“Oh! I haven’t explained that she knows you, have I, Mr. Baley? There she is, waiting for us now.”
Baley looked up, bewildered.
“Jehoshaphat,” he whispered.
PART 6.
GLADIA
23
The young woman who faced them said with a wan smile, “I knew that when I met you again, Elijah, that would be the first word I would hear.”
Baley stared at her. She had changed. Her hair was shorter and her face was even more troubled now than it had been two years ago and seemed more than two years older, somehow. She was still unmistakably Gladia, however. There was still the triangular face, with its pronounced cheekbones and small chin. She was still short, still slight of figure, still vaguely childlike.
He had dreamed of her frequently—though not in an overtly erotic fashion—after returning to Earth. His dreams were always stories of not being able to quite reach her. She was always there, a little too far off to speak too easily. She never quite heard when he called her. She never grew nearer when he approached her.
It was not hard to understand why the dreams had been as they were. She was a Solarian-born person and, as such, was rarely supposed to be in the physical presence of other human beings.
Elijah had been forbidden to her because he was human and beyond that (of course) because he was from Earth. Though the exigencies of the murder case he was investigating forced them to meet, throughout their relationship she was completely covered, when physically together, to prevent actual contact.
And yet, at their last meeting, she had, in defiance of good sense, fleetingly touched his cheek with her bare hand. She must have known she could be infected as a result. He cherished the touch the more, for every aspect of her upbringing combined to make it unthinkable.
The dreams had faded in time.
Baley said, rather stupidly, “It was you who owned the…”
He paused and Gladia finished the sentence for him. “The robot. And two years ago, it was I who possessed the husband. Whatever I touch is destroyed.”
Without really knowing what he was doing, Baley reached up to place his hand on his cheek. Gladia did not seem to notice.
She said, “You came to rescue me that first time. Forgive me, but I had to call on you—again.—Come in, Elijah. Come in, Dr. Fastolfe.”
Fastolfe stepped back to allow Baley to walk in first. He followed. Behind Fastolfe came Daneel and Giskard—and they, with the characteristic self-effacement of robots, stepped to unoccupied wall niches on opposite sides and remained silently standing, backs to the wall.
For one moment, it seemed that Gladia would treat them with the indifference with which human beings commonly treated robots. After a glance at Daneel, however, she turned away and said to Fastolfe in a voice that choked a little, “That one. Please. Ask him to leave.”
Fastolfe said, with a small motion of surprise, “Daneel?”
“He’s too—too Janderlike!”
Fastolfe turned to look at Daneel and a look of clear pain crossed his face momentarily. “Of course, my dear. You must forgive me. I did not think.—Daneel, move into another room and remain there while we are here.”
Without a word, Daneel left.
Gladia glanced a moment at Giskard, as though to judge whether he, also, was too Janderlike, and turned away with a small shrug.
She said, “Would either of you like refreshment of any kind? I have an excellent coconut drink, fresh and cold.”
“No, Gladia,” said Fastolfe. “I have merely brought Mr. Baley here as I promised I would. I will not stay long.”
“If I may have a glass of water,” said Baley, “I won’t trouble you for anything more.”
Gladia raised one hand. Undoubtedly, she was under observation, for, in a moment, a robot moved in noiselessly, with a glass of water on a tray and a small dish of what looked like crackers with a pinkish blob on each.
Baley could not forbear taking one, even though he was not certain what it might be. It had to be something Earth-descended, for he could not believe that on Aurora, he—or anyone—would be eating any portion of the planet’s sparse indigenous biota or anything synthetic either. Nevertheless, the descendants of Earthly food species might change with time, either through deliberate cultivation or the action of a strange environment—and Fastolfe, at lunchtime, had said that much of the Auroran diet was an acquired taste.
He was pleasantly surprised. The taste was sharp and spicy, but he found it delightful and took a second almost at once. He said, “Thank you” to the robot (who would not have objected to standing there indefinitely) and took the entire dish, together with the glass of water.
The robot left.
It was late afternoon now and the sunlight came ruddily through the western windows. Baley had the impression that this house was smaller than Fastolfe’s, but it would have been more cheerful had not the sad figure of Gladia standing in its midst provoked a dispiriting effect.
That might, of course, be Baley’s imagination. Cheer, in any case, seemed to him impossible in any structure purporting to house and protect human beings that yet remained exposed to the Outside beyond each wall. Not one wall, he thought, had the warmth of human life on the other side. In no direction could one look for companionship and community. Through every outer wall, every side, top and bottom, there was inanimate world. Cold! Cold!
And coldness flooded back upon Baley himself as he thought again of the dilemma in—which he found himself. (For a moment, the shock of meeting Gladia again had driven it from his mind.)
Gladia said, “Come. Sit down, Elijah. You must excuse me for not quite being myself. I am, for a second time, the center of a planetary sensation—and the first time was more than enough.”
“I understand, Gladia. Please do not apologize,” said Baley.
“And as for you, dear Doctor, please don’t feel you need go.”
“Well—” Fastolfe looked at the time strip on the wall. “I will stay for a short while, but then, my dear, there is work that must be done though the skies fall. All the more so, since I must look forward to a near future in which I may be restrained from doing any work at all.”
Gladia blinked rapidly, as though holding back tears. “I know, Dr. Fastolfe. You are in deep trouble because of—of what happened here and I don’t seem to have time to think of anything but my own—discomfort.”
Fastolfe said, “I’ll do my best to take care of my own problem, Gladia, and there is no need for you to feel guilt over the matter.—Perhaps Mr. Baley will be able to help us both.”
Baley pressed his lips together at that, then said heavily, “I was not aware, Gladia, that you were in any way involved in this affair.”
“Who else would be?” she said with a sigh.
“You are—were—in possession of Jander Panell?”
“Not truly in possession. I had him on loan from Dr. Fastolfe.”
“Were you with him when he—” Baley hesitated over some way of putting it.
“Died? Mightn’t we say died?—No, I was I not. And before you ask, there was no one else in the house at the time. I was alone. I am usually alone. Almost always. That is my Solarian upbringing, you remember. Of course, that is not obligatory. You two are here and I do not mind—very much.”
“And you were definitely alone at the time Jander died? No mistake?”
“I have said so,” said Gladia, sounding a little irritated. “No, never mind, Elijah. I know you must have everything repeated and repeated. I was alone. Honestly.”
“There were robots present, though.”
“Yes, of course. When I say ‘alone,’ I mean there were no other human beings present.”
“How many robots do you possess, Gladia? Not counting Jander.”
Gladia paused as though she were counting internally. Finally, she said, “Twenty. Five in the house and fifteen on the grounds. Robots move freely between my house and Dr. Fastolfe’s, too, so that it isn’t always possible to judge, when a robot is quickly seen at either establishment, whether it is one of mine or one of his.”