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you don t volunteer information. You can do that, can t you?
I believe so, Elijah, provided it does not appear that I am hurting a human
being by remaining silent.
Baley said, grimly, You will hurt me if you don t. I assure you of that.
I do not quite understand your point of view, partner Elijah. Surely the
matter of R. Sammy cannot concern you.
No? It all centers about motive, doesn t it? You ve questioned the motive.
The Commissioner questioned it. I do, for that matter. Why should anyone want
to kill R. Sammy? Mind you, it s not just a question of who would want to
smash up robots in general. Any Earthman, practically, would want to do that.
The question is, who would want to single out R. Sammy. Vincent Barrett might,
but the
Commissioner said he couldn t get hold of an alpha-sprayer, and he s right. We
have to look somewhere else, and it so happens that one other person has a
motive. It glares out. It yells. It stinks to top level.
Who is the person, Elijah?
And Baley said, softly, I am, Daneel.
R. Daneel s expressionless face did not change under the impact of the
statement. He merely shook his head.
Baley said, You don t agree. My wife came to the office today. They know that
already. The
Commissioner is even curious. If I weren t a personal friend, he wouldn t have
stopped his questioning so soon. Now they ll find out why. That s certain. She
was part of a conspiracy; a foolish and harmless one, but a conspiracy just
the same. And a policeman can t afford to have his wife mixed up with anything
like that. It would be to my obvious interest to see that the matter was
hushed up.
Well, who knew about it? You and I, of course, and Jessie--and R. Sammy. He
saw her in a state of panic. When he told her that we had left orders not to
be disturbed, she must have lost control. You saw the way she was when she
first came in.
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R. Daneel said, It is unlikely that she said anything incriminating to him.
That may be so. But I m reconstructing the case the way they will. They ll
say she did. There s my motive. I killed him to keep him quiet.
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They will not think so.
They will think so. The murder was arranged deliberately in order to throw
suspicion on me. Why use an alpha-sprayer? It s a rather risky way. It s hard
to get and it can be traced. I think that those were the very reasons it was
used. The murderer even ordered R. Sammy to go into the photographic supply
room and kill himself there. It seems obvious to me that the reason for that
was to have the method of murder unmistakable. Even if everyone was so
infantile as not to recognize the alpha-sprayer immediately, someone would be
bound to notice fogged photographic film in fairly short order.
How does that all relate to you, Elijah?
Bailey grinned tightly, his long face completely devoid of humor. Very
neatly. The alpha-sprayer was taken from the Williamsburg power plant. You and
I passed through the Williamsburg power plant yesterday. We were seen, and the
fact will come out. That gives me opportunity to get the weapon as well as
motive for the crime. And it may turn out that we were the last ones to see or
hear R. Sammy alive, except for the real murderer, of course.
I was with you in the power plant and I can testify that you did not have the
opportunity to steal an alpha-sprayer.
Thanks, said Baley sadly, but you re a robot and your testimony will be
invalid.
The Commissioner is your friend. He will listen.
The Commissioner has a job to keep, and he already is a bit uneasy about me.
There s only one chance of saving myself from this very nasty situation.
Yes?
I ask myself, why am I being framed? Obviously to get rid of me. But why?
Again obviously, because I
am dangerous to someone. I am doing my best to be dangerous to whoever killed
Dr. Sarton in
Spacetown. That might mean the Medievalists, of course, or at least, the inner
group among them. It would be this inner group that would know I had passed
through the power plant; at least one of them might have followed me along the
strips that far, even though you thought we had lost them.
So the chances are that if I find the murderer of Dr. Sarton, I find the man
or men who are trying to get me out of the way. If I think it through, if I
crack the case, if I can only crack it, I ll be safe. And Jessie. I
couldn t stand to have her. --But I don t have much time. His fist clenched
and unclenched spasmodically. I don t have much time.
Baley looked at R. Daneel s chiseled face with a sudden burning hope. Whatever
the creature was, he was strong and faithful, animated by no selfishness. What
more could you ask of any friend? Baley needed a friend and he was in no mood
to cavil at the fact that a gear replaced a blood vessel in this particular
one.
But R. Daneel was shaking his head.
The robot said, I am sorry, Elijah --there was no trace of sorrow on his
face, of course-- but I
anticipated none of this. Perhaps my action was to your harm. I am sorry if
the general good requires that.
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What general good? stammered Baley.
I have been in communication with Dr. Fastolfe.
Jehoshaphat! When?
While you were eating.
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Baley s lips tightened.
Well? he managed to say. What happened?
You will have to clear yourself of suspicion of the murder of R. Sammy
through some means other than the investigation of the murder of my designer,
Dr. Sarton. Our people at Spacetown, as a result of my information, have
decided to bring that investigation to an end, as of today, and to begin plans
for leaving
Spacetown and Earth.
Chapter 17
CONCLUSION OF A PROJECT
Baley looked at his watch with something approaching detachment. It was 21:45.
In two and a quarter hours it would be midnight. He had been awake since
before six and had been under tension now for two and a half days. A vague
sense of unreality pervaded everything.
He kept his voice painfully steady as he reached for his pipe and for the
little bag that held his precious crumbs of tobacco. He said, What s it all
about, Daneel?
R. Daneel said, Do you not understand? Is it not obvious?
Baley said, patiently, I do not understand. It is not obvious.
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