must admit I'm not. I had protesting muscles at first and Vasilia laughed at me."
"She knew you went on walks did she?"
"Well, I came in limping one day and creaking at the thighs, so I had to explain. She laughed and said it was a good idea and the best way to get a walker to accept an offer was to walk with them. 'Keep it up,' she said, 'and she'll cancel her rejection before you get a chance to offer again. She'll make the offer herself.' As it happened, Gladia didn't, but eventually I grew to like the walks very much, just the same."
He seemed to have gotten over his flash of anger and was now very much at his ease. He might have been thinking of the walks, Baley thought, for there was a half-smile on his face. He looked rather likable - and vulnerable - with his mind back on who-knew-what conversational passage on a walk that had taken them who-knew-where. Baley almost smiled in response.
"Vasilia knew, then, that you continued the walks."
"I suppose so. I began to take Wednesdays and Saturdays off because that fit in with Gladia's schedule choice - and Vasilia would sometimes joke about my 'WS walks' when I brought in some sketches."
"Did Dr. Vasilia ever join the walks?"
"Certainly not."
Baley shifted in his seat and stared intently at his fingertips as he said, "I presume you had robots accompanying you on your walks."
"Absolutely. One of mine, one of hers. They kept rather out of the way, though. They didn't tag along in what Gladia called Aurora fashion. She wanted Solarian solitude, she said. So I obliged, though at first I got a crick in my neck looking around to see if Brundij was with me."
"And which robot accompanied Gladia?"
"It wasn't always the same one. Whichever he was, he held off, too. I didn't get to talk to him."
"What about Jander?"
Some of the sunniness left Gremionis' expression at once.
"What about him?" he asked.
"Did he ever come along? If he did, you would know, wouldn't you?"
"A humaniform robot? I certainly would. And he did not accompany us - not ever."
"Are you certain?"
"Completely certain." Gremionis scowled. "I imagine she thought him far too valuable to waste on duties any ordinary robot could perform."
"You seem annoyed. Did you think so, too?"
"He was her robot. I didn't worry about it."
"And you never saw him when you were at Gladia's establishment?"
"Never.
"Did she ever say anything about him? Discuss him?"
"Not that I recall."
"Didn't you consider that strange?"
Gremionis shook his head. "No. Why talk about robots?"
Baley's, somber eyes fixed on the other's face. "Did you have any idea of the relationship between Gladia and Jander?"
Gremionis said, "Are you going to tell me that there was sex between them?"
Baley said, "Would you be surprised if I did?"
Gremionis said stolidly, "It happens. It's not unusual. You can use a robot sometimes, if you feel like it. And a humaniform robot - completely humaniform, I believe - "
"Completely," said Baley with an appropriate gesture.
Gremionis' lips curved downward. "Well, then, it would be hard for a woman to resist."
"She resisted you. Doesn't it bother you that Gladia would prefer a robot to you?"
"Well, if it comes to that, I'm not sure that I believe this is true - but if it is, it's nothing to worry about. A robot is just a robot. A woman and a robot - or a man and a robot - it's just masturbation."
"You honestly never knew of the relationship, Mr. Gremionis? You never suspected?"
"I never gave it any thought," insisted Gremionis.
"Didn't know? Or did know, but paid it no mind?"
Gremionis scowled. "You're pushing again. What do you want me to say? Now that you put it into my head and push, it seems to me, if I look back, that maybe I was wondering about something like that. Just the same, I never felt anything was happening before you started asking questions."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes, I'm sure. Don't badger me."
"I'm not badgering you. I'm just wondering if it were possible that you did know that Gladia was regularly engaging in sex with Jander, that you knew that you would never be accepted as her lover as long as that was so, that you wanted her, so much that you would stop at nothing to eliminate Jander, that, in short, you were so jealous that you - "
And at that moment, Gremionis - as though some tightly coiled spring, held back with difficulty for some minutes, had suddenly twitched loose -