"Civil Service doesn't take men who are declassified for cause. Manual labor is the only thing I can do; the only thing you could do. Bentley would lose all inherited status. For God's sake, Jessie, you don't know what it's like."
"I've read about it. I'm not afraid of it," she mumbled.
"You're crazy. You're plain crazy." Baley could feel himself trembling. There was a familiar, flashing picture of his father in his mind's eye. His father, moldering away toward death.
Jessie sighed heavily.
Baley's mind turned savagely away from her. In desperation, it returned to the pattern it was constructing.
He said, tightly, "Jessie, you've got to tell me. How did you find out Daneel was a robot? What made you decide that?"
She began, "Well..." and just ran down. It was the third time she had begun to explain and failed.
He crushed her hand in his, willing her to speak. "Please, Jessie. What's frightening you?"
She said, "I just guessed he was a robot, Lije."
He said, "There wasn't anything to make you guess that, Jessie. You didn't think he was a robot before you left, now did you?"
"No-o, but I got to thinking..."
"Come on, Jessie. What was it?"
"Well - Look, Lije, the girls were talking in the Personal. You know how they are. Just talking about everything."
Women! thought Baley.
"Anyway," said Jessie. "The rumor is all over town. It must be."
"All over town?" Baley felt a quick and savage touch of triumph, or nearly that. Another piece in place!
"It was the way they sounded. They said there was talk about a Spacer robot loose in the City. He was supposed to look just like a man and to be working with the police. They even asked me about it. They laughed and said, 'Does your Lije know anything about it, Jessie?' and I laughed, and said, 'Don't be silly!'
"Then we went to the etherics and I got to thinking about your new partner. Do you remember those pictures you brought home, the ones Julius Enderby took in Spacetown, to show me what Spacers looked like? Well, I got to thinking that's what your partner looked like. It just came to me that that's what he looked like and I said to myself, oh, my God, someone must've recognized him in the shoe department and he's with Lije and I just said I had a headache and I ran - "
Baley said, "Now, Jessie, stop, stop. Get hold of yourself. Now why are you afraid? You're not afraid of Daneel himself. You faced up to him when you came home. You faced up to him fine. So - "
He stopped speaking. He sat up in bed, eyes uselessly wide in the darkness.
He felt his wife move against his side. His hand leaped, found her lips and pressed against them. She heaved against his grip, her hands grasping his wrist and wrenching, but he leaned down against her the more heavily.
Then, suddenly, he released her. She whimpered.
He said, huskily, "Sorry, Jessie. I was listening."
He was getting out of bed, pulling warm Plastofilm over the soles of his feet.
"Lije, where are you going? Don't leave me."
"It's all right. I'm just going to the door."
The Plastofilm made a soft, shuffling noise as he circled the bed. He cracked the door to the living room and waited a long moment. Nothing happened. It was so quiet, he could hear the thin whistle of Jessie's breath from their bed. He could hear the dull rhythm of blood in his ears.
Baley's hand crept through the opening of the door, snaking out to the spot he needed no light to find. His fingers closed upon the knob that controlled the ceiling illumination. He exerted the smallest pressure he could and the ceiling gleamed dimly, so dimly that the lower half of the living room remained in semidusk.
He saw enough, however. The main door was closed and the living room lay lifeless and quiet.
He turned the knob back into the off position and moved back to bed.
It was all he needed. The pieces fit. The pattern was complete. Jessie pleaded with him. "Lije, what's wrong?"
"Nothing's wrong, Jessie. Everything's all right. He's not here."
"The robot? Do you mean he's gone? For good?"
"No, no. He'll be back. And before he does, answer my question."
"What question?"
"What are you afraid of?" Jessie said nothing.
Baley grew more insistent. "You said you were scared to death."
"Of him."
"No, we went through that. You weren't afraid of him and, besides, you know quite well a robot cannot hurt a human being."
Her words came slowly. "I thought if everyone knew he was a robot there might be a riot. We'd be killed."
"Why kill us?"
"You know what riots are like."
"They don't even know where the robot is, do they?"
"They might find out."
"And that's what you're afraid of, a riot?"
"Well - "
"Sh!" He pressed Jessie down to the pillow.
Then he put his lips to her ear. "He's come back. Now listen and don't say a word. Everything's fine. He'll be gone in the morning and he won't be back. There'll be no riot, nothing."
He was almost contented as he said that, almost completely contented. He felt he could sleep.
He thought again: No riot, nothing. And no declassification. And just before he actually fell asleep, he thought: Not even a murder investigation. Not even that. The whole thing's solved...
He slept.
Chapter 7. EXCURSION INTO SPACETOWN
Police Commissioner Julius Enderby polished his glasses with exquisite care and placed them upon the bridge of his nose.
Baley thought: It's a good trick. Keeps you busy while you're thinking what to say, and it doesn't cost money the way lighting up a pipe does.