Enderby–Sarton relationship

Enderby–Sarton relationship is a partnership shaped by a concealed political conflict: Enderby worked with Dr. Sarton and knew why Sarton had designed R. Daneel Olivaw, yet feared the project’s implications for Earth. That conflict culminated in Sarton’s death, when Enderby, intending to destroy Daneel, mistook the human scientist for the robot after breaking his glasses.

Professional Cooperation and Political Divide

Enderby was not merely an outsider to Sarton’s work. Baley states that the Commissioner had worked with Dr. Sarton and knew the purpose for which Daneel had been designed. Sarton’s project, however, stood against Enderby’s earnest Medievalist convictions: Enderby feared that the project would eventually wean Earthmen away from Earth. Their working relationship therefore contained a fundamental disagreement over Earth’s future, even as Enderby had access to Sarton’s plans and circumstances.

Baley also argues that Enderby knew the wider political stakes. He suggests that Sarton must have discussed with the Commissioner how strong opinion on the Outer Worlds was in favor of ending the Spacetown project. In Baley’s reconstruction, Enderby hoped that destroying Daneel and demonstrating the determination of Medievalism on Earth would discourage the Spacers and push that existing opposition toward withdrawal. The evidence presents this motive as Baley’s explanation, not as a surviving statement by Sarton or an independently narrated account of their conversations.

The Mistaken Identity at Sarton’s Dome

Baley reconstructs Enderby’s arrival at Sarton’s dome as part of a plan to kill Daneel. Enderby had made an appointment with Sarton but, Baley suggests, came early, at dawn, when Sarton might still be asleep and Daneel awake. The plan depended on Enderby’s access to Spacetown; Baley reasons that Enderby could not readily have arranged for another human to carry it out. He also speculates that a primitive robot such as R. Sammy would have been unable to distinguish the humanlike Daneel from a human, so the First Law would have prevented it from attacking him.

The attempt went wrong because Enderby’s glasses broke at the dome. Baley says Enderby dropped and damaged them while nervous, just as the door opened and a figure resembling Daneel appeared. Unable to distinguish Sarton from the robot without his glasses, Enderby shot the figure and fled, leaving the body behind. Sarton had designed Daneel in his own image; the likeness that embodied their scientific collaboration became the immediate condition of the fatal mistake.

Exposure and Consequence

Baley presents the broken glasses as tangible evidence for his reconstruction, directing attention to the image of Sarton’s dome and its open main door. The object is more than incidental damage: once Enderby can no longer see clearly, the resemblance between Sarton and his creation ceases to be an abstract likeness and becomes a consequential failure of recognition. The very design that connected creator and creation helps explain how Enderby killed the person with whom he had worked.

When Baley’s accusation is confirmed in the confrontation, Enderby lowers his head and says that the killing was a mistake and that he never meant to kill Sarton. He then collapses from his chair. Daneel tells Baley that Enderby has been hurt, and Baley asks whether he is dead; the evidence establishes neither a death nor a further outcome. The relationship ends in revelation and remorse, with Enderby’s political opposition to Sarton’s project exposed through the fatal consequences of his attempt to destroy its first humanlike product.