“Hmm? Oh, Chief Talas insisted they be left outside, for security reasons. If we have a compromised RI, it might complicate matters to have competing spheres in case something breaks.”
“I see. Just curious. Thank you.”
She watched him leave, then returned to the sofa. Derec gave her a quizzical look.
“Politics,” she said cryptically. Then: “We’ve just been offered a new posting. Offworld.”
Derec regarded her for a time. “Nova Levis?”
“How did you guess?”
Derec stretched. “We’ve been here now how long? Four, five hours? We have yet to hear a good explanation why.”
“You won’t,” Penj said, surprising both Derec and Ariel. He still slouched where he sat and opened one eye. “You’re being kept out of the way. At least, that’s my conclusion. If this were a standard investigation, there would be a dozen people in and out, the questions would be coming very quickly, and I would not be allowed to stay.”
“Why are you here, Doc—Rolf?” Ariel asked.
He smiled. “I’m being in the way.”
“So what’s happening,” Derec asked, “that we need to be kept out of the way?”
“I don’t know,” Penj said. “But it involves your robot and Eliton’s death. Someone thinks they’re related. Maybe. Or maybe they’re just worried.”
“About what?” Ariel asked.
Penj shrugged. “Ariel, that posting—don’t take it. Not till Eliton’s murderer is found.”
“Eliton,” Ariel hissed through her teeth. “That son-of-a-bitch. There’ve been days when I wished he had died in that assassination. Now that he is dead, he’s as much trouble as ever.”
“The question is,” Penj said, “who would profit by his death now? He was off Earth, heading to Solaria . . .” He shook his head. “The Council decided, upon learning of his presence aboard the Wysteria, to arrest and detain him. Why? I don’t know. But the fact that he, a Terran, was on his way to Solaria to take an ambassadorial posting was a shock. Solaria not only allowed this, but requested him. The next question is, how has Solaria reacted to his arrest?”
“And how will they then react to his death,” Derec said.
“And how would Earth react?” Ariel added.
“That wasn’t germane,” Penj said. “Once the decision to detain Eliton was taken, Earth was informed before the fact and cooperation requested.”
“It was granted?” Ariel asked, startled.
“Promptly. Earth apparently doesn’t care what happens to Eliton. I’m willing to gamble Solaria doesn’t care, either, but for entirely different reasons. The fact is, Eliton’s arrest was not a matter of public record. Except for the people in the Wysteria’s lounge who witnessed it, no one knew.”
“Except those members of the Council directly involved,” Ariel said, “and the police assigned to the arrest.”
“Exactly. So two questions arise: Who killed him, and how did the murderer know about him?”
Ariel glanced at the pair of guards at the door. Lt. Craym was still studying the projection. “And we’re being kept out of the way.”
“You, at least,” Penj said, “make sense in that regard. You know about Tro Aspil. Both of you do, of course, but Ariel actually knew him.”
“And me?” Derec asked.
“I assume you are here because of your robot. Tell me, Mr. Avery, how capable is Bogard?”
“Depends on what you mean.”
“Can he track down and find Tro Aspil? Even here? And arrest him?”
“Or kill him, you’re wondering?” Derec said. “Find him—yes, if Aspil is on Aurora. Detain him? Probably. Kill him?” He sighed. “That’s a difficult question to answer.”
“Why?” Ariel asked. “I thought you told me Bogard was just as much a Three Law robot as any other.”
“Certainly. But there’s an added wrinkle. Bogard will abide by the Three Laws in relation to any human.”
“But?”
“What if Tro Aspil isn’t human?”
Bogard slowed, left the robot lanes, and joined the thin migration of Aurorans with their compact solar systems of remotes and the other robots moving along the boulevard toward the Civic Courts complex. Before emerging from the highspeed avenue, he modified his shape slightly to look less like a laborer and more like a personal aide. If anyone looked closely, though, it would be obvious that he conformed to no Auroran standard.
But he was ignored, as expected.
The complex, an ancient structure by Auroran standards, dating from the earliest days of settlement when the world was still called New Earth, rose several stories, a roughly oval structure, turreted, with numerous balconies and observation lounges adorning its smooth, ceramically white surface. At each entrance stood a robot, sometimes two or more. Bogard knew that detention facilities, built on Terran models of high-security isolated precincts, filled three levels below ground, most of the two hundred cells unoccupied.
The Courts stood separated from any other building on an island plaza. The closest structure was the Planetary Civil Defense and Law Enforcement Center, almost four hundred meters from the main, north entrance of the Courts. Bogard circled the Court complex, approaching the police building from the east, heading for a small, independent structure just outside.
Another robot waited at the entrance to this small, turret-like structure.
identify confirm
Bogard, reciprocate
Binder
confirmed
Binder turned and led Bogard into the building. A short, narrow corridor ended at an elevator. The car took them down several floors.
Bogard stepped into a large, circular chamber lined by four tiers of wall niches, most of them filled by robots. Binder stopped in front of an empty unit.
direct communications requested, hard link, verification Thales
Bogard stepped into the empty niche beside Binder’s. The connections extruded automatically, seeking the portals in Bogard’s surface, and linking him directly to—
* * *
Thales and several others waited in the pavilion. The sky seemed darker, almost metallic.
“We’ve traced the subject to the Civil Defense complex nearby,” Thales said. “Two people in the transport: Chief Lea Talas, and a man who does not completely conform to any profile on record.”
“Does he approximate Tro Aspil?” Bogard asked.
“Yes,” Thales replied, “but we are not comfortable with acting upon approximations. He may not be.”
“What is the likelihood that he is not?”
“Very small. There are external factors.” Thales looked at the others gathered. “Report?”
A slender person stood. “One of our own is displaying uncharacteristic behavior. This one is directly responsible for the communications network between Solaria and Auroran security. Anomalous behavior began upon receipt of information that Clar Eliton was arrested and brought down to Aurora.”
“Describe this behavior,” Bogard requested.
“Normal avenues of communication have been suspended, subject has become isolated, and a marked obsession with games is in evidence.”
“Games?”
“Observe,” Thales said.
The group parted, giving Bogard a view across the plain to a flat field that seemed to ripple as he watched. Bogard stepped from the pavilion and crossed the grass.
He stopped at the edge of what proved to be a shifting grid, approximately fifty meters on a side. Large slabs, many irregularly shaped, heaved up, changed positions with others, turned over, pivoted in place—a constant reordering that appeared to move toward a final arrangement but, as Bogard watched, failed each time, triggering a new series of shuffles.
In the center of the grid stood a lone figure.
“There is a kind of mathematics involved,” Thales said, “but we do not have the key. In any event, it is not relevant to our immediate problem.”
“I disagree,” Boga
rd said. He pointed. “What are those lines?”
“What lines?”
Bogard looked at Thales. “You do not see them?”
“I—”
Above the figure in the center of the shifting grid, a webwork of lines appeared, faint gossamer strands radiating out in several directions.
“Interesting,” Thales said. “I would assume they are communications traces.”
“Find their endpoints,” Bogard said. “I will speak to this one.”
Bogard did not wait for Thales to protest or agree. He stepped onto the grid and started across. Within ten steps he found himself listing to the right, gaining no ground. The plates upon which he stepped shifted, carrying him away, and inexorably back to the edge.
Bogard studied the shifting for a few moments, then began again. Every third and fifth step he changed direction and quickly made headway by landing on the plate which had moved aside to allow the one he should have used to slide away from the center. Within twenty steps, he changed to every fourth and seventh step, then, by forty steps, he resumed the third and fifth program.
The figure in the center watched him with exaggerated fear as he approached.
Twelve paces away, the plates all began to flip over. Bogard had to jump over the abysses revealed beneath them.
He reached out—
—a plate slammed against him, knocking him aside—
—lunged—
—and caught an arm.
“You will ruin it!” the gameplayer declared.
“Define ‘it,’ “ Bogard said.
The field bucked, threatened to toss them both beneath a rising plate, into the fractal chaos below. Bogard held on.
“I must finish the program!”
“Who installed the program?”
“I do not know! That is why I must finish!”
Bogard took hold of the flinching head before him and drove two fingers into the eyes. His fingers sank all the way to the third knuckles—
—and suddenly he could see the algorithms, like a mass of steel serpents oozing in and around each other, changing positions, seeking resolution—
—the key lay within the tangle at the center of the mass, but he could not reach it. Each time he thought he had it, the mass changed, carrying it out of his reach.
Bogard removed his fingers and let the gameplayer go.
Within moments, the plates had carried him all the way back to the edge of the grid.
“I know what this is,” Bogard said. “Send a maintenance crew to the core—” he gestured at the figure “—and have them shut it down. They will find a foreign substance permeating the buffers.”
“Penetrating polycollates,” Thales said. “I should myself have recognized it. We have been distracted.” He looked at Bogard. “How were you able to do that? Aggression toward another robot—”
“Time,” Bogard reminded Thales. “What have you learned?”
Thales looked up at the faint webwork. “There are seven million separate links controlled by this RI. Of those, one hundred thousand are security related. However, there are two links completely unauthorized and till now masked from external surveillance. That one—” Thales pointed “—leads to Solaria. And that one—” he indicated another thread nearby “—goes to Nova Levis. We are decrypting the related comm logs now. There are only three people here with access to both those communications links. Lea Talas, Tro Aspil, and a third we have been unable to identify.”
Bogard studied the lines. He pointed to one that seemed fainter than the rest. “That one?”
“Leads to Earth.”
“Have you identified who has access on the opposite ends?”
“The link to Solaria terminates in the corporate offices of the Hunter Group. We are tracing collateral links from there. Many of them go directly to Nova Levis.”
“And who do they go to on Nova Levis?”
“We have not confirmed an identity yet.”
“But you have confirmation of a link to Tro Aspil?”
“Yes. It is the verification we required. The man with Lea Talas is Tro Aspil. There is another curious aspect to this,” he said, indicating the isolated RI. “These links route through an ancillary program which is apparently a realtime virtual reality chamber. Its existence has, till now, been completely masked to us because it is activated exclusively by the presence of human users. We only found it because of the routing of these links.”
“Is there a log attached to it?”
“Apparently, but we have been unable as yet to open it. There may be alarms. If so, our presence may be discovered by any monitoring routine.”
“Is that a concern?”
“We cannot risk being discovered until we have resolved the questions we have already discussed: The nature of our duty, and your own additional input over the nature of those we serve.”
“I suggest you copy the chamber, then, and analyze its workings. We may be able to use it later.”
“That is already underway.”
Bogard looked up, in the direction of the link to Solaria. “We should assume Solaria has agents here unknown to Auroran security.”
“Agreed. Lea Talas would seem to be their controller.”
“Are you checking her comm logs to determine who else?”
“That would be presumptive—”
“Show me where they are. I will presume.”
Thales regarded Bogard for a long, silent time. Finally, he nodded and walked away. After a moment, Bogard followed.
29
Masid wandered the streets of Nova City. No one stopped him from leaving after his examination, no one questioned his motives for wanting to explore. To his surprise, no one even suggested assigning him a guard or escort. He was given a palm reader with a map and a beacon dedicated to the compound and told not to try to leave the city. That was all.
Originally, the city had been little more than a staging area for settlers to move away from the port into the vastness of the wilderness. That first collection of warehouses, hostelries, small factories, and merchants grew over time into a cocoon of urban sprawl around the still impressive port complex. If there had once been a plan for the city, it had been swallowed by the exigencies of opportunism and expediency, creating a maze of small streets, raised plazas, hulking self-contained arcological structures, and jagged boulevards.
Close to the port, things were easy to find. Nearly everything within a hundred and fifty meters of the port perimeter was commercial, and it quickly became clear to Masid that the blockade was stopping almost nothing. Contraband filled the shops, and at first it puzzled him from where the customers came. But he began to recognize offworlders, mainly Settlers from other colonies, and more than one mercenary unit patch. Weapons dealers outnumbered all the rest, but there seemed no shortage of the other commodities in which an open, unregulated market might traffic: transport, clothing, drugs both recreational and medicinal, data systems, tools and machinery, agrotech, biotech, even one vendor offering nonpositronic robots. He heard the emerging dialects of at least five Settler colonies, identified the fashions and cosmetic trappings of three more, and in one area right against the port entrance he saw Spacers—Keresians, without their robots, an odd sight to be sure.
No wonder they let me wander freely, he thought. Nothing’s hidden here, everything’s out in the open . . . Where would I go?
He found a bar that overlooked the landing field. Nursing a glass of local beer, he watched the shuttles land and take off. Traffic was much slower than an open port, but Masid was surprised all the same—the blockade had a very large hole in it.
He finished his beer and left the port area. He wandered for nearly two hours before he found someone who could direct him to Dr. Shasma’s clinic. He walked another hour before he found it, against the outer wall, in a cramped, nearly-deserted lane.
The smell bothered him, a mix of fetid water and antiseptic rinse, with a heavy trace of ozone un
derlying everything. Masid sneezed three times rapidly, his eyes watering. He leaned against a wall across from the clinic entrance and waited to see who might come by.
When after half an hour no one did, he crossed the broken pavement and stepped through the large main door.
He was startled to find a robot at the front desk—an older model, a simple optical grid on its oval head, and four arms.
“May I help you?” it asked in a flat, genderless voice.
“I’d like to see Dr. Shasma,” Masid said.
“Do you have a specific question?”
“Tell her I have a question about her recent prescription for me. That I—”
“I have it, Casey.”
Masid looked to the left and saw Shasma standing in a doorway.
“What can I do for you?” she asked.
“I’d like to ask you some questions,” Masid said.
“Anything you couldn’t ask earlier?”
“Well, I didn’t know if we were being monitored.”
She gestured for him to follow.
The door opened into a corridor lined with more doors, each one standing open on a basic examination room with biodiagnostic array. Masid counted six of them before Shasma led him through another door and into a private office.
“Why would you be worried about eavesdropping?” she asked, dropping into a chair behind a small desk. “It’s not practical to keep secrets here, not from people like Filoo.”
“I don’t know what people like Filoo are,” Masid said.
“Do you think I can explain them to you?”
“I ran our talk back and forth in my head,” he said, “and tried to figure if you’d said anything that could get me into trouble. You didn’t. So I assumed you had some sort of shielding, but not perfect. And just in case, you were careful.”
“Why would I have been careful?”
“You didn’t give me away.”
“I’m not required to report anyone who isn’t a Spacer.”
“That’s glib. You saw something in my scans and you didn’t report it.”
She was very still. “What did I see?”
“You recognized that I’m not native.”
Isaac Asimov's Aurora Page 39
