Baley said helplessly, “But she can’t go in there.”
Gremionis said, “Why not? It’s communal.”
“But it’s for men.”
“It’s for people,” said Gremionis. He seemed utterly confused.
“Either sex? Surely you can’t mean that.”
“Any human being. Of course I mean it! How would you want it to be? I don’t understand.”
Baley turned away. It had not been many minutes before that he had thought that open conversation in a Personal was the acme in bad taste, of Things Not Done.
If he had tried to think of something worse yet, he would have completely failed to dredge up the possibility of encountering a woman in a Personal. Convention on Earth required him to ignore the presence of others in the large Community Personals on that world, but not all the conventions ever invented would have prevented him from knowing whether a person passing him was a man or a woman.
What if, while he had been in the Personal, a woman had entered—casually, indifferently—as this one had just done? Or, worse still, what if he had entered a Personal and found a woman already there?
He could not estimate his reaction. He had never weighed the possibility, let alone met with such a situation, but he found the thought totally intolerable.
And the book-films had told him nothing about that either.
He had viewed those films in order that he might not approach the investigation in total ignorance of the Auroran way of life—and they had left him in total ignorance of all that was important.
Then how could he handle this triply knotted puzzle of Jander’s death, when at every step he found himself lost in ignorance?
A moment before he had felt triumph at a small conquest over the terrors of Outside, but now he was faced with the feeling of being ignorant of everything, ignorant even of the nature of his ignorance.
It was now, while fighting not to picture the woman passing through the airspace lately occupied by himself, that he came near to utter despair.
48
Again Giskard said (and in a way that made it possible to read concern into his words—if not into the tone), “Are you unwell, sir? Do you need help?”
Baley muttered, “No no. I’m all right.—But let’s move away. We’re in the path of people wishing to use that structure.”
He walked rapidly toward the airfoil that was resting in the open stretch beyond the gravel path. On the other side was a small two-wheeled vehicle, with two seats, one behind the other. Baley assumed it to be Gremionis’ scooter.
His feeling of depression and misery, Baley realized, was accentuated by the fact that he felt hungry. It was clearly past lunchtime and he had not eaten.
He turned to Gremionis. “Let’s talk—but if you don’t mind, let’s do it over lunch. That is, if you haven’t already eaten and if you don’t mind eating with me,”
“Where are you going to eat?”
“I don’t know. Where does one eat at the Institute?”
Gremionis said, “Not at the Community Diner. We can’t talk there.”
“Is there an alternative?”
“Come to my establishment,” said Gremionis at once. “It isn’t one of the fancier ones here. I’m not one of your high executives. Still, I have a few serviceable robots and we can set a decent table.—I tell you what. I’ll get on my scooter with Brundij—my robot, you know—and you follow me. You’ll have to go slowly, but I’m only a little over a kilometer away. It will just take two or three minutes.”
He moved away at an eager half-run. Baley watched him and thought there seemed to be a kind of gangly youthfulness about him. There was no easy way of actually judging his age, of course; Spacers didn’t show age and Gremionis might easily be fifty. But he acted young, almost what an Earthman would consider teenage young. Baley wasn’t sure exactly what there was about hirn that gave that impression.
Baley turned suddenly to Daneel. “Do you know Gremionis, Daneel?”
“I have never met him before, Partner Elijah.”
“You, Giskard?”
“I have met him once, sir, but only in passing.”
“Do you know anything about him, Giskard?”
“Nothing that is not apparent on the surface, sir.”
“His age? His personality?”
“No, sir.”
Gremionis shouted, “Ready?” His scooter was humming rather roughly. It was clear that it was not air-jet assisted. The wheels would not leave the ground. Brundij sat behind Gremionis.
Giskard, Daneel, and Baley moved quickly into their airfoil once again.
Gremionis moved outward in a loose circle. Gremionis’ hair flew backward in the wind and Baley had a sudden sensation of how the wind must feel when one traveled in an open vehicle such as a scooter. He was thankful he was totally enclosed in an airfoil—which suddenly seemed to him a much more civilized way of traveling.
The scooter straightened out and darted off with a muted roar, Gremionis waving one hand in a follow-me gesture. The robot behind him maintained his balance with almost negligent ease, and did not hold on to Gremionis’ waist, as Baley was certain a human being would have needed to.
The airfoil followed. Although the scooter’s smooth forward progression seemed high-speed, that was apparently the illusion of its small size. The airfoil had some difficulty maintaining a speed low enough to avoid running it down.
“Just the same,” said Baley thoughtfully, “one thing puzzles me.”
“What is that, Partner Elijah?” asked Daneel.
“Vasilia referred to this Gremionis disparagingly as a ‘barber.’ Apparently, he deals with hair, clothes, and other matters of personal human adornment. How is it, then, that he has an establishment on the grounds of the Robotics Institute?”
PART 12.
AGAIN GREMIONIS
49
It took only a few minutes before Baley found himself in the fourth Auroran establishment he had seen since his arrival on the planet a day and a half before: Fastolfe’s, Gladia’s, Vasilia’s, and now Gremionis’.
Gremionis’ establishment appeared smaller and drabber than the others, even though it showed, to Baley’s unpracticed eye in Auroran matters, signs of recent construction. The distinctive mark of the Auroran establishment—the robotic niches were, however, present. On entering, Giskard and Daneel moved quickly into two that were empty and faced the room, unmoving and silent. Gremionis’ robot, Brundij, moved into a third niche almost as quickly.
There was no sign of any difficulty in making their choices or of any tendency for any one niche to be the target of two robots, however briefly. Baley wondered how the robots avoided conflict and decided there must be signal communication among them of a kind that was subliminal to human beings. It was something (provided he remembered to do so) concerning which he might consult Daneel.
Gremionis was studying the niches also, Baley noticed.
Gremionis’ hand had gone to his upper lip and, for a moment, his forefinger stroked the small mustache. He said, a bit uncertainly, “Your robot, the human looking one, doesn’t seem right in the niche. That’s Daneel Olivaw, isn’t it? Dr. Fastolfe’s robot?”
“Yes,” said Baley. “He was in the hyperwave drama, too. Or at least an actor was—one who better fit the part.”
“Yes, I remember.”
Baley noted that Gremionis—like Vasilia and even like Gladia and Fastolfe—kept a certain distance. There seemed to be a repulsion field—unseen, unfelt, unsensed in any way around Baley that kept these Spacers from approaching too closely, that sent them into a gentle curve of avoidance when they passed him.
Baley wondered if Gremionis was aware of this or if it was entirely automatic. And what did they do with the chairs he sat in while in their establishments, the dishes he ate from, the towels he used? Would ordinary washing suffice? Were there special sterilizing procedures? Would they discard and replace everything? Would the establishments be fumigated once he left the planet—or every night? What about the Community Personal he used? Would they tear it down and rebuild it? What about the woman who had ignorantly entered it after he had left? Or could she possibly have been the fumigator?