Caliban - Caliban 01

by Roger MacBride Allen

  “What would the rest of them do?” Kresh asked.

  “No. No. You think about that for a minute. Think about it, and you tell me what they would do.”

  Alvar Kresh looked up again, at the dry, wizened corpse of a world that hung in space before him. What would they do? How would they react? The musty old traditionalists who yearned for the glories of the past; the Ironheads; the less radical people--such as himself--who saw a Settler scheme under every rock. The ones who were simply comfortable with the world and their lives as they were, firmly opposed to any change. What would they do?

  “Deny it,” he said at last. “There would be riots, and calls for your impeachment, and any number of people with axes to grind trotting out studies to prove that you were dead wrong and that everything was fine. People would claim you were a dupe of the Settlers--more people than think that now. One way or another, I doubt you’d serve out your term of office.”

  “You ‘re too optimistic. I would say the odds would be poor on my living through my term of office, for what that is worth. But in a larger sense, that doesn’t matter. All men die. Planets need not, should not, die. Not after only a few centuries of life.” Grieg turned his back on Alvar and walked to the far end of his office. “It may sound grandiose, but if I am ejected from office and replaced by someone who insists that everything is fine--then I am convinced Inferno’s ecology will collapse. Maybe I am quite mad, or a raging egomaniac, but I do believe that to be true.”

  “But how can you not inform the public about all this?”

  “Oh, the people have to know, of course,” Grieg said, turning around to face Kresh again. “I didn’t mean to imply that I was going to try to keep this secret. That would be impossible over the long run. Any attempt to keep the lid on this permanently would be bound to fail. But so, too, would an effort to spring this information on the populace all at once. Today the average citizen simply believes that the terraforming system needs some fine tuning, some repairs and tidying up. They can’t quite see why we need to humble ourselves to the Settlers just for the sake of getting that job done.”

  Grieg walked slowly down the length of the office, back toward Kresh. “It will take time to educate them, to prepare them for the knowledge of the danger. If the situation is handled properly, I can shape the debate, so that people want to decide how to rebuild the ecology and don’t waste time wondering if it even needs fixing. We need to get them to a thoughtful, determined frame of mind, where they can accept the challenge ahead. We can get to that point, I’m sure of it.

  “But we must choose our path carefully. For the present, the situation is volatile, explosive. People are in the mood for argument, not reason. And yet we must start on the repair program now if there is to be any hope of success and survival. And we must use the strongest, most effective, fastest-moving tools available to us.”

  Grieg came closer to Kresh, still talking, his eyes animated and intent. “In other words,” Grieg said, “the only hope for avoiding this disaster lies with the Settlers. Without their help this planet will be dead, for all intents and purposes, within a standard century. I find therefore that I am forced to accept their help, long before I have time to shape public opinion so that people will accept Settler help. I might add that the Settlers offered their help with certain conditions, which I was obliged to accept. One of those conditions will become apparent tonight.

  “But my political alliance with the Settlers is shaky at best. If this robot assault case is not closed quickly and neatly, there can be no doubt that there will be a political explosion on this world, though I am not exactly certain what form it will take. If it gets out that a robot is suspected of a crime--or if Settlers are suspected of sabotaging robots--it will be hard, if not impossible, to prevent my enemies from expelling the Settlers. And if that move succeeds, the Settlers will wash their hands of us. Without their help, Inferno will die. And in the wake of the most recent Ironhead riots, I feel certain they are looking for an excuse to leave. We cannot afford to give them one.”

  Grieg paced back and forth again, stepping through the edge of the simglobe hologram, his shoulder brushing through the ghostly-real image of a dead world to come. He crossed to Kresh and put his hands on the arms of Alvar’s chair. He leaned his face down close to Alvar’s, so close the Governor’s breath was warm against the Sheriff’s cheek. “Solve this case, Kresh. Solve it quickly and neatly and well. Solve it without complication or scandal.”

  He spoke the last words in a whisper, the light of fear bright in his eyes. “If you do not,” he said quietly, “you will doom this planet.”

  11

  SENIOR Sheriff’s Deputy Tansaw Meldor leaned back in his seat. He idly watched Junior Deputy Mirta Lusser flying the aircar through the darkness just before dawn. She was a typical newbie, he decided: conscientious as all hell, overly determined to do every part of her job perfectly, almost touchingly devoted to duty. It had taken a direct order before she would call him by his first name. She took the regs seriously and was burningly anxious to do everything right.

  All of which meant that she usually wanted to fly the aircar, which suited Meldor just fine. He had had his fill of manual flying years ago. Robots could not fly Sheriff’s patrol aircraft, not when many Sheriff’s Department duties had at least the potential for causing harm to humans. So human deputies were forced to do robots’ work, flying the damned aircars for themselves instead of letting the robots do it, the way civilians could.

  The joke of it was the Spacers had never gone in much for automating their equipment, because it was the robots who were going to operate it, anyway. Anything that could be done manually was done that way, making the job of flying a car far more complex than it had to be. Not for the first time, Meldor found himself wishing they could use Settler aircars. He had got a look inside one or two of them during some of the Settlertown dustups, and even ridden in one of them. The damn things could fly themselves, with no need for a human or a robot at the controls. The autopilots on those things went far beyond the rudimentary systems on Spacer aircars.

  But no, they were stuck with Spacer-style controls. In which case, it suited him just fine to have Lusser do the flying, if they had to be up at this hour, anyway. Damn Kresh! Why did he have to bump up the rapid-response patrols? Meldor wanted to be home in bed, asleep, not up here watching the dust blow in from the desert.

  Oh, well. Maybe they’ d get lucky, and something worthwhile would happen.

  Meldor had missed the latest Ironhead riots. He could do with a little excitement.

  DAWN lit the sky.

  Caliban had quartered the city during the night, walked through every district, up and down streets of all descriptions, wandered many grand, empty avenues and boulevards. Some part of him knew that it was madly dangerous to be out on the streets. He had to assume that whoever those people were who ordered him to kill himself would try again. He had to assume that there were others who wished him no better fate.

  He knew he should hide, duck away out of sight where no one could find him. But he could not bring himself to do that. He was gradually coming to realize that he was searching for something without knowing what that something was. An object, an idea, a bit of knowledge his datastore did not possess. An answer.

  He knew not what he sought, and that alone made him hunger for it all the more.

  But daytime was here. The robots of night--the laborers, the builders--were giving way to the robots of morning. Personal servants, messengers, aircar drivers were starting to appear--and in their wake, humans were arriving as well, more and more of them as daytime drew them back to the center city.

  Thus far, no robot had paid him the slightest attention. But humans. They were the danger. He had to hide. But where? He had no idea of what made a good hiding place, where he might be safe.

  Again he had one of those strange moments of sensation, wherein he felt some internal whisper that his thought processes were skewing to one side. Somehow he knew t
hat fear of personal danger was abnormal, all but unheard-of, in a robot. It was another leakage from the emotion--set that seemed to hover around the edges of his datastore. He might well be the first of his kind to be a fugitive.

  But where to hide, and how? In the sections of the city he had explored, or in the parts he had not yet seen?

  Caliban stopped at the next intersection, by the entrance to some sort of store. He considered his options. He consulted the city map in his datastore and saw that there was a great deal of the city he had not seen yet. He had walked great strips and swatches of the town, but he had had no reason to quarter it systematically, block by block, street by street. What he had established from his wandering was that the datastore city map was not very detailed, and far from being complete or accurate. The city had changed since the map had been made. He himself had witnessed some of that change happening the night before. Whole buildings were missing from the datastore map, or on the map but missing from the real city. Clearly he could not rely on the datastore.

  It would have to be in the area of town he had already seen, then. But even there his knowledge was far from complete. Where could he

  “You! Help my robot with those packages and follow me to my aircar.”

  Caliban turned around in some surprise. There was a heavyset man behind him, followed by a personal robot, coming out of the store. The robot was carrying a huge stack of packages, piled so high it could not see over them.

  “Come on, come on. The damn store’ s robots are all out on deliveries, and damned if I’m going to play seeing-eye guide to a robot.”

  Caliban did not move. He had learned last night, the hard way, the danger in blindly obeying orders, and the danger in associating with humans.

  “What’s the matter with you?” the man snapped. “You under superseding orders already, waiting for your master, he tell you not to help anyone or some damn thing?”

  “No,” Caliban said.

  “Then help my robot. That’s a direct order!”

  But Caliban knew now there was no safety in playing along, mimicking other robots. Suppose this man ordered him into his aircar and flew him to some unknown place, someplace off the map in his datastore? Suppose this man was collecting robots for the thrill of destroying them, just as the woman had been the night before?

  Caliban wanted no part of it. Best to get away from this man, get away and find a place to hide from all the humans.

  He turned his back on the man and walked away.

  “Hey! Come back here!”

  But the lessons of the night before were Burned deeply into Caliban ‘ s brain. He determinedly ignored the man and walked on. Suddenly there was a hand around his arm. The man was grabbing at him, trying to restrain him. Caliban pulled himself free. The man reached out to grab him again, but Caliban sidestepped him. At last he decided to run. There was much he did not understand, but he knew he did not want to be in this place any longer than necessary.

  Without a backwards glance, Caliban stepped into the street, lengthened his stride into a smooth, steady run, and took off down the avenue.

  CENTOR Pallichan watched in astonishment as the big red robot ran away. Pallichan was utterly flabbergasted and more than a little unnerved. The robot had refused a direct order, and shaken loose from Centor’s grip in the bargain! That was tantamount to violent behavior, violence against a human being, and refusal of orders to boot. With trembling fingers, not even entirely sure what he was doing, Pallichan pulled his pocketphone out, flipped it open, and punched in the police emergency code.

  He put the little phone to his ear. There was a half moment’ s silence, and then the robot operator came on. “Sheriff’s Department Emergency Line. Please state the nature of your difficulty.” It was a smooth, calm, perfectly modulated voice. It soothed Pallichan ‘ s agitated mind, helped him think clearly, as no doubt it was meant to do.

  “I wish to report a major robot malfunction. A robot, a big metallic-red robot, has just refused my direct order, and then shook me off when I took him by the arm. He ran away.”

  “I see. Now establishing lock on your present location. Sir, what direction was he moving when he ran away?”

  “Ah, oh, let’ s see. “ Pallichan had to think for a moment and get his bearings. He forced himself to think clearly, struggling to keep from getting flustered. “North,” he said at last. “Due north from here, heading up Aurora Boulevard.”

  “That would be in the direction of Government Tower?” the deferential robot voice asked.

  Pallichan looked up the avenue and saw the tower. “Yes, yes, that’s right.” The dispatch robot must have consulted a map system and located an obvious landmark Pallichan could use to confirm position and direction. Damned clever of the police to have the robots verify things that way.

  “Thank you for your report, sir. A top-priority rapid-response aircar is now being dispatched to investigate. Good day to you.”

  The line went dead, and Centor Pallichan snapped his phone shut. He dropped it back in his pocket with a proud feeling of civic-mindedness. He led his robot, still patiently carrying his packages, back toward his aircar and managed to get everything packed away without help from any other robots.

  Some minutes later, when his robot had taken the controls and lifted toward home, it dawned on him to wonder why the police had been so willing to listen to him. Why had they believed something as mad as a report of a rogue robot? Why hadn’t the dispatcher tried to confirm what should have sounded like a completely lunatic report?

  It was, he realized with a chill of fear, almost as if the dispatch robot had been waiting for a rogue-robot call. Pallichan did not even wish to consider the implications of that thought. No, no, far better to force the entire thing from his mind. A quiet life for him. Dealing with the police was distasteful enough.

  “INCOMING priority!” The words were out of Senior Deputy Meldor’s mouth almost before he was aware that the alert light had come on. That was what training could do for you, he told himself. It let you act, and act properly, before you were even quite sure what was happening. He scanned the text of the incoming message, allowing Junior Deputy Lusser to keep her full attention on flying the car, picking out the data she would need to get them to the target. No need to distract her with needless details at the precise moment she was called upon to do some intricate flying.

  “What is it, Tansaw?” Mirta Lusser demanded.

  “Rogue-robot call, subject reported proceeding northward on Aurora from the intersection of Aurora and Solaria.” Meldor checked his vectors and location. “Come to heading 045,” he said.

  But the aircar was already banking, veering toward the northeast. She had worked it out in her head. Lusser was a good pilot, Meldor decided, one who always knew where she was over the city and how to get anywhere else. “Damn it, Meldor, a rogue robot? Does this mean the damn rumors are real?”

  “Unless the cops aren’t the only ones hearing the rumors,” Meldor said grimly. “If the civilians have heard the same scuttlebutt we have, some of them might get plenty jumpy, and I wouldn’t blame them. People are going to start seeing things.”

  “Wonderful,” Mirta said. “That’s not going to make our job any easier. Hang on, over target location in ten seconds.”

  CENTOR Pallichan could not quite believe what had happened. He had seen--and talked with--a mad robot. At least, he had convinced himself that was what had happened. Not altogether subconsciously, he was already mentally reworking the encounter for purposes of relating it to his friends, enhancing his own perspicacity and cleverness just a trifle. Easy to do now that it was allover. The moment itself had contained little actual excitement. It was the aftermath, the call to the police, that put a tingle of excitement and danger in his spine. Perhaps there were people to whom the experience of calling the police would seem to be no great adventure, but it was the closest to bold action Pallichan had ever come, and he felt no guilt in savoring the moment.

  But it was
time to get back to normal, he decided, a bit primly. Yes, Pallichan decided, it was time to let his robot fly him home, time to slide into the calm, natural order of things. Already he was envisioning the smooth, quiet ritual of the midday meal, always just the same food, served just the same way, at just the same time. His robots knew how much he valued order and regularity, and no doubt his pilot robot had already signaled to his household staff, advising of the upset to the master’s day. No doubt they would see to it that the remainder of his day was even more orderly than usual, in recompense for what he had just been through.

  Still, he considered, there was no harm in having a good story to tell. Centor’s brush with a Mad Robot! He could imagine the buzz of excitement that would send through the circle of his acquaintanceship. Within a few seconds, he was lost to the outside world, his imagination back at work cheerfully inflating the danger and drama of his encounter with the robot--and his own courage in dealing with it. It was a rather soothing mental exercise, and he found he was beginning to feel settled down again. He found himself wondering what the sequel to the event would be, what would happen to the robot in question.

  But then present reality intruded on his revisions of the recent past. A blue blur of speed whipped past his car on the port side.

  Centor watched in openmouthed, horrified amazement as it swept past. A sky-blue Sheriff’s aircar! Then came another, and another, and another, whipping past overhead off to starboard--two even raced past beneath his car, violating every safety regulation on the planet.