Caliban c-1

by Isaac Asimov

  But he knew already they would never catch Caliban.

  CALIBAN ran.

  Full speed, full out, dodging the busy herds of robots, picking his tunnels and turnings and movements to leave the most tangled trail possible for his pursuers.

  All were against him. Robots, deputies, Settlers, civilians. And they would never give up chasing him through the city. He did not understand why, but it was plain from Horatio’s reactions that they regarded him as a threat, a menace.

  Which is what they were to him.

  Very well, then. It was time to do everyone a favor. If they intended to chase him the length and breadth of the city, it was time to leave the city. He needed to make plans.

  Caliban ran on, into the darkness.

  DONALD guided Alvar’s aircar skillfully through the gathering dusk toward the Central Auditorium. “Unfortunately, the deputies were unable to track him through the tunnels,” he said as he drove. “Caliban has clearly learned to make good use of the underground ways.”

  Kresh shook his head. He had managed a quick nap in midafternoon, but he was still dead tired. It was hard to concentrate. Of course, the second failure of his deputies to effect Caliban’s capture did tend to bring things into focus. “Back down into the tunnels,” he said, half to himself. “And my deputies hardly ever have need to go down there. They don’t know their way around.” Kresh thought for a minute. “What about the robots on the scene? Why the devil didn’t the deputies simply order the robots in the area to surround and subdue Caliban?”

  “I suspect it was for the very simple reason that no one thought of it. No member of your force, no robot on this planet, has ever needed to pursue a rogue robot before. The idea of chasing a robot almost seems a contradiction in terms.”

  “No one has thought of the implications of the situation,” Kresh agreed. “Even I have trouble remembering that it’s a dangerous robot we’re after. Hell, there have probably been a half dozen times we could have used other robots to catch him. But it’s too late now. Now he knows to beware of other robots as well. Ah, well. If nothing else, there is a certain consistency to this case. Everything goes wrong.”

  “Sir, I am receiving an incoming call from Tonya Welton.”

  Alvar Kresh groaned. The damned woman must have called a half dozen times since he left the Governor’s office.

  He did not want to talk to that woman—and the Governor had hinted pretty strongly that he would not much care if Welton didn’t get every bit of news instantly. “Tell her there is no new information, Donald.”

  “Sir, that would be an untruth. The incident at Limbo Depot occurred after her last call—”

  “Then tell her I said there was no new information. That much is the truth.” That was the trouble with having a robot screen your calls—the damned things were so truthful.

  “Yes, sir, but she is calling to report information of her own.”

  “Wonderful,” he said with bitter sarcasm. “Put her through, audio only.”

  “Sheriff Kresh,” Tonya’s voice said, coming out of Donald’s speaker grille. “Sorry to be calling so often, but there is something you should know.”

  “Good news, I hope,” Alvar said, mostly for want of anything else to say.

  “Actually it is. Our people have picked up one Reybon Derue. We’ve got him dead to rights as the leader of that robot-basher gang our friend Caliban happened to run into. As best we can tell, we’ve got the rest of the gang, too, and they’re trying to see who can spill the beans on each other first. Caliban scared the merry hell out of them. I don’t think there’ll be any more incidents for a while. The bad news is none of them were able to tell us much of anything about Caliban that we didn’t already know.”

  “I see,” Kresh said. No more robot bashing. Three days ago, he would have regarded that news as a major victory. Today it was incidental. “That’s good to know, Madame Welton. Thank you for reporting in.”

  “While I’m on the line, Sheriff, can you give me any updates?”

  “No, Madame Welton. I might have something for you later, but just at the moment, you know all that I do,” Kresh lied. “I’m afraid I have to get back to work now. I’ll call you when there is some meaningful information. Goodbye for now.” He made a throat-cutting gesture to Donald, and the line went dead.

  “If she calls again tonight, Donald, I will not take the call. Understood?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good. Now, back to business. What about this robot Horatio? The supervisor robot that called the deputies in.”

  “Still suffering from partial speechlock, I’m afraid. Sheriff’s Department robopsychologist Gayol Patras has been working with him since the time of the incident, trying to bring Horatio out of it.”

  “Any prognosis yet?”

  “ ‘Guarded but optimistic’ was the phrase Dr. Patras used in her last report. She expects him to make a full recovery and be able to make an informative statement—unless she is rushed and pressured. Trying to get too much from him too fast could result in permanent speechlock and complete malfunction.”

  “The roboshrinks always say that,” Alvar growled.

  “Perhaps, sir, if I may be so bold, they always say it because it is always true. Virtually all serious mental disorders in robots produce severe and irreparable damage to positronic brains.”

  “That is as it may be, Donald, but you and Patras are working on the assumption that I am concerned with Horatio’s recovery. I am not. That robot is utterly expendable. All I care about is getting at the information inside that robot’s brain as fast as possible. Horatio talked with Caliban. What did they say to each other? What did Caliban have to say for himself? I tell you, Donald, if we knew what Horatio knows, then we would know a great deal more than we do now.”

  “Yes, sir. But if I may observe, your only hope of getting that information lies in Horatio’s recovery. He cannot relate his information in a catatonic state.”

  “I suppose you’re right, Donald. But damn all the hells there are, it’s frustrating. For all we know, the answers to this case are locked up inside that robot’s skull, waiting for us, just beyond reach.”

  “If we leave Robopsychologist Patras to her own devices, I expect we will have all that information in very short order. Meantime, we have all been looking forward to Fredda Leving’s second lecture with great anticipation. We shall be landing at the auditorium in approximately eight minutes. I expect that a great number of our questions will be answered as we listen to her.”

  “I hope so, Donald. I sure as hell hope so.”

  The aircar flew on.

  FREDDA Leving paced back and forth backstage, pausing every minute or two to peek through the curtain.

  Last time there had not been much of a turnout. Call it a testimony to the power of rumor and speculation, but tonight the auditorium was a madhouse. It had been designed to hold a thousand people and their attendant robots, with the robots sitting behind their owners on low jumper seats. But the thousand seats were long ago filled, and could have been filled again.

  After a massive struggle, the management had got everyone in, a feat accomplished by the expedient of ejecting all the robots and giving places to the overflow crowd. The whole operation of getting people into their seats was taking a while. Fredda’s talk was going to have to start a bit late.

  She peeked through the curtain again and marveled at the crowd. Word had certainly gotten out, that was clear. Not only about her first talk, but about the mysterious rogue robot Caliban, and the fast-swirling rumors of Settler robot-sabotage plots. There was endless speculation regarding the important announcement due to be made tonight. The whole city was whispering, full of unbelievable stories—most of them flatly wrong.

  Tonya Welton and her robot, Ariel, were backstage with Fredda, and though Fredda supposed they had to be there, under the circumstances, it was not going to be easy talking to this crowd with the Queen of the Settlers on the stage, glaring icily down.

>   Governor Grieg himself was backstage, too, ready to show his support, for whatever that was worth just now.

  Gubber Anshaw and Jomaine Terach were here as well, about as calm and relaxed as two men awaiting the executioner. The Governor wasn’t looking very at ease, either. Only Tonya Welton looked relaxed. Well, why not? If things went wrong, her worst-case scenario was that she got to go home.

  There were a fair number of Settlers in attendance, sitting off by themselves on the right side of the house. By the looks of them, they weren’t exactly the most gentle or refined examples of their people. Rowdies, to put it bluntly. Tonya said she had made no arrangements for a Settler contingent. So who had set it up, and who had chosen this bunch of toughs to attend?

  Maybe they were friends of the robot bashers who had been arrested. Maybe they were here to do a little paying back for the latest Settlertown incident. Whoever they were, Fredda had not the slightest doubt they were hoping there was an excuse for trouble.

  Fredda stole one last peek around the edge of the curtain, and what she saw this time made her curse out loud. Ironheads. What better excuse for trouble could there be? A whole crew of them, maybe fifty or sixty, easily identifiable by the steel-grey uniforms they insisted on wearing for some reason, and Simcor Beddle himself in attendance. At least they had been seated at the rear left of the auditorium, as far as possible from the Settlers.

  Sitting in the center of the front row was Alvar Kresh. Fredda surprised herself by being glad to see him. Maybe things wouldn’t get out of hand. His robot, Donald, was still in the auditorium, no doubt coordinating security. Fredda counted at least twenty deputies in the auditorium, lined up along the walls in the niches usually reserved for robots. They looked to be ready for anything—except who in the world could know what to be ready for?

  She sighed. If only this roomful of people, and the words she was about to say, were all she had to worry about. But life was not that simple. There was the Caliban crisis, and now these garbled reports about Horatio and some sort of trouble at Limbo Depot. What the devil had happened there?

  She stared again at Kresh. He knew. He knew what had happened to Horatio, and she had no doubt whatsoever that he was closing in on the real story behind Caliban as well.

  She felt her head throbbing slightly and put her hand up to her turbaned head. She felt the small, discreet bandage on the back of her head under the hat. At least the turban would hide her shaved head and the bandage. No doubt everyone here knew she had been attacked, but there was no need to advertise it.

  She stepped back from the curtain and found herself pacing the stage, lost in thought, lost to the world. But that was too lonely, too nerve-racking. She needed to speak to someone. She turned to her two associates, who were doing their own nervous waiting.

  “Do you really think they’ll listen, Jomaine?” she asked. “Do you, Gubber? Do you think they’ll accept our ideas?”

  Gubber Anshaw shook his head nervously. “I—I don’t know. I honestly can’t say which way they’ll jump.” He knitted his fingers together and then pulled his hands apart, as if they were two small animals he was having trouble controlling. “For all we know, they’ll form a lynch mob at the end of the night.”

  “Nice of you to go out of your way to make Fredda feel better, Gubber,” Jomaine said acidly.

  Gubber shrugged awkwardly and rubbed his nose with the tips of his fingers, his hand stiff and flat. “There’s no call for you to talk that way to me, Jomaine. Fredda asked for my honest opinion—and, and—I gave it to her, that’s all. It’s no reflection on you, Fredda, nor on our work, if the people choose not to accept what you say. We always knew there was a risk. Yes, I was unsure about signing on to the project in the first place, but you long ago convinced me that your approach makes sense. But you said it yourself enough times: You are challenging what amounts to the state religion. If there are enough hard-core true believers out there—”

  “Oh, stuff and nonsense,” Jomaine said wearily. “The only thing close to robotics worship is the Ironhead organization, and their only belief is that robots are the magic solution to everything. They’re here looking for a reason to cause trouble. It’s the only reason they go anywhere. And I promise you—if we don’t give them a reason for a fight, they’ll do their best to find one. The only question is whether the police are here in enough force to keep them from succeeding.”

  “But what about the rest of the people out there?” Fredda asked.

  “My dear, you are not going to manage a blanket conversion tonight,” Jomaine said in a far gentler voice. “At best you will open a debate. If we are lucky, people will start thinking about what you say. Some will take one side, some another. They will argue. If we are lucky, things that people have taken for granted all their lives will suddenly be topical issues. That is the best we can hope for.” Jomaine cleared his throat delicately, a prim little noise. “And,” he added in rather dry tones, “the fact that you are going to present them all with one hell of a fait accompli at the end of the evening should intensify that debate, just ever so slightly.”

  Fredda smiled. “Yes, I suppose you’re right. It’s not going to be over tonight.” She turned toward Gubber again, but noticed he had wandered off toward the other end of the stage, and was chatting with Tonya Welton while the Governor sat waiting quietly at the table. “It’s gotten to Gubber more than any of us, hasn’t it?” Fredda said. “Since all this started, he’s in the worst shape I’ve ever seen him.”

  Jomaine Terach grunted noncommittally. Gubber was undoubtedly even more tightly strung than usual, but Jomaine was not entirely convinced it had all that much to do with ‘the Caliban crisis’ or the N.L. robots. Jomaine could not imagine that conducting a supposedly secret romance with Tonya Welton would be all that relaxing an activity.

  Did Fredda know about the affair? It seemed at least possible she did not. The way gossip moved through the average workplace, the boss was often the last to know. Should I tell her? he asked himself for the hundredth time. And for the hundredth time, he came to the same conclusion. Given the strained relations between Leving Labs and the Limbo Project—in other words, between Fredda and Tonya—Jomaine could see no point in telling Fredda and giving her something else to worry about.

  “Come on, Fredda,” he said. “It’s nearly time to start again.”

  “WE cannot talk here!” Tonya hissed angrily under her breath. She hated this, but there was no help for it. Here was Gubber, not half a meter from her. And instead of reaching out to him, throwing her arms around him, and feeling the warmth of his embrace, she was forced to snap at him, to stand apart, to make it seem that he was the last man in the world she wanted to be with. “It’s bad enough that this charade has forced us to appear in public on the same stage, but we cannot be seen talking together. The situation is bad enough without one of Kresh’s goons putting two and two together.”

  “The—the curtain is drawn closed,” Gubber said, awkwardly wringing his hands together. “Kresh can’t see us.”

  “For all we know, he has undercover surveillance robots working as stagehands, or listening devices trained on the backstage area,” Tonya said, struggling to keep her voice firm. For both their sakes, she dare not give in to him, much as she wanted to do.

  “Why in the world would he do that?” Gubber asked, deeply confused.

  “Because he might already suspect. There’s gossip about us, I’m sure of it. If he has heard any of it, he might be very interested to hear what we have to say to each other. So we must say nothing. We can’t meet, and we must assume that every comm system will be tapped. We must have no direct contact with each other until this is over, or everything will be ruined.”

  “But how can we—” Gubber began, but then it seemed that he could not bear to say more. The poor man. She could see it in his eyes. He thought this was the end. Tonya’s heart welled up with sadness. He was always so afraid that she was going to break off with him, cut her losses, reduce her r
isk. He thought it a mad dream to think a woman like her would want a fellow like him.

  How little he knew. Half the Settler women Tonya knew would do anything to have a man like Gubber, a gentle, thoughtful man who knew how to treat a woman with affection and courtesy. Settler men were so full of bluster, so determined to prove their virility with yet another conquest. Tonya smiled to herself. Not that Gubber had anything to prove on that score.

  “Gubber, Gubber,” Tonya said, her voice suddenly soft and gentle. “Darling. I can see what you’re thinking, and it’s just not so. I’m not going to leave you. I could never do that. But with the way things are, it would be almost suicidal for us to meet or use the comm nets. I’ll send Ariel to you with a message later tonight. That’s all we dare risk. All right?”

  Tonya saw the wave of relief wash over him. It was going to be all right.

  “Thank you,” he said, “Come on. They’re about to start.”

  ALVAR Kresh was in his seat in the first row of the auditorium, Donald accompanying him. Alvar Kresh was the only person whose personal robot was permitted to stay. Rank hath its privileges—and he needed Donald close.

  “Excuse me, sir. I am receiving an encrypted transmission. Stand by. Reception is complete.”

  On the other hand, there were times when having Donald close could be a positive nuisance. This was not the best time or place to receive a confidential document. “Hell. The lecture’s about to start. Read it, Donald, and tell me if it will keep until after the lecture.”

  “Yes, sir. One moment.” Donald stared off into nothing at all for several seconds and then came back to life. “Sir, I believe you had best read it at once. It is a raw transcript of the first interview with the robot Horatio. Robopsychologist Patras appears to have been successful in pulling the robot out of catatonia.”

  “What’s in the transcript?”

  “Sir, I think you should read it for yourself. I would not wish to color your reactions, and I must admit that I find the contents rather—disturbing. I would find it most unpleasant to discuss them.”