The Caves of Steel

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Book: Read The Caves of Steel for Free Online
Authors: Isaac Asimov
inhibitions exploded.
    He remembered the Barrier Riots.
    Reasons for anti-robot rioting certainly existed. Men who found themselves faced with the prospect of the desperate minimum involved in declassification, after half a lifetime of effort, could not decide cold-bloodedly that individual robots were not to blame. Individual robots could at least be struck at.
    One could not strike at something called “governmental policy” or at a slogan like “Higher production with robot labor.”
    The government called it growing pains. It shook its collective head sorrowfully and assured everyone that after a necessary period of adjustment, a new and better life would exist for all.
    But the Medievalist movement expanded along with the declassification process. Men grew desperate and the border between bitter frustration and wild destruction is sometimes easily crossed.
    At this moment, minutes could be separating the pent-up hostility of the crowd from a flashing orgy of blood and smash.
    Baley writhed his way desperately to the force door.

3.
INCIDENT AT A SHOE COUNTER

    The interior of the store was emptier than the street outside. The manager, with commendable foresight, had thrown the force door early in the game, preventing potential troublemakers from entering. It also kept the principals in the argument from leaving, but that was minor.
    Baley got through the force door by using his officer’s neutralizer. Unexpectedly, he found R. Daneel still behind him. The robot was pocketing a neutralizer of his own, a slim one, smaller and neater than the standard police model.
    The manager ran to them instantly, talking loudly. “Officers, my clerks have been assigned me by the City. I am perfectly within my rights.”
    There were three robots standing rodlike at the rear of the department. Six humans were standing near the force door. They were all women.
    “All right, now,” said Baley, crisply. “What’s going on? What’s all the fuss about?”
    One of the women said, shrilly, “I came in for shoes. Why can’t I have a decent clerk? Ain’t I respectable?”Her clothing, especially her hat, were just sufficiently extreme to make it more than a rhetorical question. The angry flush that covered her face masked imperfectly her overdone makeup.
    The manager said, “I’ll wait on her myself if I have to, but I can’t wait on all of them, Officer. There’s nothing wrong with my men. They’re registered clerks. I have their spec charts and guarantee slips—”
    “Spec charts,” screamed the woman. She laughed shrilly, turning to the rest. “Listen to him. He calls them men! What’s the matter with you anyway? They ain’t men. They’re ro-bots!” She stretched out the syllables. “And I tell you what they do, in case you don’t know. They steal jobs from men. That’s why the government always protects them. They work for nothin’ and, on account o’ that, families gotta live out in the barracks and eat raw yeast mush. Decent hardworking families. We’d smash up all the ro-bots, if
I
was boss. I tell you that!”
    The others talked confusedly and there was always the growing rumble from the crowd just beyond the force door.
    Baley was conscious, brutally conscious, of R. Daneel Olivaw standing at his elbow. He looked at the clerks. They were Earthmade, and even on that scale, relatively inexpensive models. They were just robots made to know a few simple things. They would know all the style numbers, their prices, the sizes available in each. They could keep track of stock fluctuations, probably better than humans could, since they would have no outside interests. They could compute the proper orders for the next week. They could measure the customer’s foot.
    In themselves, harmless. As a group, incredibly dangerous.
    Baley could sympathize with the woman more deeply than he would have believed possible the day before. No, two hours before. He could feel R. Daneel’s nearness and he wondered if R. Daneel could

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