Inferno - Caliban 02

by Roger MacBride Allen

  “So Tierlaw didn’t notice a robot,” Cinta said, who seemed to have taken it upon herself to defend her fellow Settler. “So what? You Spacers always ignore robots. That’s not enough to convict a man of murder. ”

  “Tierlaw is not a Spacer, but a Settler,” Donald said. “He has a pronounced aversion to robots, and very definitely noticed the other two standing outside the door. He gave a detailed and accurate description of Prospero and Caliban.”

  “So what are you saying?” Devray said.

  “I’m saying that Tierlaw ordered the Sapper, the SPR sentry robot, to be out of position. But a Sapper won’t take orders from just anyone. He--or a subordinate, more likely--must have gotten to the robot sometime before and used some rather sophisticated order giving to convince the sentry that orders from him, from Tierlaw, took precedence over everything else, even guarding Grieg. ”

  “Is that possible?” Devray asked.

  “Yes,” Fredda said. “If the SPR did not believe Grieg was in any particular danger, so that First Law potential was reduced, and if it saw Tierlaw as its owner, thus enhancing Second Law potential, then yes, Tierlaw could have given the order for the sentry to clear off and come back later. ”

  “It’s thin,” Cinta said. “And I don’t see what it has to do with anything. ”

  “It is thin,” Kresh admitted. “I knew that as soon as I figured it out. I knew I needed proof--and I found it. But there is more. Caliban and Prospero were witnesses that Tierlaw came out the inner door to Grieg’s office. After-hours visitors to his office always used the outer side door. But Tierlaw needed to let Bissal in. So he got Grieg to open the inner door somehow.”

  “But he did not let Bissal in. He let us in,” Caliban said.

  “And why would he let Bissal see his face?” Cinta demanded.

  “He wouldn’t let Bissal see him,” Kresh said, heading over to his desk. “He didn’t. ” He unsealed the evidence box and pulled out a pocket communicator, and a thin piece of black metal in the shape of a flattened triangle. “I found these in your room, Verick, the one you stayed in the night of the murder. You’re good at hiding things. The room had been searched twice before I went over it. But I knew what I was looking for--and that makes a great deal of difference. And before you can protest that these were planted, a Crime Scene Observer robot witnessed the search and recorded it.”

  “I recognize the communicator, but what’s the other thing?” Fredda asked.

  “It’s one of these,” Kresh said. He went to the inner door of the office and used the scanner panel to open it. Once it was open, he took the piece of metal and set it in the frame of the door. It stayed there of its own accord. Kresh stepped back, and the door closed--but not all the way. There was a barely discernible crack between the frame and the sliding door. Kresh got his fingers into the crack and pulled. It took a bit of effort, but he managed to get the door open. Kresh took the door wedge out of the frame, crossed the room, and put it back in the evidence box.

  “Grieg was supposed to be killed right here,” he said. “In this office. Verick would set the door wedge on his way out--with a little practice, they’re easy to set surreptitiously. Tierlaw would order the office door sentry robot back into position, and then signal Bissal, waiting in the basement, to turn on the range restrictor signal that would deactivate the SPR robots. Then Tierlaw could simply walk out of the house, unobserved, while Bissal came up out of the basement, came into the office, and shot Grieg. Bissal would remove the door wedge, and go on with the rest of the plot--destroying the robots to hide the restrictors, and then escaping to the warehouse, where he would hide until things cooled off--except the food left for him there was poisoned. He must have died within a few hours of Grieg.”

  “That’s the craziest plan I’ve ever heard,” Cinta protested. “It could never work.”

  “And it didn’t, “ Devray said. “It was crazy, Cinta, but think what we would have found if it had worked. Grieg dead behind a locked door, fifty wrecked security robots, and an assassin who simply vanishes without a trace. A few days later, a warehouse blows up and bums down, and no one ever thinks to connect the two. Things are bad enough as they are. People are scared. Just imagine the panic, the chaos, if the murder had been as smooth, as perfect as it was supposed to be.”

  “But things went wrong,” Kresh said. “Things went wrong. The two robots are waiting outside the door, so you can’t set the door wedge, could you, Verick? And you couldn’t use your communicator in front of the robots, either. So you slip into a vacant room and contact Bissal from there, telling him what had gone wrong. You tell him to go to plan B, killing Grieg in his room.

  “But then you realize that you couldn’t leave the vacant room. At a guess, one of the sentries on random patrol takes up a post in the hall. If you leave the room, that would raise the alarm. So you had to stay there, in that room, until the robots left, until you heard Grieg go to bed. You could signal Bissal. Then Bissal activates the range restrictor signal, and the sentries go dead. But even then you can’t leave, because Bissal has come up into the house. Suppose he saw you, and knew who you were? He’d have a hold over you. Suppose he tried to blackmail you instead of going off to eat his poison at the warehouse? No, you could not risk that. So you decide to wait until you heard Bissal leave the house.

  “But Bissal had wasted most of his blaster’s charge, and he realizes he isn’t going to have enough power left to be able to shoot all the robots. So Bissal decides to remove the restrictors from half of them by hand, and it takes forever. At long last he is done, and destroys the blaster and the Trojan robot in the basement, and heads off on his way. At last you can go.

  “Except suddenly you can see the sky is full of police vehicles of one sort or another. The police have discovered Huthwitz’s body. You still can’t leave. Then I arrive, and rush up the stairs. Grieg has been discovered long before you expected.

  “Suddenly you hear new footsteps in the halls and realize they are searching room to room. You hide under the bed or something during the first, cursory search. But you know they will search again, or at the very least stumble across you. You can’t hide in the one room forever. So you very cleverly brazen it out.

  “You hide the incriminating door wedge and communicator, and then dress in the pajamas left in the room. Maybe you can talk your way out of it. It’s a long shot, but the only chance you have. You wander out into the hallway, and pretend you’re a house guest who’s slept through the whole thing. Donald here snatches you up. And you very nearly got away with it. Until Cinta Melloy here decided to look into whether Grieg ever had overnight guests--and found out he never did. We never thought to check the other side of the point, by the way. Did you have a hotel reservation in Limbo City? If--or rather when--we do find one, how will you explain it?”

  Verick opened his mouth and shut it again, and swallowed hard, and then at last the words came out. “ And what was my motive supposed to be in this lunatic scheme?” he asked, his voice tight and calm and strained. “What was all this supposed to accomplish for me?”

  “Profit,” Kresh said. “Huge profit. Money. Not a motive we Spacers cops are used to. I didn’t even consider it at first. Money hasn’t meant much for a while, though it’s started to again. You went into that meeting with Kresh to find out if he had accepted your control system design. If he told you he had chosen your system, you would not signal Bissal, there would be no attack, and Bissal would slip away when he could. If Grieg told you Phrost had the job--well then, a terrifying assassination of the Governor might well sow just enough distrust of robots that a new Governor would not go with a robot design--or else it might be easier to bribe the new incumbent. You might even already know Beddle wasn’t above taking Settler money. You might even have had some dealings with him. Did you offer Grieg a bribe, by the way? He was half expecting that you would. ”

  Verick screamed and lunged, and Donald had to struggle a bit to hold him down.

  “I’ll
take that as a yes,” said Governor Kresh. “Commander Devray, perhaps you could take this man into custody.”

  16

  “AND THAT IS THAT,” Kresh said, after Melloy and Welton were gone and Devray and his Rangers took a sobbing, hysterical Tierlaw Verick away. “You two are free to go,” he said to Beddle and Phrost.

  “But what about the charges against us?” Beddle asked.

  “What charges?” Kresh asked. “No one has filed any that I’m aware of. I don’t intend to. ”

  “That’s very generous of you, Governor,” said Sero Phrost.

  “The hell it is,” Kresh said. “I think I can do more damage to the two of you by letting you stay in the public eye. After all, everything that was said in this room today is bound to reach the public, somehow. Someone is bound to leak something--wouldn’t you agree, Prospero? Stories--at the very least rumors--about smuggling and bribery and money laundering are bound to float to the surface. I have a feeling that Tonya Welton is going to be able to explain away a lot of things you two can’t. Oh, and Beddle, I’m looking forward to your announcement for Governor. It should be an exciting campaign.”

  “But I--I--”

  “Quiet, Simcor,” Phrost said. “Don’t give him any more ammunition. Let’s get out of here. ” The two men got up and left, and Kresh was glad to push the door button and get them out of his sight.

  “They’re down now, but they won’t stay down,” said Fredda Leving. “You know that, don’t you?”

  “Oh, yes, of course,” Kresh said. “Phrost still has a lot of friends, and a lot of money, and there are plenty of true believers in the Ironheads who’ll forgive Beddle anything. But this way, they’re damaged goods. If I brought charges against them, they could accuse me of politicizing the courts, or something. Better to let the rumors leak out and do their damage.”

  Kresh stood up and stretched and looked thoughtful for a moment. “ You know, I’ve just had an odd thought, “ he said. “Of all the cases I’ve ever dealt with that concerned robots, I think this is the first one I’ve ever had where the Three Laws weren’t involved somewhere in the solution.”

  “But they were, Governor Kresh,” said Caliban. “They were involved most intimately.”

  “In what way?”

  “ ‘A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm,’ “ Caliban said, repeating the First Law. “Verick relied most heavily upon Spacer faith in that statement. In a sense, he set fifty robots with an incomplete First Law loose in the Governor’s Residence. They were shut down, turned off--inactive. Through inaction, they allowed a human being to come to harm. ”

  “It is an interesting feature of the First Law,” Donald said. “I myself experienced a most unpleasant reaction when I realized that I could have saved Grieg if I had been with him--even though it would have been impossible for me to be with him while I was performing my normal duties. No doubt there are many human beings in the universe who are being injured at this very moment. Though logically I realize there is nothing I can do about it, I must admit I find it a most disturbing notion. And it is part and parcel of the First Law. The Law is couched in such strong and solid absolutes that it cannot possibly match up with the greys and uncertainties and limitations of everyday life.”

  “Donald,” Fredda said. “That almost sounds like a criticism of the absolute nature of the Three Laws.”

  “By no means, Dr. Leving. It is a criticism of the disorderly nature of everyday life.”

  Fredda laughed and turned to Caliban. “ And what about you, Caliban? What about the Laws and you? Have you learned more on that score?”

  “A year ago, my accidental escape from the lab, and the subsequent pursuit caused me to integrate my own internal Law--to protect myself. But if I pursued self-preservation at all cost, Prospero and I would have fled Purgatory. I have no doubt that the ensuing search for us would have cost many New Law robots their lives. I believe that I have integrated a new internal Law set--Cooperate for the greater good. Protect myself only when it does not endanger vitally important cooperation.”

  Donald turned toward Caliban. “No doubt you are aware a symbolic notational representation of that statement would be remarkably similar to the Second and Third Laws.”

  “Similar,” Caliban agreed. “But not identical. My version acknowledges the disorderliness of the everyday world--and, I believe, allows me to deal with it more successfully than a Three Law or New Law robot.”

  “Enough!” Kresh said. “Grieg complained about the Three Laws ruling his life, and I’m beginning to see what he meant. Can’t we talk about something else?”

  “All right, let’s talk about the Control Center, “ Fredda said. “I don’t see how you can choose either the Spacer or Settler design now. Both bids are too badly tainted.”

  “I know,” Kresh said. “Grieg chose the Spacer design, but I’m not so sure he was right to do so. From what I’ve been able to see, they’re both first-rate designs. The people on both sides were corrupt, but their machinery was fine. I’m going to have to think mighty hard about it, but my gut reaction is to build both systems, if we can afford it. I don’t quite like the idea of the whole planet’s weather being controlled by a robot--or by whoever happens to be pushing the buttons that day on the human-controlled system. If we had both, there would be a system of checks and balances that neither would have on its own. Grieg was a great one for finding a third way. Maybe I can do the same.”

  “But what about Grieg’s other decision, concerning the New Law robots?” Prospero asked. “Will you reverse that decision as well? What’s going to happen to us? Will you leave things as they are, or send us to Valhalla--or will it be kingdom come after all?”

  Donald spoke before Kresh could reply. “Sir, I must urge you to consider the danger and chaos the New Law robots have produced. You cannot let it continue. You cannot let them survive.”

  Kresh gave Caliban and Prospero a long look, and then let out a long sigh. “Oh, it’s tempting,” he said. “Very tempting indeed to be rid of you once and for all. But I can’t get up and announce to the world that I’m scrapping one of Chanto Grieg’s most daring experiments. Not when the man isn’t cold in his grave yet. I have to let you live, out of respect for his memory. ” Kresh was silent for a moment. “ And yet Donald is right, too. We can’t afford any more of the headaches you New Law types cause. So, damn it all, I suppose it has to be Valhalla,” he said.

  Prospero bowed slightly and looked Kresh straight in the eye. “Thank you, Governor. You have let my people go.”

  The next morning Governor Alvar Kresh and Fredda Leving went out for a stroll in the sunlit grounds of the Winter Residence. The rains were over, a gentle breeze was blowing and there was a fresh-scrubbed feel to the world--a far cry from the dust-choked deserts that surrounded Hades. Nature felt alive and vigorous. The morning, the whole world, seemed full of possibilities.

  This was how Inferno was supposed to be, Kresh thought. A living world. This is how it’s going to be, if I have anything to do with it. Suddenly he felt a sense of purpose stronger than any he had ever felt before. I’ll take care of you, he thought, and it was a promise he made to the world of Inferno itself. I will heal you, and make you well.

  “So now it’s over,” Fredda said. “Or is it?”

  “What. The case? There’s some tidying up to do, but yes, it’s over.”

  “There are an awful lot of loose ends to clear up, “ Fredda pointed out. “We don’t know a lot of things about the conspiracy, how exactly it was put together, or how Bissal was recruited, or how and when the SPRs were tampered with.”

  “True,” Kresh said. “There’s a lot of detail work to do, the sort of thing Donald is very good at. Probably I’ll put him in charge of it. But in a sense, at least, it is only a question of detail. Tierlaw bought the services of a rustbacking mob, which one, we don’t know, but it was almost certainly the one that was paying off Huthwitz. Cinta Melloy almo
st had them, and she lost them when they got spooked by Grieg’s murder. But you found the killer, and I found the mastermind. Working from both ends toward the middle, and with Cinta’s leads, we’ll roll them up fast enough. Besides, if I pack off the New Laws to Valhalla, there won’t be any rustbacking. Once the business collapses and there’s no money, there’ll be a lot of people ready to talk. We’ll get them.”

  “You’re right, I suppose,” Fredda said. “So it is over.”

  “And it’s just begun,” Kresh said, looking her in the eye. He did not dare say anything more. He was not even sure he knew exactly what he meant--but the way she smiled back at him told him she had understood him precisely. The two of them walked in silence for a time, enjoying the moment, considering the possibilities.

  “It’s a beautiful morning,” Fredda said at last. “I never expected to see such lovely weather on Purgatory.”

  “Nor did I,” Kresh said. “But wouldn’t this be a fine world if we could expect it?” He stood there for a moment, drinking it all in. But then he turned back, toward the Residence, toward his new duties. “Come on, Fredda,” he said, as he reached out and took her by the hand. “There’s a lot of work for us to do.”