Caliban c-1

by Isaac Asimov

  THREE hours later, Alvar Kresh sat at his desk, reading through the daily reports, making notes to himself on the status of this investigation, that application for promotion. By rights, he should have gone home to bed, allowed himself some rest. All told, he had gotten perhaps an hour’s sleep the night before. But he was too keyed up to sleep, too eager to leap back in and get on with the chase.

  Except, as yet, there was nothing to chase. Until and unless Gubber Anshaw emerged from his home, Kresh would be unable to question him. Maybe the forensic labs would be able to come up with something as they sifted through all the physical evidence at the scene. Kresh had a bet with himself that forensics would come up with something—but that it would be misleading. Whoever had done this thing seemed damned clever at leaving clues that did not point anywhere.

  But until something broke with a witness, or evidence, there was damn little he could do.

  No, there was one other possibility. There was always the chance of another incident. Another attack that could give him a pattern, a rhythm, he could work with. Another attack carried out a bit more sloppily. It was a terrible thing for a policeman to wish for a new crime to be committed, but there were precious few other ways he could get a break on this case. What else could he do? Send half the force out randomly searching for robot-soled boots? Surely the perpetrator had destroyed them by now, or else hidden them well indeed, ready for the next attack.

  Alvar struggled to get his mind off the case. After all, he did have a department to run. He managed to get through a worrying report from personnel, regarding a sudden uptick in the number of resignations from the force. But his resistance to distraction did not hold for long. Even that report, with its hints of a danger to the whole future of the department, did not occupy the whole of his mind.

  Because the Settlers were here to take over. He knew that much, deep in his gut. No matter how many denials or reassurances they made, no matter how much noise Governor Grieg made about rapprochement and new eras of cooperation, Kresh would still believe—would still know—the Settlers looked at Inferno simply as a world ripe for colonization.

  For the time being, the Settlers—at least most of them—were making polite noises, being respectful of local culture, but that would not last. Local culture. There was a political code word, if ever there had been one. A euphemism for the use of robots. Some optimists thought that the Settlers on Inferno would grow used to robots, come to see the advantages of robots, and perhaps even return home to their Settler worlds singing the praises of robots. A market would develop for Spacer robots on Settler worlds, and everyone would get rich selling robots to Settlers.

  But Kresh had no such illusions. The Settlers were here to take over, not to be sold serving robots. Once they were firmly in control of Inferno—well, all it took to be done with a robot was a single shot from a blaster. After they had wiped out the robots, the Settlers wouldn’t even need to move against the Spacers. Spacer culture—and individual Spacers—needed robots the way a person needed food and drink. Too many jobs were given over to robots, too many people had never bothered to learn tasks that were more easily left to robots. Without robots, the Spacers were doomed.

  Which brought him back to his central point: What happened to Spacers if robots could no longer be trusted?

  And what if the Settlers engaged in a plot for the express purpose of finding out?

  BLEND in, Caliban told himself. Observe what the other robots do. Behave as they do. Already, he had developed the sophistication to know his very survival might depend on acting like the others. He walked back and forth across Hades, watching and learning, shuttling back and forth across the city as day crossed the sky and night came on.

  6

  GUBBER Anshaw paced the floor of his living room in fretful distraction. They had to have found her by now. Surely they had. But had she survived? The question clawed at his soul. She had been alive when he had left, of that much he was certain. Surely a robot had found her and saved her. That place was teeming with robots. Except, of course, Gubber himself had ordered all the robots to stay away that night. He had forgotten that in his panic.

  But that pool of blood, the terrible way her face was cut, the way she lay so still. He should have stayed, he should have risked all and tried to help. But no, his own fears, his own cowardice, had prevented that.

  And Tonya! His own dear, dear Tonya! Even in the midst of his anguish, Gubber Anshaw found a moment in his thoughts to marvel once again that such a woman would care, could care, for a man like Gubber Anshaw. But now, perhaps, caring for him had only placed her in danger.

  Unless, of course, it was she who had placed him in danger. A tight knot of suspicion pulled taut in his chest. How could he even think such thoughts? But how could he avoid them?

  There were so many questions he dared not ask, even of himself. How mixed up in all this was she? He had sacrificed greatly, perhaps had sacrificed all for her. Had he been right to do so? What would be the consequences of his actions? What had he done that night?

  He glanced toward the comm panel. Every alert light on it was blinking. The outside world was trying to reach him over every sort of comm link he had. No doubt word from Tonya was there, waiting for him with all the others. No doubt she had wangled access to the police reports by now. And no doubt she would know just how eager he was to see those reports.

  Gubber Anshaw paced the floor, worrying, waiting, forcing down the impulse to look at the wall clock. He had covered it with a cloth long ago, anyway. Perhaps his reflexes directed his glance toward the clock, but his conscious self most definitely did not want to know what the time was. He no longer had even the remotest idea how much time had passed, whether or not it was day or night. He could have found out in an instant, of course, by pulling the cover off the clock or by asking a robot. But there was some part of him that urgently resisted knowing.

  In some irrational corner of himself, he was sure he could no longer hide from the universe if he knew what time it was. So long as the hour and the day were hidden from him, he could imagine himself cut off, outside the flow of time, cocooned away behind his shut-down comm panel and his robots, safe inside his little sanctuary, no longer part of the outside world.

  And yet sooner or later, he would have to come out of his house. He would have to step back into time, back into the world. He knew that. But he knew also that his guilty knowledge, the fact of his guilty action, would keep him inside a while longer.

  And Tonya. Tonya. There were two questions about her that swirled about his mind:

  What part had she played in the story?

  And, once this was over, what time would she have for a coward too scared to leave his own house?

  “ALL right, now, li’l robot—point the blaster at your head.” The small repair-services unit turned the nozzle of the blaster on itself, its glowing green eyes staring right down the barrel of the weapon.

  Reybon Derue chortled in drunken hysteria, knowing in some strange, still-sober part of himself how pointless it all was. But, bored with the work, despised by the locals, what else was there for a Settler laborer to do but get drunk? Well, the answer was right in front of him. Robot bashing.

  Except they did not do straight bashing. That had been too easy. What challenge in beating a robot down to scrap when the robot would not, could not, resist? No, this way was far more amusing, and took more skill. There weren’t many people who could talk a robot into killing itself.

  Except even inducing suicide was getting too easy, at least with certain classes of robots. With the more sophisticated machines, it took a long, elaborate discussion with a robot to get it into a state where it would accept an order to destroy itself. But with a unit as unsophisticated as the one in front of him, long practice had made the game too easy. The only tough part left was remembering to order the robots not to use their hyperwave systems to report bashing incidents to the authorities.

  Maybe, Reybon thought, I’ve gotten too good a
t this to bother with the low-end ones. This one was almost too simple.

  “Okay, very good, you tin excuse for a machine,” Reybon said, leaning closer. “Now fire the blaster.”

  The robot fired, and its head vaporized. Its body fell to the floor and dropped the weapon. Reybon roared with laughter and kicked the robot’s ruined carcass.

  The floor was littered with the components of shattered robots. Reybon went over to a severed hand and kicked it clear across the floor of the abandoned warehouse. He stepped back, turned to his fellow laborers, who were sitting on packing cases in the middle of the room. He took a bow. They cheered wildly. One of them tossed him a bottle of something, and he caught it with the odd, neat, fluid dexterity some drunks have. He yanked the top off, and took a long pull from the bottle.

  “Who’s next?” he demanded. “That one was too easy. Who’s gonna get me some stupid hunka metal ’n’ plastic that’s gonna be tougher to crack?”

  Santee Timitz got up. “I’ll go,” she said. “Lemme go find one.” She ambled toward the door of the warehouse, moving a bit slowly. “I’ll get you a really good one.” The rest of the group found that absurdly funny for some reason, and laughed louder and harder than ever.

  “Hey, hey, Reybon,” Denlo said. “Maybe it’s time we got going, huh? Deputy’s gonna show up sooner or later. Maybe we quit while we’re ahead, huh?”

  Reybon walked back to the gang lounging on the packing cases. “Ah, take it easy, Denlo. We’re okay. Santee’ll find us a good one.”

  NIGHT had come, and still Caliban walked the streets of the city, watching, thinking, learning. Robots were utterly, totally subservient to humans, that much he was sure of. Whatever a human told a robot to do, that robot did. Why, he could not imagine.

  Humans were weaker, slower, in some ways at least far less intelligent and competent than robots. But even if the datastore contained no information on robots, Caliban had at least the resonances in the datastore, the remnant hints left behind by whoever had assembled the datastore and then excised the robot data. Those hints, those resonances, seemed to confirm his impression that robot subservience was irrational. In fact, the whispering mood-voice went further than that, implying, insinuating, that the situation was actually dangerous. Caliban had no way of judging that, or even of knowing if the whispers were real projections from the datastore’s creator, or a malfunction, a failure in his own perception.

  Humans. They were the other side of the equation. Many of them seemed to have vast amounts of time for leisure. They lingered in restaurants, relaxed in the parks, read bookfilms in the backseat while the robots drove the cars. Robots had no leisure.

  On the very few occasions in which Caliban saw a robot not working, not fetching or carrying or repairing or building, then that robot would be waiting, standing stock-still, staring straight ahead, unwilling—or perhaps unable—to do anything at all unless it was told to do something. How could they not take advantage of spare moments to explore, enjoy, the world of which they were a part? Strange were the ways of the world; Caliban could better understand human behavior than that of his own kind.

  But at least his observations did teach him how to act, what to do, if he was to avoid any other unpleasant incidents. Act busy. Do what a human tells you to do. It wasn’t much, but it ought to be enough to keep him safe.

  SANTEE was none too steady on her feet, and she half tripped over a bit of trash in the street. But that didn’t matter. Trash in the street was a victory. The sight of trash in a Spacer city that was supposed to be spotlessly clean almost made them seem human. Almost. Maybe it just meant things weren’t in such great shape on this world, but she had known that already. Otherwise, why would the Spacers come to Tonya Welton for help? But littered streets also meant that there were precious few maintenance and street-cleaner robots about. Well, that was all right. Street-cleaners were no real challenge, anyway.

  She would just find another kind of robot and bring it back to the warehouse. Something smarter than a street-sweeper. Something more interesting. She stumbled through the empty streets, looking for prospects. That was the trouble with this game, she decided. The only places in town it was safe to play were the untenanted places, where few humans or robots went.

  Wait a second. There, up ahead. A big red robot, a stylish-looking make. And no one else around. “Hey, you, robot!” she called. “Stop! Turn around and come toward me.”

  Santee grinned eagerly. This one was no half-mindless little street-sweeper. There was obviously money and polish behind this robot. Anyone who spent that kind of money on the frame was bound to have spent even more on the brain. It would be fun messing with this robot’s mind.

  The robot seemed a little slow in turning around, as if it had to think about it for a moment. Maybe it wasn’t so smart. No—no, wait a second. What had they told them in those damned orientation classes? Something about the lower-end robots having less discretion to act, and the higher-end ones being able to evaluate various hierarchies of importance to their orders, and something about setting an owner’s order higher in precedence. With a high enough precedence a robot could be forced to ignore all subsequent orders—ah, hell, she couldn’t remember all the details of that crap. But maybe it meant that a dumb robot would turn around faster. The smart ones would have to think about it for a while.

  Finally the red robot turned around and started toward her. Good. Every once in a while Santee could understand why the damn Spacers put their kids through classes in how to handle robots. It could get complicated.

  Santee stood there, a bit unsteadily, as the big red robot came closer. She had to look up at it when it got close enough. Damn thing had to be a half meter taller than she was.

  A twinge of nervous foreboding went through her as she stared up at those glowing blue eyes. “Hey, robot. You,” she said, quite unnecessarily, slurring her words just a bit. “You come wi’ me.” She lifted her hand and moved her forearm in a somewhat jerky come-along gesture and turned around to lead the robot back to the warehouse where her friends waited. Suddenly her mouth was dry, and she felt a line of prickles down her back. Maybe she should let this one go, find another robot. There was something scary about this one.

  No, that was stupid. A robot may not harm a human being, or through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. That much she remembered, and never mind how much she had dozed off in the back of the orientation lecture. That the instructors drummed into their heads again and again. It was the key fact about robots. It was what made robot bashing possible. No way they could get hurt.

  Santee straightened her back and walked a little taller. There was nothing to fear. She led the way, not altogether steadily, back to the warehouse.

  CALIBAN was confused, and troubled, even alarmed as he followed behind the short, oddly dressed woman with slurred speech and a rather wobbly way of walking. Act like the other robots, he told himself again. Do what a human tells you to do.

  The plan gave him a simple and obvious guide to action, yes—but it was predicated on everyone else knowing the rules, even if he did not. Further, the plan was predicated on everyone else following those unknown rules as well.

  But the moment he stepped into the warehouse, he knew these people were not following any rules at all. There was a strange tension in their postures, a furtiveness in their movements. The hint of viewpoint, of opinion, layered over the objective information in his datastore told him that much and more. The ghostly emotional link whispered to him of danger, of the need for caution.

  He hesitated just inside the door and looked around. The room was big, all but empty, and littered with the debris of destroyed robots. Caliban looked around and saw sundered arms, wrecked bodies, sightless robot eyes broken free from blasted robot heads. Fear, real, solid, fear, gripped at him. The blast of emotion took him by surprise, made it hard to think. What was the use of such feelings when all they could do was cloud his judgment? He wanted no part of them. He forced the emotion do
wn, switched it off. That was a distinct relief, to discover that he could eliminate the strange cloud of human feelings. Now was clearly a time for clear and careful thought.

  Dead robots were strewn about the place. This was no place for him. That much was clear. And it was a safe assumption that the people here were the ones who had destroyed the robots.

  But why? Why would anyone do these things? And who were these people? Clearly they were different from the people he had seen walking the streets of Hades. They dressed differently, and spoke differently, at least judging from his encounter with the woman who had led him here. Curiosity held him where he was, made him stand and look at the little knot of people sitting on the packing cases in the center of the room.

  “Well, well, Santee. You sure as hell did catch us a big, fancy one,” a tall, bleary-eyed man said as he rose, bottle in hand, and shuffled over to him. “First things first. I order you to use nothing but your speaking voice. You got a name, robot, or just a number?”

  Caliban looked at the man and his oddly disturbing grin. Nothing but his speaking voice? The man seemed to be assuming that Caliban had some other means of communication, though Caliban had no other. But another thought prevented him from pursuing that minor puzzle. It suddenly dawned on Caliban that he had never spoken in all the time since he had awakened. Until this moment he had never even thought to wonder if he could. But now the need arose. Caliban examined his control systems, his communications sublinks. Yes, he knew how to speak, how to control his speaker system, how to form the sounds and order them into words and sentences. He found the idea of speaking to be rather stimulating.

  “I am Caliban,” he said.

  His voice was deep and rich, with no trace of the machine or the mechanical. Even to Caliban’s own ear, it had a handsome, commanding sound that seemed to carry to the four corners of the room, though he had not meant to speak loudly.