by Isaac Asimov
“List and categorize all areas of the station whose records are tampered with,” he commanded Tiko. The RI complied, taking nearly an hour to arrive at a set of answers sufficiently detailed to satisfy Derec. When it was finished, Derec brought up the data in table form, and read over it casually at first, and then with increasing intensity.
AREATIME OF ERASURE
001Cargo docks 01-082130-0400
004Cargo docks 25-322130-0400
009Passenger docks 11-162130-0400
148Repair berth A482200-0000
156Repair berth A562200-0000
161Repair berth A612200-0000
335Hotel block 3-72000-0200
338Hotel block 4-72000-0200
338Hotel block 4-72000-0200
339Hotel block 4-82000-0200
416Residential 62200-0400
417Residential 72200-0400
418Residential 82200-0400
621Atrium lounge2200-0400
780Gaming room 42000-0200
783Gaming room 72000-0200
784Gaming room 82000-0200
It couldn’t be this simple, Derec thought. If he was seeing what he thought he was seeing, the party responsible for attacking Tiko was either careless or incompetent.
The narrative was almost too easy to reconstruct: Taprin had been murdered at 2306 Kopernik time, which corresponded to Terran Standard — approximately forty minutes after he’d finished his speech and returned to his hotel room in block 3-7. The saboteur had eliminated records from the area, even though Taprin’s security had blinded Tiko. Derec accessed a station schematic and saw that 4-7 and 4-8 both overlapped 3-7. It was a matter of public record that Taprin had arrived at Kopernik at 2138 and given his remarks shortly after. That explained the time of the damage at the passenger docks. The cargo docks fell into place easily enough as well. Robots were typically shipped cargo-class since they had no need of life-support services.
Derec was willing to bet that the Cole-Yahner had arrived on Kopernik within minutes of Taprin, and it didn’t take a genius to glean that it had gone to a repair berth; the schematic showed that A61 faced A48, and A56 occupied the end of a double row, with a view straight down the area of the floor the robot would have had to cross to get to either A48 or A61. The saboteur could have blinked out the entire sector for a few minutes as easily as taking out the selected three berths, though. This bothered Derec, because he realized he was already taking the saboteur too lightly. Whoever it was, this person was part of a conspiracy that had achieved the assassination of a prominent Terran political figure. He was in all likelihood not an idiot.
He — or she — might well be overconfident, though, just as Derec had found it easy to be overconfident when the data had seemed to speak so clearly. He sat back, got a glass of water, and tried to look at the table with fresh eyes.
The clear blocks of time, in complete hours, made it absolutely certain that someone had erased Tiko’s memory. The exception on the shipping docks implied that the saboteur had taken more particular care with timing in that area; it was possible he was trying to preserve something as well as eliminate incriminating evidence. What would he want preserved? Derec started to think he was meant to find something that would send him off on the wrong track; if he could figure out what it was and why the saboteur would want to find it, that would be a good start on figuring out what had been hidden.
“Tiko,” he said. “I need a list of all ships that docked that day, including manifests, both passengers and cargo. Further, I need a full accounting of the movements of the Cole-Yahner domestic robot suspected in Jonis Taprin’s murder.”
WORKING, Tiko said. Then, after a few seconds: MANIFESTS UNAVAILABLE.
“Have they been erased, or am I prevented from accessing them?”
MANIFESTS UNAVAILABLE.
So the RI didn’t know why it couldn’t tell Derec. This was a new wrinkle. “What about the robot?”
SERIAL NUMBER?
Derec accessed his copies of the crime-scene images Limke had provided him. Only part of the robot’s serial number was visible, but that model wasn’t common on Kopernik; they were older and nearing the end of their service lives. He gave Tiko as much as he had.
NO RECORD OF THAT PARTIAL NUMBER EXISTS.
“Clarify,” Derec said. “It doesn’t exist, or I am prevented from accessing it?”
IT DOES NOT EXIST.
“Have your records of resident and transient robots been tampered with?”
YES.
“Process request again,” Derec said, and watched his diagnostic display while Tiko complied.
White noise.
Yes, Derec thought. I was underestimating you. You’re leading me in a certain direction. It will no doubt seem promising and turn out to be utterly irrelevant; the only question is how long I follow it before I figure out what your purpose is.
He was personalizing his opponent, an ambivalent sign. It was easy to project psychology, and almost invariably the projection had little to do with the real person in question. Derec went back to work on the data, patiently sifting, cautioning himself that as he went he was telling himself a story, resisting the impulse to believe that the story was true.
Chapter 14
THE OFF-PLANET media were frothing with speculation about cyborg citizenship, and because the Triangle only paid attention to what Earth and the Fifty Worlds thought, the Triangle was in a state of high agitation as well. Ariel was deluged with requests for comment, as well as a great volume of personal invective and more than a few death threats. She put R. Jennie to work doling out statements of no comment and forwarding the more aggressive attacks to law enforcement — who, of course, would do nothing.
She mistrusted everyone involved with reanimés: Nucleomorph, Basq, all of them. Sitting at her kitchen table over a light breakfast, her most recent conversation with Zev Brixa replaying itself in her head, she came to a sudden decision. It was time to inform everyone concerned that she was operating independently of their agendas.
“Jennie,” Ariel said. “Contact the rental agency. See if you can get the same pilot I used last time.”
The Bogard valley seemed familiar to her even though she’d only overflown it once. After the first hour, Ariel stopped watching the landscape. She settled back into her chair and put herself through a rigorous arrangement of priorities.
First, find out how many reanimés there were.
Second, find out if their numbers were increasing.
Third, ascertain who was manufacturing them, if they were actually increasing.
She stopped after three, unwilling to believe it could be true. Surely any imbecile could learn an obvious lesson, and there could hardly be a more obvious one than the results of the old Nova Levis cyborg laboratory. Even Kynig Parapoyos had failed to realize his dream of a cyborg army, and Ariel had difficulty believing that many other people could succeed where Parapoyos had failed.
Let the evidence speak, she reminded herself. It’s not impossible that the cyborg population is expanding. It’s so unlikely as to border on fantasy, but it’s not impossible.
The transport skated to a rocking halt at the same landing she’d used the day before. This is becoming a daily commute, Ariel thought wryly. She splashed onto the beach and then, instead of following the path she’d taken yesterday, she worked her way along the riverbank for several kilometers. Probably she couldn’t get into Gernika without Basq knowing she was there, but she intended to try; and it wasn’t farfetched to believe that if he was informed of her presence but also knew she was trying to avoid him, Basq would let her. He had much riding on her willingness to stand up for his cause.
The brush on the riverbank quickly stitched her clothing with burrs and tiny tears. Ariel tried not to think about the number of virulent microbes she was inviting into her body. Her Spacer immune system had dealt successfully with everything she’d ever had except the Mnemonic Plague, and after two bouts of that, she figured her body could handle a thi
rd. Or, she admitted to herself, she was indulging in a defense mechanism, allowing herself to act recklessly by underestimating the risk.
Either way, Ariel was there in the wilderness perhaps twenty kilometers from Noresk, clambering up a weedy bank and working her way through the undergrowth in what she guessed was the direction of Gernika. She moved slowly, and every fifty meters or so she spiked a small transponder into the trunk of a tree. If she had to leave quickly, she didn’t want to worry about getting lost on her way back to the river. In a way, this little precaution was every bit as irrational as her belief that Spacer-enhanced immunocytes would protect her from whatever the local biome had cooked up over the previous five years; she would hardly be able to outrun the reanimés if it came to that. When one was in a position as delicate as hers, though, one took one’s comforting rationalizations as they came.
She kept careful track of time, and knew that she’d been traveling perhaps an hour when she started to see signs of the reanimés’ presence. Sneaking up on them would have been inadvisable even if it was possible; Ariel made no attempt to hide herself. If the reanimés were violent toward humans, they wouldn’t have remained this anonymous for this long.
Or was that just another comforting rationalization? For all Ariel knew, the reanimés killed anyone who walked into the camp, and the only thing that had saved her the last time was that Basq’s scouts had been expecting her.
You’re doing far too much thinking with far too little information, Ariel told herself. If they’re going to kill you, you’ve come much too far to avoid it now; and if you really believed they were going to kill you, you wouldn’t have come. The problem was that she didn’t know enough to make informed guesses, so her mind oscillated between feverish worries and fatuous certainty. The only cure for the problem was concrete information.
Cresting a small rise, Ariel squatted at the base of a tree, peering through its drooping branches at a field of stumps. A crew of reanimés filled a cart with small boulders before harnessing themselves in its traces and hauling it away on a dirt track. Ariel felt like she was seeing across centuries, but the pioneers in the great age of Terran exploration hadn’t been enhanced with superhuman strength — nor had they possessed surveillance wafers or computer moles careful enough to evade a diplomatic attaché robot like R. Jennie. Appearances were misleading, particularly where the reanimés were concerned.
When she could no longer hear the groaning of the cart’s axles, Ariel started hiking across the field. She debated what she would say to the first cyborg she encountered. Could she simply state who she was and ask for a tour? Not likely; if Basq had wanted her to have a tour, he would have given her one. She was relying on finding someone in the settlement who would disregard a leader’s order.
No. No, she wouldn’t. She had no idea whether such an order had been given. Basq wanted her to know about the camp. He wouldn’t have contacted her if he didn’t.
Why was her mind going in loops?
Halfway across the field, Ariel paused. She was breathing more heavily than the relatively easy hike from the river should have made her, and the sun beat on the crown of her head. Too much time behind a desk, she chided herself. You haven’t taken care of yourself. An hour’s hike in moderate heat, and you’re ready for the infirmary. She resolved to begin a fitness program immediately upon returning to Nova City.
The shade on the other side of the field cooled her off, and Ariel’s head cleared a little. She walked faster, irritated at herself, trying to purge the heat-soaked lethargy that lingered in her limbs. By the time she got to the edge of the reanimé settlement and drew the attention of a reanimé caulking a window along the back wall of a long wooden building, she felt sharp and focused again.
“Excuse me,” she said. “I’m with the government down in Nova City. I’m gathering information, and one of the things I need is someone to show me around. You’re busy, I can see that, but can you spare half an hour?”
“Basq won’t like it,” the cyborg said. He looked younger than most of the others she’d seen. He must have been created toward the end of Parapoyos’ hold on Nova Levis.
“I’ve spoken to Basq before,” Ariel said. “He knows I’m looking around. I’ll make you a deal. You show me around for thirty minutes, I’ll help you for thirty minutes.”
“Don’t talk to me like I’m stupid,” the cyborg said.
Ariel caught herself. “I was, wasn’t I? Sorry. It was an honest offer, though.”
“I don’t need any help. Why aren’t you talking to Basq?”
“He wants to me have a clearer idea of what’s going on here before I talk to him again.” As Ariel said this, it occurred to her that it might be true. “What’s your name?”
“Inak.”
“Inak, I’m Ariel. Half an hour, that’s all I’m asking. Okay?”
He was going to do it. All he had to do, Ariel could tell, was convince himself. “If Basq is angry, you have to tell him what you told me.”
“Of course I will,” Ariel said.
Inak was still nervous, and steered her away from large groups, which suited her fine. He wasn’t terribly intelligent, and he knew he was doing something that Basq quite possibly wouldn’t approve of, but like any other young male — of any species, Ariel guessed — he couldn’t refuse the opportunity to break up his everyday routine. She tried not to ask too many questions, lest she make him even more jumpy. But as they toured around the periphery of the settlement, Inak loosened up a little; by the time her thirty minutes was up, Ariel had learned a great deal.
They had a working machine shop, and had built solar arrays and a number of battery-powered machines. From the remains of cannibalized robots they had created a rudimentary network, and they had traded with meats in the area for medical equipment that they had then customized to their needs.
“Which meats?” Ariel asked.
Inak shrugged and went on.
There were three hundred and ninety-six citizens of Gernika. Inak was sure of this. He was also sure that there were more than had lived in the settlement when he arrived, but when Ariel asked him when he had arrived, his face grew troubled. “Don’t know,” he said.
“Do you know where you came from?” Ariel prompted gently.
“No.”
Abruptly he walked away, leaving her there. Ariel watched him go, working furiously through the possible reasons why her question might have provoked such a reaction. Inak was more emotional than either of the two reanimés she’d known of before, that was certain.
She’d touched what certainly seemed like an emotional nerve.
She was about to pursue him to see if she could put him at ease when someone called out to her. “Excuse me, young lady.”
A human voice. Startled, Ariel turned to see a portly man, Terran by the look of him, dressed as the reanimés were — which was to say dressed as most of Nova Levis’ poor were, in standard-issue fabrics purchased from government concessions.
“Are you —” Ariel caught herself.
“Human, yes. I am. You can call me Filoo. You’re Ariel Burgess, aren’t you?”
Something about him made her wary. “How do you know who I am?”
“I make it my business to know what people are doing, especially down south in what’s called our government here,” Filoo said. “The word is you’re looking to put together a referendum to get these poor bastards the vote.”
“That’s not true. Even if I wanted to, it’s not within my power to do that.”
“Okay. Wouldn’t be natural, if you want my opinion. Even Parapoyos, he loved the reanimés like his children, but he wouldn’t have even thought about it.”
“You knew Kynig Parapoyos?”
“I did,” Filoo said proudly. “He was the best thing that ever happened to this world. I knew him, and I worked for him, and I can tell you things were better here when he was in charge.”
“The reanimés didn’t seem to share your feeling about him,” Ariel said.
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“They have their reasons for doing what they do,” Filoo said. “And much went on that day that nobody knows about. People aren’t listening, but some stories are still being told, if you understand my meaning.”
“I don’t think I do, Mr. Filoo.”
“Just Filoo,” the man said. “Listen, Basq knows you’re here. He wanted me to tell you that. Also that he admires your initiative. Look around all you want, just don’t scare anyone else, all right?”
Filoo walked away toward the center of the settlement. Ariel watched him go, making a mental note to ask Mia and Masid if they knew anyone by that name. As he passed a concrete building, Filoo stopped and was surrounded by a mob of children. His hands dipped into his pockets and he started handing out treats of some kind. Each of the children was a cyborg, moving with terrifying speed and grace made even more unsettling by juxtaposition with the naïve exuberance of childhood. Looking closely at them, Ariel saw that none was younger than seven or eight. They must have been infants when the lab turned them out, for some flaw that was no longer apparent. And who had maintained them, done the surgeries and grafts necessary to keep their mechanical parts growing alongside the organic structures? Gernika had come a long way in a short time if it had learned how to keep its unformed young alive.
One of the children, a boy of eight or nine, broke away from Filoo and turned his small gift over in his hands. Ariel couldn’t see what it was, but she saw something more important, something that chilled her to the marrow of her bones. She remembered meeting Derec at Kamil’s, looking through the dossier on the missing children. If she wasn’t mistaken, the boy with Filoo’s toy in his hands was Vois Kyl.