Chimera (isaac asimov's robot mystery)

by Mark W. Tiedemann

  "No. Not in the least. Of course, that's not all of it. I don't know what it's about on Ariel's end, but Looms' problem apparently dovetails with a project Setaris gave to Ariel. Hofton will be returning with what looks like a standard DW-12 that witnessed a murder. It's collapsed, we need to see if we can recover anything. "

  "I haven't heard about any murders. Not recently, anyway."

  "Baleys. Fifty of them, looks like. You haven't heard anything because Palen is working on the same favor and keeping it silent as long as she can."

  "How long has it been so far?"

  "Two, two and a half days. I'm guessing."

  "And how exactly does Rega Looms fit into this?"

  "His daughter was one of the victims. "

  Rana stared at him blankly. Then: "I see."

  Derec coughed softly. "So, tell me about this Auroran citizenship."

  Rana shrugged. "A gamble. When the dust settled last year, I applied for emigration. ITE refused, based on essential skills, but I couldn't get an employment stamp, either. So I went to Ariel and asked if she could help. A few referrals later, it looked possible that I could get Auroran citizenship due to the fact that I'm an undesirable. "

  Derec started. "What?"

  "I'm a positronic specialist." She grinned wryly. "Absurd, isn't it? But just the fact that I worked in a field that was for all intents and purposes outlawed on Earth put me in a special category of almost-but-not-quite foreign spy. I have the entire law in my apartment and I occasionally read through it for a laugh. Anyway, we started the data flowing. I've gotten this far, a transfer to Kopernik. The longer I work here, in this lab, the less desirable I become to Terran authorities." She smiled. "When the Aurorans here found out I was a positronics tech, they didn't know whether to believe me or throw me out. When they learned how I'd become one, they wanted to hand me off to someone else. Anyone else. Ariel got dragged back in. Her suggestion was to hire me as a contract worker and go from there. I've had to start the application process over three times now. I can't blame them for being cautious. But it's in the works now. My application has been forwarded to Aurora. All I have to do now is to continue proving that I know what I'm doing." She bobbed her eyebrows. "So that's where I stand. Waiting. Like I said, six months ago we upgraded the whole lab. I did most of the conceptual work with Rotij-who's very good, by the way. Rotij has added his name to my list of sponsors. "

  "I'm glad. It would be interesting to watch you at the Calvin. "

  "I might shake them up a little?"

  "Just might. "

  Rana smiled. "What about you?"

  Derec shrugged elaborately. "Like you-waiting. Only difference is, I don't have any clear path. Ariel got my Auroran citizenship renewed, but there's some…complication… with the Terran authorities. I'm stuck in the embassy unless I want to be barred from Earth forever."

  "I thought you were cleared of any charges?"

  "Not quite that simple. This is Earth, after all. I suppose it would make everything easier if I just packed up and left."

  "Would that be so bad?"

  "I don't know. Yes…no…maybe. It's…I like Earth. For all its maddening irrationality, there's so much here. They have history. Thousands of years of history. There's something intoxicating about it." Derec felt clumsy, as if groping to make sense. "It's the first place I really came to know after I recovered from amnemonic plague. I might as well have been born here."

  "I forgot about that. Sorry."

  "Don't be." Derec disliked talking about his past-lack of past, really. The one thing he shared with Ariel that would never change: both of them were recovered amnesiacs, victims of Burundi's Fever. The damage the disease caused left them permanently incapable of recovering memories from before its onset.

  But they had rebuilt their lives. Derec had used Earth as a focus, a home base, a place from which to find…what he needed to find.

  "Ariel doesn't share your appreciation," Rana said. "She told you that?"

  "We had a couple of long talks. She needed a sympathetic ear, I think, that would go away later."

  "Well. I don't know, though. She's here. She requested an Earth posting. "

  "Hm. By the way, not to change the subject but…what about Bogard?"

  Derec sighed. "Bogard. Most of Bogard is in a crate stashed in a lockup in the embassy. Thales keeps teasing at his matrix. Of course, without sufficient memory, there's only so much Thales can do."

  "We've got the memory here."

  "Believe me, the thought did cross my mind. And Thales'. If possible…"

  Rana smiled conspiratorially. "I don't see a problem. We'll do what we can."

  He gestured at the encryption sequence. "How big is this?"

  "I'm using a five-digit key."

  "Five. Isn't that a little excessive?"

  "All these years on Earth and you're still not paranoid enough. Actually, I'm encrypting against positronic intrusion. I'm letting Thales choose the key. That way you or I can't give it away."

  "And Thales won't. Impressive."

  "Thank you." She regarded him thoughtfully. "And thanks for wanting to work with me again. I hope I can help."

  "Believe me, it helped just seeing you."

  Rana looked startled, then laughed nervously. "I missed you."

  Derec felt a warm rush of blood flow through his scalp and face. Surprised, he looked away.

  A tone sounded, and Rana looked over at the comm console. "Ah. We have security." She tapped in a command. "Thales?"

  "I am online, Rana. How are you?" Half an hour later, the robot arrived, encased in a dull gray canister, rolled on a gurney between Palen and Hofton. Its entry attracted attention from the huddle of technicians, who watched it all the way across the lab until it disappeared behind the blind Rana had erected.

  Derec waited for Palen to open the case. The lid peeled back with a soft snik. It was much as he had seen in the storage closet: An older model DW-12-or perhaps even, now that the light was better, a DW-10 with modifications-stretched out like a corpse in a coffin. Derec pressed two fingers against the place where its ear would be. A small panel on the chest slid away to reveal a screen. Derec touched the screen, setting it aglow. A string of alphanumerics scrolled rapidly over it, stopped, then disappeared, leaving behind a flashing red dot.

  "It didn't hurt to try, " he said. "Thales, the self-diagnostic is junk. We'll have to do this from first principles."

  "I am prepared, Derec," Thales replied.

  Palen frowned at the link perched on the console.

  "Resident Intelligence, " Derec explained as he began connecting cables to various jacks in the robot's head and torso. He had to wipe accrued grime off a couple of them. "A disembodied positronic brain configured to act as a primary systems processor."

  "Uh-huh," Palen said. "Like the one that went crazy in Union Station last year?"

  Derec hesitated. "Basically. Only this one is mine and no one has tampered with it but me. So you needn't worry about it hallucinating. " He finished the connections. "Run synchronous pattern test, Thales. Test link. "

  "Working, Derec." A moment later: "The link is fine. We can proceed."

  "Is there anything left in there?"

  It took nearly two minutes for Thales to answer.

  "Damage is considerable, Derec, but I detect a few orderly sectors. Memory nodes have not been corrupted."

  Derec exchanged grins with Rana.

  "What does that mean?" Palen asked.

  "It means," Derec said, "that we have a good chance of salvaging something for you. "

  Twelve

  Ariel felt a momentary surge, like the rush from falling, as the limo left the embassy. She could not pin down in memory the last time she had been out side the Spacer mission. She swallowed dryly, waiting. The further the transport carried from the garage, the calmer she became; after a time, she laughed at herself.

  She opened her datum and accessed current files. A list of reports scrolled down the screen-
detail work she had neglected for months. The complaints sorted themselves automatically in a separate column, apart from the regular stock and shipping reports all Aurorans were required to file. Three firms came up more often than any other, one of them filing eighteen complaints over the last six months, all of them having to do with delayed or lost exports.

  Carsanli Intercomp built domicile environmental control units, adaptable to a wide range of habitats. Their principle customers were Settler colonies. Ariel was impressed with their logic-they built the units on Earth, using part Spacer technologies and part Terran, and shipped through Terran distributors, which minimized their Spacer presence. A lot of Spacer firms conducted business in a similar fashion, but often had a difficult time in the manufacturing end due to restrictions on factory space and local regulations concerning employment and vending requirements. In an unusual arrangement, Carsanli leased a factory already owned and operated by a Terran firm-Imbitek-from whom they also bought the Terran components.

  The company kept its offices in the Convention District of D.C. Ariel recognized the area as she entered it. She used to come here twice a week, before so many Spacer businesses had abandoned Earth. There was still a large Spacer presence, though, and she had no sound reason for having neglected her duties.

  The limo stopped at the main entrance to the offices. She stepped out and looked around. This was a warehouse area. People in worktogs or officewear filled the passages as First Shift opened. She caught a few frowns and curious looks from passersby, but ignored them. Steeling herself, she entered the building.

  "Ambassador Burgess," said a tall Auroran who greeted her. Behind him stood a broad reception desk and the company seal on the wall: an oblate disk filled with a moil of multihued shapes that reminded Ariel of feathers. "Welcome to Carsanli Intercomp. I'm Farin Holiye, general manager. This is most unexpected."

  She grasped his hand briefly. "Things have been unusually complicated recently. I apologize for taking so long to come down."

  Holiye smiled brightly. "Not at all, not at all. Please, this way. We can talk in my office."

  Ariel followed him through a door and up a short flight of stairs. He waved her into a wide, dark-paneled office.

  "May I offer refreshment?" he asked, heading for a sidebar.

  "No, thank you. I have a rather full schedule today. But I wanted to see you first. "

  "Ah. Yes, well…" He gestured to a pair of plush chairs on opposite ends of a low table. "I don't wish to begin with a complaint-"

  "I'm aware of the number of reports you've sent," Ariel said, sitting. "I'm here now."

  "Yes…well, the basic problem is that several consignments of product have gone missing; I think it's accurate to say stolen. Insurance has compensated for them, of course, but we've lost three major customers over it."

  "You sent them replacements?"

  "Of course, but those went missing, too. It was very aggravating."

  "Shipments to the same clients…that's very interesting. May I see the manifests?"

  "Certainly." He went to his desk and returned with a slate. "I had them prepared for you."

  Ariel scanned the columns. Four very large orders purchased by a construction firm on Epsilon Coriae never arrived. As Holiye had claimed, insurance covered the loss, but the Settler company canceled the contract. ITE attributed the loss to piracy and pled lack of jurisdiction once the shipments left the solar system. She scrolled further and noted several other shipments lost. All of them had been slated for Settler companies.

  "You also complained about delays?"

  "Several times," Holiye said expansively. "We thought it was a problem with our exit port so we tried to get it changed, but the request was tangled up and has still not been acted upon." He pursed his lips. "This is one of the things I understood your office dealt with…"

  "Of course. Again, I apologize. I'll look into it immediately. What port are you using?"

  "Petrabor."

  Ariel looked up. "Was any reason given for the delays?"

  "A number of times they claimed a routing glitch in their logistics programs. Once they simply said that the shipment had been overlooked by the dock crew. I found that intolerable."

  "How long has this been going on?"

  "We've always had a few problems," Holiye said, "but we expect some loss and delay. Space is vast and people are people. But I'd say in the last two years it's become chronic."

  "I see…" She handed back the manifest. "How long have you been working with Imbitek?"

  "Years. "

  "Any problems?"

  "No. In fact, since the previous chairman was replaced, things have gotten even better. The new CEO seems very dedicated to providing service."

  "Mmm. How is it you drew Petrabor Spaceport?"

  "The main factory is in Kiv Sector, just south. Petrabor is the closest port capable of handling the quantities in a timely fashion."

  "Of course if they keep losing or misplacing shipments…"

  "Exactly-the benefit of faster service from larger capacity is offset by the nuisance factor."

  "Well, if I recall," Ariel mused, "the Arkanleg port or even Kyro should be able to handle the traffic. I'll look into getting you rerouted." She stood. "Um…the stolen shipments…is there any pattern? Anything about them that strikes you as consistent?"

  "Well, no. We usually always use the same shipping line, as we always have. The destinations are always different, too."

  "I see. Well, thank you. I'll look into that, too, but I can't promise anything. "

  Holiye stood. "I appreciate you taking an interest, Ambassador."

  Finally, Ariel heard in his voice. She nodded, shook his hand, and let him see her out. Several hours later, Ariel let herself reluctantly into Derec's apartment. Her head buzzed with too much information. She had visited four more firms, following up the complaints. Between the sense of guilt over neglecting her duties and the amount of abuse these companies had suffered from lost shipments, unexplained delays, and shabby treatment by warehouse managers and shippers, Ariel felt humiliated and angry.

  All of them shipped out of Petrabor.

  Terran authorities had paid no attention because they were Spacers.

  And the pattern included her.

  Negligence is a disease, she thought bitterly, and I caught it.

  Holiye's assessment that the problem had become chronic in the last year appeared accurate. Someone was taking advantage of her truncated authority. The abuse was clear and unmistakable, but since her office was the clearinghouse for the complaints, no one had bothered to put it all together. Why should they? It was her job and she had stopped doing it.

  Time to straighten it all out…

  She would have preferred transferring Thales to her own rooms or even into a standard lab facility, but either option would have taken too long. She considered running a realtime link from here to her apartment, but the more remote access existed, the greater the chance of eavesdropping. The Terrans, especially-as backward as their tech seemed in some areas, they were disconcertingly advanced in others.

  She stood in the living room for a few minutes, quietly letting herself grow used to the idea of being here. It surprised her sometimes how difficult it was to continue knowing Derec. They got along well enough, but there were limits, and she did not know them all.

  She looked around. Too little furniture, she judged. Austere. One sofa, one chair, a low table, and a subetheric. No carpet, just a plain tile. The table was still cluttered with glasses and dishes. A flatscreen reader stood like a piece of sculpture amid the mess. She placed a hand on the back of the sofa: the pillows showed the wrinkles and depressions of long use. She imagined him here, studying, till sleep pulled him out lengthwise, still clothed.

  She snatched her hand away.

  The bedroom was neat and orderly. A modest collection of clothes in the small closet, stark gray sheets, a clock and lamp on the lone nightstand.

  More clutter in the ki
tchen sink, but virtually no food in the pantry. She scrolled through the menu on his autochef: coffee, various potato and pasta recipes, eggs, three meat dishes, juice. It was as abbreviated as his wardrobe.

  The workroom, dominated by Thales' console, exhibited the most debris of occupation: papers, disks, three chairs, four or five readers…No dishes, though.

  "Hello, Ambassador Burgess, " Thales said.

  Ariel felt a wave of guilt. She swallowed. "Hello, Thales. Status?"

  "I am linked to a positronic analysis station on Kopernik," the RI said. "We have ninety-nine percent capable dataflow, time delay negligible through subetheric router. Subject has been connected to diagnostics and I am running an excavation now. We have uncorrupted memory nodes isolated by collapsed positronic synaptic framework. Estimated retrieval time for first verifiable memories: two hours, twenty-nine minutes."

  Fast work, Derec, she thought, impressed despite herself. Having Hofton no doubt had sped things along. Hofton's absence disturbed her, which came as a surprise. She felt vulnerable. "How much available memory do you and I have at our disposal, Thales?"

  "I am using the buffers on Kopernik for the excavation, the commline buffer to maintain the link. For all practical purposes, you have all my available on-site memory."

  "I see. Don't tell me anything precise, like a number."

  "Would you prefer a specific? I have available 3 x 1023 kjC in three primary and six secondary nodes-"

  "That's fine, Thales."

  It amused Ariel at times, the way positronic entities tried to accommodate human wants, matching expectations with limitations. Flexible as they were, they sometimes provided either too little information or too much, their ability to accurately judge what constituted the necessary and the sufficient inadequate to the challenge of serving people. All in all, they were remarkable creations, among the best things humans had ever devised. But they were not flawless. Not flawless at all.

  Ariel sighed. "All right, then. I want you to begin a records search, new file. Priority protect protocols in effect. Alert me to any attempt at eavesdropping. I want all available data on the history of Nova Levis. I also want to be kept updated on the excavation you're doing on Kopernik."