Isaac Asimov: Caliban

“What in deep space are you talking about?” Welton demanded.

“My fellow Infernals will see interference in robot research as an attack on the Spacers’ hopes of survival in a universe that seems to be surrendering itself to the Settlers. Given the slightest hint of any connection between the Settlers and the attack, however slender and tenuous, the people of this world will assume your people were behind it. They won’t care if it is true or not. They will believe.

“They will associate this attack with the Settlers—the same damn Settlers they see wandering free all over Inferno, poking their noses into everything, treating the people of Inferno as little better than savages. It will be enough to make the situation even more tense than it is already. The people of Inferno are sure you Settlers regard us all as amusing little natives to be brushed aside on your way to conquering the galaxy.”

Tonya colored a bit, and she folded her arms in front of her. “Politics. Always it comes down to politics and prejudice. My dear Sheriff. It is not we Settlers who are holding you Spacers back. You are doing it to yourselves, with no need of help from us. You have had endless generations in which to colonize new worlds of your own. You could have peopled thousands of worlds by now. Instead you have but fifty worlds—forty-nine after this Solaria business.

“We did not stop you from going on to further colonization. You chose not to continue. Nor are we preventing you from starting a new effort at colonization now. But instead of taking action, you choose to remain at home and blame us for moving outward. Is it our fault that you have made your refusal to settle new worlds a mark of virtue?”

“Madame Welton. You must excuse me,” Kresh said. “I allowed my own emotions to get the better of me. I did not intend to accuse you, but you are entitled to fair warning of what the people of Inferno will think if your—ah—involvement becomes known. I don’t hold such views myself, though I must admit some sympathy for them. But if a Settler relationship with Fredda Leving comes out in connection with this crime, or in any way at all, it is my considered professional opinion that there will be hell to pay.”

Tonya Welton stared at him, unblinking, her face unreadable.

At last she spoke. “Then I think you can look forward to having to pay that hell in about two days’ time,” she said, rather soberly.

“What happens then?” he asked, his voice flat, his face deadpan.

“There will be an—announcement,” she said, clearly being careful of what words she used. “I am not at liberty to say more, but if there are to be the sort of difficulties you are talking about, they will happen then.”

“Beg pardon, Madame Welton, but do you think it possible that tonight’s attack has some connection to that announcement?” Donald asked. “Perhaps an attempt to stop or delay it?”

Welton turned her head sharply toward Donald, her expression suddenly wild and uncontrolled. Obviously, she had not noticed him coming in. “Yes,” she said, a bit too eagerly. “Yes, I believe that is a real possibility. If it is true, then I believe we are all in terrible danger.”

“What the devil are you—” Kresh began.

“No,” Welton said, turning back toward Kresh. “I can say no more. But solve this case quickly, Sheriff. If there is anything in this life, this world, that you value, solve it!” She took a deep breath and seemed to come back to herself a bit. “It was a mistake for me to come here tonight,” she announced. She turned and looked about the aircar’s cabin, as if seeing it for the first time. “I will contact you tomorrow, Sheriff,” she said. “And I will expect full and complete reports of your progress on a regular basis. Come, Ariel.”

And without another word, she stepped out of the car, her robot following. Alvar Kresh watched them go, wondering just what exactly Tonya Welton was up to. Her performance tonight was odd, to put it mildly. Putting aside the fact of her magically appearing almost before Kresh got to the crime scene, there was something else: the way she had latched on to the possibility of a political motive. It almost made Kresh think she wanted to draw attention toward that idea and away from something else. But what the hell could that something else be?

All he knew for sure was that whatever was going on, he was already stuck, deep inside it.

CALIBAN walked the night, burning with curiosity. He was a great distance from his starting point, in a quiet residential area, the walkways all but completely deserted at this hour. The homes were large and widely scattered. Great lawns, some of them getting a bit dry, scruffy, and thin-looking, separated the houses. In this part of town, it seemed there was little ground traffic to speak of. Judging from the absence of a road wide enough for large vehicles, travel to and fro was by aircar or by foot.

But a dying lawn was no less wondrous than a live one to Caliban. All the world was new to him, everything that he saw was a fresh and vibrant wonder. He saw the bright pinpoints of light in the sky and wondered what they were. He noticed a few bits of litter blown against a fence and wondered how such a strange combination of objects had come to be there. His datastore was mute on both of those subjects, and many others besides, but on the whole it was a splendid guide, telling him any number of things about the city through which he walked. He wandered everywhere, eagerly looking about at everything, marveling at all things. And if stars and litter were not explained, many other things were. More often than not, he could look at a thing, and wonder about it, and find that the datastore could identify it and explain it for him.

He was content for some time to wander the city, passively absorbing whatever the datastore saw fit to tell him about what he saw. Then Caliban had an idea. If the map and the datastore could work to tell him about what was before him, could they not also guide his steps? Perhaps he could examine the datastore’s map, select an interesting destination, and travel to it.

He stopped in his tracks and tried the experiment. The outside world seemed to fade from his sight. Suddenly he was looking down on a map-schematic of the area he was in, done in bold primary colors and carefully designed symbols.

He tried to push outward from that point and was greatly pleased to discover that the simple act of wishing it to be so allowed him to visualize the entire city map, or focus in on any portion of it. Nor, he found, did his virtual viewpoint have to stay above the map. He could move down to ground level and see the buildings and hill tower over him. He could visualize the map data from any angle or position.

A few moments of experimentation confirmed it: He could manipulate his viewpoint to any spot in or over the map, look at the lay of the land from a bird’s-eye view, or from ground level at any position, with the buildings and streets presented in the proper shapes and sizes. His vision swept along great swatches of the city, across the parks, the buildings, the great roads. It was as if he were traveling through those places in his mind. The sensation was exhilarating, almost one of flight.

There were datatags on the map, offering information on the buildings—their names and addresses, and in many cases the names of whatever businesses went on there.

Suddenly he got a splendid idea. He could use the datatag information to learn more about himself. He manipulated his viewpoint within the map and brought it back to his present position. Then he proceeded to retrace his steps back to the building he had started out from. He could read the datatags connected to the building and learn what sort of place it was, see what other information the map held concerning it. Certainly he could find clues to his own identity, his place in the world. Eager to find out more about himself, he moved his viewpoint rapidly across the map, back the way he had come.