Isaac Asimov - Caliban

“The night it happened, I wasn’t able to think clearly. When I found the body, I was so scared and surprised, I did not know what to think. When I had time to think about it, I knew it was impossible.”

When I found the body. It took all of Alvar’s training not to leap onto that slip immediately. But that could come later. Anshaw was not aware of what he had said, and the longer he was off guard the better. Let it ride, Kresh thought. Come back to it later. He chose another point to pursue, almost at random.

“You said that you and Leving had been having arguments. What were they about?”

Gubber drew himself up to sit straight in his chair, and folded his hands. “I did not approve of what she was doing.”

“What was it you objected to?”

“The New Law robots. I thought and think it is possible they are a very dangerous idea.”

“But you went along with the project, anyway.”

Gubber rested his hands flat on the table for a moment, but then knitted his fingers together. His hands were clammy with sweat. “Yes, that is true,” he said. He looked up at Alvar, and there was suddenly something bright, sharp, fierce in his eye. “I invented the gravitonic brain, Sheriff Kresh. It represents a tremendous advance over the positronic brain, a breakthrough of huge proportions. My gravitonic brain offers the chance for whole new vistas of research, vastly increased robotic intelligence and ability. I had the notes, the test materials, the models and designs, to prove that it would work. I took them to every lab on the planet and sent inquiries to half a dozen other Spacer worlds as well. And no one would listen.

“No one cared. No one would use my work. If it wasn’t a positronic brain, it wasn’t a robot. My brain couldn’t go in a robot. That was an article of faith, everywhere I went. Fredda had rejected my ideas as first. Until it dawned on her that I was offering a blank slate upon which to write her New Laws.”

“So you swallowed your objections to her ideas to prevent your own work from getting lost.”

“Yes, that’s right. She was the only one who cared about my work, or would even give me the chance to complete it. Fredda Leving wasn’t—and isn’t—much interested in the technical improvements the gravitonic brain offers. To her, gravitonic brains were nothing more than robotic brains that did not have the Three Laws. That was her sole interest.”

“And you went along. Even though you’ve just said the New Laws are dangerous.”

“Yes, I went along, though now I wish I burned my work instead.” For a brief moment, Gubber showed a little spark of passion, but then the little man seemed to shrink in on himself again. Alvar Kresh felt a fleeting moment of pity for Gubber Anshaw. No matter how the matter was resolved, there seemed little hope that he would get his old life back. If he was something of a villain in the piece, so, too, was he something of a victim.

“I won’t pretend that I have unblemished pride in what I did,” Gubber went on. “But it seemed the last chance that my life’s work would not be thrown away. I worked very hard to convince myself that the New Laws included adequate safeguards. Well, you know how that turned out. Something went wrong, either with the Laws or the brain. But I know the brain was good. It has to be the Laws.”

Wait a second, Kresh told himself. He thinks that Caliban is a New Law robot. Kresh had just assumed that Terach was lying and Caliban’s true nature was bound to be common knowledge around the lab. If Anshaw was Tonya Welton’s main source of information, as seemed likely, then she, too, had to be assuming that Caliban was a New Law robot.

Burning devils. If that was true, she would have serious and legitimate concerns about unleashing a whole army of the things at the Limbo Project, alongside her own people. If she hadn’t attacked Fredda, and was unsure who had, she would very much want to believe that Caliban was innocent, and harmless, for the sake of her own people. If Caliban and she herself were eliminated, then the suspect list was damned short—and her lover, Gubber Anshaw, was at the top of it.

No wonder the woman was acting a bit edgy. “I told myself the New Law robots would be mere laboratory experiments,” Anshaw went on. “I was wrong about that, too.”

“Lab experiment? But the New Law robots are going to be all over the Limbo Project. They’ll be able to wander anywhere they want on Purgatory.”

Anshaw smiled bleakly. “New Law robots at Limbo was my doing. Pillow talk, I suppose you’d call it. I mentioned the New Law project to Tonya, and she was fascinated by the idea. She could see they were just the thing for the Limbo Project, a real chance for compromise and common ground, for Spacer and Settler to work together, for a world with the advantages of robots with none of the drawbacks. Oh, she got very excited.

“She knew that I would want my name kept out, of course, and she managed to fake a leak of the information from some other source. A Settler running into a Leving Labs worker in a bar, or something.”

“That sounds plausible. Your security isn’t very tight.”

“I don’t even know if that’s how it worked. I didn’t want to know the details. Anyway, Tonya went to see Fredda and let it be known that she had heard about the New Law project. Fredda was furious about the leak, of course, but then she started to get excited about the idea herself. They presented the idea to Governor Grieg as a joint proposal, and he accepted it.”

“It sounds as if it was a fruitful collaboration,” Donald said. “What caused the two of them to fallout?”

Gubber shifted uncomfortably. “Ambition,” he said at last. “Both of them always wanted—and still want—to be in charge of whatever project they are working on.”

Ambition, competition, Kresh thought. Those could be damned potent motives, and Gubber knew it. What would be tougher for him—admitting those motives to the police or wondering, in spite of all protestations to the contrary, if those motives had indeed tempted his wild, brazen Settler lover into this violent attack?

“You’ve said that you and Dr. Leving had argued as well. Might I ask the nature of those arguments?” Alvar asked. “Did she perhaps object to your relationship with Tonya Welton?”

“What?” Gubber seemed surprised by the question. “Oh, no, no. She couldn’t have. She didn’t know about— doesn’t know about it.” He hesitated for a minute, and then doubt seemed to creep into his voice. “At least I thought she didn’t. But we didn’t do much of a job keeping it from you.”

Kresh smiled. “If it’s of any comfort, she hasn’t given any sign of knowing about it.”

“If I may broach a new subject, Dr. Anshaw,” Donald said. Kresh leaned back and let Donald carry on. At least Anshaw didn’t seem dreadfully insulted at the very idea of a robot asking questions. “We have a report concerning a minor point in connection with the New Law robots. Perhaps you could clear it up.”

“Well, if I can.”

Interesting how the man had become so cooperative in his own interrogation. Kresh had seen it before—the strange moment when the questioning became not a battle, but a collaboration.

“You were asked to perform certain tests on a pair of sessile testbed New Law units without being told what you were testing them for. Do you recall that?”

“Yes, of course. Nothing all that remarkable about it. It was some weeks ago. The only reason I remember it clearly is that Tonya—Lady Welton—happened to stop by that day. I remember thinking later that was the last time she stopped by the lab without an argument starting between Fredda and Tonya. She stayed and watched the tests, and even chatted with one of the sessiles. We do that sort of test all the time. Two units, one experimental and the other a production unit robot, a control, with the experiment operator not knowing which is which—or even the purpose of the experiment. The operator just gets a list of procedures to follow and runs the test as described.”