Inferno - Caliban 02

by Roger MacBride Allen

  ISAAC

  ASIMOV’S

  INFERNO

  BY ROGER

  MacBRIDE

  ALLEN

  Copyright © 1994

  For Isaac

  Acknowledgments

  I wish to thank the many people who helped this book come into being. Thanks to my editor, David Harris, for catching gaffes, large and small, in the first draft, and generally keeping me honest. Thanks to John Betancourt, and Leigh Grossman of Byron Preiss Visual Publications for keeping me as informed as possible about the state of play--and to Byron Preiss for making me diliver. Thanks to Susan Allison, Laura Anne Gilman, and Ginjer Buchanan at Ace Books, for much appreciated advice and encouragement, and a vast supply of undeserved patience. Thanks to Eleanore Fox, who put up with a great deal of typing on the premises when I should have been helping her explore London. Thanks to my parents, Tom and Scottie Allen, who have always provided me with both familial and editorial support.

  But needless to say, thanks most of all to Isaac Asimov, to whom this book is dedicated. It would require a volume longer than this one to tell all of what we owe him. Suffice to say that, without him, there would be no Three Laws, no robots, no Spacers or Settlers--and no Inferno.

  We will miss him.

  --Roger MacBride Allen

  THE ORIGINAL LAWS OF ROBOTICS

  I

  A robot May Not Injure a Human Being, or, Through Inaction, Allow a Human Being to Come to Harm.

  II

  A Robot Must Obey the Orders Given It by Human Beings Except Where Such Orders Would Conflict with the First Law.

  III

  A Robot Must Protect Its Own Existence As Long as Such Protection Does Not Conflict with the First or Second Law

  THE NEW LAWS OF ROBOTICS

  I

  A Robot May Not Injure a Human Being.

  II

  A Robot Must Cooperate with Human Beings Except Where Such Cooperation Would Conflict with the First Law.

  III

  A Robot Must Protect Its Own Existence, As Long As Such Protection Does Not Conflict with the First Law.

  IV

  A Robot May Do Anything It Likes, Except Where Such Action Would Violate the First, Second, or Third Laws.

  THE SPACER-SETTLER STRUGGLE was at its beginning, and at its end, an ideological contest. Indeed, to take a page from primitive studies, it might more accurately be termed a theological battle, for both sides clung to their positions more out of faith, fear, and tradition rather than through any carefully reasoned marshaling of the facts.

  Always, whether acknowledged or not, there was one issue at the center of every confrontation between the two sides: robots. One side regarded them as the ultimate good, while the other saw them as the ultimate evil.

  Spacers were the descendants of men and women who had fled semi-mythical Earth, with their robots, when robots were banned there. Exiled from Earth, they traveled in crude star- ships on the first wave of colonization. With the aid of their robots, the Spacers terraformed fifty worlds and created a culture of great beauty and refinement, where all unpleasant tasks were left to the robots. Ultimately, virtually all work was left to the robots. Having colonized fifty planets, the Spacers called a halt, and set themselves no other task than enjoying the fruits of their robots’ labor.

  The Settlers were the descendants of those who stayed behind on Earth. Their ancestors lived in great underground Cities, built to be safe from atomic attack. It is beyond doubt that this way of life induced a certain xenophobia into Settler culture. That xenophobia long survived the threat of atomic war, and came to be directed against the smug Spacers--and their robots.

  It was fear that had caused Earth to cast out robots in the first place. Part of it was an irrational fear of metal monsters wandering the landscape. However, the people of Earth had more reasonable fears as well. They worried that robots would take jobs--and the means of making a living--from humans. Most seriously, they looked to what they saw as the indolence, the lethargy, and the decadence of Spacer society. The Settlers feared that robots would relieve humanity of its spirit, its will, its ambition, even as they relieved humanity of its burdens.

  The Spacers, meanwhile, had grown disdainful of the people they perceived to be grubby underground dwellers. Spacers came to deny their common ancestry with the people who had cast them out. But so too did they lose their own ambition. Their technology, their culture, their worldview, all became static, if not stagnant. The Spacer ideal seemed to be a universe where nothing ever happened, where yesterday and tomorrow were like today, and the robots took care of all the unpleasant details.

  The Settlers set out to colonize the galaxy in earnest, terraforming endless worlds, leapfrogging past the Spacer worlds and Spacer technology. The Settlers carried with them the traditional viewpoints of the home world. Every encounter with the Spacers seemed to confirm the Settlers’ reasons for distrusting robots. Fear and hatred of robots became one of the foundations of Settler policy and philosophy. Robot hatred, coupled with the rather arrogant Spacer style, did little to endear Spacer to Settler.

  But still, sometimes, somehow, the two sides managed to cooperate, however great the friction and suspicion. People of goodwill on both sides attempted to cast aside fear and hatred to work together--with varying success.

  It was on Inferno, one of the smallest, weakest, most fragile of the Spacer worlds, that Spacer and Settler made one of the boldest attempts to work together. The people of that world, who called themselves Infernals, found themselves facing two crises. All knew about their ecological difficulties, though few understood their severity. Settler experts in terraforming were called in to deal with that.

  But it was the second crisis, the hidden crisis, that proved the greater danger. For, unbeknownst to themselves, the Infernals and the Settlers on that aptly named world were forced to face a remarkable change in the very nature of robots themselves...

  --Early History of Colonization, Sarhir Vadid,

  Baleyworld University Press, S. E. 1231

  PRELUDE

  THE ROBOT PROSPERO stepped out of the low dark building into the night. He approached the man in the pale grey uniform, the man who was standing well away from the light, near to the shore. Fiyle, the man’s name was.

  Prospero moved with a careful, steady tread. He did not wish to make any sudden moves. It was plain to see that his contact was jumpy enough as it was.

  The valise was heavy in Prospero’s hand, the small case packed solid. It seemed proper that it be heavy, with all the futures that were riding on this transaction. If anything, the case seemed rather light, if one considered all the freedom it would buy.

  Prospero came up to the man and stopped a meter or two from him.

  “That the money?” Fiyle asked, the nasal twanginess of his voice betraying his off-world origins.

  “It is,” Prospero said. “Let’s have it, then,” Fiyle said. He took the case, set it down on the ground, and opened it. He pulled a handlight from his pocket, switched it on, and directed the light down onto the bag.

  “You don’t trust me,” Prospero said. It was not a question.

  “No reason why I should,” Fiyle said. “You’d be willing and able to lie and cheat if you had to, wouldn’t you?”

  “Yes,” Prospero said. There was no point in denying something that everyone knew about the New Law robots. Robots that could lie. The idea seemed strange, even to Prospero.

  But then, the idea of a criminal robot was a little strange as well. Fiyle offered the light to Prospero. “Here,” he said, “hold this for me. ” Even here, now, it happened. Even this man, this Settler, deep inside the rustbacking trade, did not give a second thought to ordering a New L
aw robot around. Even he could not remember that New Law robots were not required to obey the commands of a human. Unless the man was merely manipulating him, playing games. If that was the case--

  No. Prospero resisted the impulse to resist, to protest. This was not the time or place to argue the point. He dare not antagonize Fiyle. Not when the human had it in his power to bring the law crashing down on them all. Not when a blaster bolt between the eyes was the standard punishment for a runaway robot. The others were depending on him. Prospero held the light, aiming so the man could easily see the interior of the case. It was filled with stacks of elaborately embossed pieces of paper, each stack neatly wrapped around its middle. Money. Paper money, in something called Trader Demand Notes, whatever those were. Settlers used them, and they were untraceable, and they were of value. That was all Prospero knew--except that it had taken tremendous effort to gather these stacks of paper together.

  Absurd that so many robots could be traded for something as silly as bits of fancy printing. The man ran his hands over the stacks of paper inside, almost caressing them, as if the gaudy things were objects of great beauty.

  Money. It all came down to money. Money to bribe guards. Money to hire the pull artists who could remove the supposedly unremovable restrictors from a New Law robot’s body. With the restrictor in place, a New Law simply shut down if it moved outside the prescribed radius of the restrictor control signal beamed from the central peak of Purgatory Island. With the right money paid, and the restrictor taken out, a New Law robot could go anywhere it pleased.

  If it could manage to find a way off the island. Which is where men such as Fiyle came into the equation.

  Fiyle lifted one of the stacks out and counted it, slowly and carefully, and placed it back in the case. He repeated the procedure with each of the other stacks. At last, satisfied, he closed the case.

  “It’s all there,” he said as he stood.

  “Yes, it is,” Prospero agreed, handing the light back. “Shall we get on with the business at hand?”

  “By all means,” the man said, grinning evilly. “My ship will be tied up at the North Quay. Slip Fourteen. At 0300 hours, the guard watching the security screens is all of a sudden not going to be feeling so good. His staff robot will help him to his quarters, and the screens will be unattended. Because he won’t be feeling well, he’ll forget to turn on the recording system. No one will see who or what gets onto my ship. But the guard expects that he’ll be feeling better and back at his post by 0400. Everything has to be nice and normal by then, or else--”

  “Or else he turns us all in, you make a run for it, and my friends all die. I understand. Don’t you worry. Everything will go according to plan.”

  “Yeah, I bet it will,” Fiyle said. He lifted the case and patted it affectionately. “I hope it’s as worth it for you as it is for me,” he said, his voice suddenly a bit lower, gentler. “Things must be damned hard for you here if you’re willing to pay this much to try and get away.”

  “They are hard,” Prospero said, a trifle taken aback. He had not expected any show of sympathy from the likes of Fiyle.

  “Bet you’ll be glad to get out of here, won’t you?” the man asked.

  “I am not going,” Prospero said, looking toward the quays and the ships and the sea. “It is needful that I remain here and coordinate the next escape, and the one after that. I cannot cross the seas to freedom. ”

  He turned his back on the sea and looked toward the land, the rough, hardscrabble island, and the contradictory, half-free, half-slave existence that was all he had ever known.

  “I must remain here,” he said. “I must remain on Purgatory.”

  1

  IT WAS A dark and quiet killing. A grunt, a gasp, a faint groan muffled by the pouring rain as the dying man breathed his last, a thud as the body dropped to the ground. No scream, no flash and roar of a blaster, nothing but a new corpse in the night and the splattering of raindrops.

  But the man was dead for all of that.

  The quiet would help. With no sound to attract attention, it could easily be hours before anyone found the Ranger’s body. And by then, of course, it would be too late.

  No one would know until it was all over.

  The killer smiled, the expression on his pale face revealing a satiated blood lust, rather than happiness. Revenge was a pleasure of a rare and delicate nature, and one that could be savored long after the event that inspired it. But enough of his own private business. He had another job, a professional matter, to deal with.

  Ottley Bissal stepped over the body, and moved toward the light and glitter of the party at the Governor’s Winter Residence.

  The South Hall of the Winter Residence was getting more crowded, and louder. To an untutored eye, it might well appear to be a calm and pleasant gathering, the movers and shakers of this world brought together for a night of celebration, a recognition of solidarity and cooperation.

  Sheriff Alvar Kresh, watching the proceedings from a quiet corner as far from the bandstand as possible, did not see it that way. Not one little bit. “Well, Donald,” he said, turning toward his companion. “What do you think?”

  “Most unsatisfactory, sir,” Donald replied. Donald 111 was Kresh’s personal assistant, and one of the more advanced robots on the planet--certainly the most advanced police robot. He was painted the sky-blue of the Sheriffs Department, and built in a short, rounded-off approximation of the human form.

  High-function, high-intelligence police robots like Donald had their Three-Law potentials adjusted so as to allow them a large degree of independent action and that tended to put people off just a trifle. For precisely that reason, Donald had been carefully designed to be as unimposing, unintimidating, as possible. Donald was a robot of unassuming appearance, all rounded corners and gentle contours. “Captain Melloy’s Settler Security Service forces have shown themselves to be even more inept than reputation would have them,” he said. “Their main accomplishment tonight seemed to be getting in the way of the Governor’s Rangers.”

  “As if the Rangers needed help getting muddled,” Kresh growled.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Alvar Kresh leaned back against the wall and felt the thrumming vibration that seemed to pervade everything on the south shore of the island. The Terraforming Center, of course, its powerful force field generators at work, quite literally straining to turn the wind around, struggling to rechannel the planetary airflows into new and more beneficial patterns.

  He glanced out the window, seeing nothing but the driving rain. Most nights on the island of Purgatory you could see the force fields shimmering in the far-off, high-up darkness, sheets of rippling, flickering color that flashed across the sky. Not tonight. Ironic that a reception concerned with the politics of terraforming was being held in the middle of a torrential downpour.

  But so far as Kresh was concerned, the only question was whether the rain made the situation safer or more dangerous. It made things tough on the perimeter guards standing out in it, of course--but then, maybe a potential assassin would have a problem or two as well.

  Alvar shook his head sadly. Things were a mess. If only he could bring his own deputies and robots in here to provide security. But neither they nor he had any jurisdiction outside the city of Hades. He was here merely as a member of the Governor’s entourage, part of the window dressing.

  Jurisdiction! He was sick to death of even hearing the word. Still, even if he wasn’t supposed to do anything more than smile and make polite conversation, Alvar Kresh was not the sort of man who could stop worrying just because he was supposed to be off-duty.

  Kresh was a big man, burly and determined-looking. His face was what might be politely described as strong-featured. Whatever his expression, it always seemed as if his face revealed more of his emotional state than he really wanted. Perhaps that was why he usually looked worried. His skin was light in color, and his hair, once black as Space, was now a thick thatch of white that never seemed entir
ely under his control. His thick eyebrows were still jet-black. They served only to make his face more expressive still. Tonight he was in his formal uniform, a rather somber black jacket worn over trousers in the sky-blue of the Sheriff s Department. His many decorations were prominent by their absence. The room was full of men and women who had done far less than Kresh, wearing medals and ribbons that would make it seem as if they had done far more, until a chestful of medals didn’t mean anything anymore. Let everyone else wear fruit salad on their chests. People didn’t have to know about every commendation Kresh had ever received. Kresh knew what he had done, and that was enough.

  But right now he was more concerned about what else he could do. Back in Hades, the Governor’s safety was his responsibility, and he was determined to do everything he could to make sure the man got back to Hades safely. Even if it meant sending his robot on an unauthorized security survey. “Go on, Donald,” Kresh said. “What else?”

  “I counted no less than four unsecured ground-level entryways, quite apart from the upper-story windows and the underground tunnelways, all of which have been sealed but unmonitored in recent days. I must also report that I have checked security procedure records, and these were also most disturbing. ”

  “What did you find?”

  “The house was unoccupied for three days straight during the week just past. It was sealed, but unguarded, during that time, even though it had been publicly announced that the Governor would soon be in residence. Anyone with the simplest knowledge of security devices could have gained access during that time to make any sort of preparations.”