turn out that we were the last ones to see or hear R. Sammy alive, except for the real murderer, of course."
"I was with you in the power plant and I can testify that you did not have the opportunity to steal an alpha-sprayer."
"Thanks," said Baley sadly, "but you're a robot and your testimony will be invalid."
"The Commissioner is your friend. He will listen."
"The Commissioner has a job to keep, and he already is a bit uneasy about me. There's only one chance of saving myself from this very nasty situation."
"Yes?"
"I ask myself, why am I being framed? Obviously to get rid of me. But why? Again obviously, because I am dangerous to someone. I am doing my best to be dangerous to whoever killed Dr. Sarton in Spacetown. That might mean the Medievalists, of course, or at least, the inner group among them. It would be this inner group that would know I had passed through the power plant; at least one of them might have followed me along the strips that far, even though you thought we had lost them.
"So the chances are that if I find the murderer of Dr. Sarton, I find the man or men who are trying to get me out of the way. If I think it through, if I crack the case, if I can only crack it, I'll be safe. And Jessie. I couldn't stand to have her. - But I don't have much time." His fist clenched and unclenched spasmodically. "I don't have much time."
Baley looked at R. Daneel's chiseled face with a sudden burning hope. Whatever the creature was, he was strong and faithful, animated by no selfishness. What more could you ask of any friend? Baley needed a friend and he was in no mood to cavil at the fact that a gear replaced a blood vessel in this particular one.
But R. Daneel was shaking his head.
The robot said, "I am sorry, Elijah" - there was no trace of sorrow on his face, of course - "but I anticipated none of this. Perhaps my action was to your harm. I am sorry if the general good requires that."
"What general good?" stammered Baley.
"I have been in communication with Dr. Fastolfe."
"Jehoshaphat! When?"
"While you were eating."
Baley's lips tightened.
"Well?" he managed to say. "What happened?"
"You will have to clear yourself of suspicion of the murder of R. Sammy through some means other than the investigation of the murder of my designer, Dr. Sarton. Our people at Spacetown, as a result of my information, have decided to bring that investigation to an end, as of today, and to begin plans for leaving Spacetown and Earth."
Chapter 17. CONCLUSION OF A PROJECT
Baley looked at his watch with something approaching detachment. It was 21:45. In two and a quarter hours it would be midnight. He had been awake since before six and had been under tension now for two and a half days. A vague sense of unreality pervaded everything.
He kept his voice painfully steady as he reached for his pipe and for the little bag that held his precious crumbs of tobacco. He said, "What's it all about, Daneel?"
R. Daneel said, "Do you not understand? Is it not obvious?"
Baley said, patiently, "I do not understand. It is not obvious."
"We are here," said the robot, "and by we, I mean our people at Spacetown, to break the shell surrounding Earth and force its people into new expansion and colonization."
"I know that. Please don't labor the point."
"I must, since it is the essential one. If we were anxious to exact punishment for the murder of Dr. Sarton, it was not that in doing so we expected to bring Dr. Sarton back to life, you understand; it was only that failure to do so would strengthen the position of our home planet politicians who are against the very idea of Spacetown."
"But now," said Baley, with sudden violence, "you say you're getting ready to go home of your own accord. Why? In heaven's name, why? The answer to the Sarton case is close. It must be close or they wouldn't be trying so hard to blast me out of the investigation. I have a feeling I have all the facts I need to work out the answer. It must be in here somewhere." He knuckled his temple wildly. "A sentence might bring it out. A word."
He clenched his eyes fiercely shut, as though the quivering opaque jelly of the last sixty hours were indeed on the point of clarifying