Utopia - Caliban 03

by Roger MacBride Allen

  He bowed once more to Dr. Leving, turned and headed toward the door.

  “Wait!” Dr. Leving called out. “What is it? What’s in that datacube?”

  Gildern looked back toward her with genuine surprise. “You haven’t figured that out? I expect your husband has.”

  “It took me a minute, but I have,” said Kresh. “Lentrall told me there were two break-ins at his lab. One to steal copies of his data, and the other to destroy the originals. I should have figured it out long ago. Lucky for you I didn’t.”

  “Will one of you tell me?” Fredda demanded. “What’s in that thing?”

  Gildern smiled unpleasantly at her. “Why, Comet Grieg, of course. All of Dr. Lentrall’s calculations and data regarding its location, trajectory, mass, and so on. It’s all there.” He looked from Leving to Kresh and nodded his head at the governor. “Now, then, if you’ll excuse me, I must leave at once. I’m expected at some little town called Depot in the middle of the Utopia region. There’s no suborbital service from here. I’m going to have to fly in a long-range aircar, and it is going to be a very long flight indeed.”

  Kresh picked up the cube and smiled coldly at Gildern. “See our friend out, Donald,” he said. “I have a speech to prepare.”

  “I look forward to hearing it, Governor,” Gildern said. And with that, he followed the small blue robot out of the room.

  LANCON-03 PLACED THE call to Anshaw as soon as Governor Alvar Kresh had completed his speech, in which Kresh had just confirmed that the government was working on the comet project, and that the Utopia region was the target. Lacon-03 knew perfectly well that there was little Gubber Anshaw could do, but on the other hand, the New Law robots had precious few friends, and now was the moment when they would need all the help they could get.

  Lacon-03 was still using the city leader’s office in Prospero’s absence. It had one of the few fully shielded and untraceable hyperwave sets in the city. Of course, if Valhalla were about to be destroyed, how much difference could it make if someone managed to tap the call and zero in on their location?

  Gubber Anshaw’s image appeared on the screen. “I was expecting your call, friend Lacon,” he said without preamble. “I take it you heard the governor’s speech?”

  “I did,” Lacon replied. “I still have trouble believing they truly intend to drop a comet on us.”

  “Denial is a human trait,” said Anshaw. “I would not advise you to indulge in it. The governor has confirmed the stories regarding the comet, and that is all there is to it. Now you must--we all must--deal with available reality. What is Prospero’s opinion of the situation?”

  “Prospero continues to be unreachable. My expectation is that he was alarmed by the Government Tower incident, or perhaps learned something of a worrying nature. If that were the case, he would elect to travel as discreetly as possible, and would not risk needless communication. At least that is what I hope has happened. Otherwise it might well be that he is dead.”

  “Let’s hope not,” Gubber said.

  “Dr. Anshaw, what are we supposed to do?” Lacon-03 asked. “How can we stop this thing from happening?”

  “You cannot,” said Gubber. “Now, no one can. Too much has been committed to it, too much has been promised, too much energy has been expended. You have told me many times how much New Law robots want to survive. Now they must survive this, as well.”

  “But how are we to do that?” Lancon-03 asked.

  Glibber Anshaw shook his head sadly. “I don’t know,” he said. “If I think of anything, I’ll let you know.”

  GUBBER SAID HIS goodbyes to Lancon-03, wondering just how permanent they were, and returned to his wife’s office. Any hope that Tonya might have calmed down while he was out of the room were dispelled as soon as he set foot in the room. He glanced toward the far end of the room, where Cinta Melloy was sitting. Cinta caught his eye, and shrugged helplessly. Clearly Cinta had decided there was nothing for it but to wait out the storm.

  “The fools,” said Tonya Welton through clenched teeth as she paced the floor. “The bloody, stupid fools.” Two commentators were on the comm screen, in the midst of animated debate on the subject of Comet Grieg. But Tonya slapped at the comm control panel and the image died, cutting them off in midword.

  “I can’t listen to any more of this,” she said, still fuming. “Damn that Kresh! Not only did he publicly commit to the plan, he went and broadcast the precise orbital data for Comet Grieg. It was hard enough erasing one man’s computer files, and we didn’t even manage the kidnapping. Now what the hell do we do? Erase the coordinates from every comm center on the planet?”

  It took a moment for Glibber to realize the implications of what Tonya was saying. “You mean--you mean you were the ones who tried to kidnap Lentrall?” he asked.

  “Of course we were,” Tonya said. “To prevent exactly this from happening. No one else seemed interested in stopping the comet crash.”

  Gubber nodded blankly. Of course it was Tonya. He should have known it in the first place. Why was he always so startled to discover her ruthless streak? When it came to politics, Tonya Welton took no prisoners. “Won’t the CIP find out?” he asked. The question sounded foolish, even to him, but somehow he could think of nothing else to say.

  “Probably,” said Tonya, her tone brisk and distracted. “Sooner or later. If we all live that long.” She turned toward Cinta Melloy. “How the devil did they do it?” she demanded. “How did they reconstruct the comet data?”

  “Does it matter?” Cinta asked. “We always knew there was a chance that there would be a backup copy we missed. “ Cinta Melloy sat on the couch and watched her boss stalking back and forth across the floor. “It’s not important how they did it. The point is that they did.”

  But Tonya was barely listening. Instead she kept pacing, her face a study in furious concentration. “Beddle,” she said at last. “We’ve been pretty sure for a while that informant of ours was working both sides of the street. And then, all of a sudden Beddle’s all for the government, all for the comet plan, before Kresh makes a public statement. Suppose our informant fed the data to Beddle and Beddle fed it back to Kresh before Kresh went to ground?”

  Cinta shrugged. “It’s possible. We tracked Gildern’s long-range aircar headed toward Purgatory. We know from the broadcast just now that Kresh is working at the Terraforming Center there. But what does it matter?”

  “It means that Beddle and Gildern bear watching, that’s what,” said Tonya. “It means they may behind this whole suicidal operation. Why else would they support the government? When was the last time they did that?”

  Gubber Anshaw crossed the room and sat down next to Cinta Melloy. He looked from Tonya to Cinta, and had a feeling that he knew what the security officer was thinking. Even with his thoughts in a whirl, he was thinking the same thing. Tonya was obsessing on this crisis. He had known the truth about Government Tower Plaza for only a few minutes, but he knew Tonya well. If she were frantic enough, desperate enough, to have ordered that fiasco, Dark Space alone knew what else she would be capable of.

  “So what do we do about it all?” Cinta asked, her voice a study in neutrality.

  “Why ask her to choose now?” Gubber asked. “There’s no need for rushed decisions. Better to take time, to study things calmly first.”

  Tonya wheeled about and glared at both of them. “You’re handling me,” she said. “Humoring me. Don’t. I’m still in command of the Settlers on this planet, and don’t you forget it.”

  “I’m not forgetting it for one minute,” Cinta said. “And that’s what scares the living daylights out of me. You’re in charge, and I’ll follow your orders. But your orders have not had good results in recent days.”

  The look on Tonya’s face was indescribable, a tangle of fear, anger, mad fury, hatred, and shame. Gubber saw Tonya raise her hand, as if to strike Cinta in the face.

  “No!” he cried out. “No.”

  Tonya looked at him in shock, a
s if she not were surprised to see him there.

  “No,” he said again, surprised by the firmness in his own voice. When had he even spoken to Tonya, or anyone else, for that matter, in this tone of voice? “Foolishness will accomplish nothing,” he went on. “Now is the time to pause and consider. You are the leader here. Our leader. No one disputes that. So lead us. But do not lead us with fear, or anger, or frustration, or because you do not approve of the available situation. Lead us with reason and care.”

  Tonya looked at him in shock. “How dare you!” she said. “How dare you speak to me that way?”

  “I--I dare because no one else can, and someone must,” Gubber said, his voice unsteadier than he would have liked. “Cinta just tried, and you wanted to strike her for telling the truth. Well, strike me as well, if that is the way of things. I won’t stop you.”

  His heart was pounding, but he forced himself to look up at her steadily. She lowered her hand, than raised it again, but then, at last, let it drop to her side. She turned and walked to the other side of the room, and dropped heavily into a chair. “You’re right,” she said. “But I sure as hell wish you weren’t.”

  The silence in the room was a near-palpable thing for a time. Tonya sat in her chair, staring at nothing at all. Cinta sat stone-still, her gaze moving back and forth between Gubber and Tonya.

  Gubber knew Tonya. He knew she only needed another push, another nudge in the proper direction. And it was plainly up to him to provide that nudge. This was up to him. He cleared his throat and began, speaking in a calm, casual tone that no doubt fooled no one at all. “I’ve just finished speaking with a New Law robot by the name of Lancon-03. Prospero seems to have dropped out of sight, and left her in charge. She had heard the governor’s speech as well, and she called me, asking for advice as to what the New Law Robots should do. That comet is going to drop right on top of them. I couldn’t think of anything to suggest. Can--can you think of anything?”

  Tonya laughed wearily and shook her head. “Oh, Gubber. Dear, dear Gubber. The only thing to tell them is to accept the available universe and the bad situation they are in, and make the best of it. And, of course, their situation is much worse than ours. I think you have made your point.”

  “Very well, then,” he said, pressing one last time, “what are we going to do?”

  Tonya leaned back against the back of her chair, rubbed her eyes, and stared at the ceiling. “We are going to do two things. First off, I want as close a watch as possible put on Beddle and Gildern. There is more going on there than meets the eye. Jadelo Gildern never does anything for just one reason. I want to know what his hidden agendas are this time.”

  “We’re already working on it,” Cinta said, plainly relieved that Gubber had managed to get Tonya to behave sensibly. “What’s the second thing?”

  “The second thing is that we are going to admit defeat.”

  “Ma’am?” Cinta asked, shifting on her seat and looking at Tonya with a puzzled expression.

  “Gubber’s right. There’s no stopping it now,” said Tonya, gesturing toward the sky. “They know where the comet is, and they’re going to go for it, and drop it right down on top of their own damn planet, and trust that every little thing will go right, so they don’t get everyone killed. I still don’t believe they can do it. They don’t have the skill or the experience. And I’ve seen what happens to a world when an attempt like this goes wrong. Some old nightmares have come back to me since we found out about this. I think they’re going to kill the planet. But short of shooting down their space fleet, there’s no way to stop them.”

  Shooting down their fleet? Gubber thought he had talked her around. But maybe not. For a moment of heart-pounding terror, Gubber thought Tonya had gone far enough around the bend to order just such a thing. “You’re not--”

  “No,” said Tonya wearily. “I’m not. Mostly because I don’t think we have the firepower on hand to do it--and because I’m not sure anyone would obey any such orders. But absent that option, there is no way we can stop them. “ Tonya stood up and went back to the comm station. She switched it back on, activated the full-wall flatscreen, and brought up a view of the night sky as seen from the cameras up on the surface. It was a scene of heart-stopping loveliness, the jet-black sky blanketed with a cloud of dimmer stars setting off the larger, brighter ones, white and yellow and blue and red points of color glowing in the night. “And therefore we might as well see to it that they do it right. I’m going to go back to my office and draft an announcement offering our complete cooperation, and access to all our expertise in this area. Maybe we can at least keep the damage to a minimum.”

  Tonya Welton bunched up her shoulders and then let them go limp, a gesture of humiliation and resignation and frustration, all in one. “And of course there is the little matter of their tracking down whoever was responsible for the Plaza attack. Maybe if we start helping out, that will muddy the trail, keep them from kicking us off the planet.”

  She was silent again for a moment, and when she spoke, she all but choked on the emotion she had been struggling to hold in. Anger, frustration, shame, fear, all of them and more welled up in her voice. It was plain that the words were pure gall to her. But it was also plain that words had to be spoken. “And if, or rather when, they do catch us,” she said, “maybe it will count in our favor if we’ve already made amends.”

  THE AIRCAR CRUISED slowly along the silent, empty streets of Depot in the pre-morning darkness and came to a halt not far from the edge of the small town. Prospero operated the controls with the relaxed skill of a master pilot and set the craft down in a small hollow, well out of sight from any of the surrounding buildings.

  “Here’s where I get out,” said Norlan Fiyle with undisguised relief. He stood up and opened the side passenger door of the aircar. He climbed down out of the vehicle and stretched his arms and legs gratefully. “No offense to either of you,” he said through the open door, “but I’m very glad to get out of that damned car.”

  “And what about you, friend Caliban?” Prospero said. “This is your last chance. Are you sure you won’t go with me?”

  “No, friend Prospero,” said Caliban. “Go to Valhalla. You are needed there far more than I. Besides, you might well need a friend on the scene here in Depot. It is better if I remain.” Caliban’s reasons were true enough as far as they went, but they were far from the whole truth. The core, basic, essential reason was that he no longer wished to be close to Prospero, either literally or ideologically. There had been time enough and more to think things over on the long and wearying trip. Prospero was a magnet for risk, for danger. Caliban had had enough of risking his life in the name of causes that were not his own. “I will remain here,” said Caliban. “I will remain in Depot.”

  Fiyle smiled thoughtfully. “Somehow, that sounds very familiar”, he said. “Prospero used almost exactly those words when he and I parted company on Purgatory, years ago.”

  “Let us hope that the journey that begins with this parting works out somewhat better than that one did,” Prospero said.

  “Well, at least this time you’re the one doing the traveling, not me,” said Fiyle. “This is the end of the line for me. At least until the comet hits.”

  “What will you do, Fiyle?” Caliban asked. “Where will you go?”

  The human shook his head back and forth, shrugged, and smiled. “I haven’t the faintest idea. Out. Away. Someplace they won’t look for me. Someplace I can start over. But I’ll stay in Depot for a while. No one knows me here.”

  Depot was the largest human settlement in the Utopia region, which was not saying a great deal. As its name implied, it was little more than a shipping point for the small and scattered settlements of that part of eastern Terra Grande.

  “But why?” asked Caliban. “We have reasons for coming here, but why should you want to hide out in a town that’s going to be destroyed?” said Caliban.

  “Precisely because it’s going to be destroyed,” said F
iyle with a grin. “That right there ought to make it a great place to disappear from. I can cook myself up a new identity, based in Depot, and say whatever I want about the new me. How’s anyone going to check the records, when Depot is a smoldering ruin? And maybe I’ll have a chance to fiddle the town records before they archive them and ship them off. Maybe the records will wind up saying I’m a prosperous businessman with a large bank balance. Once the town is flattened and the population is dispersed, who’ll be able to know for sure that I’m not?”

  Caliban looked steadily at Fiyle for a full five seconds before he responded. “I must say you do think ahead,” he said. “I suppose it is yet another insight into the criminal mind.”

  Fiyle grinned broadly and laughed. “Or perhaps,” he said, “merely an insight into the human mind.”

  “That is a plausible suggestion,” said Prospero, “and therefore a most disturbing one. Farewell, Caliban. Farewell, Norlan Fiyle.”

  “So long, Prospero,” Fiyle replied, a big sidelong grin on his exhausted face.

  And then there was no more to say. Caliban rose up from his seat and climbed down from the aircar. Fiyle closed the door from the outside, and the aircar lifted off, straight up, leaving Caliban and Fiyle behind.

  “Well,” said Fiyle, “if I’m going to try and disappear, might as well get started right away. So long, Caliban.”

  “Goodbye, Fiyle,” Caliban said. “Take care.”

  Norlan smiled again. “You do the same,” he said. He waved, turned around, and started walking down the still-darkened street.

  Caliban looked back toward the aircar as it rose up and swing around to a southerly heading, a small dark smudge of deeper darkness against the slow-brightening dawn. Alone. That was the way he had wanted it. But even so, he could not rid himself of the sense that he had just parted from a vital part of himself. He had been, or at least almost been, one with the New Law robots for a long time.