Ivan had lived in an atmosphere of apprehension, imagining that every man's hand was against him.
"Just like me," Martin murmured. "But—but there was more to Ivan than just cowardice. I don't understand."
"Differential," the robot had said, "depends on environment as much as on heredity. Though naturally Ivan wouldn't have had the Tsardom environment without his particular heredity."
Martin sucked in his breath sharply. Environment does make a difference. No doubt Ivan IV had been a fearful coward, but heredity plus environment had given Ivan the one great weapon that had enabled him to keep his cowardice a recessive trait.
Ivan the Terrible had been Tsar of all the Russias.
Give a coward a gun, and, while he doesn't stop being a coward, it won't show in the same way. He may act like a violent, aggressive tyrant instead. That, of course, was why Ivan had been ecologically successful—in his specialized environment. He'd never run up against many stresses that brought his dominant trait to the fore. Like Disraeli, he had been able to control his environment so that such stresses were practically eliminated.
Martin turned green.
Then he remembered Erika. Could he get Erika to keep St. Cyr busy, somehow, while he got his contract release from Watt? As long as he could avoid crises, he could keep his nerve from crumbling, but—there were assassins everywhere!
Erika was on her way to the lot by now. Martin swallowed.
He would meet her outside the studio. The broom-closet wasn't safe. He could be trapped there like a rat—