Isaac Asimov - Caliban

“Good. I did not expect him to accept the idea. All I wanted to do was muddy the waters.”

“Ma’am?”

“I want him worrying about side issues, blind leads. I want to slow him down.”

“Ma’am, I am afraid I do not understand.”

“I need time, Ariel. You know as well as I do that I need time to find things out for myself. I have, ah— interests —I wish to protect. “

Tonya Welton rose, crossed the room, and began pacing back and forth, her actions at last betraying the nervousness Ariel had known was there. “I have interests to protect,” she said again. “He is in hiding, Ariel,” Tonya said, and there was no need for her to speak the man’s name. “He won’t even accept messages from me. That proves something is wrong. He is in danger, and that danger could only increase if his connection to me were revealed at the wrong moment. And I strongly suspect that Alvar Kresh would take a special pleasure in destroying anything—or anyone—that I hold dear.”

ALVAR Kresh was glad to get out of Welton’s office, to put it mildly. As the elevator arrived at ground level, and he no longer had to hold his claustrophobia in check, he found himself breathing a sigh of relief, and felt his spirits suddenly rise. His anger seemed to fade away into the blessedly open skies.

“I fear our visit was not especially productive,” Donald said. “Madame Welton did not offer much in the way of useful information or insight, and I do not see what she learned from us that she could not have learned by our sending a data transmission. Nor can I see why our presence was needed at the Ironhead riot. Your deputies handled that without any need of your expertise.”

“Donald, Donald, Donald,” Kresh said as they walked across the parkland toward their aircar. “And you call yourself a student of human nature. That meeting had nothing at all to do with the exchange of information. Human beings very often are not talking about what they are talking about.”

“Sir?”

“We were there not to assist in countering the Ironhead demonstration, but to witness it, and to get the clear message that the Leving case could make such encounters worse. If the populace of Hades gets the idea that Settlers are attempting to discredit robots by staging attacks that seem to be committed by robots, the Ironheads won’t be able to handle all the new recruits.”

“But what concern is that of yours?”

“I am in charge of keeping the peace, for one thing. But bear in mind that she chose to meet us on her turf. Up here, on the surface, the air is still smoky, and we’re near enough the perimeter of Settlertown that the air smells of desert again. Down below, all was serene and quiet, and the air was sweet. Another clear message: The Settlers have no reason to fear the rioters. The Settlers can hunker down in their artificial cave. But the citizens of Hades have no such option. And yet the current plans for terraforming all rely on the Settlers. In short, Tonya Welton was telling us we need her far more than she needs us,” Alvar Kresh said as they reached the aircar.

Donald sat down at the controls and they took off. “Did it strike you as odd that she wished to know so much about the Leving case? After all, she has no responsibility to investigate crimes,” the robot said as he maneuvered for altitude.

“Yes, I wondered about that. In fact, I rather got the impression that she was waiting for us to say something we didn’t, though the devil alone would know what that might be. I don’t know, Donald. Perhaps she has some genuine personal or professional interest in Leving’s well-being.”

“I see,” Donald said, some trace of uncertainty in his voice. “But I don’t regard that as a sufficient explanation of Lady Tonya’s strong interest. Note that she scarcely asked at all about Fredda Leving herself. It was only the robotic aspect of the case that interested her. Why does she care so deeply about the case, and why does she regard it as so overwhelmingly important?”

“I tell you what I think, Donald,” Kresh said as he watched the landscape below. “I think a Settler committed the crime, perhaps acting directly under Tonya Welton’s orders, precisely to set off more disturbances and give the Settlers an excuse to get off the planet. Bringing us in today during the riot was merely the first step in orchestrating that withdrawal.”

“Might I ask your reasons for thinking that?” Donald asked impassively as he guided the aircar.

“Well, first off, I don’t like Settlers. I know that’s not much of a reason, but there it is. And second, say what Tonya Welton will about this contingent of Settlers being trained to understand our ways and appreciate the Three Laws, I still can’t believe a Spacer would try any of the stunts that have been suggested to explain the attack. Think about them: building a remote-control device that mimicked a robot, strapping on robot feet and using a robot arm as a club, building and programming a special-purpose killer robot. No Spacer would do those things.

“Welton was right about one thing—the Three Laws are close to being our state religion. Interfering with them, abusing them or the concept of robots in any way, would be close to blasphemy. There are times when I think our illustrious Governor Chanto Grieg is pushing so hard for change that someone’s going to bounce up and call him a heretic. Maybe it even goes deeper than that. I find the very idea of perverting robots to be stomach-turning. It’s like the prohibition against cannibalism or incest. I doubt any Spacer unbalanced enough to make the attempt would still be sane enough to do all the methodical planning required.

“No. Only a Settler would be stupid enough—well, all right, ignorant enough—to try and plant the idea that a robot could commit an act of violence. Any Spacer would know how deep and abiding the prohibition against that is.”

Alvar stopped and thought for a minute. Suddenly a new and disturbing thought dawned on him. “In fact, that might well be the motive. Maybe the Settlers don’t want to leave. We’ve been too tied up with figuring how the attack was made to stop and wonder why anyone would want to attack Fredda Leving.”

“I’m afraid I don’t follow you, sir,” Donald said.

“Let’s just ignore all of Welton’s nonsense about respecting us as an alternate culture. She as much as said they came here as missionaries, hoping to convert us away from robots. The Settlers—this lot on Inferno, and all of them generally—are always casting about for ways to make the Spacer dependence on robots look like a weakness, instead of a strength. Trying to convince us to abandon robots. You spoke about the need for us to trust robots. Suppose the attack on Leving is the opening salvo in a campaign to make us afraid of our own robots?”

“I see the point, sir, but I am forced to question the choice of Fredda Leving as the victim. Why would the Settlers attack their own ally?”

Kresh shook his head. “I don’t pretend to understand their politics, but perhaps there is some sort of bad blood between Welton and Leving. Some sort of resentment, some sort of competition or disagreement between them. Jomaine Terach hinted at it. It must be tied up in this grand project we can’t be told about yet.

“And I don’t think we’re going to get anywhere until we know what that’s about.”

THREE hours later, Alvar Kresh sat at his desk, reading through the daily reports, making notes to himself on the status of this investigation, that application for promotion. By rights, he should have gone home to bed, allowed himself some rest. All told, he had gotten perhaps an hour’s sleep the night before. But he was too keyed up to sleep, too eager to leap back in and get on with the chase.