The Caves of Steel by Isaac Asimov Read Free Book Online Page A

notice that I’m doing this under orders.”
    The barrier went down; men and women crowded in. There was a happy roar from them. They sensed victory.
    Baley had heard of similar riots. He had even witnessed one. He had seen robots being lifted by a dozen hands, their heavy unresisting bodies carried backward from straining arm to straining arm. Men yanked and twisted at the metal mimicry of men. They used hammers, force knives, needle guns. They finally reduced the miserable objects to shredded metal and wire. Expensive positronic brains, the most intricate creation of the human mind, were thrown from hand to hand like footballs and mashed to uselessness in a trifle of time.
    Then, with the genius of destruction so merrily let loose, the mobs turned on anything else that could be taken apart.
    The robot clerks could have no knowledge of any of this, but they squealed as the crowd flooded inward and lifted their arms before their faces as though in a primitive effort at hiding. The woman who had started the fuss, frightened at seeing it grow suddenly so far beyond what she had expected, gasped, “Here, now. Here, now.”
    Her hat was shoved down over her face and her voice became only a meaningless shrillness.
    The manager was shrieking, “Stop them, Officer. Stop them!”
    R. Daneel spoke. Without apparent effort, his voice was suddenly decibels higher than a human’s voice had a right to be. Of course, thought Baley for the tenth time, he’s not—
    R. Daneel said, “The next man who moves will be shot.”
    Someone well in the back yelled, “Get him!”
    But for a moment, no one moved.
    R. Daneel stepped nimbly upon a chair and from that to the top of a Transtex display case. The colored fluorescence gleaming through the slits of polarized molecular film turned his cool, smooth face into something unearthly.
    Unearthly, thought Baley.
    The tableau held as R. Daneel waited, a quietly formidable person.
    R. Daneel said crisply, “You are saying, This man is holding a neuronic whip, or a tickler. If we all rush forward, we will bear him down and at most one or two of us will be hurt and even they will recover. Meanwhile, we will do just as we wish and to space with law and order.”
    His voice was neither harsh nor angry, but it carried authority. It had the tone of confident command. He went on, “You are mistaken. What I hold is not aneuronic whip, nor is it a tickler. It is a blaster and very deadly. I will use it and I will not aim over your heads. I will kill many of you before you seize me, perhaps most of you. I am serious. I look serious, do I not?”
    There was motion at the outskirts, but the crowd no longer grew. If newcomers still stopped out of curiosity, others were hurrying away. Those nearest R. Daneel were holding their breath, trying desperately not to sway forward in response to the mass pressure of the bodies behind them.
    The woman with the hat broke the spell. In a sudden whirlpool of sobbing, she yelled, “He’s gonna kill us. I ain’t done nothing. Oh, lemme outta here.”
    She turned, but faced an immovable wall of crammed men and women. She sank to her knees. The backward motion in the silent crowd grew more pronounced.
    R. Daneel jumped down from the display counter and said, “I will now walk to the door. I will shoot the man or woman who touches me. When I reach the door, I will shoot any man or woman who is not moving about his business. This woman here—”
    “No, no,” yelled the woman with the hat, “I tell ya I didn’t do nothing. I didn’t mean no harm. I don’t want no shoes. I just wanta go home.”
    “This woman here,” went on Daneel, “will remain. She will be waited on.”
    He stepped forward.
    The mob faced him dumbly. Baley closed his eyes. It wasn’t his fault, he thought desperately. There’ll be murder done and the worst mess in the world, but
they
forced a robot on me as a partner.
They
gave him equal status.
    It wouldn’t do. He didn’t believe himself.