“In theory it is; in practice not so much. The pressures in a long-lived society are less. Scientists here have three or three and a half centuries to devote to a problem, so that the thought arises that significant progress may be made in that time by a solitary worker. It becomes possible to feel a kind of intellectual greed—to want to accomplish something on your own, to assume a property right to a particular facet of progress, to be willing to see the general advance slowed—rather than give up what you conceive to be yours alone. And the general advance is slowed on Spacer worlds as a result, to the point where it is difficult to outpace the work done on Earth, despite our enormous advantages.”
“I assume you wouldn’t say this if I were not to take it that Dr. Han Fastolfe behaves in this manner.”
“He certainly does. It is his theoretical analysis of the positronic brain that has made the humaniform robot possible. He has used it to construct—with the help of the late Dr. Sarton—your robot friend Daneel, but he has not published the important details of his theory, nor does he make it available to anyone else. In this way, he—and he alone—holds a stranglehold on the production of humaniform robots.”
Baley furrowed his brow. “And the Robotics Institute is dedicated to cooperation among scientists?”
“Exactly. This Institute is made up of over a hundred topnotch roboticists of different ages, advancements, and skills and we hope to establish branches on other worlds and make it an interstellar association. All of us are dedicated to communicating our separate discoveries or speculations to the common fund—doing voluntarily for the general good what you Earthpeople do perforce because you live such short lives.
“This, however, Dr. Han Fastolfe will not do. I’m sure you think of Dr. Han Fastolfe as a nobly idealistic Auroran patriot,—but he will not put his intellectual property—as he thinks of it—into the common fund and therefore he does not want us. And because he assumes a personal property right upon scientific discoveries, we do not want him.—You no longer find the mutual distaste a mystery, I take it.”
Baley nodded his head, then said, “You think this will work—this voluntary giving up of personal glory?”
“It must,” said Vasilia grimly.
“And has the Institute, through community endeavor, duplicated Dr. Fastolfe’s individual work and rediscovered the theory of the humaniform positronic brain?”
“We will, in time. It is inevitable.”
“And you are making no attempt to shorten the time it will take by persuading Dr. Fastolfe to yield the secret?”
“I think we are on the way to persuading him.”
“Through the working of the Jander scandal?”
“I don’t think you really have to ask that question.—Well, have I told you what you wanted to know, Earthman?”
Baley said, “You have told me some things I didn’t know.”
“Then it is time for you to tell me about Gremionis. Why have you brought up the name of this barber in connection with me?”
“Barber?”
“He considers himself a hair stylist, among other things, but he is a barber, plain and simple. Tell me about him—or let us consider this interview at an end.”
Baley felt weary—It seemed clear to him that Vasilia had enjoyed the fencing. She had given him enough to whet his appetite and now he would be forced to buy additional material with information of his own.—But he had none. Or at least he had only guesses. And many of them were wrong, vitally wrong, he was through.
He therefore fenced on his own. “You understand, Dr. Vasilia, that you can’t get away with pretending that it is farcical to suppose there is a connection between Gremionis and yourself.”
“Why not, when it is farcical?”
“Oh no. If it were farcical, you would have laughed in my face and shut off trimensional contact. The mere fact that you were willing to abandon your earliest stand and receive me—the mere fact, that you have been talking to me at length and telling me a great many things—is a clear admission that you feel that I just possibly might have my knife at your jugular.”
Vasilia’s jaw muscles tightened and she said, in a low and angry voice, “See, here, little Earthman, my position is vulnerable and you probably know it. I am the daughter of Dr. Fastolfe and there are some here at the Institute who are foolish enough—or knavish enough—to mistrust me therefor. I don’t know what kind of story you may have heard—or made up but that it’s more or less farcical is certain. Nevertheless, no matter how farcical, it might be used effectively against me. So I am willing to trade for it. I have told you some things and I might tell you more, but only if you now tell me what you have in your hand and convince me you are telling me the truth. So tell me now.
“If you try to play games with me, I will be in no worse position than at present if I kick you out—and I will at least get pleasure out of that. And I will use what leverage I have with the Chairman to get him to cancel his decision to let you come here and have you sent right back to Earth. There is considerable pressure on him now to do this and you won’t want the addition of mine.
“So, talk! Now!”
39
Baley’s impulse was to lead up to the crucial point, feeling his way to see if he were right. That, he felt, would not work. She would see what he was doing—she was no fool—and would stop him. He was on the track of something, he knew, and he didn’t want to spoil it. What she said about her vulnerable position as the result of her relationship to her father might well be true, but she still would not have been frightened into seeing him if she hadn’t suspected that some notion he had was not completely farcical.
He had to come out with something, then, with something important that would establish, at once, some sort of domination over her. Therefore—the gamble.
He said, “Santirix Gremionis offered himself to you.” And, before Vasilia could react, he raised the ante by saying, with an added touch of harshness, “And not once but many times.”
Vasilia clasped her hands over one knee, then pulled herself up and seated herself on the stool, as though to make herself more comfortable. She looked at Giskard, who stood motionless and expressionless at her side.
Then she looked at Baley and said, “Well, the idiot offers himself to everyone he sees, regardless of age and sex—I would be unusual if he paid me no attention.”
Baley made the gesture of brushing that to one side. (She had not laughed. She had not brought the interview to an end. She had not even put on a display of fury. She was waiting to see what he would build out of the statement, so he did have something by the tail.)
He said, “That is exaggeration, Dr. Vasilia. No one, how ever undiscriminating, would fail to make choices and, in the case of this Gremionis, you were selected and, despite your refusal to accept him, he continued to offer himself, quite out of keeping with Auroran custom.”
Vasilia said, “I am glad you realize, I refused him. There are some who feel that, as a matter of courtesy, any offer or almost any offer—or almost any offer—should be accepted, but that is not my opinion. I see no reason why I have to subject myself to some uninteresting event that will merely waste my time. Do you find something objectionable in that, Earthman?”
“I have no opinion to offer—either favorable or unfavorable—in connection with Auroran custom.” (She was still waiting, listening to him. What was she waiting for? Would it be for what he wanted to say but yet wasn’t sure he dared to?)
She said, with an effort at lightness, “Do you have anything at all to offer—or are we through?”
“Not through,” said Baley, who was now forced to take another gamble. “You recognized this non-Auroran perseverance in Gremionis and it occurred to you that you could make use of it.”