by Isaac Asimov
To this very day, there were those who moaned and complained about the terrible hardships imposed by the robotic labor laws. But it seemed there were fewer and fewer such complainers as time went by. People were getting used to the idea of living with fewer robots. People had discovered—or rediscovered—the pleasure of doing things for themselves. Things were changing, and changing for the better.
The question was—would the change be enough? Kresh knew that the fate of the planet was still balanced on a knife edge. Locally, things might be improving. But from a global perspective, thing were…
No. Never mind. Worry about it all later. Lentrall’s idea had—had disturbed him. No question about it. He needed to hear what Fredda would say about it.
Kresh turned away from the view of the city, and headed toward his aircar. “Come on, Donald,” he said again, “let’s go home.”
IT WAS LUCKY. Kresh told himself as Donald flew him home, that Spacers had a long tradition of respecting each other’s privacy, and of defending their own. Otherwise, the scandalous nature of his own domestic arrangements might well have brought a thunderstorm of controversy down upon his head.
To get the worst of it over with first, Alvar Kresh and his wife, Fredda Leving, lived together, and maintained only one household. In the typical Spacer marriage, husband and wife each had their own household, and spent a large fraction of their time apart from each other.
It was more or less expected that newlyweds would spend an inordinate amount of time together, but the typical pattern was for a couple to spend less and less time together as the years went by. A couple who had been married some years might see each other once a week, or once a month. Some older marriages didn’t so much end as wear out; the two partners might never see each other at all, from year’s end to year’s end. While divorce was simple enough on Inferno, many couples couldn’t even work up the energy to go through the legal motions. They stayed married out of sheer inertia.
Alvar Kresh had discovered, much to his own surprise, that his own marriage was not coming anywhere close to following any such pattern. Three years after their wedding, he and Fredda still spent every night not only under the same roof but, even more scandalously, in the same room—and the same bed.
While there was nothing seen as actually wrong or immoral in such an arrangement, it was most unusual in Infernal society. If it had gotten around, the good people of Inferno would have thought their governor and his wife most peculiar.
And that in itself was strange, in Kresh’s mind, at least. He stared out the window, at the green and lovely city below, reflecting once again on the peculiar ways of his own people. Infernals prided themselves on being quite open-minded when it came to questions of personal relationships. And so they were—at least in theory. But Kresh had learned, over the years, that while their minds might be open to the idea of most sorts of physical relationships, their hearts were far less prepared to deal with the idea of emotional intimacy. The idea, the theory, of sex was something an Infernal could deal with. The fact, the reality, of sex would bring a blush to an Infernal’s face, but he or she could at least countenance such a thing. The idea of love was something most could not deal with at all.
Infernals were Spacers, and Spacers had always been a people who kept their distance, physical and emotional, from each other. At least Infernals had never gone to the extremes of some Spacer worlds, worlds that had no real cities, no towns, no villages, only widely scattered villas, with one human and an army of robots making up the average household. But Infernals were not exactly a gregarious people.
That Kresh and Fredda slept together on occasion would be seen as perfectly acceptable. That they slept together every night, in the same bed, would be seen as a trifle odd. That they had their meals together, spent their free time together, and were in each other’s company as much as possible—that would be seen as quite beyond the pale. Infernals simply did not open up to each other, expose themselves to each other, that way. They did not make themselves vulnerable to each other.
More fools they, Kresh told himself. They would never know the strength, the confidence, the sense of security that Fredda gave to Kresh. He could only hope he gave as much to her.
Kresh knew the Infernals, and what they would say if they knew. He knew how the idea would float up from somewhere that his unconventional home life made him unsuited to continue as governor, or that Fredda obviously had an undue influence on him. Even as it was, they said she was far too young for him—and Infernals were suspicious of youth. They said she was entirely too cozy with the Settlers. Simcor Beddle, leader of the Ironheads, was never reluctant to put that notion about at one of his mass meetings—and there was at least a grain of truth in it. Fredda did tend toward the Settler view on a number of subjects. Beddle was already leading a whispering campaign, putting it about that her radical ideas were dangerous. But then, Kresh was inclined to believe that himself. Fredda and he had some remarkably vigorous arguments on the subject of robots, among other things.
If Kresh had been a private citizen, he would not have much cared if the rest of the universe knew every detail of his domestic arrangements. But the last thing he needed at this point was for his personal affairs to become an issue. Better, far better, to keep such matters well away from the public eye and avoid the talk in the first place.
Kresh paid lip service to the conventions. He maintained—but did not use—fully staffed and equipped living quarters at Government Tower. The only time he put them to use was after official entertainments of one sort or another. At such times, he would make a show of retiring to his own private rooms in Government Tower at the end of the evening, long after Fredda had gone home to “her” house. Sometimes, if the hour was very late, they would actually spend the night apart, but, more often than not, Donald would end up secretly flying one of them to where the other waited. All of it was quite absurd. But better such nocturnal charades than the poisonous gossip that would result if the story got around that Alvar Kresh was passionately in love with his wife.
Kresh remembered arguing with Chanto Grieg, just hours before Grieg’s death. Grieg had tried to explain to Kresh how the job of posturing, of pretending, of smoothing over, was vital to the job of governance, that he could not get to his real work until all the nonsense had been dealt with. Kresh had not quite believed it then—but he had learned the truth of it since. Simcor Beddle had taught him that much. Kresh had learned the hard way that he could do nothing unless he first neutralized the Ironheads.
The Ironheads. Kresh smiled to himself as he imagined what Beddle and his crew could do with the news if they discovered everything about the goings-on at the Kresh—Leving household. There were things more shocking than romance. For the sake of domestic harmony, Kresh himself spent a lot of time pretending he knew less than he did about what went on when he was away from home. Best if he could pretend he did not know all about the meetings of subversive robots taking place in his own house.
It was bad enough that he himself knew. But if Beddle ever found out—oh, yes, there was need enough for privacy.
There was a change in sound of the aircar’s engine, and Kresh came back to himself as the car banked smoothly to one side and eased down out of the sky. He blinked and looked toward the front of the craft, out the forward viewport. There it was. There was home.
The aircar settled in for a landing.
FREDDA LEVING STOOD up from her chair and looked across the table at the two robots. “It would be best if you both were going,” she said. “My husband will be home at any moment.”
The smaller of the two robots, the jet-black one, rose from his chair and regarded his hostess thoughtfully. “Surely your husband is aware that we meet here with you.”
“Of course he is,” she said. “But it is best for all concerned that we do not rub his nose in it.”
“I do not understand,” said the black robot. He was Prospero, self-proclaimed leader of the New Law robots. He was a gleaming
metallic black, about a hundred eighty centimeters tall, with the solid, heavy-set body design common to many of the New Laws. His eyes glowed a deep, burning orange that seemed to make his personality all the more intense. “If he knows we come here, why conceal it from him?”
“I do not understand why you ask questions to which you already know the answer,” Fredda replied.
Prospero swiveled his head about to glance at his companion and then swung abruptly back toward Fredda. “Do I know the answer?” he asked in a suspicious voice.
The larger of the two robots stood as well, and looked toward his companion. “There are times, friend Prospero,” said Caliban, “when I believe that you quite deliberately play at being ignorant. The governor wants no contact with us. He tolerates, but does not approve of, these meetings. The less we bring them to his official attention, the more likely they are to continue.”
Caliban stood over two meters tall, his body metallic red in color, his eyes a penetrating glowing blue. His appearance was striking, even intimidating, but far less so than his reputation. Caliban the Lawless, they still called him, sometimes.
Caliban, the robot accused, but cleared, of attempting the murder of his creator—of Fredda Leving herself.
Prospero regarded his companion for a moment before he replied. “The need for discretion,” he said. “Yes, I have heard that answer before. But I am far from sure that I know it is the true answer.”
“And what purpose would it serve for me to lie to you?” Caliban asked. For a Three-Law robot, the very idea of lying would be difficult to imagine, but Caliban was a No Law robot, and, in theory at least, just as able to lie as any human.
“Perhaps you would have no purpose in lying,” Prospero said, looking back toward Fredda. “But others might well have reasons to deceive you.”
“You are not at your most tactful today,” said Fredda. “And I must confess I don’t see why our perfectly true answers should not satisfy you. Nor can I see what motive I would have for lying to you and Caliban.”
“I might add that I do not understand your motive for offending our principal benefactor,” said Caliban.
Prospero hesitated, and looked from one of them to the other. “My apologies,” he said at last. “There are times when my understanding of human psychology fails me, even when I am attempting to learn more. I was attempting to gauge your emotional reaction to such an accusation, Dr. Leving.”
“I would have to believe in the sincerity of the accusation before I could have much of a reaction to it,” said Fredda.
“Yes,” said Prospero. “Of course.”
But if Fredda Leving was sure of anything at that moment, she was sure that Prospero had not given her all of the story—and perhaps had not given her any of the true story. But what motive would Prospero have for playing such a strange game? It was rare indeed when she felt completely sure that she understood Prospero. She had long known he was one of her less stable creations. But he was the undisputed leader of the New Law robots. She had no real choice but to deal with him.
“In any event,” said Caliban, “it is time for us both to be leaving. I have no doubt, Dr. Leving, that we shall all meet again soon.”
“I look forward to it,” said Fredda.
The jet-black robot regarded first Fredda, and then Caliban. “Very well,” he said. “We will depart. But I doubt that I will be the first or last robot to observe that the more I know about humans, the less I understand them.”
Fredda Leving sighed wearily. There were times when it was frustrating in the extreme listening to Three-Law robots holding forth on the subject of human behavior. Prospero and the other New Laws were even worse. At least Three-Law robots were not judgmental. Prospero had an opinion about everything.
Fredda could almost imagine him as the last priest of some long-forgotten human religion, always ready to debate any intricate point of theology, so long as it was of no interest or importance to anyone at all. There were times Caliban was no better. She had designed and built both of these robots by herself. Surely she could have designed their brains so they didn’t spend their days logic-chopping. But it was too late now. “Whatever you think of my reasons for doing so,” she said, “I must ask you again to leave, by the back way. Our next appointment is in three days, is it not?”
“Yes,” said Prospero. “We have several other appointments that will take up the intervening time.”
“Fine then. Return in three days, in the afternoon, and we will conclude our business.”
Caliban nodded his head toward her, in what was almost a bow. “Very well,” he said in a most courteous tone. “We will see you at that time.”
Prospero took no interest in courtesy. He simply turned, opened the door, and left the room, leaving all the farewells to his companion. Caliban had to hurry just to keep up with him.
Fredda watched them go, and found herself once again wondering about Prospero. She did not understand what went on behind those glowing eyes. There was something not quite right about a robot that—that secretive. She shook her head as she crossed the room. Not much point in worrying about it now. She sealed the door shut behind them and scrambled the keypad. Only she and Caliban and Prospero knew the door’s keypad combination.
And there were times she thought seriously about taking at least one name off that list.
2
CALIBAN FOLLOWED PROSPERO down the tunnel. It ran for about a hundred meters, and deposited them at the base of a ravine that was otherwise quite inaccessible to the house. Their aircar was hidden there.
“I would like to know what all that was about,” Caliban said as they emerged from the tunnel into the cool of the evening.
“I spoke the truth,” Prospero said coolly. “It was in part merely a test to see how she would react to such an accusation. Surely you would agree it is worth knowing if she is capable of betraying us.” Prospero climbed into the pilot’s station.
Caliban followed, climbing into the forward passenger seat. “I suppose the case could be made that such information would be useful in a general sense,” he said. “But you have dealt with Dr. Leving for quite some time now. Why worry about such hypotheticals now? And if the need for a test was only part of your intent, what was the rest?”
“I have answers to both questions, friend Caliban, but I do not choose to give them now. This is all I can tell you: I believe we are in danger. The possibility that we will be betrayed—or have been already—is quite real. And I can tell you no more than that.”
Prospero engaged the aircar’s controls, and they lifted off into the evening air. Caliban said no more, but he found that he had reached a conclusion about Prospero. There was no longer the slightest doubt in his mind that the New Law robot was unstable. He did not merely suspect betrayal on all sides—he virtually invited it. He had gone out of his way to encourage Dr. Leving’s hostility. More than likely, the fellow was confusing danger to himself with danger to the New Laws.
All of which made Caliban’s next decision quite simple. As soon as it was conveniently possible, he would put some distance, in every sense of the word, between himself and Prospero.
He no longer wished to stand quite so close to so tempting a target.
FREDDA LEVING WALKED to the other end of the underground safe room, and went through the open door there. She wearily closed the door behind her, and scrambled the combination as well. She, Fredda, was the only one who knew the combination to this door. Alvar had insisted on that much. He had no desire for a New Law robot like Prospero—let alone a No Law robot like Caliban—to have free access to his home. There had been times when she herself had been glad to keep her home well barricaded against New Law robots.
And of course, the New Laws felt the same way about humans. She still had not the slightest idea where, exactly, the New Law city of Valhalla was. She knew it was underground, and that it was in the Utopia sector, but that was about all. Fredda had even been taken there several times, but she had always bee
n transported in a windowless aircar equipped with a system for jamming tracking devices. The New Law robots took no chances, and she could not blame them. Fredda had been quite willing to cooperate with their precautions, and to make sure everyone knew about them. They were for her safety as much as for that of the robots. What she did not know, she could not reveal under the Psychic Probe. The New Law robots had a large number of enemies. Some of them might well be willing to reduce the governor’s wife to a vegetable, and damn the consequences, if that was what it took to find the lair of the New Law robots.
Astonishing, really, the lengths they all went to. Not just the New Laws, but Alvar, and even herself. They all took such elaborate precautions. Against discovery, against scandal, against each other. No wonder Prospero was turning half paranoid. Maybe even more than half.
In all probability, of course, the precautions would turn out to be useless in the end. Plots and secrets and hidden agendas generally came crashing down, sooner or later. She had never been involved in a plot or a secret that hadn’t. But the secrets and plots and safeguards and precautions made them all feel better, feel secure, at least for a while. Perhaps that was the point of having them.
Fredda double-checked the inner door, and then stepped into the elevator car that would carry her up above ground, to the household proper.
OBR-323 was waiting there for her, in all his rather ponderous solemnity. “Master Kresh has landed,” he announced in his gravely, ponderous voice. “He should be here momentarily.”