Asimov's Future History Volume 4 Read Online Free PDF Page A

dead.”
    Baley looked at the other doubtfully. “I never knew that.–Up these ramps.”
    “The point isn’t stressed. Spacetown wishes to convince Earthmen of the usefulness of such as myself, not of our weaknesses.”
    “Then why tell me?”
    R. Daneel turned his eyes full on his human companion. “You are my partner, Elijah. It is well that you know my weaknesses and shortcomings.”
    Baley cleared his throat and had nothing more to say on the subject.
    “Out in this direction,” he said a moment later, “and we’re a quarter of a mile from our apartment.”
     
    It was a grim, lower-class apartment. One small room and two beds. Two fold-in chairs and a closet. A built-in subetheric screen that allowed no manual adjustment, and would be working only at stated hours, but would be working then. No washbasin, not even an Unactivated one, and no facilities for cooking or even boiling water. A small trash-disposal pipe was in one corner of the room, an ugly, unadorned, unpleasantly functional object.
    Baley shrugged. “This is it. I guess we can stand it.”
    R. Daneel walked to the trash-disposal pipe. His shirt unseamed at a touch, revealing a smooth and, to all appearances, well-muscled chest.
    “What are you doing?” asked Baley.
    “Getting rid of the food I ingested. If I were to leave it, it would putrefy and I would become an object of distaste.”
    R. Daneel placed two fingers carefully under one nipple and pushed in a definite pattern of pressure. His chest opened longitudinally. R. Daneel reached in and from a welter of gleaming metal withdrew a thin, translucent sac, partly distended. He opened it while Baley watched with a kind of horror.
    R. Daneel hesitated. He said, “The food is perfectly clean. I do not salivate or chew. It was drawn in through the gullet by suction, you know. It is edible.”
    “That’s all right,” said Baley, gently. “I’m not hungry. You just get rid of it.”
    R. Daneel’s food sac was of fluorocarbon plastic, Baley decided. At least the food did not cling to it. It came out smoothly and was placed little by little into the pipe. A waste of good food at that, he thought.
    He sat down on one bed and removed his shirt. He said, “I suggest an early start tomorrow.”
    “For a specific reason?”
    “The location of this apartment isn’t known to our friends yet. Or at least I hope not. If we leave early, we are that much safer. Once in City Hall, we will have to decide whether our partnership is any longer practical.”
    “You think it is perhaps not?”
    Baley shrugged and said dourly, “We can’t go through this sort of thing every day.”
    “But it seems to me–”
    R. Daneel was interrupted by the sharp scarlet sliver of the door signal.
    Baley rose silently to his feet and unlimbered his blaster. The door signal flashed once more.
    He moved silently to the door, put his thumb on the blaster contact while he threw the switch that activated the one-way transparency patch. It wasn’t a good view-patch; it was small and had a distorting effect, but it was quite good enough to show Baley’s youngster, Ben, outside the door.
    Baley acted quickly. He flung the door open, snatched brutally at Ben’s wrist as the boy raised his hand to signal a third time, and pulled him in.
    The look of fright and bewilderment faded only slowly from Ben’s eyes as he leaned breathlessly against the wall toward which he had been hurled. He rubbed his wrist.
    “Dad!” he said in grieved tones. “You didn’t have to grab me like that.”
    Baley was staring through the view-patch of the once-again-closed door. As nearly as he could tell, the corridor was empty.
    “Did you see anyone out there, Ben?”
    “No. Gee, Dad, I just came to see if you were all right.”
    “Why shouldn’t I be all right?’
    “I don’t know. It was Mom. She was crying and all like that. She said I had to find you. If I didn’t go, she said she would go herself, and then she didn’t know what