“Yes, of course.”

“Come. Please take your seat.”

One of the tables was set with dishes, cups, and elaborate cutlery, not all of which were familiar to Baley. In the center was a tall, somewhat tapering cylinder that looked as though it might be a gigantic chess pawn made out of a gray rocky material.

Baley, as he sat down, could not resist reaching toward it and touching it with a finger.

Fastolfe smiled, “It’s a spicer. It possesses simple controls that allows one to use it to deliver a fixed amount of any of a dozen different condiments on any portion of a dish. To do it properly, one picks it up and performs rather intricate evolutions that are meaningless in themselves but that are much valued by fashionable Aurorans as symbols of the grace and delicacy with which meals should be served. When I was younger, I could, with my thumb and two fingers, do the triple genuflection and produce salt as the spicer struck my palm. Now if I tried it, I’d run a good risk of braining my guest. I bust you won’t mind if I do not try.”

“I urge you not to try, Dr. Fastolfe.”

A robot placed the salad on the table, another brought a tray of fruit juices, a third brought the bread and cheese, a fourth adjusted the napkins. All four operated in close coordination, weaving in and out without collision or any sign of difficulty. Baley watched them in astonishment.

They ended, without any apparent sign of prearrangements, one at each side of the table. They stepped back in unison, bowed in unison, turned in unison, and returned to the recesses along the wall at the far end of the room. Baley was suddenly aware of Daneel and Giskard in the room as well. He had not seen them come in. They waited in two recesses that had somehow appeared along the wall with the wheat-field. Daneel was the closer.

Fastolfe said, “Now that they’ve gone—” He paused and shook his head slowly in rueful conclusion. “Except that they haven’t. Ordinarily, it is customary for the robots to leave before lunch actually begins. Robots do not eat, while human beings do. It therefore makes sense that those who eat do so and that those who do not leave. And it has ended by becoming one more, ritual. It would be quite unthinkable to eat until the robots left. In this case, though—”

“They have not left,” said Baley.

“No. I felt that security came before etiquette and I felt that, not being an Auroran, you would not mind.”

Baley waited for Fastolfe to make the first move. Fastolfe lifted a fork, so did Baley. Fastolfe made use of it, moving slowly and allowing Baley to see exactly what he was doing.

Baley bit cautiously into a shrimp and found it delightful. He recognized the taste, which was like the shrimp paste produced on Earth but enormously more subtle and rich. He chewed slowly and, for a while, despite his anxiety to get on with the investigation while dining, he found it quite unthinkable to do anything but give his full attention to the lunch.

It was in fact, Fastolfe who made the first move. “Shouldn’t we make a beginning on the problem, Mr. Baley?”

Baley felt himself flush slightly. “Yes. By all means. I ask your pardon. Your Auroran food caught me by surprise, so that it was difficult for me to think of anything else.—The problem, Dr. Fastolfe, is of your making, isn’t it?”

“Why do you say that?”

“Someone has committed roboticide in a manner that requires great expertise—as I have been told.”

“Roboticide? An amusing term.” Fastolfe smiled. “Of course, I understand what you mean by it.—You have been told correctly; the manner requires enormous expertise.”

“And only you have the expertise to carry it out—as I have been told.”

“You have been told correctly there, too.”

“And even you yourself admit—in fact, you insist—that only you could have put Jander into a mental freeze-out.”

“I maintain what is, after all, the truth, Mr. Baley. It would do me no good to lie, even if I could bring myself to do so. It is notorious that I am the outstanding theoretical roboticist in all the Fifty Worlds.”

“Nevertheless, Dr. Fastolfe, might not the second-best theoretical roboticist in all the worlds—or the third-best, or even the fifteenth-best—nevertheless possess the necessary ability to commit the deed? Does it really require all the ability of the very best?”

Fastolfe said calmly, “In my opinion, it really requires all the ability of the very best. Indeed… I again in MY opinion, myself, could only accomplish the task on one of my good days. Remember that the best brains in robotics—including mine—have specifically labored to design, positronic brains that could not be driven into mental freeze-out.”

“Are you certain of all that? Really certain?”

“Completely.”

“And you stated so publicly?”

“Of course. There was a public inquiry, my dear Earthman. I was asked the questions you are now asking and I answered truthfully. It is an Auroran custom to do so.”

Baley said, “I do not, at the moment, question that you were convinced, you were answering truthfully. But might you not have been swayed by a natural pride in yourself that might also be typically Auroran, might it not?”

“You mean that my anxiety to be considered the best would make me willingly put myself in a position where everyone would be forced to conclude I had mentally frozen Jander?”

“I picture you, somehow, as content to have your political and social status destroyed, provided your scientific reputation remained intact.”

“I see. You have an interesting way of thinking, Mr. Baley. This would not have occurred to me. Given a choice between admitting I was second-best and admitting I was guilty of, to use your phrase, a roboticide, you are of the opinion I would knowingly accept the latter.”

“No, I Dr. Fastolfe, I do not wish to present the matter quite so simplistically. Might it not be that you deceive yourself into thinking you are the greatest of all roboticists and that you are completely unrivaled, clinging to that at all costs, because you unconsciously—unconsciously, Dr. Fastolfe—realize that, in fact, you are, being overtaken—or have even already been overtaken—by others.”

Fastolfe laughed, but there was an edge of annoyance in it. “Not so, Mr. Baley. Quite wrong.”

“Think, Dr. Fastolfe! Are you certain that none of your roboticist colleagues can approach you in brilliance?”

“There are only a few who are capable of dealing at all with humaniform robots. Daneel’s construction created virtually a new profession for which there is not even a name—humaniformicists, perhaps. Of the theoretical roboticists on Aurora, not one, except for myself, understands the workings of Daneel’s positronic brain. Dr. Sarton did, but he is dead—and he did not understand it as well as I do. The basic theory is mine.”

“It may have been yours to be in with, but surely you can’t expect to maintain exclusive ownership. Has no one learned the theory?”

Fastolfe shook his head firmly. “Not one. I have taught no one and I defy any other living roboticist to have developed the theory on his own.”

Baley said, with a touch of irritation, “Might there not be a bright young man, fresh out of the university, who is cleverer than anyone yet realizes, who—”

“No, Mr. Baley, no. I would have known such a young man. He would have passed through my laboratories. He would have worked with me. At the moment, no such young man exists. Eventually, one will; perhaps many will. At the moment, none!”

“If you died, then, the new science dies with you?”

“I am only a hundred and sixty-five years old. That’s metric years, of course, so it I is only a hundred and twenty-four of your Earth years, more or less. I am still quite young by Auroran standards and there is no medical reason why my life should be considered even half over. It is not entirely unusual to reach an age of four hundred years—metric years. There is yet plenty of time to teach.”