But few humans were required to run the mines and ranches, to exploit the farms and pipe the water, and these supervised at long distance. Robots did the work better and required less.

Robots! That was the one huge irony. It was on Earth that the positronic brain was invented and on Earth that robots had first been put to productive use.

Not on the Outer Worlds. Of course, the Outer Worlds always acted as though robots had been born of their culture.

In a way, of course, the culmination of robot economy had taken place on the Outer Worlds. Here on Earth, robots had always been restricted to the mines and farmlands. Only in the last quarter century, under the urgings of the Spacers, had robots filtered their slow way into the Cities.

The Cities were good. Everyone but the Medievalists knew that there was no substitute, no reasonable substitute. The only trouble was that they wouldn’t stay good. Earth’s population was still rising. Some day, with all that the Cities could do, the available calories per person would simply fall below basic subsistence level.

It was all the worse because of the existence of the Spacers, the descendants of the early emigrants from Earth, living in luxury on their under-populated robot-ridden worlds out in space. They were coolly determined to keep the comfort that grew out of the emptiness of their worlds and for that purpose they kept their birth rate down and immigrants from teeming Earth out. And this—

Spacetown coming up!

A nudge at Baley’s unconscious warned him that he was approaching the Newark Section. If he stayed where he was much longer, he’d find himself speeding southwestward to the Trenton Section turning of the way, through the heart of the warm and musty-odored yeast country.

It was a matter of timing. It took so long to shinny down the ramp, so long to squirm through the grunting standees, so long to slip along the railing and out an opening, so long to hop across the decelerating strips.

When he was done, he was precisely at the off-shooting of the proper stationary. At no time did he time his steps consciously. If he had, he would probably have missed.

Baley found himself in unusual semi-isolation. Only a policeman was with him inside the stationary and, except for the whirring of the expressway, there was an almost uncomfortable silence.

The policeman approached, and Baley flashed his badge impatiently. The policeman lifted his hand in permission to pass on.

The passage narrowed and curved sharply three or four times. That was obviously purposeful. Mobs of Earthmen couldn’t gather in it with any degree of comfort and direct charges were impossible.

Baley was thankful that the arrangements were for him to meet his partner this side of Spacetown. He didn’t like the thought of a medical examination any better for its reputed politeness.

A Spacer was standing at the point where a series of doors marked the openings to the open air and the domes of Spacetown. He was dressed in the Earth fashion, trousers tight at the waist, loose at the ankle, and color-striped down the seam of each leg. He wore an ordinary Textron shirt, open collar, seam-zipped, and ruffled at the wrist, but he was a Spacer. There was something about the way he stood, the way he held his head, the calm and unemotional lines of his broad, high-cheekboned face, the careful set of his short, bronze hair lying flatly backward and without a part, that marked him off from the native Earthman.

Baley approached woodenly and said in a monotone, “I am Plain-clothes Man Elijah Baley, Police Department, City of New York, Rating C-5.”

He showed his credentials and went on, “I have been instructed to meet R. Daneel Olivaw at Spacetown Approachway.” He looked at his watch. “I am a little early. May I request the announcement of my presence?”

He felt more than a little cold inside. He was used, after a fashion, to the Earth-model robots. The Spacer models would be different. He had never met one, but there was nothing more common on Earth than the horrid whispered stories about the tremendous and formidable robots that worked in superhuman fashion on the far-off, glittering Outer Worlds. He found himself gritting his teeth.

The Spacer, who had listened politely, said, “It will not be necessary. I have been waiting for you.”

Baley’s hand went up automatically, then dropped. So did his long chin, looking longer in the process. He didn’t quite manage to say anything. The words froze.

The Spacer said, “I shall introduce myself. I am R. Daneel Olivaw.”

“Yes? Am I making a mistake? I thought the first initial—”

“Quite so. I am a robot. Were you not told?”

“I was told.” Baley put a damp hand to his hair and smoothed it back unnecessarily. Then he held it out. “I’m sorry, Mr. Olivaw. I don’t know what I was thinking of. Good day. I am Elijah Baley, your partner.”

“Good.” The robot’s hand closed on his with a smoothly increasing pressure that reached a comfortably friendly peak, then declined. “Yet I seem to detect disturbance. May I ask that you be frank with me? It is best to have as many relevant facts as possible in a relationship such as ours. And it is customary on my world for partners to call one another by the familiar name. I trust that that is not counter to your own customs.”

“It’s just, you see, that you don’t look like a robot,” said Baley, desperately.

“And that disturbs you?”

“It shouldn’t, I suppose, Da—Daneel. Are they all like you on your world?”

“There are individual differences, Elijah, as with men.”

“Our own robots… Well, you can tell they’re robots, you understand. You look like a Spacer.”

“Oh, I see. You expected a rather crude model and were surprised. Yet it is only logical that our people use a robot of pronounced humanoid characteristics in this case if we expected to avoid unpleasantness. Is that not so?”

It was certainly so. An obvious robot roaming the City would be in quick trouble.

Baley said, “Yes.”

“Then let us leave now, Elijah.”

They made their way back to the expressway. R. Daneel caught the purpose of the accelerating strips and maneuvered along them with a quick proficiency. Baley, who had begun by moderating his speed, ended by hastening it in annoyance.

The robot kept pace. He showed no awareness of any difficulty. Baley wondered if R. Daneel were not deliberately moving slower than he might. He reached the endless cars of expressway and scrambled aboard with what amounted to outright recklessness. The robot followed easily.

Baley was red. He swallowed twice and said, “I’ll stay down here with you.”

“Down here?” The robot, apparently oblivious to both the noise and the rhythmic swaying of the platform said, “Is my information wrong? I was told that a rating of C-5 entitled one to a seat on the upper level under certain conditions.”

“You’re right. I can go up there, but you can’t.”

“Why can I not go up with you?”

“It takes a C-5, Daneel.”

“I am aware of that.”

“You’re not a C-5.” Talking was difficult. The hiss of frictioning air was louder on the less shielded lower level and Baley was understandably anxious to keep his voice low.

R. Daneel said, “Why should I not be a C-5? I am your partner and, consequently, of equal rank. I was given this.”

From an inner shirt pocket he produced a rectangular credential card, quite genuine. The name given was Daneel Olivaw, without the all-important initial. The rating was C-5.

“Come on up,” said Baley, woodenly.

Baley looked straight ahead, once seated, angry with himself, very conscious of the robot sitting next to him. He had been caught twice. First he had not recognized R. Daneel as a robot; secondly, he had not guessed the logic that demanded R. Daneel be given C-5 rating.

The trouble was, of course, that he was not the plain-clothes man of popular myth. He was not incapable of surprise, imperturbable of appearance, infinite of adaptability, and lightning of mental grasp. He had never supposed he was, but he had never regretted the lack before.