Niss stiffened to attention, eyes bloodshot, face contorted, in obvious pain.
“Would someone,” said D.G., “please say what has been going on?”
“Captain,” said Daneel quickly, “Mr. Niss and I have had a playful altercation. No harm has been done.”
“Mr. Niss, however, looks somewhat harmed,” said D.G.
“No permanent harm, Captain,” said Daneel.
“I see. Well, we’ll get back to this later.—Madam,” he turned on his heel to address Gladia—“I don’t recall that I gave you permission to emerge from the ship. You will go back to your cabin with your two companions at once. I am captain here and this is not Aurora. Do as I say!”
Daneel placed an apologetic hand on Gladia’s elbow. Her chin lifted, but she, turned and went up the gangplank and into the ship, Daneel at her side, Giskard following.
D.G. then turned to the crewmen. “You five,” he said, his voice never lifting from its flat calm, “come with me. We’ll get to the bottom of this—or of you.” And he gestured to a petty officer to pick up the sidearms and take them away.
25
D.G. stared at the five grimly. He was in his own quarters, the only portion of the ship that had a semblance of size to it and the beginnings of an appearance of luxury.
He said, pointing to each in turn, “Now, this is the way we’ll work it. You tell me exactly what happened, word for word, motion for motion. When you’re finished, you tell me anything that was wrong or left out. Then you the same, and then you, and then I’ll get to you, Niss. I expect that you were all out of order, that you all did something unusually stupid that earned you all, but especially Niss, considerable humiliation. If, in your story, it would appear that you did nothing wrong and suffered no humiliation, then I’ll know you’re lying, especially as the Spacer woman will surely tell me what happened and I intend to believe every word she says. A lie will make matters worse for you than anything you’ve actually done. Now,” he barked, “start!”
The first crewman stumbled hastily through the story, and then the second, somewhat correcting, somewhat expanding, then the third and the fourth. D.G. listened, stony faced, to the recital, then motioned Berto Niss to one side.
He spoke to the other four, “And while Niss was getting his face rightly mashed into the dirt by the Spacer, what were you four doing? Watching? Scared to move? All four of you? Against one man?”
One of the men broke the thickening silence to say, “It all happened so quick, Captain. We we’re just getting set to move in and then it was all over.”
“And what were you getting ready to do in case you did manage to get to move someday?”
“Well, we were going to pull the Spacer foreigner off our mate.”
“Do you think you could have?”
This time no one offered to make a sound.
D.G. leaned toward them. “Now, here’s the situation. You had no business with the foreigners, so you’re fined one week’s pay each. And now—let’s get something straight. If you tell what has happened to anyone else—in the crew or out, now or ever, whether drunk or sober, you’ll be broken, every one of you, to apprentice shipper. It doesn’t matter which one of you talks, you’ll all four be broken, so keep an eye on each other. Now get to your assigned tasks and if you cross me at any time during this voyage, if you as much as hiccup against regulations, you’ll be in the brig.”
The four left, mournful, hangdog, tight-lipped. Niss remained, a bruise developing on his face, his arms clearly in discomfort.
D.G. regarded him with a threatening quiet, while Niss stared to the left, to the right, at his feet, everywhere but at the face of the captain. It was only when Niss’s eyes, running out of evasion, caught the glare of the captain, that D.G. said, “Well, you look very handsome, now that you have tangled with a sissy Spacer half your size. Next time you better hide when one of them shows up—”
“Yes, Captain,” said Niss miserably.
“Did you or did you not, Niss, hear me in my briefing, before we left Aurora, say that the Spacer woman and her companions were on no account to be disturbed or spoken to?”
“Captain, I wanted only a polite howdy do. We was curious for a closer look. No harm meant.”
“You meant no harm? You I asked how old she was. Was that your business?”
“Just curious. Wanted to know.”
“One of you made a sexual suggestion.”
“Not me, Captain.”
“Someone else? Did you apologize—for it?”
“To a Spacer?” Niss sounded horrified.
“Certainly. You were going against my orders.”
“I meant no harm,” said Niss doggedly.
“You meant no harm to the man?”
“He put his hand on me, Captain.”
“I know he did. Why?”
“Because he was ordering me around.”
“And you wouldn’t stand for it?”
“Would you, Captain?”
“All right, then. You didn’t stand for it. You fell down for it. Right on your face. How did that happen?”
“I don’t rightly know, Captain. He was fast. Like the camera was sped up. And he had a grip like iron.”
D.G. said, “So he did. What did you expect, you idiot? He is iron.”
“Captain?”
“Niss, is it possible you don’t know the story of Elijah Baley?”
Niss rubbed his ear in embarrassment. “I know he’s your great-something-grandfather, Captain.”
“Yes, everyone knows that from my name. Have you ever viewed his life story?”
“I’m not a viewing man, Captain. Not on history.” He shrugged and, as he did so, winced and made as though to rub his shoulder, then decided he didn’t quite dare do so.
“Did you ever hear of R. Daneel Olivaw?”
Niss squeezed his brows together. “He was Elijah Baley’s friend.”
“Yes, he was. You do know something then. Do you know what the ‘R’ stands for in R. Daneel Olivaw?”
“It stands for ‘Robot,’ right? He was a robot friend. There was robots on Earth in them days.”
“There were, Niss, and still are. But Daneel wasn’t just a robot. He was a Spacer robot who looked like a Spacer man. Think about it, Niss. Guess who the Spacer man you picked a fight with really was.”
Niss’s eyes widened, his face reddened dully. “You mean that Spacer was a ro—”
“That was R. Daneel Olivaw.”
“But, Captain, that was two hundred years ago.”
“Yes and the Spacer woman was a particular friend of my Ancestor Elijah. She’s been alive for two hundred and thirty-three years, incase you still want to know, and do you think a robot can’t do as well as that? You were trying to fight a robot, you great fool.”
“Why didn’t it say so?” Niss said with great indignation.
“Why should it? Did you ask? See here, Niss. You heard what I told the others about telling this to anyone. It goes for you, too, but much more so. They are only crewmen, but I had my eye on you for crew leader. Had my eye on you. If you’re going to be in charge of the crew, you’ve got to have brains and not just muscle. So now it’s going to be harder for you because you’re going to have to prove you have brains against my firm opinion that you don’t.”
“Captain, I—”
“Don’t talk. Listen. If this story gets out, the other four will be apprentice shippers, but you will be nothing. You will never go on shipboard again. No ship will take you, I promise you that. Not as crew, not as passenger. Ask yourself what kind of money you can make on Baleyworld and doing what? That’s if you talk about this, or if you cross the Spacer woman in any way, or even just look at her for more than half a second at a time, or at her two robots. And you are going to have to see to it that no one else among the crew is in the least offensive. You’re responsible. And you’re fined two week’s pay.”