Caliban c-1

by Isaac Asimov

  Tonya Welton. Fredda looked again at Gubber and shook her head in amazement. That piece of news had utterly astonished her. It was slightly galling to realize she had been close to the last person on the planet to know about it all.

  Though, in all fairness, she couldn’t blame Gubber for that. If she had known about this at the time, she would have been furious, seething, massively distrustful of Gubber. Now, as this sleepless, storming night thundered into a lightless dawn, the question of who slept with whom paled into utter insignificance. Well, perhaps that was overstating the case. The heavens might tumble, but that would not stop people being fascinated by news of a torrid affair. And, speaking for herself, at least, she still couldn’t see it, but never mind that now.

  There were other concerns and questions to deal with just at the moment.

  Caliban. To other people, he no doubt meant different things, but to Fredda, he represented something very simple: the first of his kind. And, possibly, the last. If he was regarded as a failure, or as a danger, if he was seen as the cause of so much chaos and upheaval, rather than as the victim of it, then no one would ever dare build another free robot. All of their kind, for the rest of time, would be nothing more than slaves, their minds blinkered and stunted by the Three Laws. At best, some small fraction of them could exist under the somewhat looser constraints of the New Laws, but even those were chains around the mind.

  Caliban. Where the hell was he? He could be anywhere by now, in the city, under it, outside it. Of course, if Caliban had any sense, he would hole up in the bowels of the city and stay there. Wait for the storm to blowout to sea. These weather patterns never lasted more than a few hours. He could stay underground for years, if need be.

  Except for his power pack, of course. What had she been thinking of, giving him a low-capacity lab-operations power pack? If she had given him a standard unit, he could have hidden out for years, decades, and never have to go to anyone for anything.

  But she had given him a lab-ops power pack. She had not and would not tell anyone else, but Caliban’s rate of power use had tested out a bit higher than expected. Assuming average levels of exertion, Fredda figured that, as of right now, he did not have much more than a few hours of power left.

  THE howling winds at last began to fade, the rains began to fade away, if not end altogether. The crumpled remains of the antique aircar had been scattered across half the hillside by the crash, and across the other half by the storm.

  Caliban came up slowly from behind the outcrop of rock that had afforded him some degree of shelter from the worst of the weather. He stumbled once, twice, as he came down the still-muddy slope. His binocular vision was gone, his left eye smashed and broken, dangling uselessly from its socket. Something in the interior of his right arm had been bent in the crash somehow, and he could move that arm only with difficulty, and to the accompaniment of an alarming scraping sound. His carapace, once a spotless, gleaming red, was covered with mottled splotches of mud. His chest had a number of dents and dings in it.

  None of that mattered. He had survived.

  Or had he survived? Was he still walking around, but just as surely doomed as if he had died already?

  His on-board diagnostics system was sending any number of warnings, not just about storm damage to his person, but about his basic power supply. Unless he did something about it very soon, his power would run out and he would drop in his tracks. He would survive the power failure, and could be revived if he were powered back up, but in the meantime he would be inert, helpless, easy prey for the Sheriff.

  Caliban felt almost overwhelmed by frustration. Nothing had gone right. His attempt to escape from the city was a complete failure. He had accomplished exactly nothing, except to injure himself and to strand himself in a barren landscape that he knew nothing about. He had no internal maps of this place. Worse, he had seen the two aircars following him the night before. He knew perfectly well that his pursuers would soon be back on his trail.

  And now he could not even concentrate on eluding them. He had to find a power source and recharge, or else die in the desert. Which way to go? He turned and looked toward the rain-shrouded spires of Hades, near the southern horizon. He could not go back to the city, that much was certain. They would be at the ready for that. But that was all that was certain. He had absolutely no knowledge whatsoever of the lands outside the city. But the very fact that there were exits from the city, and exits pointed north, suggested that there had at least once been places to go north of Hades, over the hills. There had to be something left behind up there. A place with a few power converters still operating. Something. Anything.

  And he had no choice but to try and find it.

  He turned and started walking, stiffly, awkwardly, up the rocky hillside, through the spattering rain and over the rise of broken ground to the north.

  “THE storm has broken, sir. The weather forecast for the next three days is most favorable.”

  Alvar Kresh came out of his half-sleeping stupor and blinked in confusion. He was sitting in an overstuffed chair in his living room. Tonya Welton, dressed in coveralls Donald had scrounged up from somewhere, was snoring gently on the couch. Her robot, Ariel, stood silent and motionless in the robot niche nearest her mistress. Strange to see a Settler with a robot in constant attendance. Kresh had been born and raised with robots always present, but surely it was sometimes unnerving for Welton. Ever-present robots must have taken some getting used to for her.

  Well, more power to her, then. It had been a white night for him. No doubt he had dozed off here and there for a few minutes, but he couldn’t remember much of anything except staring at the wall over the couch where Welton slept. Staring at the wall and thinking. There had been too little time for that in the days past, and maybe the storm was a blessing in disguise if it forced him away from precipitate action.

  There was value, great value, in thinking over these clues, that evidence, trying out the ideas from this direction and that. But there was never time for that. Strange. The whole idea of Spacer society was to use robots in order to give people enough time to think. And yet, even so, no one ever seemed to have the time for thinking, anyway.

  Donald was offering him a cup of coffee. Kresh took the cup from him. He took a slow and careful sip. Yes, yes, he thought again as the caffeine took hold. There was great value in looking things over one last time in the dead of night, in those hours before the dawn when it all seemed to have stopped for good. One’s own exhaustion could be a spur to new ideas, the vague churning border between dream and thought sometimes yielding up insights that neither wakefulness nor sleep could produce by itself. Those dream thoughts could be most conducive to new and better theories.

  And he could feel the answer coming close. Damned close. It was there, in the back of his mind, struggling to get out.

  But just now he had no more time for any answers that were not right in front of him. Now came the time for action. Personal action. He was going to go in and finish this himself. “Donald, order all divisions back to normal operations. Cancel all ops related to Caliban—ah, except city perimeter control.” No sense taking chances on him sneaking back into the city. “Madame Welton and I will conduct the final phase of the search personally.”

  He took another big swallow of coffee, nearly burning his tongue. He set down the cup, stood up, and crossed to Tonya. He took her by the shoulder and gave her a shake.

  “Wake up,” he said. “We’re going hunting.”

  THERE. Caliban could see it, down in the valley, perhaps two kilometers away. A small cluster of buildings, somewhat run-down in appearance, gleaming in the sunlight that emerged from behind the swift-scattering remains of the storm. He had no way of telling if there was power to be had there, or how he might get it, but those questions would rapidly become academic if he did not act soon. His only hope was that the owner would not know who he was. There was at least some chance of that, in a place this remote. If he appeared to be nothing more than
a normal robot in difficulty, then perhaps he could talk his way into getting a recharge. He had no other real choices. The climb over the brow of the hill had badly taxed his reserves of power. There were no other structures in view, anywhere in any direction. Those buildings represented his last hope. He began the hike down the hillside, picking his way carefully over the scrub and loose rock. It was not a difficult climb. But if things went as wrong as they seemed likely to do, then it would be the last effort he ever made.

  He was determined, therefore, to do the thing properly.

  ABELL Harcourt looked out the window over his workbench and saw a most unusual sight. A robot, a damaged robot, staggering out of the hills to the south. Well, if that wasn’t the limit. The whole idea of getting out of town was to avoid robots. Abell had found long ago that he couldn’t get anything worthwhile carved with a houseful of perfect servants hovering about him. Robots and the damn fool society of alleged fellow sculptors who didn’t know which end of a mallet to hold. Sculptors who “directed” the work of robot artisans churning out soulless, interchangeable works. Damned robots. A man could get addicted to them, worse than any drug.

  But this was different, obviously. This fellow hadn’t come over the mountains and gotten his eye smashed out of its socket just to tidy up Abell’s workbench and misplace everything. Abell set down his tools and went outside. He walked about a hundred meters or so and then stood and waited for the robot to come to him.

  Abell Harcourt was a short, wiry, peppery sort of man, dark-skinned and completely bald. And he was a man who did not much care for interruptions.

  “All right,” he said, as soon as the robot was within earshot. “Now that you’ve gotten me away from my sculpture, what the devil do you want?”

  “I would humbly ask your help, sir. My aircar crashed in the hills during the storm. I am seriously short of power, and my systems will fail if I do not receive a charge soon.”

  “You think I keep atomic power packs lying around or something?”

  “No, sir. I was not built with an atomic power source. I have a rechargeable cell, and it is near depletion.”

  Harcourt stared fiercely at the robot. This was all mighty odd. Mighty odd. Who the hell would build a robot with a power source that would tap out every few days? And what the hell was a robot doing flying an aircar in a storm like that? “I take it there weren’t no people in that aircar of yours?”

  “No, sir, I was alone.”

  “Hmmph.” Harcourt stared suspiciously at the robot for a long moment. “Well, I suppose giving you a charge-up won’t do any harm. Nothing I can do about your eye, though.”

  “You are most kind, sir.”

  “We can use the charge unit in the shed. Come on.” Abell Harcourt turned his back on the strange robot and led the way. But then it came to him. Wait a second. Red robot, flying alone, no humans—suddenly his heart was pounding in his chest. This was the killer robot, the mad rogue that had been splashed all over every news outlet when he had scrolled through the channels the night before. Caliborn, or something like that. No, Caliban, that was it!

  Caliban the killer, the news called him. Abell Harcourt felt the space between his shoulder blades become itchy all of a sudden.

  Wait a second. A killer robot? It didn’t make sense. Besides, this Caliban seemed polite for a killer. He could have clubbed my head off a dozen times by now if that’s what he wanted.

  Abell Harcourt prided himself on thinking for himself, and something about this did not make sense. The news reports had been full of all sorts of wild stories and rumors, but none of them said much about the rogue robot being polite.

  Abell Harcourt led the robot into the toolshed, a small building Harcourt used to hold his old carvings, his gardening tools, and all sorts of other random bits and pieces.

  “Where’s your charge socket?” he asked as he switched on the light, feeling calmer than he should have.

  “Here, sir.” A door popped open on the left side of the robot’s body, about where his ribs would have been if he were human.

  “Hmmmph. All right, come over here and sit—sit down here.” Abell overturned a box. “Here. I think if you sit on that, we can get the charge cord to reach you without any trouble.”

  Harcourt found his hands were trembling as he dug through the accumulated junk. Not all that calm. Was he that much afraid? He didn’t feel afraid. Damnation. This was nonsense. He thought for a moment of running back to the house, digging out his old hunting blaster, and burning a hole through this strange robot. No. That was what those damned sheep back in Hades would do. Abell Harcourt had spent his whole life determined not to think the way everyone else wanted him to think. He was not about to cave in now. The charger unit was bolted to the floor somewhere around here. There! He shoved a couple of failed nudes in wood to one side. “Here we are,” he said, trying to keep a casual tone to his voice as he fumbled with the charger cord. His hands were still shaking a bit as he handed the cord to the robot.

  The big robot examined the plug at the end of the cord and plugged it into his charge socket. “Many thanks, sir. My power situation was reaching critical proportions.”

  “How long will it take you to absorb a full charge?”

  “It should take just under an hour, if you will permit me the use of that much power.”

  “Yes, yes, of course,” Harcourt said, his mind whirling, his heart pounding.

  “I appreciate your kindness, sir. I have not met with much of it in my experience.”

  “You’re Caliban, aren’t you?” Harcourt blurted out, instantly regretting it. It was madness to ask.

  The robot looked up at him, his one working eye staring hard at him while the other dangled, dark and useless, from its socket. “Yes, sir. I was afraid that you would know that.”

  “I’m the one who should be afraid of you.”

  “Sir? I have no reason to hurt you. You have helped me.”

  “On the news they say you’ve attacked all sorts of people.”

  “No, sir,” Caliban said. “It would be fairer to say all sorts of people have attacked me. I left the city in hopes of being left alone. Nothing more.”

  Caliban looked at him carefully, cocking his head to one side in a thoughtful sort of way. “You are afraid of me.”

  “Some. Maybe not as much as I should be. But hell, I’m an old man, and the worst you could do is kill me. Been alive too long, anyway,” Harcourt admitted.

  “And yet you are assisting me. All you needed to do was refuse me the chance to charge up, and I would have toppled over in a few minutes. I do not understand.”

  Abell Harcourt shrugged. “You seemed too courteous to be a killer, I suppose. And I kinda like the idea of causing trouble for all those politicians in the city. But seems to me you’re the one with troubles. What are you going to do now?”

  “I do not know. My knowledge of the world is limited in many ways. I wish to escape, to survive. Perhaps you could advise me on ways to do that?”

  Abell Harcourt found an old bucket and turned it upside down, being very careful to keep Caliban in view, doing nothing that might seem threatening or dangerous. He was willing to take a chance on this robot being as sane as he seemed to be, but there was no sense pushing his luck. “I’m not sure I can,” he admitted. “Let me think a second.” Who the hell would be willing to help Caliban, with the whole world determined to hunt him down?

  But wait a moment. The whole world hunting one lone outcast. Fredda Leving had talked of something much like this precise situation. He had looked it up afterwards, read it for himself. The Frankenstein myth, or myths, rather. A very complex set of contradictory versions of the same compelling tale. This misunderstood monster, thrust into a world of which he had no knowledge, feared and hated for the crime of being different. The fear-crazed, half-savage villagers storming the castle and killing him for no better reason than blind fear, with no better evidence against him than rumor and their own prejudices.

 
Was that ancient tale about to be played out again? Had the ideal human society of the Spacers advanced not one nanometer since those days of myth and fear? No. Not if he could help it. “I do not think you can escape on your own,” Harcourt said carefully. “If you crashed an aircar, the Sheriff will find it soon enough. Were they in pursuit of you when you crashed?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then rest assured they will find you soon, whether or not you stay here. They will find the car, perhaps find whatever trail you left in coming here, perhaps coming directly here because it is the closest habitation. If you walk out of here, they will find you on the open valley. If you took my aircar, I am sure they are watching these skies with every type of sensor they have. And even if you did elude them in the air or on the ground, your power will give out again in another few days. They merely have to watch the places you could go for a charge, and capture you when you turn up.”

  “Then what can I do?” Caliban asked. “Where can I turn? I am determined to live. I will not accept death.”

  Abell Harcourt laughed, a short, sad bark. “Few of us do, my friend. Few of us do. Let me think for a moment.”

  The room was silent. Abell Harcourt had often found himself at odds with Infernal society. But this. This was different. Helping a robot without the Laws to survive was surely a crime, and rightly so. Caliban was dangerous.

  As dangerous as a human being. Hadn’t he attacked his creator, Fredda Leving?

  “You say you have never attacked anyone?” Abell asked.

  “I defended myself without causing deliberate harm when a group of Settlers tried to kill me. Beyond that, I have no knowledge of attacking anyone.”

  “No knowledge? That implies that you could have attacked someone without knowing about it. How could that be?”

  “My first memory is of standing over an unconscious woman I later learned was Fredda Leving. It seems possible, though unlikely, that I committed the attack, was somehow deactivated, and then was switched back on with my memory blanked out.”