Mirage (isaac asimov's robot mystery)

by Mark W. Tiedemann

  Cupra shook his head.

  "Bogard, suspend him."

  In a swift movement, Bogard let one of Cupra's arms go and grabbed his ankle, then stepped up against the railing and stretched that arm out over the drop. He let the agent's other arm go, and Cupra swung free.

  He screamed.

  "All the texts tell us that torture doesn't work," Mia said. "But I'm not so sure."

  "You bitch!"

  Mia frowned. "Oh, that's not what I want to hear."

  "Bogard won't drop me!"

  Mia raised an eyebrow. "You're sure? Bogard is different from other robots. It's already left details out when you asked it questions, and, of course, a robot isn't supposed to be able to do that."

  Cupra screamed again. He stopped flailing and let himself go limp. Mia's estimate of his courage went up again.

  "Bogard, how many files are there pertaining to the Union Station assault?" Mia asked.

  "Forty-seven, Mia."

  "Are they available through the general Service data pool?"

  "No. Fourteen are open flies. The rest are security locked and coded to specific agents."

  "Which agents?"

  "Cupra and Gambel."

  Mia smiled. "Gets better and better. Maybe we don't need you to talk at all, Otin. Seems like Bogard got all the data we need."

  "Please." The word came out as a thin whine. Cupra started trembling again, then tried to curl himself up to grab Bogard's arm. He could not quite make it and fell back.

  "Who's running you?" Mia barked. "Who set it up?"

  "I don't know!"

  "Wrong, Otin! You and Gambel have been running around putting out fifes. You have to know what you're protecting in order to know what fifes to smother."

  "Lemme up. Please. Mia, I-please!"

  "I want a name, Otin. And it has to be the right one. If it isn't, we do this again until it is."

  Cupra waved his arms desperately. Suddenly, he said, "Mikels! Alda Mikels!"

  "Old news, Otin. Mikels couldn't sabotage security. Who else?"

  "Please, for pity's sake!"

  "A name, Otin."

  The silence stretched. Cupra flapped his arms again. If Bogard had not been holding him, he might have worked himself loose and into a fatal fall.

  Then: "One! One signed off on the security!"

  "Bogard, retrieve."

  Bogard brought Cupra back over the rail, snatched his arm, and righted him. The robot stood the agent on his feet and kept a hand on the shaking man's shoulder. Drool ran down Cupra's chin. He glared at Mia with open hatred and terror.

  "One," Mia repeated. "And Alda Mikels. How does that work? Make it sing, Otin."

  "Can we go inside?"

  "After you convince me."

  Cupra swallowed, closed his eyes, and nodded. "There's a consortium of patriots. Mikels heads it. One is a member. When Eliton first proposed this conference, Mikels approached One to discuss ways to stop it. One came to us."

  "Us? You and Gambel?"

  "Yes."

  "Why you two?"

  "History. We were in the military with Golner."

  "Mikels gave Golner a job. How did Mikels know Golner?"

  "His… son… was in Golner's unit. He died in the Ganymede action."

  "I'm going to check this, Otin."

  "It's true! I swear!"

  Mia watched the man for a few moments. "All right, Otin. We'll continue this below."

  He nodded gratefully.

  "Bring him, Bogard."

  The robot moved Cupra toward the lounge. Mia caught Michensol's eyes then, and saw the mix of respect and disgust. She felt bad enough without his reproach, so she gave him nothing.

  "Shall we?" she asked.

  "Of course."

  Michensol went first. Mia gave the approaching sunset another look before following.

  Twenty-Nine

  Ariel stepped into the foyer of Gale Chassik's offices and stopped, baffled by the scene of calm. The receptionist looked up and smiled.

  "Ambassador Burgess," he said. "Ambassador Chassik will be with you in a few minutes."

  "Yes, thank you…"

  Besides the receptionist, two robots occupied niches. No one else was in the room, and while she waited only two com messages came through. It was very much business-as-usual, as orderly as her own offices were chaotic.

  Chassik's door opened and a man came out. He crossed in front of the reception desk and glanced at Ariel. He nodded politely, and left.

  "Ariel," Chassik called from his doorway. "Good to see you. Come in, come in. I've been meaning to send you a formal congratulations on your promotion. I've been remiss."

  "It's only temporary, Gale, nothing to get ceremonious about."

  He smiled. "Who can say what's temporary these days? I've been a diplomat almost fifty years now, and I've seen far more 'temporary' changes become permanent fixtures than I care to think about."

  "In that case," Ariel said, walking past him into his chambers, "I accept your apology and thank you for your sentiments. I-"

  Jonis Taprin stood by one of the two chairs facing Chassik's desk. "Ariel." He smiled hesitantly.

  "I believe you know each other," Chassik said as he resumed his own chair.

  "Yes, of course," Ariel said. "Senator Taprin."

  Jonis's smile faltered. "Ambassador."

  Chassik seemed amused, but he said nothing. Ariel took the chair opposite Taprin and sat down.

  "Forgive me not telling you that we'd have another party to our discussion," Chassik said. "Senator Taprin, being the successor to Senator Eliton, I think has a special interest in the events of the past week."

  "Likely as not," Ariel conceded. "But what I have to discuss with you is confidential."

  "Even from-?"

  "Right at the moment," Ariel cut in, "I don't see that Senator Taprin has our best interests in mind."

  "That's unfair, Ariel," Jonis said.

  She looked at him evenly. "No? Your state police are still harassing Auroran nationals. I asked for a word from you to put a halt to it until we can sort out what's going on, and all I got was Terran phobias."

  "Senator Taprin," Chassik said, "has come to me with a proposal for putting an end to the harassment."

  Jonis's face was slightly red, but he held his temper. "I did talk to the head of TBI after our earlier talk. The investigation is not gratuitous, Ariel. A few of your people have been trading in illicit goods. The TBI is following up on an inquiry that began over a year ago."

  "Let me guess. Just after the Tiberius incident."

  "There are very specific laws concerning the possession of positronic robots on Earth," Jonis continued. "The TBI has found a number of violations."

  "Are they looking into the same violations on the part of Terrans?"

  "Ariel-" Chassik began.

  "Why now? If this has been an ongoing investigation, why push it now? All they're doing is fueling a panic that could drive most of the Spacer population off Earth. With them goes any hope of improved trade relations, and with that, Earth stands to lose a great deal of money, not to mention risking future conflicts."

  "Is that a threat?" Taprin asked.

  "No, just a statement of fact. Don't pretend you don't understand me, Senator. Nobody wins from this. The only reason for the TBI to do what it's doing right now is to drive a wedge between Terrans and Spacers. They could just as easily carry out their investigation quietly and later, after we have the people in custody who have committed murder. Murder, by the way, against Spacers as well as Terrans."

  "Yes, well…" Chassik pursed his lips. "There's the complication, Ariel. It seems that arrests are imminent."

  "Oh?"

  "It seems," Taprin said, "that the assault-the conspiracy-was Auroran in origin."

  Ariel stared at him. "You have got to be joking."

  "He's not," Chassik said. "What's more, they apparently have some evidence connecting you to it."

  "Evidence? What evidenc
e?"

  "I'm not at liberty to-"

  Ariel stood and glared down at Taprin. "Don't give me that, you son-of-a-bitch! Any evidence they claim to have is manufactured and you damn well know it!"

  "Please, Ariel," Chassik said, "calm down. You're certainly in no danger, at least not from them. As long as you remain within embassy grounds they can't even question you."

  "Question me about what? How dare you believe this, Gale! The assassins were Managins! Order for the Supremacy of Man Again! What possible connection can you make between them and me?"

  "It concerns the contraband," Taprin said, marshalling himself. "Now sit down and I'll tell you what I can."

  Reluctantly, fighting rage, Ariel made herself resume her chair. Taprin shifted in his own seat, as if physically trying to recover lost dignity.

  "The TBI were looking at a man named Udal," he explained. "He operates one of the largest retail outlets for drones and automatons. They've suspected him of dealing in illicit positronics for some time. Earlier today, a facility was seized in the Convention Center District that contained a large stock of undeclared imports, including a cache of positronic brains. The shipment was linked to similar ones that have been traced to Udal's warehouse where he apparently has an operation to switch nonpositronic AI plants with these, converting an otherwise legal drone into a fully positronic robot. In the same facility was found a number of people who have been connected to the same group that did the killings at Union Station. Before Udal could be arrested, you had him picked up by your security people and brought under diplomatic cover to your embassy. You've had dealings with Udal in the past. You knew about the facility in question. You basically rescued Udal from imminent arrest. What else are we to conclude?"

  "That possibly I was trying to shut down the same illicit trade?"

  "If you were doing that," Taprin said quietly, "why didn't you come to me? I thought the whole point of this conference was to increase cooperation between us."

  "Why?" Ariel snorted. "Quite obviously because I couldn't trust you."

  "Ariel," Chassik said, "we can help-"

  "Help with what?"

  "The repercussions."

  Ariel grew still. Not calm, no, but clear, understanding. "Perfect. This is perfect. I'm implicated in covering for the black market and in one stroke you discredit me, Aurora, and the Humadros-Eliton treaty. The political fallout reduces Aurora's influence on Terra, and Solaria steps forward to become the new broker of agreements, the defender of Earth-Spacer relations. And I walked right into it. I thought I was doing everything I could to avoid this kind of incident and I walked right into it. Very elegant. Neat."

  "Ariel," Taprin said, "what are you talking about?"

  "I suppose Derec Avery is implicated, too?"

  The senator looked troubled. "Phylaxis has been servicing the illegal robots. Collusion at best. But-"

  "Perfect. you know, if you worked this hard and this well to solve problems and do the right thing, the universe would-oh, hell, what am I saying? There's no profit to be made from that, is there?" She got to her feet.

  "Ariel-" Taprin began.

  "Ambassador Burgess to you, Senator."

  Taprin snapped his mouth shut and paled. He shook his head and looked away.

  "My offer to help remains open," Chassik said.

  "I'm sure it does, Gale. I'll let you know later what you can do with it."

  Ariel felt a slight trembling in her legs as she walked out of his office and left the Solarian quarter. She had badly wanted to tell them what she now knew, how elegantly they had not only compromised her entire position but given themselves away as well, but she did not know yet if that information could be used to her advantage. The parts assembled themselves neatly now. They could not have known that she would recognize the visitor who had left before Chassik had ushered her in to hear the sentence they handed her on her career. They could not know that she held his partner and that Mia Daventri, whom they also did not know was still alive, was interrogating him.

  No, she was right to keep it to herself. A name was still missing-the keystone, the node that connected Taprin and Chassik to the man she had recognized as Special Agent Gambel. "Very clever," Mia agreed. "A perfect trap."

  Ariel nodded dreamily. It did not seem real, not back in her own office, amid people who knew her, trusted her, and depended on her. She was not letting them down, not Ariel Burgess, not Ambassador Ariel Burgess. That promotion was now a hideous weight. Had she remained only the Institute liaison, the political consequences of all this would never, bad as they might have been, amounted to the catastrophe before her.

  "I spoke with Setaris already," she said, subdued. "She wants me to confine myself to the compound. The embassy offices or my apartments. If I go out, she can't guarantee my safety."

  "Safety?" Mia said. "You're a diplomat. You can't be arrested."

  "I think she was more concerned for the image of the embassy."

  "It always bothered me a little," Derec said abruptly, "about the ambulance. Why hadn't they changed the ID markers? It seemed a stupid oversight."

  "They wanted it followed," Mia said. "Somebody would have, eventually-probably a newsnet investigator-and it would have led to the same TBI discovery of contraband. It was just a bonus that Ariel found it."

  "It's a good assumption that our little excursion there was recorded," Ariel said.

  "Traps within traps," Derec mused. "But then, where's Eliton's body?"

  "It might never be found," Mia said. "Even if it is and the cadaver in the morgue is announced as a fake, it still points to Spacers."

  "How does that follow?" Ariel asked.

  "The biotech. Cloning. We only do a little of it here; it's mostly illegal. Exceptions are made for rare blood groups or certain organs with high rejection factors-exotic stuff. But Spacers…"

  "Ah. It doesn't explain the switch, though."

  "Does it have to? The more layers we peel back from this, the more solid the conclusions become that Spacers were behind this. All it took was one good connection to the black market, and Udal handed that to them. What I don't get is the Solarian's connection."

  "Oh, that's simple," Ariel said. "They can use this as a political fulcrum to lever themselves into the dominant position in the Fifty Worlds. For them, this is a perfect opportunity to become the primary Spacer world."

  "But the RI," Mia insisted. "They allowed the corruption of a positronic brain. I thought that was a sort of blasphemy to you."

  "Anywhere else but Earth," Derec said. "Prejudice cuts both ways. When Chassik offered to le:t me have the RI, it would have been a perfect way to get rid of it before it was shipped back to Solaria. I'm sure they could lose it anyway, but if I'd accepted it, then it would be one more bit of incriminating evidence linking us to the murders. And Chassik could deny all knowledge, since I was supposed to be the legal service for that system anyway. At best, Phylaxis was negligent. At worst, collusive."

  "And if they had managed to take out Eliton's personal security and implicate Bogard…" Mia shook her head. "No one would be able to give a credible alternative account. The Spacers set up the conference to kill Eliton and damage Earth's position in all future trade negotiations. It would look like they had tried to make it appear that it was a Terran plot and they botched it."

  "What about Cupra?" Ariel asked. "Has he told us anything worth while?"

  "He hasn't stopped talking," Mia said. "But it's all verification of what we already knew." She frowned. "With one exception. The head of Special Service is involved. One signed off on everything they did, ran interference from other agents, and encrypted a lot of data under his personal seal. It made sense once I heard it. Someone had to compromise the external security links at Union Station, and since we were overseeing it…"

  "You sound dissatisfied with that," Derec said.

  Mia held up her hand and counted off points on her fingers. "We have Alda Mikels-the funding, the personnel, and the tech to underm
ine the RI. We have the head of Special Service-equipment, communications, and security, plus the cover-up afterward. We have the Solarian ambassador-collusion, diversion of legitimate Spacer interests, and the source of the final list of targets."

  "That's a guess," Ariel said.

  "Are you inclined to argue?"

  "No."

  "All right. We have all these people, plus a few fringe players-Kynig Parapoyos is an obvious choice for the contraband-and Udal, and maybe even Senator Taprin."

  "I'm inclined to think that he's going along with what he's being handed by everyone else," Ariel said. "I've known him a long time. He's not fundamentally a bad man."

  "Whatever." Mia shrugged. "But which one is the prime mover? They still all look like parts of the conspiracy to me. Which one came up with the plan and initiated the operation and organized it?"

  "Cupra says it's Mikels," Derec said.

  "I don't think Cupra knows. Why should he?" Mia shook her head. "Mikels makes a good figurehead for something like this, but the primary? I don't think so."

  "Sounds like your One could do it," Derec said.

  "At first glance, but why would the Solarians listen to him? For that matter, why would he listen to the Solarians? And why would either of them listen to Alda Mikels? Money? Does Gale Chassik need money? Influence? What could Mikels offer the head of Special Service?" She shook her head. "Something's missing."

  "What about Golner?" Ariel asked.

  "No, he's just muscle."

  There was a knock on the door. Ariel turned in her chair. "Yes?"

  Bogard entered the room.

  "Your pardon, Ms. Burgess," it said. "I have a question."

  "Yes, Bogard?" Derec said.

  "I would like to know if your investigation is concluded."

  "We're determining that now, Bogard," Ariel said.

  "If I may offer my help. I have concluded that the conspiracy is composed of a pyramidal arrangement of persons. Several were hired for specific tasks without knowledge of the whole plan. Tathis Kedder, for instance, and Shor Udal. I imagine that many of the actual assassins knew little of the overall strategy. Above them were Agents Cupra and Gambel, who knew more but still not everything. Their counterparts would be people like Bok Vin Golner. At least three knew the entirety of it."