Asimov's Future History Volume 4 Read Free Page A

out-of-City.”
    The woman looked finally and completely outraged. She said, “Home City, please.”
    Baley intercepted the ball for Daneel once again. “All records are to be credited to the Police Department. No details necessary. Official business.”
    The woman brought down a pad of slips with a jerk of her arm and filled in the necessary matter in dark-light code with practiced pressings of the first two fingers of her right hand.
    She said, “How long will you be eating here?”
    “Till further notice,” said Baley.
    “Press fingers here,” she said, inverting the information blank.
    Baley had a short qualm as R. Daneel’s even fingers with their glistening nails pressed downward. Surely, they wouldn’t have forgotten to supply him with fingerprints.
    The woman took the blank away and fed it into the all-consuming machine at her elbow. It belched nothing back and Baley breathed more easily.
    She gave them little metal tags that were in the bright red that meant “temporary.”
    She said, “No free choices. We’re short this week. Take table DF.”
    They made their way toward DF.
    R. Daneel said, “I am under the impression that most of your people eat in kitchens such as these regularly.”
    “Yes. Of course, it’s rather gruesome eating in a strange kitchen. There’s no one about whom you know. In your own kitchen, it’s quite different. You have your own seat which you occupy all the time. You’re with your family, your friends. Especially when you’re young, mealtimes are the bright spot of the day.” Baley smiled in brief reminiscence.
    Table DF was apparently among those reserved for transients. Those already seated watched their plates uneasily and did not talk with one another. They looked with sneaking envy at the laughing crowds at the other tables.
    There is no one so uncomfortable, thought Baley, as the man eating out-of-Section. Be it ever so humble, the old saying went, there’s no place like home-kitchen. Even the food tastes better, no matter how many chemists are ready to swear it to be no different from the food in Johannesburg.
    He sat down on a stool and R. Daneel sat down next to him.
    “No free choice,” said Baley, with a wave of his fingers, “so just close the switch there and wait.”
    It took two minutes. A disc slid back in the table top and a dish lifted.
    “Mashed potatoes, zymoveal sauce, and stewed apricots. Oh, well,” said Baley.
    A fork and two slices of whole yeast bread appeared in a recess just in front of the low railing that went down the long center of the table.
    R. Daneel said in a low voice, “You may help yourself to my serving, if you wish.”
    For a moment, Baley was scandalized. Then he remembered and mumbled, “That’s bad manners. Go on. Eat.”
    Baley ate industriously but without the relaxation that allows complete enjoyment. Carefully, he flicked an occasional glance at R. Daneel. The robot ate with precise motions of his jaws. Too precise. It didn’t look quite natural.
    Strange! Now that Baley knew for a fact that R. Daneel was in truth a robot, all sorts of little items showed up clearly. For instance, there was no movement of an Adam’s apple when R. Daneel swallowed.
    Yet he didn’t mind so much. Was he getting used to the creature? Suppose people started afresh on a new world (how that ran through his mind ever since Dr. Fastolfe had put it there); suppose Bentley, for instance, were to leave Earth; could he get so he didn’t mind working and living alongside robots? Why not? The Spacers themselves did it.
    R. Daneel said, “Elijah, is it bad manners to watch another man while he is eating?”
    “If you mean stare directly at him, of course. That’s only common sense, isn’t it? A man has a right to his privacy. Ordinary conversation is entirely in order, but you don’t peer at a man while he’s swallowing.”
    “I see. Why is it then that I count eight people watching us closely, very closely?”
    Baley put down his fork.