by Isaac Asimov
Rolf Penj failed to suppress a grin. Both Maliq and Talas looked at Ariel blankly.
“Of course it did,” Maliq snapped. “I’m sure if such a report had come through...” He shook his head. “That makes no sense.”
“You noticed that, did you? When I came back, one of the first things I wanted to do was find Tro Aspil. I went to the Calvin with him, we were slightly acquainted. Now you tell me he’s been assigned to another offworld mission.” She fixed Talas with a sharp look. “Are you sure there’s someone on that mission by that name, or is it just a name on a roster?”
“It might be a good idea,” Penj said, “to check.”
“You might also,” Ariel added as Talas gestured for one of the police to come forward, “tell us what happened to Clar Eliton.”
Over the next several minutes, Derec watched the situation evolve without knowing any details. Talas and First Advisor Maliq conferred in terse whispers; the officer returned and then Talas and the officer left together; Maliq spoke briefly with Penj; Talas returned and spoke to both of them, then drew Maliq off to one side while Penj looked on, clearly annoyed; Talas and Maliq left; Talas returned and spoke to Clin, then left with the other officer; Penj shook his head and spoke to Clin, but she told him nothing; he left. Finally, Penj returned with a small device, which he placed on the table.
“I’ve taken it upon myself to do this,” he said as he activated it. “Everyone else is suddenly too busy.” He looked toward the door. Clin still stood there, watching and immobile. “You may as well join us, Lieutenant.”
“Sir, I’m —”
“Lieutenant, this is police business.”
Reluctantly, Clin came up to the table, followed by her remotes. She positioned herself to watch both the door and what Penj was doing.
“No one believes,” Penj said, “that either of you murdered Clar Eliton. Not personally, in any event. What they are most interested in is your robot, Mr. Avery. I understand it was designed as a bodyguard?”
“That’s correct.”
“Hm. You do see how that might make Aurora nervous?”
“I concede,” Derec said, “that a robot designed specifically for that purpose might seem... heretical... but most humaniform robots possess the capacity to act as a bodyguard.”
“To a limited degree, yes,” Penj said. “But it is my understanding that yours exceeds standard parameters. It may anticipate well ahead of actual threat and move to intervene. It is also designed to shunt potential Three Law conflicts out of its primary positronic matrix in order to allow for the possibility of harming humans in the line of duty.”
“Yes.”
“That bothers Aurorans because it comes close to autonomous prerogative in dealing with humans.”
“But —”
Penj raised a hand. “Let me show you what happened to Ambassador Eliton before we talk further.”
He touched a stud on the device, and the cell changed into a spacious apartment. On the floor near the hyperwave lay the body of Clar Eliton, face down, arms and legs spread awkwardly. His eyes stared and his mouth was open. He wore a robe.
All around him lay small spheres — his extensions, inert and useless.
Penj walked over to the body, hands clasped behind his back. “What do you think?”
Derec approached and knelt down by Eliton’s head. Eliton seemed mildly surprised. Just within the shadow of the robe’s collar a wide patch of skin was black and purple.
“Neck broken,” Derec said. He looked across the apartment at the entrance. “Is this accurate?”
“A complete in situ recording, as found,” Penj said.
“Nothing is overturned, nothing broken. The entrance is what, four meters away?”
Clin walked around the body. “If this is the way he fell,” she said, “then he was facing that way.” She pointed roughly in Derec’s direction, almost ninety degrees away from the entrance.
Derec nodded and stood. He looked at the hyperwave. A function light glowed, but the screen was blank. The unit was on standby.
“Whoever did this was invited in,” Derec said. He glanced at Ariel. “He knew his murderer.”
“He knew us,” Ariel said. “Is that why we’re on the list of suspects?”
“They don’t suspect you,” Penj said. He looked at Clin. “Isn’t that true, Lieutenant?”
She seemed reluctant to answer, but nodded. “True. You were arrested as much for your own protection as for...”
“For?” Derec prompted.
“Bait. Whoever killed Eliton might attempt to kill you.”
“Bait,” Ariel said. “In a detention center?”
“You’re in a public court facility,” Penj said. “So was Eliton. One floor above us, as a matter of fact. Access is fairly easy. Of course, you’re being watched.”
“So was Eliton, presumably. Still —”
Penj smiled wryly. “We’re actually not very good at this. The last time we had a murder...”
“Yes, the last time you had a murder, a robot was involved. And as I recall, a humaniform with a high degree of autonomy.”
“And its creator was held responsible,” Penj said. “So we have a repeat of the situation.”
“Except,” Derec said, “Bogard didn’t do this. He couldn’t. He had been initially programmed to defend Eliton. If anything, had Bogard been involved, Eliton would still be alive.”
“That would be my reading as well,” Penj said, “given what I know about your work.”
Derec gestured for Ariel. “Take a look at this injury. Look familiar?”
Ariel knelt by Eliton’s head and studied the neck bruise. “Cyborg.”
Derec noticed Penj and Clin exchange a worried look. He cleared his throat. “My question is, what happened to his extensions?”
“That’s our other mystery,” Clin said. “Extensions never go off-line. They can be reassigned, but the only way to shut them down is to destroy their CPUs.”
“You’ve examined them?”
“Yes. There seems to be no damage. They simply no longer function.”
Derec sat down at the table and drummed his fingers idly as he thought. “They’re linked to an RI. Correct?”
“Yes.”
“What happens if their primary RI goes down?”
“That’s never happened,” Clin said.
“Did you even check to see if it had this time?” Ariel asked.
“No...”
“I made that suggestion,” Penj said. “No one laughed exactly, but...”
“Maybe someone ought to check,” Derec said.
— tactical parameters, robot access code epsilon-one-one-arc-seven, service path to secondary communications node, establish identification protocols, chameleon protocols in place, three levels, two humans, twelve robots, three ambulatory, direct link to global communication oversight, bypass code delivered, access cleared, enter matrix
sort applicable traffic by tier, assign priority, potential relevance, hierarchy established, locate subject Eliton, Clar
initializing Three Law assessment, subject Eliton, Clar
residual assignation of responsibility, reviewing history
response potentials regarding subject Eliton, Clar, assigned minimal priority, initial service fulfilled, duty severed upon rescue and reassignment, collateral responsibility inactive
subject Eliton, Clar, violated collateral responsibility
subject Eliton, Clar, lied
reset priority, primary function assigned to current subjects Avery, Derec, and Burgess, Ariel, locate and correlate with current status, situational parameters
subject Eliton, Clar, located
subject Eliton, Clar, deceased, present location Medical Examiner facility number forty-three, previous location apartment complex attached to Auroran security center
analyze elements of death
positronic remotes assigned to Eliton, Clar, deactivated prior to death, locate and trace links to remotes and check
for error
error detected in primary resident intelligence assigned to monitor subject, links broken at time chop local seven-fifty-two, tracing command sequence, located, instruction tree initiated by oral command via public comm channel, preset protocols in place, links dissolved
tracing external surveillance at sight, corridor, room, direct monitor of access, negative result, expanding analysis to entire compound, tracing movements of robots and humans, negative result, expanding to external surveillance of grounds, tracing movement
one anomalous event, human subject located approaching security personnel entrance, trace lost at three meters, conclusion masking activated, correlating anomaly to sequence of link interrupt and medical examiners assignment of time of death subject Eliton, Clar
correlation match to ninety-seven percent, distance from entry to apartment, time of death, interruption of positronic surveillance
expanding search to after death, located masked human, reappearance five meters from compound, leaving by main entrance four minutes after assigned time of death
identification protocols initiated
identification complete
subject Aspil, Tro
present location, search initiated —
Derec opened his eyes to see Clin standing over him. He stretched and sat up on the cot. He noticed that her extensions floated on the far side of the room. So this will be private, he thought sourly. How considerate...
“You have something to tell me?” he asked.
“I want to explain,” she said.
“What? The deception? I’ve been living on Earth. Deceit is a normal police practice there. Don’t worry about it.”
“No,” she said. “I was doing my job, I won’t apologize for that. Chief Talas informed me before you awoke of the situation, and ordered me to take you into custody. She presented me with the proper warrant codes and authorization. This is what I do. Personally, I agree with removing you from an unsecured facility in the wake of this.” She gestured at the projector, now deactivated, on the table. “But there’s more to this than duty, don’t you agree?”
“All right...”
“I want to explain the unusual procedure. Why we didn’t simply place you both in custody upon arrival.”
“Why would you have anyway?”
“The same reasons as now: your own protection, mainly. But you, in particular, were the focus of a great deal of debate here. Specifically, your robot.”
“Ah. Bogard gave them pause?”
“Gave us all pause,” Clin said. “There is still some question whether what you did is illegal.”
“You know, that’s interesting. To the best of my knowledge, there has never been a law requiring robots be built with the Three Laws. We do it now because it’s simply easier. All the processes that go into the construction of a positronic brain — there are over two million, you know — are so routine and proven that no one thinks to change them. Even Bogard is a Three Law robot. I found it easier to modify the way they come into play rather than ditch them altogether. Doing that would require a complete redesign of the manufacturing protocols.” He shook his head. “The Three Laws exist because of the technology, not because it’s prohibited to build a robot without them.”
Clin looked uncomfortable. “That’s why the Council decided not to bring charges. There are no laws, and if there were you didn’t exactly violate them. But it still bothered us. So we took this approach. Close surveillance.”
“Did you have a choice about how close?”
“Of course. But when Bogard disappeared and Eliton was found dead...”
“Some of the Council are regretting their reluctance to be heavy-handed.” He glanced across the room, to where Ariel sat talking with Rolf Penj. “Why would you have arrested Ariel? She had nothing to do with building Bogard.”
“Precaution. She arrived on the same ship, in your party —”
“We weren’t exactly a party, but I’ll concede the point.”
“You used some of her doctoral work as a starting point on constructing your robot. That made her suspect. But the fact that, as Calvin Institute liaison, she failed to report on Bogard —”
“She had no idea. My arrangement was directly with the Terran government. She didn’t know about Bogard until he was a fact.”
“She should have known. It was her responsibility.”
“I wasn’t about to let her know.”
“Still, she should have found out.”
Derec chuckled dryly. “How very police-minded of you. Even if the criminal confesses to every aspect of the crime — including its secrecy — the cop who should have caught him is held responsible.”
“That’s what we do. When we fail —”
“Sometimes it’s right that you fail.”
Clin frowned uncertainly. “May I ask you question?”
“Of course.”
“Why did you build it? Why did you want to tamper with the Three Laws?”
“Memory.”
“Excuse me?”
“I suffered mnemonic plague several years ago. After I recovered — well, I won’t bore you with all the details, but I began to notice similarities between the synaptic damage caused by the disease and the structure of a positronic collapse. What interested me most was the way other forms of amnesia block access while maintaining the stored memories. I started looking into how those memories get shunted away and how access is gradually restored. One of the results was Bogard.”
“You didn’t have to build him to do the research.”
Derec shrugged. “I’m a roboticist. It’s what I do.”
“And Ambassador Burgess? I understand she’s a victim, too.”
“You can see a similar interest in her work at the Calvin.”
“How does this apply to cyborgs?”
“I’m not sure it does.”
Clin pursed her lips thoughtfully.
“I understand,” Derec said, “that there have been new outbreaks of mnemonic plague on Aurora.”
“There have. We’ve been watching it, trying to find a common vector.”
“And is there?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then maybe my work isn’t as unwelcome as it seems.”
Ariel absently turned the now-empty cup. Penj was half-dozing. They had been waiting for hours, it seemed. Tension wore them down to sleepy exhaustion.
The door slid open, snapping her attention on like a switch, and she looked up as Talas entered the cell, followed by two more police and First Advisor Maliq. Penj stood at once.
“About time,” he growled.
Talas ignored him and sat down across from Ariel. “Ambassador Burgess, please tell me again about Tro Aspil.”
Ariel related again the events surrounding Aspil’s apparent death and later departure from Earth, the corpse in a Terran morgue, and the subsequent discovery that he had been on Earth months before his very public death as part of the slaughtered Humadros Legation.
“Of course,” Talas said, “then-Senator Clar Eliton had also been killed in that massacre and later turned up alive.”
“Yes, as part of a plot to undermine our efforts and discredit robotics on Earth. He ran for his own seat against his vice-senator, both on antirobot platforms.”
“Or perhaps just bad analysis on your part?” Talas asked.
“Did you find my report?” Ariel asked, annoyed.
“No,” Maliq said. “It was never received. I’m running a global search through all our files to see if it went astray, but...” He scowled unhappily. “It’s your surmise that Tro Aspil was part of this plot?”
“That would be logical, given all the facts,” she conceded. “But I was never able to understand his function, other than to establish ties between the different elements of the conspiracy.”
“We have an Auroran who is officially deceased, depending on where you are,” Maliq said. “He returns here before the rest of the survivors and subsequently
all those survivors end up offworld or incapacitated.”
“You refer to Benen Yarick?” Ariel asked.
“I do. The others — we’re still trying to contact them.”
“I believe it was expected none of the Humadros Legation would survive.”
“So that this Tro Aspil would be the only one returning here?”
“Yes.”
“The body you found in the morgue,” Talas said. “Was it identifiable as Tro Aspil?”
“I can’t say with certainty. It had not been killed at the massacre. We were able to determine that the wounds were inconsistent. We can say it was human, but without a tissue sample —”
“Which you were unable to obtain,” Talas said.
“The situation was not conducive to that level of cooperation,” Ariel said.
“Here’s the problem,” Maliq said, sitting down. “All people coming to Aurora go through certain examinations before being allowed through. We never fully abandoned our paranoia about infection. All, that is, except diplomatic personnel who have been previously cleared through one of the stations — in this case, Kopernik. If someone wished to make a substitution, the safest way for them to make that substitution would be through diplomatic channels.”
“You’re wondering if it is possible that the man who returned from Earth is a substitute,” Ariel said. “Of course, that’s likely. Is Tro Aspil in a morgue file on Earth? Probably. May I ask if the Terran death certificate files have been turned over?”
“No,” Maliq said. “They were requested. The ship on which they were sent was taken in a pirate raid.”
“Let me guess. The same ship Ambassador Gale Chassik was traveling on.”
“As a matter of fact.”
“How convenient.”
“Why do you say that?”
“All the evidence is now gone — everything that could tie Solaria to Nova Levis, and Nova Levis to the pirates, and the pirates to Clar Eliton, and Eliton to the diplomatic mess everything has become. Unless you find the impostor Tro Aspil.”
Maliq nodded. “We checked per your suggestion. Tro Aspil never arrived at his post with the blockade mission. A routine explanation was requested by the mission chief and a routine reply was sent claiming a change in itinerary, stand by for further instructions. So routine that the original posting remained listed as complete. Everyone assumed — because no one thought to question it — that Tro Aspil was in Nova Levis space.”