing together of his hands, he felt the water grow soapy, while the spring he did/didn’t see grew bubbles and developed into foam.
Still reluctant, he bent over the sink and rubbed his face with the same soapy water. He felt the bristles of his beard, but knew that there was no way in which he could translate the equipment of this room into a shave without instruction.
He finished and held his hands helplessly under the water. How did he stop the soap? He did not have to ask. Presumably, his hands, no longer rubbing either themselves or his face, controlled that. The water lost its soapy feel and the soap was rinsed from his hands. He splashed the water against his face–without rubbing–and that was rinsed too. Without the help of vision and with the clumsiness of one unused to the process, he managed to soak his shirt badly.
Towels? Paper?
He stepped back, eyes closed, holding his’ head forward to avoid dripping more water on his clothes. Stepping back was, apparently, the key action, for he felt the wa
rm flow of an air current. He placed his face within it and then his hands.
He opened his eyes and found the spring no longer flowing. He used his hands and found that he could feel no real water.
The knot in his stomach had long since dissolved into irritation. He recognized that Personals varied enormously from world to world, but somehow this nonsense of simulated Outside went too far.
On Earth, a Personal was a huge community chamber restricted to one gender, with private cubicles to which one had a key. On Solaria, one entered a Personal through a narrow corridor appended to one side of a house, as though Solarians hoped that it would not be considered a part of their home. In both worlds, however, though so different in every possible way, the Personals were clearly defined and the function of everything in them could not be mistaken. Why should there be, on Aurora, this elaborate pretense of rusticity that totally masked every part of a Personal?
Why?
At any rate, his annoyance gave him little emotional room in which to feel uneasy over the pretense of Outside. He moved in the direction in which he recalled having seen the translucent half-door.
It was not the correct direction. He found it only by following the wall slowly and after barking various parts of his body against protuberances.
In the end, he found himself urinating into the illusion of a small pond that did not seem to be receiving the stream properly. His knees told him that he was aiming correctly between the sides of what he took to be a urinal and he told himself that if he were using the wrong receptacle or misjudging his aim, the fault was not his.
For a moment, when done, he considered finding the sink again for a final hand rinse and decided against it. He just couldn’t face the search and that false waterfall.
Instead, he found, by groping, the door through which he had entered, but he did not know he had found it until his hand-touch resulted in its opening. The light died out at once and the normal nonillusory gleam of day surrounded him.
Daneel was waiting for him, along with Fastolfe and Giskard.
Fastolfe said, “You took nearly twenty minutes. We were beginning to fear for you.”
Baley felt himself grow warm with rage. “I had problems with your foolish illusions,” he said in a tightly controlled fashion.
Fastolfe’s mouth pursed and his eyebrows rose in a silent: Oh-h!
He said, “There is a contact just inside the door that controls the illusion. It can make it dimmer and allow you to see reality through it–or it can wipe out the illusion altogether, if you wish.”
“I was not told. Are all your Personals like this?”
Fastolfe said, “No. Personals on Aurora commonly possess illusory qualities, but the nature of the illusion varies with the individual. The illusion of natural greenery pleases me and I vary its details from time to time. One grows tired of anything, you know, after a while. There are some people who make use of erotic illusions, but that is not to my taste.
“Of course, when one is familiar with Personals, the illusions offer no trouble. The rooms are quite standard and one knows where everything is. It’s no worse than moving about a well-known place in the dark.–But tell me, Mr. Baley, why didn’t you find your way out and ask for directions?”
Baley said, “Because I didn’t wish to. I admit that I was extremely irritated over the illusions, but I accepted them. After all, it was Daneel who led me to the Personal and he gave me no instructions, nor any warning. He would certainly have instructed me at length, if he had been left to his own devices, for he would surely have foreseen harm to me otherwise. I had to assume, therefore, that you had carefully instructed him not to warn me and, since I didn’t really expect you to play a practical joke on me, I had to assume that you had a serious purpose in doing so.”
“Oh?”
“After all, you had asked me to come Outside and, when I agreed, you immediately asked me if I wished to visit the Personal. I decided that the purpose of sending me into an illusion of Outside was to see whether I could endure it–or if I would come running out in panic. If I could endure it, I might be trusted with the real thing. Well, I endured it. I’m a little wet, thank you, but that will dry soon enough.”
Fastolfe said, “You are a clear-thinking person, Mr. Baley. I apologize for the nature of the test and for the discomfort I caused you. I was merely trying to ward off the possibility of far greater discomfort. Do you still wish to come out with me?”
“I not only wish it, Dr. Fastolfe. I insist on it.”
20.
THEY MADE THEIR way through a corridor, with Daneel and Giskard following close behind.
Fastolfe said chattily, “I hope you won’t mind the robots accompanying us. Aurorans never go anywhere without at least one robot in attendance and, in your case in particular, I must insist that Daneel and Giskard be with you at all times.”
He opened a door and Baley tried to stand firm against the beat of sunshine and wind, to say nothing of the envelopment of the strange and subtly alien smell of Aurora’s land.
Fastolfe stayed to one side and Giskard went out first. The robot looked keenly about for a few moments. One had the impression that all his senses were intently engaged. He looked back and Daneel joined him and did the same.
“Leave them for a moment, Mr. Baley,” said Fastolfe, “and they will tell us when they think it safe for us to emerge. Let me take the opportunity of once again apologizing for the scurvy trick I played on you with respect to the Personal. I assure you we would have known if you were in trouble–your various vital signs were being recorded. I am very pleased, though not entirely surprised, that you penetrated my purpose.” He smiled and, with almost unnoticeable hesitation, placed his hand upon Baley’s left shoulder and gave it a friendly squeeze.
Baley held himself stiffly. “You seem to have forgotten your earlier scurvy trick–your apparent attack on me with the spicer. If you will assure me that we will now deal with each other frankly and honestly, I will consider these matters as having been of reasonable intent.”
“Done!”
“Is it safe to leave now?” Baley looked out to where Giskard and Daneel had moved farther and had separated from each other to right and left, still watching and sensing.
“Not quite yet. They will move all around the establishment.
–Daneel tells me that you invited him into the Personal with you. Was that seriously meant?”
“Yes. I knew he had no need, but I felt it might be impolite to exclude him. I wasn’t sure of Auroran custom in that respect, despite all the reading I did on Auroran matters.’
“I suppose that isn’t one of those things Aurorans feel necessary to mention and of course one can’t expect the books to make any attempt to prepare visiting Earthmen concerning these subjects–”
“Because there are so few visiting Earthmen?”
“Exactly. The point is, of course, that robots never visit Personals. It is the one place where human beings can be free of them. I suppose there is the feeling that one should feel free of them at some periods and in some places.”
Baley said, “And yet when Daneel was on Earth on the occasion of Sarton’s death three years ago, I tried to keep him out of the Community Personal by saying he had no need. Still, he insisted on entering.”
“And rightly so. He was, on that occasion, strictly instructed to give no indication he was not human, for reasons you well remember. Here on Aurora, however–Ah, they are done.”
The robots were coming toward the door and Daneel gestured them outward.
Fastolfe held out his arm to bar Baley’s way. “if you don’t mind, Mr. Baley, I will go out first. Count to one hundred patiently and then join us.”
21.
BALEY, ON THE count of one hundred, stepped out firmly and walked toward Fastolfe. His face was perhaps too stiff, his jaws too tightly clenched, his back too straight.
He looked about. The scene was not very different from that which had been presented in the Personal
. Fastolfe had, perhaps, used his own grounds as a model. Everywhere there was green and in one place there was a stream filtering down a slope. It was, perhaps, artificial, but it was not an illusion. The water was real. He could feel the spray when he passed near it.
There was somehow a tameness to it all. The Outside on Earth seemed wilder and more grandly beautiful, what little Baley had seen of it.
Fastolfe said, with a gentle touch on Baley’s upper arm and a motion of his hand, “Come in this direction. Look there!”
A space between two trees revealed an expanse of lawn.
For the first time, there was a sense of distance and on the horizon one could see a dwelling place: low-roofed, broad, and so green in color that it almost melted into the countryside.
“This is a residential area,” said Fastolfe. “it might not seem so to you, since you are accustomed to Earth’s tremendous hives, but we are in the Auroran city of Eos, which is actually the administrative center of the planet. There are twenty thousand human beings living here, which makes it the largest city, not only on Aurora but on all the Spacer worlds. There are as many people in Eos as on all of Solaria.” Fastolfe said it with pride.
“How many robots, Dr. Fastolfe?”
“In this area? Perhaps a hundred thousand. On the planet as a whole, there are fifty robots to each human being on the average, not ten thousand per human as on Solaria. Most of our robots are on our farms, in our mines, in our factories, in space. if anything, we suffer from a shortage of robots, particularly of household robots. Most Aurorans make do with two or three such robots, some with only one. Still, we don’t want to move in the direction of Solaria.”
“How many human beings have no household robots at all?”
“None at all. That would not be in the public interest. If a human being, for any reason, could not afford a robot, he or she would be granted one which would be maintained, if necessary, at public expense.”
“What happens as the population rises? Do you add more robots?”