“It does not work that way, friend Elijah. To waive the right in such a case-to be investigated by laymen-is a serious and perhaps irrecoverable blow to prestige. Both men steadfastly refuse to waive the right to special trial, as a matter of pride. The question of guilt, or innocence, is quite subsidiary.”
“In that case, let it go for now. Put the matter in cold storage until you get to Aurora. At the neurobiophysical conference, there will be a huge supply of professional peers, and then-”
“That would mean a tremendous blow to science itself, friend Elijah. Both men would suffer for having been the instrument of scandal. Even the innocent one would be blamed for having been party to a situation so distasteful. It would be felt that it should have been settled quietly out of court at all costs.”
“All right. I’m not a Spacer, but I’ll try to imagine that this attitude makes sense. What do the men in question say?”
“Humboldt agrees thoroughly. He says that if Sabbat will admit theft of the idea and allow Humboldt to proceed with transmission of the paper-or at least its delivery at the conference, he will not press charges. Sabbat’s misdeed will remain secret with him; and, of course, with the captain, who is the only other human to be party to the dispute.”
“But young Sabbat will not agree?”
“On the contrary, he agreed with Dr. Humboldt to the last detail-with the reversal of names. Still the mirror-image.”
“So they just sit there, stalemated?”
“Each, I believe, friend Elijah, is waiting for the other to give in and admit guilt.”
“Well, then, wait.”
“The captain has decided this cannot be done. There are two alternatives to waiting, you see. The first is that both will remain stubborn so that when the starship lands on Aurora, the intellectual scandal will break. The captain, who is responsible for justice on board ship will suffer disgrace for not having been able to settle the matter quietly and that, to him, is quite insupportable.”
“And the second alternative?”
“Is that one, or the other, of the mathematicians will indeed admit to wrongdoing. But will the one who confesses do so out of actual guilt, or out of a noble desire to prevent the scandal? Would it be right to deprive of credit one who is sufficiently ethical to prefer to lose that credit than to see science as a whole suffer? Or else, the guilty party will confess at the last moment, and in such a way as to make it appear he does so only for the sake of science, thus escaping the disgrace of his deed and casting its shadow upon the other. The captain will be the only man to know all this but he does not wish to spend the rest of his life wondering whether he has been a party to a grotesque miscarriage of justice.”
Baley sighed. “A game of intellectual chicken. Who’ll break first as Aurora comes nearer and nearer? Is that the whole story now, Daneel?”
“Not quite. There are witnesses to the transaction.”
“Jehoshaphat! Why didn’t you say so at once. What witnesses?
“Dr. Humboldt’s personal servant-”
“A robot, I suppose.”
“Yes, certainly. He is called R. Preston. This servant, R. Preston, was present during the initial conference and he bears out Dr. Humboldt in every detail.”
“You mean he says that the idea was Dr. Humboldt’s to begin with; that Dr. Humboldt detailed it to Dr. Sabbat; that Dr. Sabbat praised the idea, and so on.”
“Yes, in full detail.”
“I see. Does that settle the matter or not? Presumably not.”
“You are quite right. It does not settle the matter, for there is a second witness. Dr. Sabbat also has a personal servant, R. Idda, another robot of, as it happens, the same model as R. Preston, made, I believe, in the same year in the same factory. Both have been in service for an equal period of time.
“An odd coincidence-very odd.”
“A fact, I am afraid, and it makes it difficult to arrive at any judgment based on obvious differences between the two servants.”
“R. Idda, then, tells the same story as R. Preston?”
“Precisely the same story, except for the mirror-image reversal of the names.”
“R. Idda stated, then, that young Sabbat, the one not yet fifty”-Lije Baley did not entirely keep the sardonic note out of his voice; he himself was not yet fifty and he felt far from young-”had the idea to begin with; that he detailed it to Dr. Humboldt, who was loud in his praises, and so on.”
“Yes, friend Elijah.”
“And one robot is lying, then.”
“So it would seem.”
“It should be easy to tell which. I imagine even a superficial examination by a good roboticist-”
“A roboticist is not enough in this case, friend Elijah. Only a qualified robopsychologist would carry weight enough and experience enough to make a decision in a case of this importance. There is no one so qualified on board ship. Such an examination can be performed only when we reach Aurora-”
“And by then the crud hits the fan. Well, you’re here on Earth. We can scare up a robopsychologist, and surely anything that happens on Earth will never reach the ears of Aurora and there will be no scandal.”
“Except that neither Dr. Humboldt, nor Dr. Sabbat, will allow his servant to be investigated by a robopsychologist of Earth. The Earthman would have to-” He paused.
Lije Baley said stolidly, “He’d have to touch the robot.”
“These are old servants, well thought of-”
“And not to be sullied by the touch of Earthman. Then what do you want me to do, damn it?” He paused, grimacing. “I’m sorry, R. Daneel, but I see no reason for your having involved me.”
“I was on the ship on a mission utterly irrelevant to the problem at hand. The captain turned to me because he had to turn to someone. I seemed human enough to talk to, and robot enough to be a safe recipient of confidences. He told me the whole story and asked what I would do. I realized the next Jump could take us as easily to Earth as to our target. I told the captain that, although I was at as much a loss to resolve the mirror-image as he was, there was on Earth one who might help.”
“Jehoshaphat!” muttered Baley under his breath.
“Consider, friend Elijah, that if you succeed in solving this puzzle, it would do your career good and Earth itself might benefit. The matter could not be publicized, of course, but the captain is a man of some influence on his home world and he would be grateful.”
“You just put a greater strain on me.”
“I have every confidence,” said R. Daneel, stolidly, “that you already have some idea as to what procedure ought to be followed.”
“Do you? I suppose that the obvious procedure is to interview the two mathematicians, one of whom would seem to be a thief.”
“I’m afraid, friend Elijah, that neither one will come into the city. Nor would either one be willing to have you come to them.”
“And there is no way of forcing a Spacer to allow contact with an Earthman, no matter what the emergency. Yes, I understand that, Daneel-but I was thinking of an interview by closed-circuit television.”
“Nor that. They will not submit to interrogation by an Earthman.”
“Then what do they want of me? Could I speak to the robots?”
“They would not allow the robots to come here, either.”
“Jehoshaphat, Daneel. You’ve come.”
“That was my own decision. I have permission, while on board ship, to make decisions of that sort without veto by any human being but the captain himself-and he was eager to establish the contact. I, having known you, decided that television contact was insufficient. I wished to shake your hand.”
Lije Baley softened. “I appreciate that, Daneel, but I still honestly wish you could have refrained from thinking of me at all in this case. Can I talk to the robots by television at least?”
“That. I think, can be arranged.”