Isaac Asimov's I, Robot: To Preserve

by Mickey Zucker Reichert

  Suddenly, everyone was nodding, and they practically ran back to Goldman and Peters’ laboratory. Susan indicated the bloodstained stool where Ari Goldman had died. “Layton, sit there, please. We’re going to reenact the crime, and you’re Ari Goldman.”

  Nate turned Susan a worried look. “You’re not actually going to hit me, are you?”

  “Of course not,” Jake assured him.

  Nate sat.

  Susan looked askance at Cody. “Where would Nate have been sitting?”

  Peters straightened out the laboratory tables so that they formed a perfect square, far more meticulously than he would normally have done it, meeting the specifications of Ari Goldman rather than himself. He placed the closest stool at the second desk, the one beside Nate’s.

  Jake interjected. “Blood splatter suggests the chair next to the victim was unoccupied.”

  Susan dismissed him with a wave. “Chronological, remember? I’m getting there.” She grasped Pal’s arm. “Sit here. You’re Nate.”

  Jake jumped in again. “For height purposes, I think you should switch them.”

  Though highly uncomfortable putting Nate in his actual role, Susan knew refusing to do so would draw even more attention. “Height doesn’t come into it, but, yeah, all right. Whatever.” She made several quick gestures between man and robot to indicate they should switch places. Hyperalert to the situation, she could not help noticing that Nate adjusted his chair, presumably to reflect the actual position he had occupied on the night of the murder. Susan handed him the book and a pen.

  “Okay, Dr. Goldman, act like you’re pouring things into tubes and such.” It was not stylistically accurate; capillary tubes used a suction action, but she did not want to get into insignificant details. “Nate, be writing things down.”

  It suddenly occurred to Susan that Nate would have to obey her command verbatim. She could imagine him scrawling “things, things, things” a billion times over the notations already inside the book. “Of course, I mean pretend to be writing things down with the pen backward. We don’t want to risk stray marks.”

  Pal pantomimed working with test tubes, and Nate used the back of the pen to simulate writing on the last used page of the laboratory book.

  Susan continued to narrate. “Now, Dr. Goldman, you’ve just run out of capillary tubes.”

  Pal pretended to look around him.

  “No,” Susan corrected. “You’re a scientist with a temper, and you’re furious at your zhlob of a partner for using up all the tubes.”

  Cody interrupted. “Wait a second, that’s not possible.”

  Every gaze went to him.

  “I remember specifically. After I hung up my coat, I grabbed a whole box of Schmidt tubes and carried it to the work space. There’s a holder around here somewhere.” Peters dropped to all fours to look beneath the tables, rising triumphantly with a square, hard-plastic container. “Here it is. At the time, it was on the corner of Ari’s desk.” He placed it in the proper location. “I filled it to the brim, probably five hundred tubes. Ari never uses more than a hundred, hundred fifty a day.”

  “You filled it?” Jake pressed.

  “To the brim,” Cody said without a hint of doubt. “I remember carrying the cardboard box with the remaining tubes back to storage and placing it on the shelf. It was less than a quarter full when I finished, and a wind gust knocked it over. I caught it before anything spilled, but I made sure to put it in a position where that wouldn’t happen again. Plus, I partially closed the window. It’s the only window we have, so we usually keep it open a bit for the air, but if you open it too wide, things can get blown around.”

  Susan remembered that, when they had entered the closet earlier, the window had been half-open. Cody had pushed it down to a slit mechanically, as though doing so had become unconscious habit.

  Jake continued to question, indicating the plastic container now on the corner of Goldman’s desk. “You filled this holder to the brim, right? And you didn’t actually spill any tubes in the storage area. You caught them before they hit the shelf or the floor.”

  “Correct,” Cody said.

  “Then how come,” Jake said slowly, “there aren’t hundreds of broken tubes under these tables but there are quite a few in the storage area?”

  Cody peered under the pushed-together tables again. “Maybe the police took them as evidence?”

  Jake shook his head. “They documented exactly seven slender tubes in this area, four broken. Those showed evidence of use in that they contained a foamy residue. The intact three had some sort of biologically active material.”

  “That’s consistent with the experiment,” Cody said. “But I can’t explain why they didn’t find several hundred Schmidt tubes. I know I filled that container.”

  Jake tipped his head toward Susan. “Continue your simulation. We’ll file that as ‘Inexplicable Number One.’”

  Susan addressed Pal: “Dr. Goldman, you’ve run out of the tubes you need for your experiment, and you’re mad at your partner, who was supposed to fill the container.”

  Pal grimaced, apparently remembering Peters’ description of Goldman’s insults. “That block of wood! That beetle-headed, flap-eared knave of a partner!” He turned to Nate. “Fetch me some Schmidt capillary tubes!”

  Nate leapt up immediately to obey. Though not certain her cousin Layton would do the same, Susan went along with it. “Okay, Nate.” She found it more difficult than she expected to call Nate by his real name in front of Jake. “Hand the book to Dr. Goldman and head for the storage closet.”

  Nate did as he was asked. Pal took the book and acted as if he were scribbling furiously in the comments box. Nate headed toward the closet, Cody, Susan, and Jake following. He opened the closet, stepped inside, and reached for the toppled box of capillary tubes.

  Realizing Nate would have to obey Pal’s command to fetch Schmidt capillary tubes, Susan shouted, “Freeze!”

  Nate had no choice but to go abruptly and utterly still.

  Susan tried to fix her own, worse, mistake. “Sorry, Layton. I didn’t mean to startle you. Just stand still like a normal human being.”

  Nate relaxed a bit.

  Susan turned to the others. “At this point, according to the battery examination, someone doused Nate with radiation that, for all intents and purposes, rendered him unconscious.”

  “What do you want me to do?” Nate asked.

  “Just remain as you are, please,” Susan instructed. “Robots don’t collapse like people do when they’re turned off. They stand completely still, sensing nothing.” She touched the tipped box on the shelf. Apparently, around the time of the murder, Nate had had the box partially in hand. The pulse of radiation must have suddenly shut down his sensory and motor systems, causing him to spill the tubes on the floor. She addressed Nate again. “I’m going to push you from behind now. Walk ahead of me as I do so, please.”

  Susan planted both hands on Nate’s back, persistently shoving him. Humanlike, he leaned some of his weight on her and made his slow way forward. A few loose tubes on the floor crunched under their feet, explaining the powder they had seen earlier. Susan moved Nate into the laboratory, then stopped. “Wait here.” She returned to the storage area, dug out a large broom, and handed it to Cody.

  “Inexplicable Number Two,” Jake pointed out. “Nate weighs more than four hundred pounds. How could one man possibly move him? I mean, you needed Layton’s assistance, and he’s considerably lighter than Nate.”

  Susan wished she could show Jake how easily she could push Nate if he was actually turned off. “The NC robots were constructed to be easily moved when turned off. They kind of . . . glide.”

  “Really,” Jake said dubiously. “For now, I’m still calling that Inexplicable Number Two. I don’t think you’re going to convince a jury of that without significant evidence.”

&nb
sp; For now, Susan could only concede the point. She guided Cody Peters to stand behind Pal. “While one killer was moving Nate, another sneaked up on Dr. Goldman with the murder weapon.” Broom in hand, Cody took a position behind Pal’s chair.

  Jake seemed about to call another “inexplicable” but settled for a questioning statement. “An exceptionally strong and quiet man.”

  “Not necessarily quiet,” Cody pointed out. “Ari could be single-mindedly focused at the best of times. On a rant”—he shrugged—“a marching band could have set up behind him without notice.”

  Susan took that as a cue to continue her reenactment, but Jake interrupted, still playing devil’s advocate. “Or, maybe, he didn’t pay attention to someone coming up behind him because it was Nate. And he trusted Nate.”

  “Or maybe,” Pal added, “he just mistook the killer for Nate, so he didn’t bother to look behind him.”

  Jake bobbled his head to indicate he would consider the possibility. “But you still have to explain how not one, but two, men managed to get into the room unnoticed by the victim, the robot, or any of the neighboring scientists.”

  “I’ll figure that out,” Susan promised. “In the meantime, let me finish.” She handed the broom to Cody Peters. “The killer clobbers Dr. Goldman once. His accomplice waits until after the first hit, when Dr. Goldman is unconscious, to move Nate into place. The second hit assures that Nate is splashed with appropriate bodily fluids to appear guilty. The weapon is placed in his hand. The killers wait the appropriate period of time, call in the code, and leave.”

  “How?” Jake asked.

  “I’m assuming they used the lab phone. They’re too smart to use their own Vox.”

  Jake shook his head. “I mean, how did they leave without anyone seeing them? The one who did the killing would have been covered in blood, and they’re both strangers.”

  Susan thought quickly. “There were plenty of people in the crowd I didn’t recognize. The Code Blue brought tons of people, and the Code Silver kept most of them hovering worriedly outside the door. In the confusion, anyone could have slipped away.”

  Pal tried, “You’re more observant than most, Susan. Did you see anyone suspicious?”

  “By the time I got there, many people had come and gone. I was one of the last people on the scene.”

  “A big guy splattered with blood,” Jake reminded.

  Susan knew anyone who had attempted to revive Ari Goldman could have gotten bloody, including herself, but she could not imagine competent killers trying to pass themselves off as Hasbro doctors. Someone would surely notice them then. If the residents working with her had done anything strange, it would have stuck in her memory. “Maybe he wore a work apron over his clothes, then disposed of it before calling the code.”

  “Nothing like that was found in the room,” Jake pointed out.

  “Maybe he threw it out the window?” Cody said.

  Susan revived the image of Cody closing the storage room window to a crack. “Didn’t you say you and Dr. Goldman usually kept the window open a bit, but not too far, because it blows things around?”

  “I did,” Cody said.

  “But when we went in there,” Susan pointed out, “it was half-open.”

  “It was?” Cody sounded surprised. Clearly, he had acted from rote, without a bit of thought.

  “It was,” Jake confirmed. “And you also mentioned that you had mostly closed it before you left on the day of the murder, remember? Because it had blown over the partial box of capillary tubes.”

  “Yeah,” Cody said thoughtfully. “Which means that, between the time I left and the time the police examined the room, someone opened it.”

  Susan added, “It wasn’t any of the docs. We were completely focused on saving Dr. Goldman. And hospital security had its hands full with Nate. No one entered the storage closet, unless it happened before I got there, which seems unlikely.” She looked at Jake. “Did anyone mention opening the window in the police report?”

  Jake shook his head soundlessly.

  “That leaves Goldman or Nate,” Pal pointed out.

  Susan gave Nate a surreptitious look, which he returned with a cautious shake to indicate neither of them had done it. “Or the killers.”

  “Or the killers,” Jake admitted. “You think they might have tossed a bloody raincoat or smock out of it.”

  “Maybe.” Susan went further. “More important, I think they entered and exited through it.”

  Now Jake gave her a dubious look. “We’re on the seventh floor,” he reminded. “And it was broad daylight.”

  Cody waved everyone back toward the closet. “The window opens onto a narrow alley. The building across from us is a warehouse that has no windows on this side.” He shrugged. “Who could have seen them?”

  Jake studied the view through the window. He stepped closer and looked directly downward. “Okay, I’ll give you no witnesses. But who climbs seven stories up the side of a building?”

  “I’ve known people who could do that,” Pal said.

  “I’m sure you have,” Jake admitted, “but you know highly skilled and trained people.”

  Susan held out her hands. “Contract killers don’t fall under the heading of ordinary, either. The SFH has hired professionals in the past.” She added the thought she had had before Pal had spoken. “Besides, they didn’t have to be Spider-Man. They could have used a ladder to climb up. Or, they could have taken the stairs to the roof and used a rope ladder or rappelled down. They could even have used the elevator.”

  Jake opened the window and stuck his head out, looking up, then down. Finally, he came fully back inside. “It’s a long shot.”

  Susan folded her arms over her chest. “Not if it’s what happened.”

  Jake looked directly at her. “I’m not saying it is or is not what happened. My point is it’s going to be difficult to convince a jury.”

  “Actually,” Pal inserted, “we don’t have to prove it happened that way. We just have to introduce reasonable doubt.”

  “Reasonable,” Jake repeated, but added nothing more.

  Susan suffered a rush of irritation, which she tamped down as much as possible. She hoped her old friend was simply demonstrating the difficulty of their defense, assuring they considered every aspect rather than actually suggesting he found their ideas ludicrous or outside the range of possibility. Still, she could not help the negative feelings building toward the police officer. She made a mental note to examine the ground beneath the window and the roof for clues that might shore up her theory.

  Cody returned to the other issue. “Who called in the code? There should be a record of it somewhere, right?”

  Jake supplied the police information: “Male caller from the laboratory phone. He called twice: first reporting a Code Blue, then a Code Silver at the same location.”

  “Was it Nate?” Susan already knew the answer; but, as she had gotten the information from Nate after the kidnapping, she could not reveal her knowledge.

  “That’s the assumption.” Jake restored the window to about a one-inch opening, then headed back into the main laboratory area. “If we still had the robot in custody, we could compare the voices. That might or might not help, given the briefness of the calls, but it certainly couldn’t hurt.”

  Surreptitiously, Pal took Susan’s hand and gave it a slight squeeze, apparently as a warning not to reveal Nate despite the clear temptation. Not that she needed it. Doing so would also require her to confess to a crime. She grasped and released Pal’s hand briefly as reassurance. “That seems beyond unlikely. Why would someone who just committed murder call codes to implicate himself and try to save the life of the person he killed?”

  “Was there blood on the phone?” Cody asked.

  Jake finally turned to the researcher. “No. Or fingerprints, either. It was wiped clean.”


  That made no sense to Susan. “So the prevailing theory is that Nate killed Dr. Goldman, then set down the weapon to call in the codes, wiped down the phone, then picked the weapon back up in order to get caught with it in his hands?”

  “Another inexplicable,” Jake agreed. “Not sure how they’re explaining that, although it’s not entirely unbelievable. He didn’t have to put the weapon down to make the call. And he may have made the call either to divert suspicion from himself or because he doesn’t think like a human being.”

  Susan found herself incensed again. “Of course he doesn’t think like a human being. He’s basically . . . decent. He can’t cause harm like people can.”

  Jake defended himself. “Hey, I’m the one on your side, remember? If you don’t want to know what the evidence showed or the theories being bandied, I’ll be happy to spend my day off vegetating on my couch watching reruns and eating chips.”

  “I’m sorry,” Susan said, and she meant it. “I’m not mad at you, just frustrated with the whole situation. It is not possible for Nate to harm, let alone kill, anyone.”

  Jake nodded broadly. “Fine. Every person in this room believes it, or we wouldn’t be here. But that statement isn’t enough. We have to prove it.”

  Pal added again, “Or, at least, introduce reasonable doubt.”

  Susan ground her teeth together. “Reasonable doubt may get Lawrence and Nate free, but it’s not enough, either. Even if Nate gets off, it’ll still leave suspicion in the minds of the public. It encourages the SFH to kill again, to blame it on Nate or another positronic robot. We have to make a grand display, to prove Nate absolutely innocent, to assure the world that positronic robots are safe and finally nail the SFH.”

  Silence followed Susan’s proclamation.

  Several moments passed before Jake said softly, “You’re right, Susan. And you’re going to have to lead the way.”

  Susan knew Jake was also right, but she had no idea how to proceed. Just managing reasonable doubt seemed difficult enough at the moment.

  Dr. Peters flopped into a chair, looking exhausted. “Well, I, for one, believe Susan’s accounting of the crime. Two or three members of the Society for Humanity sneaked in through the window in the storage closet after I left, while Ari was in the cafeteria. They emptied the bin of Schmidt capillary tubes, knowing Nate would be sent to fetch more. When they had him alone, they hit him with a blast of radiation, rendering him catatonic. One killed Ari, while the other shoved Nate into position and placed the weapon in his hand. While the killer rolled up his bloody coverall, the other man made the call and wiped the phone clean. They escaped the same way they came.”