Isaac Asimov - Caliban

Except, as yet, there was nothing to chase. Until and unless Gubber Anshaw emerged from his home, Kresh would be unable to question him. Maybe the forensic labs would be able to come up with something as they sifted through all the physical evidence at the scene. Kresh had a bet with himself that forensics would come up with something—but that it would be misleading. Whoever had done this thing seemed damned clever at leaving clues that did not point anywhere.

But until something broke with a witness, or evidence, there was damn little he could do.

No, there was one other possibility. There was always the chance of another incident. Another attack that could give him a pattern, a rhythm, he could work with. Another attack carried out a bit more sloppily. It was a terrible thing for a policeman to wish for a new crime to be committed, but there were precious few other ways he could get a break on this case. What else could he do? Send half the force out randomly searching for robot-soled boots? Surely the perpetrator had destroyed them by now, or else hidden them well indeed, ready for the next attack.

Alvar struggled to get his mind off the case. After all, he did have a department to run. He managed to get through a worrying report from personnel, regarding a sudden uptick in the number of resignations from the force. But his resistance to distraction did not hold for long. Even that report, with its hints of a danger to the whole future of the department, did not occupy the whole of his mind.

Because the Settlers were here to take over. He knew that much, deep in his gut. No matter how many denials or reassurances they made, no matter how much noise Governor Grieg made about rapprochement and new eras of cooperation, Kresh would still believe—would still know —the Settlers looked at Inferno simply as a world ripe for colonization.

For the time being, the Settlers—at least most of them—were making polite noises, being respectful of local culture, but that would not last. Local culture. There was a political code word, if ever there had been one. A euphemism for the use of robots. Some optimists thought that the Settlers on Inferno would grow used to robots, come to see the advantages of robots, and perhaps even return home to their Settler worlds singing the praises of robots. A market would develop for Spacer robots on Settler worlds, and everyone would get rich selling robots to Settlers.

But Kresh had no such illusions. The Settlers were here to take over, not to be sold serving robots. Once they were firmly in control of Inferno—well, all it took to be done with a robot was a single shot from a blaster. After they had wiped out the robots, the Settlers wouldn’t even need to move against the Spacers. Spacer culture—and individual Spacers—needed robots the way a person needed food and drink. Too many jobs were given over to robots, too many people had never bothered to learn tasks that were more easily left to robots. Without robots, the Spacers were doomed.

Which brought him back to his central point: What happened to Spacers if robots could no longer be trusted?

And what if the Settlers engaged in a plot for the express purpose of finding out?

BLEND in, Caliban told himself. Observe what the other robots do. Behave as they do. Already, he had developed the sophistication to know his very survival might depend on acting like the others. He walked back and forth across Hades, watching and learning, shuttling back and forth across the city as day crossed the sky and night came on.

GUBBER Anshaw paced the floor of his living room in fretful distraction. They had to have found her by now. Surely they had. But had she survived? The question clawed at his soul. She had been alive when he had left, of that much he was certain. Surely a robot had found her and saved her. That place was teeming with robots. Except, of course, Gubber himself had ordered all the robots to stay away that night. He had forgotten that in his panic.

But that pool of blood, the terrible way her face was cut, the way she lay so still. He should have stayed, he should have risked all and tried to help. But no, his own fears, his own cowardice, had prevented that.

And Tonya! His own dear, dear Tonya! Even in the midst of his anguish, Gubber Anshaw found a moment in his thoughts to marvel once again that such a woman would care, could care, for a man like Gubber Anshaw. But now, perhaps, caring for him had only placed her in danger.

Unless, of course, it was she who had placed him in danger. A tight knot of suspicion pulled taut in his chest. How could he even think such thoughts? But how could he avoid them?

There were so many questions he dared not ask, even of himself. How mixed up in all this was she? He had sacrificed greatly, perhaps had sacrificed all for her. Had he been right to do so? What would be the consequences of his actions? What had he done that night?

He glanced toward the comm panel. Every alert light on it was blinking. The outside world was trying to reach him over every sort of comm link he had. No doubt word from Tonya was there, waiting for him with all the others. No doubt she had wangled access to the police reports by now. And no doubt she would know just how eager he was to see those reports.

Gubber Anshaw paced the floor, worrying, waiting, forcing down the impulse to look at the wall clock. He had covered it with a cloth long ago, anyway. Perhaps his reflexes directed his glance toward the clock, but his conscious self most definitely did not want to know what the time was. He no longer had even the remotest idea how much time had passed, whether or not it was day or night. He could have found out in an instant, of course, by pulling the cover off the clock or by asking a robot. But there was some part of him that urgently resisted knowing.

In some irrational corner of himself, he was sure he could no longer hide from the universe if he knew what time it was. So long as the hour and the day were hidden from him, he could imagine himself cut off, outside the flow of time, cocooned away behind his shut-down comm panel and his robots, safe inside his little sanctuary, no longer part of the outside world.

And yet sooner or later, he would have to come out of his house. He would have to step back into time, back into the world. He knew that. But he knew also that his guilty knowledge, the fact of his guilty action, would keep him inside a while longer.

And Tonya. Tonya. There were two questions about her that swirled about his mind:

What part had she played in the story?

And, once this was over, what time would she have for a coward too scared to leave his own house?

“ALL right, now, li’l robot—point the blaster at your head.” The small repair-services unit turned the nozzle of the blaster on itself, its glowing green eyes staring right down the barrel of the weapon.

Reybon Derue chortled in drunken hysteria, knowing in some strange, still-sober part of himself how pointless it all was. But, bored with the work, despised by the locals, what else was there for a Settler laborer to do but get drunk? Well, the answer was right in front of him. Robot bashing.

Except they did not do straight bashing. That had been too easy. What challenge in beating a robot down to scrap when the robot would not, could not, resist? No, this way was far more amusing, and took more skill. There weren’t many people who could talk a robot into killing itself.

Except even inducing suicide was getting too easy, at least with certain classes of robots. With the more sophisticated machines, it took a long, elaborate discussion with a robot to get it into a state where it would accept an order to destroy itself. But with a unit as unsophisticated as the one in front of him, long practice had made the game too easy. The only tough part left was remembering to order the robots not to use their hyperwave systems to report bashing incidents to the authorities.