Isaac Asimov - Caliban

Alvar was overwhelmed. The shouts, the cries, the noise, the shock of feeling pain, were tremendous. Robot-protected Spacers rarely had the chance to feel pain of any sort, and Alvar was amazed at the intensity of the sensation.

He winced and writhed, every instinct telling him to get free, get away. But both duty and desire fought against those impulses: He had a job to do here, and a few debts to pay as well. Alvar Kresh did not get many chances to bust heads.

The bodies crushed together, punches flew. At first, the two sides seemed evenly matched, but then the Ironheads began to give way. The Ironheads specialized in hit-and-run attacks on property. Never before had they faced a pitched battle against whatever rowdies the Settlers could field.

And the Settlers here at the lecture were a pretty rough lot. There were no front-office types here, no executives who stayed clean during a workday. Whoever had picked out the Settler delegation to this lecture had sent the roughnecks.

The differences in experience and attitude began to show. When an Ironhead punched a Settler, the Settler would stand there and take it. But when a Settler landed one good punch on an Ironhead, the Head would drop to the ground, moaning in pain.

Obvious when you thought about it. After all, robots had been shielding the Ironheads from even the most trivial pain or trauma all their lives. They weren’t used to it. The Settlers—at least these rowdies—were quite willing to take a fair amount of punishment in exchange for beating and humiliating the goons who had raised so much hell so many times in Settlertown.

But the Heads weren’t in full retreat yet. A few of them were showing guts enough to stay and fight—and that suited Alvar just as much as it did the Settlers. The Heads had caused his department no end of grief over the years. Someone stomped on his foot again, and he cried out.

Someone yelled back, into his ear, and he turned toward whoever it was. And then, suddenly, there he was, face to angry face with Simcor Beddle, the corpulent leader of the Ironheads.

Alvar’s blood was up. The last few days had been among the toughest of his life. Even if the Ironheads had been the least of his troubles recently, there were still a few older debts to pay. If he could not get his hands on Anshaw or the Governor or Welton or Caliban, then Simcor Beddle would do nicely.

He grabbed Beddle by the collar and got the pleasure of seeing the blubbering fool cry out in alarm. Alvar drew back his arm, formed his hand into a fist—

—And suddenly there was a huge metallic-green hand wrapped around his fist, holding him back. Alvar looked up, looked around the auditorium. Someone had had the sense to call in the robots waiting in the lobby. One robot was no good in a riot. A thousand, working together, were unstoppable. The robots were swarming allover the room, pulling the combatants apart, putting themselves between attacker and attacked, a whole army of them determinedly enforcing the First Law.

Oh, well, Alvar thought as he relaxed his fist and let go of Beddle. At least it was fun while it lasted.

But it would have been nice if he had gotten to throw at least one punch.

THE flight from the lecture hall to her home was not a happy one for Fredda. Jomaine, her sole human escort on the trip, was less than scintillating company, to put it mildly.

Still, it could have been worse. The others had all taken their own aircars. Jomaine was bad enough, but compared to the alternative of, say, watching Gubber Anshaw fall to pieces, traveling with Jomaine was an absolute joy.

Which was not to say she was enjoying the ride. Sitting in stony silence with an angry colleague while a robot did the flying was not her idea of a good time.

On the other hand, that did not mean she was glad when Jomaine started talking. After all, she knew what he was going to say.

“He knows,” Jomaine said.

Fredda shut her eyes and leaned back against the headrest of her chair. For a moment or two, she toyed with the idea of playing dumb, pretending she did not know what he was talking about, but he would not fall for that, and he would not enjoy the charade of being forced to tell her what she already knew. “Not now, Jomaine. It’s been a hard enough day as it is.”

“I don’t think we have the luxury of deciding when would be a pleasant time to discuss this, Fredda. We are in danger. Both of us. I think it is time we tried to find ways to get back in control of the situation. And I don’t think we can do that if we just pretend the problem isn’t there.”

“All right, then, Jomaine, let’s talk about it. What do you want to say? What, exactly, do you think Kresh knows, and what makes you think he knows it?”

“I think he knows Caliban is a No Law robot. I saw him getting a report. It had to be about Horatio. I could see it in Kresh’s face.”

Fredda opened her eyes and looked toward Jomaine. “What about Horatio? I just heard a scrap or two, nothing solid.”

“No, I suppose you wouldn’t have. We tried to let you keep to yourself today and work on your talk. There were police all over Limbo Depot today. Witnesses saw a big red robot go into the supervisor’s office with Horatio. Five minutes later the red robot goes through the plate glass, down into the tunnels, with the cops in hot pursuit. Then a police roboshrink shows up and takes Horatio away. Then Kresh gets that report during your talk. I think we have to assume that Caliban talked to Horatio, somehow or another revealed his true nature to Horatio, and Horatio brainlocked until the psychologists calmed him down.”

Fredda screwed up her face and cursed silently in the darkness before she replied in a voice she kept determinedly even and reasonable. “Yes, that sounds like a sensible guess,” she said woodenly. Hells on fire! She did not need this now.

“Why the devil didn’t you tell him?” Jomaine demanded. “Kresh has not only found out the truth, he has found out we were trying to hide the truth. His knowing about Caliban hurt us badly, but you have done us as much damage by hiding the information.”

Fredda struggled to keep her temper. “I know that,” she said, her voice short and under tight control. “I should have called and told the police about Caliban the moment I came to in the hospital. Instead I just crossed my fingers and hoped there wouldn’t be any trouble. Remember, I did not even know he was missing at first. And it seemed to me that announcing the New Law robots would cause enough trouble all by itself—and it did, in case you didn’t notice. So I took a chance on keeping quiet—and lost. I must thank you for leaving the decision to me. You could have spoken up, too.”

“That was a purely selfish decision. I didn’t want to be thrown in prison. Not when there were still hopes that there would be no further trouble. But then, the more trouble there was, the more dangerous it would be to confess.”

“And now, I can hardly see how it could get worse,” Fredda said. She let down her guard a bit and sighed. “We should have told Kresh about Caliban. But that’s the past. We have to look at the present and the future. What do we do now?”

“Let’s think on that for a moment,” Jomaine said. “The police may have theories and reports from specialists, but you and I still are the only ones who know for certain that Caliban is a No-Law.”

“Gubber has his suspicions,” Fredda said. “I’m sure he does. But Gubber is in no state or position to go talking to the Sheriff just now.”

“I agree,” Jomaine said. “I’m not worried about him. My point is that no matter what happened between Caliban and Horatio, Kresh can’t be certain that Caliban isn’t just a New Law robot, or even some specialized form of standard Three Law robot. There have been cases where robots have been built unaware that they obeyed the Three Laws, but they obeyed them, anyway. All Kresh could have would be Horatio’s report—and I doubt that Horatio would be an altogether reliable informant. As I recall you built him with extremely high First Law and Third Law potential, with Second Law reduced somewhat. The idea was to give him the ability to make independent decisions.”