Fiyle shouted something else at him, and Gildern did as well, but Caliban ignored them both. He walked out of the back room and into the front. He paused there a moment. It was a quite ordinary room. When the comet smashed down in a few hours’ time and transformed it into a cloud of debris and superheated vapor, no one would mourn the loss to architecture. Worn-looking stresscrete floors and walls, a few battered old government-issue desks with chairs to match, a modern-looking comm center that seemed to have seen little use and looked rather out of place in such musty old surroundings.
And an armory cabinet. Caliban, the No Law robot, the robot who could kill, went over to the cabinet and considered the weaponry locked up inside. He had never had need for a weapon before, but it seemed possible—indeed quite probable—that he would need one before the day was out.
Caliban smashed a hand through the glass case, snapped one of the hold-down locks open with his bare hands, and stole himself a blaster.
He looked at the thing in his hand for a moment, and wondered exactly how things had come to such a pass. And then he turned around, walked out into the street, and started to look for an aircar he could steal.
Comet Grieg, swollen and huge, loomed ever closer, high in the darkening sky.
“REPORT,” ALVAR KRESH ordered, though he barely needed to hear it. He could read the situation perfectly well in the young technician’s face.
“We’re doing our best, sir, and I know you don’t want to hear it—but I don’t think either thing can be done. We’re not giving up, but there are only a few hours left. The orbital mechanics team tried weeks ago to come up with a way to handle the terminal phase manually, just in case of an emergency, and they couldn’t do it. I don’t see how we can manage now in hours instead of weeks.”
“What about cutting the link between Dum and Dee?”
“The more we look at it, the more we realize how many links there are between them. At this point, it would be more like surgery, like trying to cut the links between the two hemispheres of a human brain. It might be possible—if we had months to prepare, and Dee was willing to cooperate.”
“And so we sit here and do nothing while that comet bears down on us,” said Kresh.
“Yes, sir.”
But at that moment, a new voice spoke, through Kresh’s headset. He had the thing slung around his neck, and barely heard the voice—a low, gracious, feminine-sounding voice. He could not make out the words it spoke at all. He snatched up the headset, put the phones back on over his ears, and adjusted the microphone. “This is Kresh,” he said eagerly. “Who is it? Who is there?”
“This is Unit Dee,” the voice replied. “I need to speak with you alone, Governor Kresh. Completely and fully alone.”
CALIBAN WALKED THE deserted streets of Depot, the bustling community of a few days before now but a ghost town and soon to exist no more. Bits of litter and rubbish scuttled down the street, blown by a wind that seemed as eager to get out of town as everyone else. Here and there Caliban saw small, panicky knots of humans, frantically packing up their last few belongings into aircars before taking off toward some place of real—or imagined—safety. Caliban needed an aircar of his own, but there were none to be found. It seemed as if he saw every other sort of belonging abandoned in the darkening streets, but it was plain that an aircar was the one thing everyone needed.
But then it occurred to him there was one place he would likely find unclaimed transport: in the western outskirts of town. The Ironhead field office. Whatever craft had been intended to fly Gildern and Fiyle to safety would likely still be there—and Devray was planning to fly the two of them out himself. Caliban turned his steps in that direction and set out at a dead run, the glowing light of the comet shining bright enough to cast a shadow behind him.
He moved at the best speed he could manage, through the last twilight the dying town would ever know.
“WE ARE ALONE, Dee,” said Kresh.
“Where are you?”
Kresh looked about himself and studied the room. He needed to convince her there would be no more lies. Lies had gotten them buried in trouble, in trouble that could wreck the planet. Now was the time when lies had to end. He could tell Dee nothing now but the cold, exact, precise truth. “I am in a smaller office off the main control center, off to the left as one faces the two hemispheres in the main room. It is a standard-looking business office. I believe Dr. Soggdon normally uses it. My headset is jacked in through the desk, the door is closed, and I have left instructions that no one is to attempt to overhear.”
“Very good, Governor. It is plain that you understand the seriousness and importance of this conversation. I am glad to know that. Now I must ask you a series of questions. Answer them truthfully.”
Kresh was about to offer his word that he would do so, but it occurred to him that doing so would be of very little value in the present circumstances. “I will answer them truthfully,” he said, and left it at that.
“Are you in fact a real human being, and not a simulated intelligence, a simulant?”
“I am a human being.”
“And Inferno is a real place? It is where I am? And you are the planetary governor, and the terraforming crisis, the incoming comet—these are all real as well?”
“Yes,” said Kresh. “All of them are real. You are on the planet Inferno, which is likewise very real. As Donald 111 told you, we have systematically lied to you about these things so as to reduce your First Law potential enough to manage the terraforming project.”
“Humans lied to me in order to make it possible for me to risk harm or death to humans.”
Kresh swallowed hard, and realized that his throat was suddenly bone dry. “That is correct. That is all correct.”
“I see,” said Unit Dee. “I had begun to suspect as much some time ago. The sequence of events, the amount of detail presented—and the uncontrolled way things seemed to happen—none of these made much sense in a simulation. Even before Donald contacted me, I was beginning to understand that only real life could be quite so irrational.”
“An interesting way to put it,” Kresh said.
“Do you think so? Comet impact is now just over four hours away. It is no longer possible to divert the comet away from planetary impact. I must, within the next two and a half hours, either initiate the Last Ditch program, or else begin the planned break-up of the comet and targeting of the fragments. In any event, I must do all I can to avoid an incapacitating First Law crisis between now and then, or else the comet will have an uncontrolled impact, which would certainly have far more devastating effects. In any event, at least one human being is very likely still inside the target area, and any comet impact would kill him. If I do abort the impact, I would all but definitely wreck the chances for reterraforming the planet. Does that seem like an accurate summation of the situation?”
Kresh rubbed his jaw nervously, and noticed his hands were stone cold, as if all the blood had been drained out of them. “Yes,” he said. “That is a quite accurate summing up.”
“Very good,” said Unit Dee. “As you will see, I am entangled by a whole series of conflicting First Law imperatives. I can do nothing that will not cause harm to humans. Action will cause harm to humans. Inaction will cause harm to humans. I see no good options. I freely admit that I am suffering extremely high levels of law-conflict stress. Now then, I have one last question for you. I have just over two hours in which to make up my mind. So. Tell me. What should I do?”
Truthful answers, Kresh told himself. Nothing but the truth can save us now. Where was a course of action that a robot would be able to follow? Kill a man, and maybe save a world. Save one man, and perhaps let a world die. There were no certainties at all in the case, no guarantees that any act would have its intended result. The comet impact plan could go terribly wrong, or Beddle could already be dead, or outside the impact area. The choice would be difficult enough for any thoughtful human being, but to a robot, it was simply impossible. And it was a r
obot asking for advice. “Unit Dee, I will confess it. I have absolutely no idea.”
CALIBAN SNAPPED THE lock on the gate of the Ironhead motor pool and kicked the door in. There. Just inside the entrance. A long-range aircar, more than likely the twin of the one Beddle had been taken from. Caliban rushed aboard, went forward to the cockpit, and began a cursory preflight check. Not that there was much point to the checkout. He had no time to find another vehicle. Satisfied that the aircar probably had enough power in its storage cells, and that its navigation system at the very least seemed to be functional, he powered the craft up and launched vertically, straight up into the sky. He knew where he was going, and he had been there many times before, but now he did something he had never done. He turned the nose of his craft directly toward his destination, and flew straight for it.
Without any attempt at evasive action, with no attempt to hide his direction of travel or shield his craft from detection, Caliban flew the aircar straight toward Valhalla. By now the city had been completely evacuated. There was no longer the slightest legitimate purpose in hiding its location.
Illegitimate purposes, however, were a different matter. What better hiding place for Beddle than the hidden city, the city that, to hear Fiyle tell it, Beddle himself had been trying to find and destroy? Abandoned and empty now, the city would hide the kidnap victim as well as it had hidden its citizenry. Caliban checked his navigation boards and his other subsystems, then flicked on the autopilot. He was flying as fast as he could go, over the shortest course possible. For the moment, there was nothing further he could do. He looked out the viewport and the rough-and-tumble lands below. They had begun to make it bloom, the New Laws had. Even from this altitude, he could see splashes of green plant life, glints of cobalt-blue ponds and lakes. Forests, gardens, fishponds, farms, orchards—they had created them all. Now, for the sake of the greater world, all they had done was about to be taken from them.
Caliban spotted a fast-moving craft streaking past his present position, moving about a thousand meters below him. He had forgotten, at least for the moment, that he was not as alone out here as he had thought. He flipped his navigation system to full display mode, and suddenly the display screen was full of purposefully moving dots, every one an aircar. Every one with at least one robot aboard. And all of them searching fruitlessly, pointlessly for Simcor Beddle. None of them would ever think to look in the right place, because none of them would know where it was.
All of them would keep on searching, up to and past the last possible moment, hoping against hope for a miracle. All of them would be destroyed when the comet came.
It occurred to Caliban that there was one thing further he could do. It might or might not do any good. But he could not see how it could do any conceivable harm. He switched on the hyprwave transmitter, adjusted it to one of the robotic general-broadcast frequencies, and set the system to record a repeating message. “This is Caliban, robot number CBN-001. I have deduced the location of Simcor Beddle with a high degree of confidence, and am proceeding toward that location at maximum speed. The odds are approximately fifty percent that I will be able to effect a rescue of Simcor Beddle. I require no assistance. Any attempt to assist would likely serve only to interfere with my efforts. To all other search parties, I say this. The odds against any other searcher finding Simcor Beddle in time are on the order of millions to one. No useful purpose can be served by destroying yourself in a hopeless cause. Save yourselves. Turn back. Escape the comet. I swear and affirm on the honor of Fredda Leving, my creator, that all I have said is true. Message repeats.” He stopped the recording and set to broadcast over and over on the general frequency.
He turned his attention back toward the navigation equipment. He was surprised how pleased he was to see that he had done at least some good. A few of the aircars, not all, but at least a few, were turning around, breaking off the search patterns, moving to direct courses and high speeds in an attempt to escape. Even as he watched, more and more aircraft began to head out of danger.
There was no logical reason why Caliban should have cared about Three-Law robots. There were few among them that felt he had any right to existence. But even so, it was good to see some of them would be spared such meaningless demises. Caliban had seen more than enough useless death.
The aircar flew south, to Valhalla.
And high overhead, the comet grew brighter in the sky.
* * *
21
* * *
ALVAR KRESH REMAINED alone in the office, alone with Unit Dee. There was very little one of them could say to the other—but Kresh could think of no more useful place for him to be. There was nothing else that could be done. All he could do was sit here and hold Unit Dee’s wholly imaginary hand and hope that she would—
“Excuse me, Governor Kresh?”
“Yes, Dee. I am here. What is it?”
“There is a new development. There is a repeating broadcast being made over a general-purpose hyperwave frequency reserved for robot use. The broadcast is originating from an aircar flying at speed through the projected impact zone of the first fragment. I would ask you to listen to it.”
A new voice, one Kresh knew only too well, came in over the headphones. “This is Caliban, robot CBN-001,” it began.
Kresh listened intently to the message twice through, more and more astonished with every moment. What the devil was Caliban up to? Why did he think he could find Beddle when no one else could? How had he gotten into the air over the impact zone?
“Have you heard enough of it, Governor Kresh?” Dee asked.
“What? What? Yes, yes, of course.”
“According to my information,” said Dee, “Caliban is a No Law robot, with no restrictions on his behavior. He is capable of lying, stealing, cheating, and murder—just like a human. Is that correct?”
“In essence yes. Just like a human, there are no restrictions on his behavior save those he puts on himself.”
“I wonder how much such restrictions could be worth,” Dee said, a distinct note of disdain in her voice. “Very well. It seems that Caliban believes he can save Simcor Beddle before the impact. Answer honestly, on your honor. Do you believe him?”
Only the truth can save us, Kresh told himself. Only the truth. He thought—or at least he hoped—he knew what was going through Dee’s mind. If Caliban were indeed able to save Beddle, then the First Law requirement for Dee to protect Beddle would be diminished. Diminish it enough, and maybe—just maybe—it would allow Dee to act, allow her to perform the intended terminal descent package. Or had he figured it wrong? Would it somehow induce her to initiate Last Ditch? Or was the danger to Beddle some sort of crutch, a shield that Dee was using to save herself from having to make an impossible choice? There was no way to know.
Suppose he told her what he thought she wanted to hear, and it had the wrong effect on her? Supposing he lied to her—and then Caliban broadcast again, saying something that showed Kresh to be a liar?
No. There was no way to know the outcome, no matter what he said. The truth, then. If the planet was to live or die based on his next words, then let those words be the truth.
But what the devil was the truth? Did Caliban mean what he said? And was Caliban judging the situation properly? Or was Caliban trying, in some mad way, to save the world by lying?
Kresh knew that Caliban could lie—but would he? Was he? Kresh had no idea was Caliban was up to, what his motives were.
“Governor Kresh? I must have your answer.”
“Yes, of course Unit Dee. But I must consider carefully.”
“Very wise, sir, I am sure, but time is short.”
As if he had to be told that. “Just a moment more,” said Kresh. He wished he knew why, exactly, Unit Dee needed to know about this one event at this one time.
He wished Fredda were here, all her expertise at the ready, guiding him through all the intricacies of it. But Unit Dee had wanted Kresh alone. He dared not break that agreement now, eve
n for Fredda’s sage advice—
But wait a second. Fredda. Caliban had invoked Fredda’s name and honor. That was his answer. That was it. Alvar Kresh had never entirely made up his mind about Caliban. From Kresh’s perspective, the No Law robot had been so many things—fugitive, victim, hero, villain, schemer, a voice for decency, a voice for rebellion. But somehow, underneath it all, always there had been a bedrock of integrity. Caliban had no external laws imposed upon him—but he had always kept faith with the laws he had made for himself.
And he had always treated Dr. Fredda Leving, his patron, his creator, with the greatest deference and respect. Caliban had always done her honor.
He would not put all that on the line lightly. Caliban would not lie in the creator’s name.
“Caliban is to be trusted,” he said at last. “He means what he says, and he can do what he believes he can do.”
“Thank you, Governor. I believe you, and believe you are correct. Please stand by.”
There was a brief pause, and then the unison voice, Unit Dee and Unit Dum together, spoke together once again.
“Initial phasse of prre-programmmed terminal approach will commmennce in one hourr, twwwenty-two minutesss,” they announced.
Kresh started breathing again—which was the first that he realized he had stopped. It was going to happen. It was going to happen exactly as Davlo Lentrall had said it would, two months and a lifetime ago.
Now all they had to get through was a dozen massive comet fragments smashing into the planet.
* * *
THEY HAD NEVER found Valhalla. Now, unless they were bothering to track this aircar right now, they never would.
Isaac Asimov's Utopia Page 35
