“And if so? Why is that your concern, Elijah?”
“I don’t know if it is or is not, Gladia. Tell me who it is and, if it proves to be not my concern, that will be the end of it.”
Gladia was silent.
Baley said, “If you don’t tell me, Gladia, I will have to tell you. I told you earlier that I am not in a position to spare your feelings.”
Gladia remained silent, the corners of her lips whitening with pressure.
“It must be someone, Gladia, and your sorrow over Jander’s loss is extreme. You sent Daneel out because you could not bear to look at him for the reminder of Jander that his face brought. If I am wrong in deciding that it was Jander Panell—” He paused a moment, then said harshly, “If the robot, Jander Panell, was not your lover, say so.”
And Gladia whispered, “Jander Panell, the robot, was not my lover.” Then, loudly and firmly, she said, “He was my husband!”
25
Baley’s lips moved soundlessly, but there was no mistaking the tetrasyllabic exclamation.
“Yes,” said Gladia. “Jehoshaphat! You are startled. Why? Do you disapprove?”
Baley said tonelessly, “it is not my place either to approve or disapprove.”
“Which means you disapprove.”
“Which means I seek only information. How does one distinguish between a lover and a husband on Aurora?”
“If two people live together in the same establishment for a period of time, they may refer to each other as ‘wife’ or ‘husband,’ rather than as ‘lover’.”
“How long a period of time?”
“That varies from region to region, I understand, according to local option. In the city of Eos, the period of time is three months.”
“It is also required that during this period of time one refrain from sexual relations with others?”
Gladia’s eyebrows lifted in surprise. “Why?”
“I merely ask.”
“Exclusivity is unthinkable on Aurora. Husband or lover, it makes no difference. One engages in sex at pleasure.”
“And did you please while you were with Jander?”
“As it happens I did not, but that was my choice.”
“Others offered themselves?”
“Occasionally.”
“And you refused?”
“I can always refuse at will. That is part of the nonexclusivity.”
“But did you refuse?”
“I did.”
“And did those whom you refused know why you refused?”
“What do you mean?”
“Did they know that you had a robot husband?”
“I had a husband. Don’t call him a robot husband. There is no such expression.”
“Did they know?”
She paused. “I don’t know if they knew.”
“Did you tell them?”
“What reason was there to tell them?”
“Don’t answer my questions with questions. Did you tell them?”
“I did not.”
“How could you avoid that? Don’t you think an explanation for your refusal would have been natural?”
“No explanation is ever required. A refusal is simply a refusal and is always accepted. I don’t understand you.”
Baley stopped to gather his thoughts. Gladia and he were not at cross-purposes; they were running down parallel tracks.
He started again. “Would it have seemed natural on Solaria to have a robot for a husband?”
“On Solaria, it would have been unthinkable and I would never have thought of such a possibility. On Solaria, everything was unthinkable.—And on Earth, too, Elijah. Would your wife ever have taken a robot for a husband?”
“That’s irrelevant, Gladia.”
“Perhaps, but your expression was answer enough. We may not be Aurorans, you and I, but we are on Aurora. I have lived here for two years and accept its mores.”
“Do you mean that human-robot sexual connections are common here on Aurora?”
“I don’t know. I merely know that they are accepted because everything is accepted where sex is concerned—everything that is voluntary, that gives mutual satisfaction, and that does no physical harm to anyone. What conceivable difference would it make to anyone else how an individual or any combination of individuals found satisfaction? Would anyone worry about which books I viewed, what food I ate, what hour I went to sleep or awoke, whether I was fond of cats or disliked roses? Sex, too, is a matter of indifference—on Aurora.”
“On Aurora,” echoed Baley. “But you were not born on Aurora and were not brought up in its ways. You told me just a while ago that you couldn’t adjust to this very indifference to sex that you now praise. Earlier, you expressed your distaste for multiple marriages and for easy promiscuity. If you did not tell those whom you refused why you refused, it might have been because, in some hidden pocket of your being, you were ashamed of having Jander as a husband. You might have known—or suspected, or even merely supposed—that you were unusual in this—unusual even on Aurora—and you were ashamed.”
“No, Elijah, you won’t talk me into being ashamed. If having a robot as a husband is unusual even on Aurora, that would be because robots like Jander are unusual. The robots we have on Solaria, or on Earth—or on Aurora, except for Jander and Daneel—are not designed to give any but the most primitive sexual satisfaction. They might be used as masturbation devices, perhaps, as a mechanical vibrator might be, but nothing much more. When the new humaniform robot becomes widespread, so will human-robot sex become widespread.”
Baley said, “How did you come to possess Jander in the first place, Gladia? Only two existed—both in Dr. Fastolfe’s establishment. Did he simply give one of them—half of the total—to you?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Out of kindness, I suppose. I was lonely, disillusioned, wretched, a stranger in a strange land. He gave me Jander for company and I will never be able to thank him enough for it. It only lasted for half a year, but that half-year may be worth all my life beside.”
“Did Dr. Fastolfe know that Jander was your husband?”
“He never referred to it, so I don’t know.”
“Did you refer to it?”
“No.
“Why not?”
“I saw no need.—And no, it was not because I felt shame.”
“How did it happen?”
“That I saw no need?”
“No. That Jander became your husband.”
Gladia stiffened. She said in a hostile voice, “Why do I have to explain that?”
Baley said, “Gladia, it’s getting late. Don’t fight me every step of the way. Are you distressed that Jander is—is gone?”
“Need you ask?”
“Do you want to find out what happened?”
“Again, need you ask?”
“Then help me. I need all the information I can get if I am to begin—even begin—to make progress in working out an apparently insoluble problem. How did Jander become your husband?”
Gladia sat back in her chair and her eyes were suddenly brimming with tears. She pushed at the plate of crumbs that had once been pastry and said in a choked voice:
“Ordinary robots do not wear clothes, but they are so designed as to give the effect of wearing clothes. I know robots well, having lived on Solaria, and I have a certain amount of artistic talent—”
“I remember your light-forms,” said Baley softly.
Gladia nodded in acknowledgment. “I constructed a few designs for new models that would possess, in my opinion, more style and more interest than some of those in use in Aurora. Some of my paintings, based on those designs, are on the walls here. Others I have in other places in this establishment.
Baley’s eyes moved to the paintings. He had seen them. They were of robots, unmistakably. They were not naturalistic, but seemed elongated and unnaturally curved. He noted now that the distortions were so designed as to stress, quite cleverly, those portions which, now that he looked at them from anew perspective, suggested clothing. Somehow there was an impression of servants’ costumes he had once viewed in a book devoted to Victorian England of medieval times. Did Gladia know of these things or was it a merely chance, if circumstantial, similarity? It was a question of no account, probably, but not something (perhaps) to be forgotten.