Caliban - Caliban 01

by Roger MacBride Allen

Pallichan suddenly realized that his own aircar was tooling along, at a quite leisurely pace, straight north over Aurora Boulevard, the direction the rogue robot had taken. He looked through the forward windscreen and his stomach turned to a block of ice. There were at least four blue aircars on the scene, two of them landing, the others taking up very aggressive patrol stations. It was hard to be certain, but he thought he could even catch sight of a led-painted robot, still moving rapidly northward.

  Centor’s aircar shuddered and bucked in the air turbulence caused by the Sheriff’s cars. Pallichan was not a forceful or adventurous man, not by any means. Any slight sense of curiosity he might have concerning the sequel of his report to the police vanished in an instant. “Turn the car, you fool!” he cried out to his robot. “Turn! Turn! Get us out of here.”

  The fear and panic in his voice was clear, and the robot pilot clearly understood the urgency of the command. He turned the car on its ear as it jinked down and to port, diving the car between two towering office buildings, roaring down the canyoned streets of the central city. Pallichan ‘ s fingers dug into the arms of his flight chair, and he broke out in a cold sweat. At last the car slowed a bit and put its nose upward as the pilot robot guided them toward a more prudent altitude.

  Pallichan sat there, gasping for breath, his heart pounding, as his aircar banked gently toward home.

  That was enough, he decided. Enough indeed. If that was what excitement was like, he had had just enough to suit Centor Pallichan for a lifetime and beyond. Life was meant to be orderly, controlled, reasonable. The universe was supposed to remain always as it was, in a steady, happy balance of calm. Disobedient robots? Mad police chases? That sort of chaos was not the way of things. Something had to be done about it.

  But that thought brought him up short. For it suddenly dawned on him that a universe of chaos and uncertainty, such as had been so abruptly revealed to him, was unlikely to modify its behavior merely because Centor objected. What step could he take? Write a stiff letter to the Governor? Organize all the right-thinking people who wished merely to be left alone, bring all the most placid and hermetic of Inferno’s citizenry into a group as rough-and-ready as those frightful Ironheads? Have them forcibly demand that things stop happening and get back to normal?

  But another thought struck at him, almost physically. Suppose, just suppose, that it was the nature of things to keep happening, that it was the long placidity of life on Inferno that was the aberration? Suppose that aberration was even now being swept away, and the tumultuous ferment of the universe at large was even now crashing down upon them all?

  What if there was no “normal” to get back to?

  Centor Pallichan felt his hands trembling with fear, and knew his tremors had more to do with what he might see soon than what he had just seen recently. “Take me home,” he told his pilot robot. “Take me home, where it is safe.”

  CALIBAN heard the sound behind him as he ran and recognized it as the swooping air-rush of aircars coming in fast and low. He heard the squeal of wheels slamming down onto pavement and knew that several of the cars had landed on the avenue. No doubt others would land ahead of him. Yes, he could see them up ahead. For me, he thought. All of them are after me. I am some terrible threat to them, for reasons I do not understand. They will destroy me if they can. He knew it to be a certainty, not a chance or a theory or a probable hypothesis.

  By now he was quite good at judging by partial evidence, he realized in some detached part of his mind that was not occupied with the need for escape and survival. But even as he made that observation about his own thought processes, he had started evasive action. He stopped abruptly and turned right, down a narrow alley as the aircars swept by overhead, unable to stop in time to make the turn. Three, four, five, six of them. But they would not be put off so easily. This time the search, the hunt, was well and truly on. They would not stop until they had him. The fact that they had sent so many aircars and deputies after him told him that much very clearly. But where to turn? Where to hide? The question suddenly became even more urgent as the alley came to an abrupt end in a blank wall.

  He turned, and saw a door leading into the building whose wall made up the north side of the alley, and another door on the south wall. Caliban tried the first door and found that it opened easily. He was about to rush through it when an idea came to him. He tried the door on the south wall of the alley and found it securely locked. Good. Perfect. Caliban smashed the south door open, ripping it off its hinges. Then he returned to the door on the north side and went through it, closing it carefully after him.

  It must be, he thought, an exceedingly old trick, and even a rather obvious one. But they would not know how to deal with a robot capable of trickery and deception, however simple that deception might be. They would underestimate him, he was sure of it. And that was knowledge he could use.

  He made his way into the building and set about finding a way to escape.

  THEIRS was the first car to respond, Tansaw knew that much. Still and all, it wasn’t going to do them any good. At least three other cars had been in better position to get in there first and fast. Mirta had flown well enough to beat two of them to the punch, but there was still Jakdall’s car, right on their nose. There was no way they could get past them to make the pinch. Burning hell, there he was! A devil-red robot running down the middle of the road. They had him! No, damnit, they didn’t. The robot turned suddenly and dove into an alley. Jakdall’s car popped open its airbrake louvers and landing gear, reversing thrust, pulling in for a speed landing. Mirta jinked their own nose higher to avoid a midair collision, the air thumping and roaring past as they hit Jakdall’s turbulence and rattled through it. That did it. No matter how good a pilot Mirta was, she was not going to be able to avoid overshooting. Damnation! They should have been expecting the red bastard to dodge away like that. Yes, a standard robot would not have attempted evasive action, but then a standard robot would not be running away from the police. They had all been warned in the briefing to expect “atypical behavior” from this robot. And now they were out of the game. No way they could get back in position before Jakdall and the other units closed in.

  Tansaw suddenly realized that Mirta had not brought their nose back down. They were still headed up and out. Tansaw was about to say something about that when he was thrown forward against his seat restraints and the nose thrusters roared. His stomach turned to lead as Mirta slammed reverse thrust on and used the nose jets to force the car over on its tail, braking hard with the reversers as she skewed their nose up. The car’s structural members groaned and thrummed under the strain, and the danger alarm started to go off. Tansaw let out a gasp of air as Mirta cut the reversers and nose jets simultaneously. The car hung in free fall for a split heartbeat and then lurched forward as Mirta slammed them into forward acceleration again.

  But still Mirta did not bring the car level. She forced the nose skyward, angling up more and more sharply until the car was all but standing on its tail. Tansaw grabbed the armrests of his chair and hung on for dear life. The nose angled up more and more until they were flat on their backs, and still she did not angle back. Burning devils, she was going for a full loop! Up and over now, the car arcing over, flying fully upside down for an endless moment.

  Tansaw looked down through the overhead ports, and saw the land where the sky should have been, looked down at the gleaming cityscape spread out below, the dawning sun lighting up the east, its warm rays just catching the bases of the most westerly towers, civilian aircars scattering like a startled flock of birds as the sky-blue sheriff’s cars zeroed in on their quarry.

  Then Mirta pointed the nose down and they arced over, straight down, diving for the ground, the normally silent aircar groaning with the strain, the air screaming past them as they dropped.

  Down, down, down. Tansaw stole a quick glance at Mirta. She was grim-faced, determined, her jaw set, concentrating fiercely.

  At the last possible moment she pulled up a
nd hit the thrust reversers. They were back over Aurora Boulevard, a hundred meters south of where they had been when the robot had turned, still moving damn fast.

  Mirta leveled them out and fired the nose jets again, fighting the car as it tried to flip over in flight. Suddenly the nose jets died and they were turning, arcing gracefully to a halt in the alley, not ten seconds behind Jakdall and his partner, hovering to a smooth halt in midair.

  With a bump and thump, Mirta dropped their landing gear, cut power, and had them on the ground.

  “Damn good flying, Mirta,” Tansaw said, wondering if Sheriff Kresh would see it that way, or throw her off the force as a menace to navigation. But one thing was for sure--if there ever came a debate over the wisdom of human-piloted sheriff’s cars, Tansaw could point to the ride he had just taken. No robot would ever have flown that way, never mind how urgent the need.

  But this was no time for worrying over such matters, and his partner was clearly in no mood for small talk. Mirta, still grim and grey-faced, popped the hatch on her side of the car and was out on the ground before Tansaw even had his restraint straps off. He popped his own hatch and scrambled out, weapon drawn. Strange and terrifying thought, that he felt the need of a blaster going up against a robot.

  Tansaw took some small satisfaction from realizing that Jakdall and his partner were blowing the last of their lead merely by taking their time disembarking, weighted down by hell’ s own collection of equipment. Apparently Jakdall was determined to be prepared for not just anything, but everything. Guns, knives, body armor, inertial trackers, cutting tools, a half dozen gadgets Tansaw didn’t even recognize--Jakdall had everything but underwater gear strapped to himself. His partner, Sparfinch, was even more laden down, with a jumpy, nervous look in his eyes. The kid was drawn as tight as a cable under tension. Not for the first time, Tansaw thanked whatever luck it was that he had been paired with Mirta and not Sparfinch.

  Jakdall grinned. He gave Tansaw and Mirta a mock salute. “Nice flying, kids, but there’s no prizes for second. We’re taking the lead on this. Come on, Spar. Let’s go fry a robot.”

  “Orders are to capture,” Mirta said warningly.

  “Oh, yeah, they sure are. But it might get a little too hot for that.” Jakdall laughed and winked. “Come on, Spar.” Without thought or question, he turned toward the torn-out, smashed-up door on the south side of the alley.

  Jakdall gestured for Spar to head in while Jak covered him. Spar hesitated just in front of the door, his eyes rolling nervously. He drew his weapon and did a wholly needless tuck-and-roll dive into the building. The interior was open to plain view--there was no one in there. That robot wasn’t going to duck inside the first room it came to and hide. Jak made ready to follow his partner in when suddenly there was a muffled roar and thump from the interior.

  “Got him!” Spar’s voice cried out. Jak, Tansaw, and Mirta rushed inside. Spar was standing over the burned-out hulk of a small, moss-colored robot. Jak took one look at it and let out a string of curses. “Damn you, Spar, that robot’s green! It’s just a building maintenance unit.”

  “I can’t help it,” Spar said in an agitated voice. “I’m colorblind.”

  “Ah, the hell with it. Come on, we’ll search through there.” Jak turned toward Tansaw. “You two coming?”

  “No, you guys go ahead,” Tansaw said. “We’ll stand watch here and make sure he doesn’t double back.” Mirta turned and looked at him sharply, but Tansaw gestured for her to be quiet, out of Jak’s line of sight. Jak grinned hugely and laughed at them. “Brilliant plan, Tan. You always were good on the backup jobs. Come on, Spar.”

  Mirta watched the two of them clump noisily out of the back room, headed toward the front of the building, then turned toward Tansaw, obviously seething. “Damnit, Meldor, do you have to let them steal our thunder when I practically bent the aircar in half getting us here? We should be hunting with them, not guarding some damn door!”

  “Easy, Mirta. I just didn’t want us getting our heads blown off when Spar decides we’re robot-shaped. The rogue didn’t come through here. He just wanted us to think he did. Look at the room. The door’s smashed to pieces but everything in here is untouched. Let those two maniacs blunder around in here. My guess is that the robot is smarter than Jak is--though that’s not really saying too much about the robot.” He turned and stepped back out into the alley, Mirta right behind him. The alley was filled with cops by now, two or three of them heading in the smashed-down door even as Tansaw and Mirta came out. Tansaw crossed the alley and tried the other door. It swung open easily. With a glance at Mirta, Tansaw stepped inside. He knew, absolutely knew, that this was the way the robot had gone.

  But he also knew he didn’t much like the idea of tracking a robot who was capable of thinking in terms of diversionary tactics. And that second piece of knowledge did much to remove the savor from the first piece.

  They moved into the gloomy interior of the building. There was very little inside, merely a forest of packing cases that had never been cracked open. Hades was full of such buildings--designed, built, stocked with equipment by robots and forgotten. Most of the ghost buildings were like this one, wholly complete, but left vacant. The ghosts were gifts from on high to criminal gangs of all sorts, ideal places to meet, to hide out, perfect headquarters from which to run their scams and crimes.

  It looked as if this building had gotten all the way to furniture delivery before being shut down. The crates were neatly stacked everywhere, turning the first floor into a maze of hiding places. And then there were the floors above and the subbasements and service tunnels below. Even if the rogue had come in here, how the hell would they ever know it, or find him?

  Then Mirta grabbed his arm and pointed her handlamp down at the floor.

  Dust. The floor was covered in a smooth, perfect film of dust--with one set of distinctly robotic footprints leading off into the interior, moving at a smooth and confident pace.

  The two deputies followed the line of footprints through the canyons of packing cases. They led straight for a stairwell, its door standing open. Moving cautiously, Mirta and Tansaw went inside, to be greeted by a cool breeze blowing down the shaft, which apparently also served as part of the ventilator system. But the air currents meant no dust deposits here. No footprints. Damn it. All right, then. Up or down? Which way did he go?

  “He headed straight for the stairs,” Mirta said, her voice a loud whisper.

  “So what does that tell us?” Tansaw asked.

  “That he knows where he’s going. He must have a good internal map system. He’s not moving in a panic. He’s got a plan, he’s thinking ahead.”

  “Which means he must have figured out that heading up isn’t going to do him any good. We’ d be able to seal off the building and bottle him up. So he went down into the service tunnels.” That was always bad news. The tunnels went everywhere, to allow the maintenance robots to bring in supplies and services without adding to street congestion. And despite all official statements to the contrary, every cop knew there were lots of tunnels that did not appear on any map. Some had just been dug and then forgotten, some had been deliberately erased from the map memories--and some had been dug by robots in the employ of enterprising freelancers of one sort or another.

  “Right.” Mirta holstered her gun and pulled her tracker/mapper out of her tunic. She worked the controls and consulted the screen. “Not so bad around here,” she said. “I only show one main horizontal shaft connecting to this building.”

  “Can we seal it before he can use it to get to another tunnel?” All the tunnels--all the official tunnels, at least--were equipped with heavy-duty vault-style doors.

  “We can try,” Mirta said. “It’ll be close, one way or the other.” She brought her comm mike around to her mouth. “This is Deputy 1231, in rapid pursuit of suspect. Request immediate seals on all accesses to city tunnel number A7 B26.” She listened to her headset for a moment, and Tansaw felt as much as heard a series o
f muffled, far-off clanging thuds. “That ought to do it,” she said. “If he didn’t get out of B26 before we sealed it, we have him now.”

  Tansaw looked up at his partner and nodded. “It’s time to call in the others,” he said.

  CALIBAN heard the booming thuds of the tunnel doors slamming shut. He had been moving at a fast, steady, walking pace in the narrow tunnel, but now he broke into a run, hurrying for the end. He came upon it all too soon and knew he was in deep trouble. This door was meant for a full-security seal. He tried to force it open, but obviously it had been specifically designed to be beyond a robot’s strength, with a locked and armored control panel as well. He consulted his datastore map.

  Tunnel A 7 B26 was “H”-shaped, with the access to the building above in the center of the cross member, and the four ends of the vertical members linking into the main city tunnel system. The tunnel itself was barren, nothing but bare walls, floors, and ceilings, with glow lamps set into the ceiling’s overhead crossbeam supports. The beams looked to be some sort of plasteel, twenty centimeters square in cross section, spaced at five-meter intervals.

  Suddenly Caliban had an idea. He consulted his datastore and confirmed that humans saw in a far more limited range of light wavelengths than he did. Nor, it appeared, did their bodies provide any source of built-in illumination. He turned around and hurried back down the tunnel, at top speed, yanking out the glow lamps, crushing them, heaving the debris in all directions. Within sixty seconds the floor of the tunnel was littered with broken lamps. It was in absolute darkness, but for the dim glow of two impossibly blue eyes about twenty meters from the building access hatch. But then Caliban shifted to infrared, and even that illumination faded away. He stretched out his arms to one wall of the tunnel, braced his legs against the opposite wall, and walked his way up until he was braced against the ceiling, between. two of the overhead supports. The odds seemed at least a little better that he would stay out of sight there. He had no real plan, no idea of how to get out. All he knew was that he had more chance of staying alive a little longer if he kept out of sight in the dark, rather than waiting passively for his fate.