"He is not. So far you have merely made things worse and I would not be surprised, if, when he comes back, he calls these proceedings to a halt."
Baley shook his head and stared at his shoes.
77
Baley was still staring at his shoes when the Chairman returned, reseated himself, and turned a hard and rather baleful glance at the Earthman.
He said, "Mr. Baley of Earth?"
"Yes, Mr. Chairman."
"I think you are wasting my time, but I do not want it said that I did not give either side a full hearing, even when it seemed to be wasting my time. Can you offer me a motive that would account for Dr. Amadiro acting - in the mad way in which you accuse him of acting?"
"Mr. Chairman," said Baley in a tone approaching desperation, "there is indeed a motive - a very good one. It rests on the fact that Dr. Amadiro's plan for settling the Galaxy will come to nothing if he and his Institute cannot produce humaniform robots. So far he has produced none and can produce none. Ask him if he is willing to have a legislative committee examine his Institute for any indication that successful humaniform robots are being produced or designed. If he is willing to maintain that successful humaniform are on the assembly lines or even on the drawing boards - or even in adequate theoretical formulation - and if he is prepared to demonstrate that fact to a qualified committee, I will say nothing more and admit that my investigation has achieved nothing." He held his breath.
The Chairman looked at Amadiro, whose smile had faded.
Amadiro said, "I will admit that we have no humaniform robots in prospect at the moment."
"Then I will continue," said Baley, resuming his interrupted breathing with something very much like a gasp. "Dr. Amadiro can, of course, find all the information he needs for his project if he turns to Dr. Fastolfe, who has the information in his head, but Dr. Fastolfe will not cooperate in this matter."
"No, I will not," murmured Fastolfe, "under any conditions."
"But, Mr. Chairman," Baley continued, "Dr. Fastolfe is not the only individual who has the secret of the design and construction of humaniform robots."
"No?" said the Chairman. "Who else would know? Dr. Fastolfe himself looks astonished at your comment, Mr. Baley." (For the first time, he did not add "of Earth.")
"I am indeed astonished," said Fastolfe. "To my knowledge, I am certainly the only one. I don't know what Mr. Baley means."
Amadiro said, with a small curling of the lip, "I suspect Mr. Baley doesn't know, either."
Baley felt hemmed in. He looked from one to the other and felt that not one of them - not one - was on his side.
He said, "Isn't it true that any humaniform robot would know? Not consciously perhaps, not in such a way as to be able to give instructions in the matter but the information would surely be there within him, wouldn't it? If a humaniform robot was properly questioned his answers and responses would betray his design and construction. Eventually, given enough time and given questions properly framed, a humaniform robot would yield information that would make it I possible to plan die design of other humaniform robots. - To put it briefly, no machine can be of secret design if the machine itself is available for sufficiently intense study."
Fastolfe seemed struck. "I see what you mean, Mr. Baley, and you are right. I had never thought of that."
"With respect, Dr. Fastolfe," said Baley, "I must tell you that, like all Aurorans, you have a peculiarly individualistic pride. You are entirely too satisfied with being the best roboticist, the only roboticist who can construct humaniform so you blind yourself to the obvious."
The Chairman relaxed into a smile. "He has you there, Dr. Fastolfe. I have wondered why you were so eager to maintain that you were the only one with the know-how to destroy Jander when that so weakened your political case. I see clearly now that you would rather have your political case go down than your uniqueness."
Fastolfe chafed visibly.
As for Amadiro, he frowned and said, "Has this anything to do with the problem under discussion?"
"Yes, it does," said Baley, he felt his confidence rising.
"You cannot force any information from Dr. Fastolfe directly. Your robots cannot be ordered to do him harm, to torture him into revealing his secrets, for instance. You can't harm him directly yourself against the protection of Dr. Fastolfe by his staff. However, you can isolate a robot and have it taken by other robots when the human being present is too ill - to take the necessary action to prevent you. All the events of yesterday afternoon were part of a quickly improvised plan to get your hands on Daneel. You saw your opportunity as soon as I insisted on seeing you at the Institute. If I had not sent my robots away, if I had not been just well enough to insist I was well and to send your robots in the wrong direction, you would have had him. And eventually you might have worked out the secret of humaniform robots by some long-sustained analysis of Daneel's behavior and responses."
Amadiro said, "Mr. Chairman, I protest. I have never heard slander so viciously expressed. This is all based on the fancies of an ill man. We don't know - and perhaps can't ever know - whether the airfoil was really damaged; and if it was, by whom; whether robots really pursued the airfoil and really spoke to Mr. Baley or not. He is merely piling inference on inference, all based on dubious testimony concerning events of which he is the only witness - and that at a time when he was half-mad, with fear and may have been hallucinating. None of this can stand up for one moment in a courtroom."
"This is not a courtroom, Dr. Amadiro," said the Chairman, "and it is my duty to listen to everything that may be germane to a question under dispute."