Asimov’s Future History Volume 12

by Isaac Asimov

  She had lost track of the number of robots she had examined, but that didn’t matter. She could do a count later. Right now her job was to be thorough, to check every single SPR. At least she was getting faster at the job. If not for the need to do the interior scans searching for evidence, she could have been in and out of a given robot in twenty seconds. That in itself was an important piece of information.

  But it was not enough. So far, she had only found minute traces, all but undetectable signs of what she was looking for. She could see the tiny scratches left behind when some sort of device had been removed from the robots–two tiny marks in the main power bus. Fredda was all but certain that those marks were the traces of some sort of cutoff device, some way of deactivating the robots by remote control. But guesses and being all but certain were not enough. So far, whoever had removed them had been as thorough removing them as she had been in checking.

  But maybe that was not going to hold. After all, she had all the time in the world, and the fact that daylight was coming on did not concern her. She had no fear of sudden detection or something going wrong with the plan. But whoever had done this the night before–with the corpse of the Governor upstairs, the rain lashing down, with the clock running and all the lights off, that person might well make a mistake.

  Fredda wanted to get on to the next robot, and skip the scan. She resisted the temptation, knowing that the scans were important. The robot could detect any number of things that might be hidden from human view. A bit of dust or a smear of dried sweat or a flaked-off bit of skin or a piece of tom thread that might reveal something about the person who left it behind. Perhaps even a fingerprint. Perhaps something unexpected.

  So far nothing. The opposition had been very careful. But if they had made just one mistake–and Fredda found that one mistake–that would be all it would take.

  At last the scan was done and the observer robot moved back out of the way. Fredda closed the robot’s inner and outer access panels and moved on to the next unit.

  It was disconcerting to stare up into those dead, designed-to-intimidate eyes and then reach down and open the robot up. Not so long ago, the average Spacer would not, could not, have imagined being afraid of a robot. But Fredda knew times had changed. She herself was the one who had let the genie out of the bottle. She had made dangerous robots with her own two hands. There was no longer any technical barrier to making a robot without any Laws at all. And nothing to stop someone from dressing a killer robot up to look like, for example, an SPR unit. After all, she had established to her own satisfaction that these SPRs had been tampered with. Someone could install a No-Law gravitonic brain in one of them and then–and then–

  No. It did not bear thinking about. Fredda was so tired she could hardly see straight, let alone think straight. Concentrate. Concentrate. Open the outer panel. Let the observer hover in and sniff around. Try and keep your eyes open. Pop the inner panel and–

  –And swear to yourself in a low monotone. Fredda didn’t need any observer scan to tell herself she had found something. The opposition had made a mistake, all right.

  A big one.

  Simcor Beddle, leader of the Ironheads, stood in front of his comm unit in his fine silken pajamas, a soothing cup of tea in his hand. He watched as his robots operated the comm unit–though, at the moment at least, he had no interest in calling anyone. He was far more interested in who other people were calling. He had ways–not all of them strictly legal–of finding out.

  His comm unit was highly sophisticated, capable of pulling in all sorts of signals not generally available to the general public. Right now it was tracking encrypted police traffic, and Beddle’s staff had not managed to crack those particular encryption routines. But still, one could learn a lot by listening, even if one did not know the language. The robots operating the system were pulling in the signals, analyzing message traffic density patterns, getting triangulations to find signal sources.

  It was one of Simcor Beddle’s basic beliefs that there was no such thing as a secret. True, if a matter was of no importance, it could be kept quiet–but then what did it matter? A secret was only a secret when people wanted to know it. But when the people in the know cared about some supposedly hidden news or event, they would act on what they knew. By so doing, they would reveal at least some part of the secret to anyone who cared to pay attention.

  The Ironheads always paid attention. Beddle saw to that. Their transition from a mob of bullyboys to a legitimate political force was far from complete, and they needed every possible advantage. The right bit of information at the right time could be of the most vital importance–and so Beddle’s household staff robots had awakened him the moment police-band hyperwave message traffic had started to build. It didn’t matter that the messages themselves were encrypted–that police band activity had taken off exponentially was in itself a rather loud and clear message.

  So too was the command to turn back all outgoing air traffic from the island. That certainly could not be kept quiet for any length of time–but no explanation had been offered for it. Even so, Beddle could see the aircraft being turned back on his extremely illegal repeater displays of Purgatory Traffic Control. Beddle could likewise see the stream of vehicles with Sheriff s Department designation codes, corning straight from Hades for the Governor’s Residence. The latest development was the stream of Ranger vehicles converging on the Residence. It was not lost on Beddle that the SSS was yet to stir.

  What the devil was going on? It was plainly obvious that the Governor’s Residence was the focal point of it all, but what did it mean?

  In plain point of fact, Beddle had a theory or two about what had happened. Simcor Beddle was a man willing to set loose cannons in motion, if the potential benefit outweighed the danger. But the days when Beddle or the mainstream Ironheads could tolerate being directly linked to violence were over. Covert links were another question, of course.

  Beddle thought for a moment. No. There was no one who could be traced back to him. Unless one of the old plots from the old days had come alive again, unexpectedly. There were one or two old operatives who had simply disappeared. If it were one of them who had come to the surface again–

  No. No. That could not be. The odds against it were too long.

  But never mind the question of who. The question of what was far more important. And if he was right about what the police were reacting to with such energy, it was time to move, and move fast. This turn of events could be a tremendous opportunity, assuming one moved with a certain degree of care.

  But suppose he was guessing wrong? Reacting to news that had not happened might put him in a rather awkward position, to put it mildly.

  Simcor frowned, displeased by the conundrum. But then his face cleared and he smiled as he handed his teacup to his attendant robot. There was no need to worry. It was impossible to keep a secret. All would be known within a few hours, and that would be soon enough for the sort of actions Simcor had in mind. There was no hurry at all.

  He smiled to himself and gestured for his attendant robot to lead him back to bed. He walked behind the robot, his rolling gait stately, dignified, calm. All was going well.

  Chapter 7

  JUSTEN DEVRAY WATCHED as the death-black coroner’s Office robots carried Governor Chanto Grieg away. “Burning stars,” he said. “I don’t believe it. I can’t believe it.” He turned and looked toward the Governor’s bed–the deathbed–where the Crime Scene team was still at work, doing a painstaking scan for any evidence that might have been hidden by the body itself. Corpses didn’t tend to bleed much, but there was still enough blood, and the burn and scorch marks on the wall and the bedding were still horrifying enough, even if they weren’t particularly extensive. “When you called to tell me, I didn’t think of all this,” he said to Alvar Kresh. “I didn’t think about death, or about what all this is going to mean. I thought about turf wars, and that you were trying to win one.”

  “Well, I was trying to win a t
urf war,” Kresh said. “But not because I wanted this for myself,” he said. “There were other reasons.”

  “Huthwitz,” Devray said. It was not a question.

  “Huthwitz,” Kresh agreed. “It didn’t seem much like chance to me. That wasn’t someone blundering into him in the dark. It was too neat. Somebody knew exactly when and where a Ranger would be, exactly how to stalk him.”

  “Except if they knew exactly where my Rangers would be, why go out of their way to kill one? Why not just slip between the Rangers?”

  “That occurred to me as well,” Kresh said, his voice a bit too flat and even for it to be utterly natural. “Would there be any other reason to kill a Ranger? Maybe a reason to kill Huthwitz in particular?”

  Justen felt a knot in his stomach. Kresh was not a man who missed much. “Yes,” he said. “There might be. I’m not prepared to say more just now, but there might.”

  “You didn’t recognize Huthwitz’s name last night,” Kresh pointed out.

  “But Melloy knew him,” Devray said. “She recognized him immediately. I still don’t know about that. I checked with our Internal Investigation unit as soon as I left the Huthwitz crime scene.”

  “And they told you a thing or two you’re not quite ready to tell me,” Kresh said. “Even though we’re standing here watching them peel incinerated bits of the Governor off the wall.”

  “Yes,” Justen said, rather defiantly. Justen could not bring himself to tell Kresh about the evidence linking Huthwitz to rustbacking. Not yet. Even in the face of the Governor’s death, he could not betray one of his own by confirming the report.

  “You know, there are two reasons Melloy might have known who Huthwitz was. Either she was investigating him–”

  “Or else she was in on whatever he was doing,” Justen said.

  “Beg pardon, sirs, but there is a third possible reason,” Kresh’s robot said. “They are both law enforcement officers who were involved in gubernatorial security. She could simply have met him in the course of her normal duties.”

  Justen took a good hard look at–what was his name–Donald? Justen normally wouldn’t pay much attention to a robot–especially one who was offering a rather charitable interpretation of events. Justen’s own personal robot, Genray, had gotten himself out of the way the moment they arrived at the crime scene. He had stepped into an empty wall niche and stayed there. But Justen had heard a story or two about Kresh’s robot, and Kresh clearly took him seriously. “Do you think that is a realistic possibility?” Justen asked.

  The robot Donald raised his arms in a fair imitation of a human gesture of uncertainty. “It is certainly possible. I have no way of weighing the probabilities. But it is my experience that rejecting the innocent explanations out of hand is as unwise as refusing to consider the possibility of criminal action. The fact that Huthwitz is apparently under suspicion in some other investigation does not preclude the chance of his meeting Melloy in the course of their normal duties.”

  “Point taken,” Justen said.

  “But it doesn’t get you off the hook,” Kresh said. “I need to know what your internal investigators were working on.”

  “Not yet,” Justen said. “You’ll get it, I give my word. But I can’t give it up now–for the same reason you didn’t call the Rangers the second you spotted the body.”

  Kresh turned and looked him straight in the eye, and Justen squirmed inside just a bit. Kresh was not a man to trifle with.

  “So you don’t trust me, either,” Kresh said.

  “I trust you, sir,” Justen said to the older man. “But I do not trust every one of your deputies, or the inviolability of all your communications equipment. Things can leak.” And I don’t want to wreck Huthwitz’s reputation until I know he deserved to have it wrecked.

  Kresh’s expression turned angry, and for a moment it seemed he was going to bite Justen’s head off. But then he stopped himself, and even smiled, just a bit. “Much as I hate to admit it, you might have a point. Tonya Welton once flat out told me that the Settlers could read encrypted Sheriff s office signals. We’ve changed our encryption since then, but that’s no guarantee. All right. I’ll give you one day. Twenty-eight hours.”

  “And if that’s not enough time?” Justen asked.

  “Then that will just be too bad, “Kresh said. “Twenty-eight hours. This investigation has to move. We need to get somewhere before the other shoe drops.”

  Justen frowned. “Shoe? What shoe?”

  “You don’t go killing the Governor because you’re in a bad mood,” Kresh said. “This was very carefully planned and orchestrated, maybe even over-orchestrated. A conspiracy. Somebody had a plan, and I don’t think it’s complete yet. Someone is going to try and make a move, seize power in the next few days.”

  “But the constitution,” Justen protested. “There’re the laws controlling the succession. No one could just walk in and take over.”

  “Constitutions only work when people believe in them, have faith in them. Otherwise, they’re nothing but scraps of paper. Do you think there is enough faith in the system out there to keep someone from elbowing into the succession?”

  “Sir, might I make an additional point?” Donald asked.

  “What, Donald?”

  “As you said, sir, this is a rather well-planned conspiracy. If, as you speculate, the assassins are planning to seize power, then they might well have co-opted the succession in advance.”

  Kresh nodded and thought for a second. A strange expression came over his face. “Unless we’re looking at this backwards. Maybe it’s some band of civic-minded madmen who did this.”

  “What?” Justen asked.

  Kresh gestured toward the bed. “He told me himself, last night, that he was close to being impeached or recalled. He was fairly optimistic about his chances of staying in office, but maybe someone else wasn’t.”

  “So?”

  “So the Governor’s choice as successor doesn’t get the job if he’s removed from office by impeachment or recall. If the Governor is booted out, the President of the Legislative Council takes over. Shelabas Quellam. Maybe someone didn’t want Quellam in the Governor’s chair.”

  “Is Quellam that bad?” Justen asked. “I hardly know the first thing about him.”

  “That’s about all there is to know,” Kresh said. “He’s as close to a nonentity as you would ever wish to meet. The trouble is that Grieg named Quellam as his Designate. Supposedly he felt the same man should take over regardless of the circumstances, for the sake of stability.”

  “Are you sure of that?”

  “Reasonably so,” Kresh said. “We’ll find out soon enough. Right now, I’m more interested in who killed the man, not who takes over from–”

  But Kresh was interrupted by a woman who came in at the door. Justen recognized her as Fredda Leving, the roboticist. What the devil was she doing here? “Sheriff Kresh,” she said, “I’ve found something.” There was an excited glint in her eyes, an edgy sort of triumph. “Follow me,” she said. She turned and left the two men standing there, not bothering to look behind to see if they were following.

  “Ah, Dr. Leving is here at my request,” Kresh said, answering Justen’s question before he had a chance to ask it. “I wanted to pull in a robotics expert as soon as I could.”

  It took Justen a moment, but then he understood. “The SPRs,” he said. “How the hell did the shooter get past them?”

  “That was my question,” Kresh said. “Let’s go see what she’s found.”

  “There’s not much that I can see,” said Alvar Kresh as he peered into the recesses of the Sapper robot.

  “That’s because you’re not in the business of dealing with these things up in Hades,” Fredda said. “But you will be.”

  “Well, that sounds very dramatic,” Kresh said, “but all I can see is what looks like some sort of broken-off attachment clip and a torn bit of flat cable.”

  “Let me have a look,” Devray said. Kresh stepped
back and let the younger man peer into the robot’s interior. “It mean anything to you?” he asked.

  Devray pulled his head out, a lot of astonishment on his face. “Burning devils. A restrictor.”

  “What?” Kresh said.

  “A restrictor. A broken-off connection point for a restrictor. Someone took the restrictors off a batch of New Law robots, modified them somehow to react to a different control system, and plugged them into these SPRs.”

  Kresh opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out. The SPRs shut down by restrictors removed from New Law robots? That was diabolical.

  Every New Law robot had a restrictor built into it. In principle, at least, the idea was simple enough. The restrictors saw to it that any New Law robot attempting to leave Purgatory would be shut down as it tried to go. It was supposed to be impossible to remove the device without destroying the robot. No restrictor-wearing robot could function outside the area permitted by the restrictor–which was to say, the island of Purgatory. The precise workings of the system were a closely held secret. Even Kresh did not know exactly how it was supposed to work.

  But he did know the operative word was “supposed,” for the obvious fact was that the system did not work. Every rustback robot that left the island was a testament to that. That there was a traffic in them, a regular business, and that made it plain that it was not a question of occasional lapses or isolated violations. Rustbacking was more than just a business–it was a whole criminal industry, a highly sophisticated operation.

  And one that was now tied into the assassination of the Governor. A gang of rustbackers hand found a way to tamper with the Governor’s own security robots. How the hell could they trace that leak?

  “You’re sure that’s a piece off a New Law robot’s restrictor?” Kresh demanded.

  “Absolutely,” said Fredda Leving. “It was what I was looking for when I started checking the Sapper robots.”

  “But I don’t understand. We’re still on the island. Why should restrictors turn off the security robots?”