Inferno - Caliban 02

by Roger MacBride Allen

  It would be enough. More than enough. What was a little fear, a little danger compared to the incomparable pleasure of destroying the greatest enemy of all?

  Another aircar was coming in for a landing. Bissal stepped back, deeper into shadow, and waited for his moment. Soon. Very soon now.

  Simcor Beddle’s aircar swooped down to a perfect landing and taxied smoothly in under the covered car park. Simcor smiled to himself, pleased with the skill of his robot pilot. Why settle for anything but the best? Simcor enjoyed his entrances, there was no doubt about that, and he was about to make a grand one. He dearly loved creating a scene.

  Simcor Beddle was the leader of the Ironheads, a group of rowdies dedicated to the idea that the solution to any problem was more and better robots.

  Right now, the Ironheads were enjoying their greatest popularity in years. The seizure of household robots for terraforming labor had done more to recruit new members than any steps the Ironheads could have taken on their own. They were on the verge of moving from a fringe radical group to a major political force.

  And that represented some challenges. Simcor had not hesitated to employ outright thuggery in the past, but a mass movement required something closer to respectability if it was to remain credible. Not respectability itself, mind--the Ironheads were expected to be a bit beyond the pale. But the time was past where they could get anywhere by staging a riot. What they needed now was visibility, publicity stunts. And Simcor Beddle was delighted to provide them.

  Simcor Beddle was a small man. His face was round and sallow, with hard gimlet eyes of uncertain color. His hair was glossy black, and cut just long enough to lie flat against his skull. He was heavy-set, verging on the rotund, but there was nothing soft about him. He was a strong, hard, determined man, who knew what he wanted and did not care what he had to do to accomplish it.

  And tonight he wanted to cause trouble. For starters, he was going to crash the party. If there were a law against robots, he would break that law. Just let them try and arrest him.

  The passenger door of his aircar swung up and open, and Simcor got out of his chair and stepped to the hatch. Sanlacor 1321 was there with an umbrella, of course, to ward off any rain that might blow into the aircar port. A covered walkway led from the port to the portico of the Residence, and the other guests were hurrying along under it, but Simcor marched purposefully out into the rain, with absolute faith and certainty that Sanlacor 1321 would keep the umbrella positioned perfectly to protect him from the storm.

  Sanlacor 1321 succeeded admirably, trotting alongside him, keeping the umbrella under tight control in the driving rain. Sanlacor 1322 and 1323 followed close behind, all three robots walking in perfect lockstep with their master. The Sanlacors were tall, graceful, dignified-looking robots, metallic-silver in color, a perfect mobile backdrop for Beddle himself.

  They reached the main entrance, not stopping or even slowing. The SSS agents on duty at the door came forward a step or two, ready to protest, until they recognized Beddle. Seeming to be unsure whether they should stop him or not, they hesitated just long enough for him to get through the door without breaking stride. There were often distinct advantages to being the most recognized man on the planet.

  And then he was in, his robots with him, and, as he had calculated, there was no one there with enough backbone to demand that he send his robots away, let alone ask if he had an invitation.

  And that in and of itself was a victory. Let the Settlers tell everyone else they could and could not have robots on the premises--Simcor Beddle was not going to knuckle under. He would take his robots where he wanted, when he wanted.

  And if that caused problems for Governor Chanto Grieg, then Beddle would not mind at all.

  He stood, smiling, at the entry to the Grand Hall, his robots at his back, every eye on him. Someone began to applaud, and someone else joined in, and then someone else. Slowly, uncertainly at first, but then with growing enthusiasm, the crowd joined in, until Beddle was surrounded by cheering voices and clapping hands. Yes. Yes. Very good. No matter if he had planted a flunky or two in the crowd to get the applause started. The crowd had joined in. He had managed to upstage the Governor completely.

  Which was no bad thing, as Beddle planned to be Governor himself before very much longer.

  Fredda Leving watched with the rest of the guests as Simcor Beddle accepted the cheers of the crowd, but she was certainly not among those joining in. “It looks as if Simcor Beddle has solved your problem,” she said to Caliban as the cheers died down. “It doesn’t seem likely that you’ll be the center of attention tonight.”

  “I fear that man,” Prospero said.

  “As well you should,” Fredda said,

  “Even after all this time, I must admit that I have a great deal of trouble understanding the man’s fanaticism.”

  “If you ask me, he’s no fanatic at all,” Fredda replied. “I almost wish he were. He’d be far less dangerous if he actually believed in his cause. ”

  “He doesn’t believe in it?”

  “The Ironheads are a useful means to an end, but if you ask me, Simcor Beddle doesn’t believe in anyone or anything besides Simcor Beddle. He’s a demagogue, a rabble-rouser--and as much a danger to this planet as the collapsing ecology. ”

  “But why is he here?” Prospero asked.

  “To undermine the occasion and make the Governor look bad, I suppose,” Fredda replied.

  “But what is the significance of the occasion? Caliban tells me this is an important event,” Prospero said, “but he has not explained its importance to my satisfaction. Perhaps you would have more success.”

  “Well, it is the first time any Governor of Inferno has actually stayed in the Governor’s Winter Residence in more than fifty years.”

  “And why is that of the slightest importance?” Prospero asked.

  “Well, I suppose it isn’t, in and of itself,” Fredda admitted. “What is important is that it provides a way for the Governor to demonstrate that he--and through him, the Spacer government on Inferno--still controls the island of Purgatory.”

  “Does ultimate control rest with the Spacers?” Prospero asked.

  “You ask the most difficult questions, Prospero,” Fredda Leving said, a fleeting smile on her face. She hesitated, and then spoke again, her voice almost too low even for robot ears to catch. “Legally, yes. Realistically, no. If it all gets to be too much of a headache for the Settlers, they’ll just walk away from the whole reterraforming project. The island of Purgatory would then revert to local control--but without the Settlers to run the Center, the island of Purgatory won’t matter anymore.”

  “For that matter, without my Settlers repairing the climate, it won’t even be an island anymore,” a new voice volunteered.

  “Greetings, Madame Welton,” Caliban said.

  “Hello, Tonya,” Fredda said, suddenly feeling a bit unsure of her ground. Tonya Welton was the leader of the Settlers on Inferno, and she and Fredda had often found themselves on opposite sides of an issue. They had good reason not to be glad of each other’s company. Fredda would not have gone out of her way to seek Tonya out, and she was a bit surprised that Tonya would come to her. Tonya seemed to be acting civilly enough, but the operative words there were “seemed” and “act. ” Things could degenerate quickly.

  Tonya Welton was tall, long-limbed, graceful, and dark-skinned, with a reputation for clothes that verged on the garish and the scandalous, compared to Infernal styles. Tonight was no exception. She wore a long red sheath dress that accentuated her profile and clung to her body as if painted on, the bodice cut daringly low. She was tough, hard, brash--and, improbably enough, still cohabitating with Gubber Anshaw, Fredda’s very shy and retiring former colleague.

  “Hello, Caliban,” said Tonya Welton. “Hello, Fredda, Prospero. And, Fredda, next time you are trying not to be heard at one of these functions, bear in mind I’m not the only one who has practiced lip-reading.”

  “I’
ll remember that,” Fredda said.

  “How is it that Purgatory is going to stop being an island?” Prospero asked.

  “Sea levels are dropping,” Tonya said. “The ice cap is thickening. We’ve spotted three new Edge Islands emerging in the last month.”

  “So the Edge Islands are finally corning true,” Fredda said.

  “That is a serious development,” Caliban said.

  Fredda was forced to agree. The island of Purgatory sat dead center in the middle of the Great Bay, and the bay was nothing more or less than a huge and ancient drowned caldera, its northern edge forming the coastline of the Great Bay. The island of Purgatory was the collapsed crater’s central peak, and the southern edge of the crater was hidden under the waves of the Southern Ocean.

  But now the ocean waters were retreating, evaporating to fall as snow on the thickening north polar icecap. The highest points of the drowned caldera’s southern rim were emerging, forming a new--and most unwelcome--chain of islands. The doomsayers--and the more responsible climate scientists--had been predicting the advent of the Edge Islands for a long time.

  “It’s not exactly a surprise,” Fredda said, “but it does put that much more pressure on the Governor. It’ll throw a scare into a few people.”

  Tonya Welton smiled unpleasantly. “The question is,” she said, “what will being scared inspire those people to do? Nice to see you all. “ And with that, she nodded and turned away.

  “Nice sort of person, isn’t she?” Fredda asked. “Why do I get the feeling she was not trying to set us at ease?”

  “I never have gotten very good at dealing with rhetorical questions,” Prospero said. “Did you actually wish for one or both of us to venture an answer?”

  “Believe me, if you have any useful insights as to what goes on in Tonya Welton’s mind, I’d love to have them.”

  “I doubt anything we might say could be of much use,” Prospero replied in thoughtful tones. “It did seem as if she had more on her mind than polite conversation, but I have never pretended to understand very much about human politics.”

  Fredda Leving laughed and shook her head. “Nobody does, Prospero. Humans spend a huge amount of time and effort on it precisely because no one knows for sure what they are doing. If we understood it fully, if the same things always worked or failed, then politics would be no use whatsoever. It is only valuable because we don’t know how it works.”

  “I would submit,” Caliban says,, ‘that you have just offered a splendid summing up for all the contradictions of human behavior. Only humans would work hardest on what they do not understand.”

  And Fredda Leving found that she had no useful answer to that.

  Sero Phrost put a small, faint smile on his face as he stepped from a side room into the Grand Hall. He had watched Beddle’s grand entrance with more than a little amusement. Simcor always did need to grab the whole stage for himself. Sero watched as Simcor sent the robots away. He had made his point, and apparently didn’t want the great silver robots coming between him and his audience.

  It did not seem, at first, that anyone had noticed Sero’s arrival, but Sero knew better than that--and knew that pretending to have no interest in attracting attention was often the surest way to obtain the attention of a more discerning audience.

  And there were certainly lots of people here whose interest he wanted--starting with Beddle, Beddle the virulently anti-Settler, rabidly pro-robot, and, needless to say, one of Grieg’s harshest critics. Beddle was still surrounded by a crowd of sycophants, all of them laughing a bit too loudly, behaving just a trifle too belligerently. Beddle caught Phrost’s eye and gave him a nod. Later they would talk.

  And there was Tonya Welton, leader of the Settlers. Quite an occasion to get her in the same room with Beddle, Phrost thought. And quite a feather in my cap when they both want to talk to me. And that was no flight of imagination, either. Phrost had no doubt that both had hope of receiving his aid. The trick would be for him to provide it to both, and make gain in return from both, without either being the wiser.

  Tonya Welton was making her excuses to the knot of people she was chatting with, clearly intending to come and welcome Phrost. He toyed with the idea of heading over to meet her halfway, but decided to indulge himself. Enjoy the moment. Let her come to him. He had worked long and hard to get this far. Why not enjoy it? He pretended not to notice Welton, and gestured to one of the waiters for a drink. Strange, very strange, to be served by a human servant--and an armed one at that. Governor’s Rangers on security duty, and picking up the tasks that would normally have been done by robots. The one who gave Phrost his drink was clearly none too pleased by the assignment.

  Phrost was a tall, ruddy-faced man, a bit too strong-featured to be called handsome in any conventional sense, his cold grey eyes a bit too calculating in their expression for anyone to imagine him as charming.

  His face was well lined, but not so much as to make him appear old or worn-out. On the contrary, the lines that life had etched on his face spoke of vigor and energy, of a life full of activity and experience. Phrost was enough of an egotist to be aware of his own appearance and reputation, and take some pleasure in them, but he was enough of a realist to know that a great deal of it was illusion. He was no more active or determined than the average person--but it was often helpful for other people to think of him in such terms.

  His hair had been jet-black not so very long ago, but now it had turned to salt-and-pepper, the white hairs just starting to be more common than the black. Phrost could not help but notice that the touch of grey had a profound effect on the way people reacted to him. In a culture that respected age and sober experience more than it valued youth and enthusiasm, a few genteel marks of maturity were good for business, and that was all that mattered.

  Ostensibly, what Phrost did was to serve as the middleman for the extremely short list of Settler products that Spacer law allowed to be imported. He also represented the even shorter list of Spacer export products that Settlers were willing to buy. In reality, of course, the main purposes of his import-export business was to serve as a cover for all his other activities.

  And it had led to his being selected to represent the combine of Spacer industrialists bidding on the Limbo Control System project. It was the single largest, and most complex, part of the reterraforming project. There was a Settler bid as well, of course. Whichever of the two sides won the job would win the lion’s share of all the work that followed. It was no small thing for Sero Phrost to be representing the home side in such things. It made him even more a man of influence and power.

  But for all of that, Phrost was, first and last, a salesman. Like all good salesmen, he knew that what he was selling was himself. He counted himself exceedingly lucky that the passages of time had enhanced, rather than diminished, his marketability.

  So he came to this party to be seen, to do some business, to forge a new alliance or two, to strengthen the old ones. And here was Tonya Welton.

  “Good evening, Sero, “ she said.

  “Good evening, Madame Welton,” Phrost replied. He took her hand and kissed it, a somewhat theatrical gesture, but one that he knew pleased her. “I’m glad to see you here.”

  “And I you,” she replied. “The Governor needs all his friends around him tonight. ”

  “So the Settlers are still supporting the Governor? In spite of this jurisdiction fight?”

  “We do not support him in all things,” Welton replied, choosing her words carefully. “But we certainly are in favor of the general thrust of his program. Though we do feel it is best if we offer our support--quietly.”

  “Your overt support not being the most useful thing the Governor could have at this point,” Phrost said, being deliberately blunt. Tonya Welton was a woman who played hard, and sometimes a little dirty. He knew she was not the sort who would respect the obsequious approach. He would have been quite prepared to use such a gambit if he thought it would work.

  “No, I
suppose not,” Tonya said, offering a smile remarkable in its transparent insincerity. “But your support for us, Sero. That is something I would like to be made much more public.”

  Precisely the sort of feeler he had expected her to make. “We all must move carefully in these times,” Phrost said. “But yes, certainly, I do wish to work more closely with your people. I’ve done well selling Settler hardware to tide us over the robot shortage--selling it quietly--and I’d like to do better. But, frankly, open association with the Settlers could be a dangerous thing. One must balance risk and benefit.”

  “‘Benefit,’ “ she said. “So we come to the point. What is it you want? What ‘benefit’ are you after?”

  “What is it you want? What risk do you want me to take? I can’t name my price until I know what the service is to be,” Phrost said.

  Welton hesitated for a moment before she spoke. “Visibility,” she said. “We have gone as far as we can working quietly. It’s all very well to do private sales of our machinery here and there, but it is not enough.”

  “Enough for what purpose?” Phrost asked. “Enough to wean this planet away from robots? Do you plan to use commercial means to accomplish what diplomacy could not?” He had to tread carefully here. Visibility was the one thing he could not afford to offer. The moment his alliance with Welton and the Settlers became known, his equally profitable dealings with the Ironheads would be at an end.

  “Our goals are not so grandiose,” Tonya replied. The words “not yet” were unspoken, but they were there for all of that. “We merely wish that Settler products--and thus, by extension. all things Settler--become more acceptable to the people of this world.”

  “Forgive me,” Phrost replied, “but I still do not understand how or why making my part in all this more ‘visible’ is of any use to anyone. Do you wish me to endorse Settler products in some way? I can tell you that will be very little more than an elaborate way for me to commit suicide, certainly in a professional sense--and perhaps in a literal one as well.”