Asimov’s Future History Volume 12

by Isaac Asimov

  But the key difference, of course, was that there were no neat rows of robots down here anymore. There was only one, a blown-out wreck, much more shot to hell than any of the SPRs on the upper floors had been. There was more to it than the damage being more severe. The blast holes looked different as well. But why? Why blast this one all to hell, differently and more violently than any of the others?

  Fredda thought she knew the answer, the answers to those puzzles. But she could not be sure. Not yet. Not until she got a look at the fiftieth SPR. The fiftieth.

  What bothered Fredda was the fact that she had not even noticed that an SPR was missing. There had been fifty SPRs to start with, but she had not even thought to do a count on them, until now. Now she knew there had been twenty-two SPRs on the upper level, and twenty-seven on the ground floor.

  If that information had been in her head earlier, she would have turned the place upside-down to find that missing fiftieth robot. She would have found this one, the crucial one, much sooner.

  Not that this one had been overlooked by anyone except Fredda. Gallingly enough, search teams had even logged in the location of this one two hours ago, but they had not examined it closely. What was one more shot-up robot in a building that was full of them?

  She wanted to dive right in, to take this robot apart and find the clues, the proofs, she knew were inside it. But she resisted. Suppose she set to work now and smudged a fingerprint or something? No, thank you. There was no point in making any more mistakes.

  It had been frustrating enough to have that imaginary door in the integrator simulation close on her face. To track the suspect this far and then come up with nothing–that would be slamming into a wall. It was starting to dawn on her just how much patience police work involved.

  So, do it right, do it carefully. The clues in this room might be the core of the case. Don’t ruin them. Let the robots do their job first. Then she could do hers.

  “Donald,” Fredda said. “I want you to call in a full team of Crime Scene robots. I want this robot and this entire room–and all the storage closets–scanned down to the maximum resolution. Our friend Mr. Pale-man was hiding in here, and he must have left some traces.”

  “That is by no means certain,” Donald said. “It would be most useful, but we cannot count on it.”

  “But he must have left something behind,” Fredda protested. “A bit of hair, a fingerprint, something.” Or was it possible that he could have left no trace at all behind? Fredda suddenly realized just how little she knew about the sort of clues she was counting on the robots to find.

  “It is possible the Crime Scene team will find something,” Donald said, “but bear in mind that if our suspect took a few simple precautions there would be nothing for us to find.”

  Precautions? Fredda was suddenly confident of her ground. Forensics and clues she did not know about, but people she understood. She already had a pretty solid feel for Pale-man. Just watching him on the integrator had told her a lot. “This is not a man who takes all the simple precautions,” she said. “This is a man who makes mistakes. If he hadn’t acted so nervous when we first spotted him, if he hadn’t made the slip of looking at his watch, we might have lost him in the shuffle. Instead he brought attention to himself. If he had at least pretended to be interested in the fight, we might have erased him from the image trail along with everyone else who came to watch it.”

  “And from those points you make the assumption that he would leave traces for us to find here?” Donald said.

  “Oh, it’s no assumption,” Fredda said. “It’s a certainty. He left something behind.” She had no logical reason for believing that, but logic was no more than a tool of reason, and far from the only tool at that. Gut reactions had their place as well.

  “Trust me, Donald, “she said again, staring down at the burned-out wreck of the security robot. “This boy left a calling card.”

  Normalcy. The need for normalcy was painfully obvious. Caliban knew it was so–and yet, somehow, it was difficult to act on that knowledge.

  Still, the demands of the day, the strictures of routine, helped a great deal. He had his job to do.

  In theory, both Caliban and Prospero worked as field representatives for Fredda Leving, observing the behavior and actions of New Law robots, and reporting it to Dr. Leving’s office. But their duties went far beyond those tasks. They were roving troubleshooters, tasked to find problems that slowed down work and resolve them.

  In practice, Prospero was worse than useless in such work. He was far more likely to urge the New Law robots to set down their tools and make for Valhalla than he was to sort out a job-site scheduling dispute. These days, Prospero spent most of his time with his internal hyperwave system shut off so he would not be disturbed–or tracked. He liked to hide out from the world in an abandoned office somewhere under the streets of Limbo, reading and writing and studying, developing his philosophy.

  Caliban, on the other hand, found that he was good at the job. He understood at least something of both the human and robotic point of view, and could often bring the two sides together. He had waded into the middle of any number of disputes between humans and New Law robots–and, for that matter, between robot and robot–struggling to find the common ground.

  But there were times, be it confessed, when he wondered if New Law robots were worthy of freedom.

  For the past two weeks, Caliban had been working with a team of New Law robots engaged in the refurbishment of an old windshifter force field coil, a massive, powerful, and intricate device. Its repair required careful planning and the coordination of many steps. The robot team was working without any direct human supervision, and every robot on the team was enthusiastic about the job.

  Unfortunately, it seemed to Caliban that every New Law robot on the job had come up with a different better idea as to how the job should be done. There were so many ideas to sort through that it seemed unlikely that the job itself would ever be done.

  It was up to Caliban to convince the robots that better was often the enemy of good, and that seeking perfection could mean accomplishing nothing. It was frustrating, at times, to see the trivial uses to which the New Law robots put their freedom. Fredda Leving had meant them to advance, to move in new directions–not waste time around a conference table, bickering once again over the most efficient way to retune a stasis suppression coil. He had agreed last night to come in well ahead of schedule this morning, in hopes of resolving a few of the issues at hand.

  “Come, friends,” Caliban said again. “Let us try again. Cannot we agree on this very minor point?”

  “How can you dismiss maximized efficiency as a minor point?” Dextran 22 demanded.

  “And what good is theoretical efficiency when your enhancement routines will leave the system unstable?” Shelkcas 6 asked.

  “The enhancement routines are stable,” Dextran replied, “or at least they would be in a properly normalized field environment.”

  “Please!” Caliban interjected. “The normalization issue is resolved. There is no need to reopen it. Friends, once again we face the same old choice. We can solve the problem, or we can have the argument, but we cannot do both. Dextran, your enhancement system will work, and we can use it–so long as we do not press for greater than ninety-nine-plus percent efficiency. Is a half-percent improvement in efficiency truly worth major reliability degradation?”

  “Perhaps not,” Dextran admitted. “Perhaps the enhancement system alone will–”

  “Caliban! Caliban!”

  A voice, a human voice, and one he recognized, calling from the outer office. But what would bring Gubber Anshaw here? “Excuse me, friends. If we are resolved on this issue, perhaps you could move to the next point on the agenda while I step out.”

  Caliban rose, crossed the room, opened the door, and stepped through. There was Gubber, plainly agitated and upset. Caliban closed the door behind him. There was something in Dr. Anshaw’s face that said his news would be best disc
ussed in private.

  “Caliban! Thank the stars you are here! What the devil are we going to do?”

  “Do? Do about what?”

  “Grieg, of course. Governor Grieg. They’re sure to suspect Tonya. Caliban, you were there. You’re a witness. She didn’t do anything. You can tell them that.”

  “Dr. Anshaw, you confuse me,” Caliban said, increasingly alarmed. All of Prospero’s assurances that there would be no trouble, no danger, were clearly worth as little as Caliban had feared. “What about last night? What about the Governor?”

  “Haven’t you heard? Don’t you know? Grieg is dead. He was killed last night just after–”

  But Caliban was already gone before Anshaw could finish speaking. If things were uncertain enough that Anshaw feared Tonya Welton might be a suspect, then Caliban had no doubt whatsoever that he was in danger as well. He had to get away from where he could be found. Get away fast.

  Shelabas Quellam was flushed with excitement. Governor. He was going to be Governor. Importance, power, respect. All his. All his. But there was so much he had to do to get ready. What to do first? A speech. Yes. He should write a speech for when he took over. Something along the lines of sorrow and courage, and the need to move forward–yes, that would be about the right approach.

  He sat down at his comm console and settled in to start dictating–but then he noticed the status board was indicating all sorts of pending mail waiting for him in his office system–some of it official, and several days old.

  Shelabas had never much bothered keeping close track of all his incoming correspondence. His robots read it for him, and wrote up summaries about the things he needed to deal with. But, come to think of it, he hadn’t even checked their summaries in a while. He really ought to check it all now. There might be something in there of vital interest to the new Governor.

  Shelabas Quellam scrolled the pending mail list–and then let out a little gasp. There was a letter from Grieg there, coded for Quellam’s eyes only. But how could that be? But then he checked the dateline and saw that it had been waiting for him more than a week.

  A week! Now that he thought of it, he could remember his robots advising him that there was urgent mail waiting for him in the system. He had no one but himself to blame for waiting this long to check.

  His hand trembling, he worked the controls and saw Governor Chanto Grieg’s face appear on the screen, looking confident, sure of himself, very much in charge. Not a printed letter, then, but a video record. There was something vaguely insulting about that. You sent video letters to those who might not have the patience to deal with the written word.

  “Greetings to you, Legislator,” Grieg’s image said. It was plain to see that Grieg was speaking in formal mode, for the official record. This was not a personal letter–it was a policy statement. “It is with some reluctance that I came to the decision I must now report to you–and to you alone. As you know, I have long believed that the laws of succession to my office are excessively complex and could lead to great uncertainty in a crisis. For that reason, I named you, the man fated to succeed if I were removed from office by legal means, to be my successor if I were to die in office.

  “As you are no doubt aware, there are currently moves afoot to impeach or recall me. As you may not be aware, Sheriff Kresh, Commander Devray, and Security Captain Melloy have all recently warned me of threats to my life. Thus, my removal from office, either by legal means or through my death, becomes increasingly more likely. I find that I can no longer treat it as a remote theoretical possibility, but as a probable event.

  “I can no longer treat the principle of unified succession as being of paramount importance. While important in its own right, it cannot be allowed to stand in the way of the vital reforms, the diplomatic and economic policies upon which this government is embarked. It is my opinion that should you succeed me, the pressure for you to call early elections would be insurmountable. It is my further opinion that elections under such circumstances would almost certainly result in a government that would set policies likely to result in planetary disaster.

  “For all of these reasons, I hereby inform you that I am withdrawing you from the Designation, in favor of a new name. After suitable discussion with the new Designate, I plan to announce the new name publicly. This I expect to transpire within a few weeks. Out of respect for you, for our long association, and for your office as President of the Legislative Council, I deemed it wise to provide you with early notification of this policy.

  “With deep regret and apologies for any distress this decision might cause you, I will say good-bye.”

  The screen showed Grieg’s authenticator seal, and then went blank.

  Shelabas Quellam stared at the blank display in slack-jawed shock. He was not the Designate. He was not the Governor. He was nothing, nobody again.

  But wait just a moment. Suppose Grieg had not named a new Designate before he died? As Shelabas recalled, the old Designation remained in force until the new Designation was made. For a mad instant, he considered erasing the letter, destroying all record of it, and declaring himself the Governor at once. But no. There would be copies placed with all the proper authorities. Destroying his copy could do no good–and would only throw suspicion on him–if he was not suspected of the crime already!

  He stood up suddenly, his heart pounding. Grieg’s murder! If no new Designate had been named, Shelabas Quellam was going to be a prime suspect the moment copies of Grieg’s letter were found.

  So Shelabas Quellam was not the Governor–and would not be, if Grieg had indeed named a new Designate.

  Shelabas Quellam was simply a man who had a first-rate motive for the murder of the Governor.

  And soon, very soon, everyone in the world was going to know it.

  A half hour after running out on Anshaw, Caliban had reached a place of safety, a secret rustback escape office in an unused tunnel far below Limbo City Center. The office had an unregistered–and, it was to be hoped, untraceable–hyperwave set. He was all but certain no human knew about the hideout. It meant he could monitor the news reports without fear of being taken, and have a chance to think. The news nets were full of Grieg’s death, and little else, and soon told him all he needed to know.

  It required little imagination on Caliban’s part to think he and Prospero might be suspects of some sort in the case–and with good reason. Caliban had been pursued by Alvar Kresh before, and he had no wish to repeat the experience. He had to call Prospero.

  Caliban was the only robot on the planet of Inferno who was obliged to use a comm center in order to place a call. That was for the very good reason that every other robot had a full hyperwave comm system built in.

  Caliban had been built for a laboratory experiment, and keeping him cut off from communications with the outside world had been part of the experiment. He could have arranged to have hyperwave equipment installed long ago, but Caliban had many very good reasons for not wishing to be turned off for even as brief a time as it would take to plug in the gear. There were too many things that could happen to him while he was switched off–too many things had happened to him when he had been switched off before. There were too many humans–and robots–who did not wish him well.

  Normally, not having a hyperwave link was not much of a disadvantage. Right now, he needed desperately to speak with Prospero–and he did not know where Prospero’s hidden study cell was. Prospero, too, had faced a number of threats in his day. But that did not matter. Prospero had long ago provided Caliban with a covert audio-only hyperwave link code that would connect to Prospero’s office without being traceable.

  He punched the comm code and spoke as soon as the connection was made. Prospero never spoke to anyone via hyperwave until he knew who it was. “Prospero, this is Caliban.”

  “Friend Caliban,” Prospero’s voice said through the speaker. “We must meet, most urgently.”

  “I agree the need is urgent,” said Caliban. “This is a terrible crisis. But I
feel that merely meeting will accomplish nothing.”

  “We had a plan as to what to do if things went wrong,” Prospero said. “It is time for us to flee.”

  “We never expected things to go this wrong,” Caliban objected. “I have no doubt your escape route would serve quite well under normal circumstances–but these are not normal circumstances. If we decamp now, we will have every human with a badge on the planet after us before nightfall. I have been tracked by Alvar Kresh before. I, for one, have no desire to be hunted again. It was only by the greatest good fortune that I survived the last time.”

  “The planet is large, and I have vast experience in covert movement,” Prospero said.

  “You have vast experience in arranging covert movement,” Caliban said. “You yourself have never even been off the island of Purgatory. Besides, there is the question of corollary damage. If we were to flee, how many fugitive New Law robots will be destroyed as a consequence? How many of their hiding places will be exposed during the search for us?”

  “There is something in what you say,” Prospero said”

  Also bear in mind that if we flee, we will be instantly perceived as the prime suspects in the Governor’s death. That would do tremendous damage to the cause of the New Law robots. You have professed many times how nothing was more important to you than the rights–and the survival–of New Law robots. If we flee, we may well be dooming all New Law robots everywhere.”

  “Your points are well taken,” Prospero said. “But if we do not flee–what are we to do?”

  “We must turn ourselves in. Submit to their questions. Cooperate. We will be exposing ourselves to grave danger, but, in my judgment, far less danger than in fleeing–and we will not be endangering the New Law robots.”

  Prospero did not reply for a moment. Caliban could not blame him for hesitating. The two evils they were forced to choose between were daunting, to say the least. At last, the New Law robot spoke. “Agreed,” he said. “But how are we to do it? I do not wish to walk into a trap, or surrender myself to some SSS agent or Ranger who has been longing for the chance to blast a hole in a New Law robot.”