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  “I might add, sir, that the ban on Three-Law robots adds greatly to my concern.”

  “Tell me about it. It took a great deal of argument before the Settlers would allow you onto the island.” The Governor’s Winter Residence and its grounds remained under Spacer jurisdiction, but most of the rest of the island was controlled by the Settlers, and subject to their laws. The Settlers had a flat rule, no exception: nothing but New Law robots on their turf. Their leader, Tonya Welton, had taken an interest in New Law robots.

  It was yet another example of the absurd tit-for-tat bickering between the Spacers and the Settlers. The Spacer government had banned New Law robots on the mainland. Therefore the Settlers were damned well going to ban normal, proper Three-Law robots on the island of Purgatory. All Three-Law robots shipped to the Governor’s Compound from the mainland had to be powered down and shipped in sealed containers during their transit across the Settler-controlled area of the island. Kresh had obtained a waiver from the rules for Donald, but that didn’t make him like the situation any more.

  And the posturing and nonsense didn’t stop even at the banning and counterbanning of the two forms of robots. All the Spacer movers and shakers had another audience to play to the folks back home, the voters. And the voters were none too happy about the sudden shortage of household robots.

  Of course, the very idea of a robot shortage was absurd. The latest estimates were that robots outnumbered humans on Inferno by just under a hundred to one. But most of those robots were no longer with the people. Grieg had confiscated them, sent them off to plant trees in the northern wastes of Terra Grande. Maybe—just maybe—Grieg was right. Maybe excessive use of personal robots had been wasteful. Maybe, in the current emergency situation, it made sense for robots to be put to work rebuilding the planet rather than serving as uselessly redundant servants.

  But all that to one side, these days, wealth was equated, more than ever, with robots. And in these days of hardships, one simply did not flaunt one’s wealth.

  Kresh, however, equated robots not with wealth but with safety. The First Law turned every robot into a superb bodyguard—and suddenly Kresh didn’t have any such bodyguards handy.

  The Governor’s Compound had a full staff of service robots, of course. They had been shipped in from the capital just a week before in preparation for the visit. Tonight, however, all but a handful of them were back in their air-cargo transport, powered down and out of sight. The Governor’s Rangers were providing the catering staff—and most of the Rangers on duty seemed none too happy about it. They were, after all, law enforcement professionals, more or less, not waiters.

  After the reception tonight, the household robots would be permitted to make their appearance. But tonight, with all the powerful and elite on hand, and the reception being recorded for broadcast on all the news feeds, it would not do for the Governor to be seen surrounded by robots.

  Tonight, when the crowds around him were thickest, the Governor would have the least protection. In normal times, Kresh would not have worried so much. But these were not normal times.

  The planet Inferno was changing, experiencing the most wrenching of upheavals. The change was needed and, perhaps, would be for the best—but for all of that, it would leave unhappy and frustrated people in its wake.

  Change hurt, and some of the people it was hurting had already tried to strike back. There had been more than a few unpleasant incidents in recent weeks. Kresh’s deputies had been going half mad trying to keep the lid on. It was Kresh’s professional opinion that there was no way he could feel certain of the Governor’s safety in public. Not without an army of robotic bodyguards.

  Aside from Donald, there was not a single powered-up robot in the entire building. They should have been serving the drinks, opening the doors, circulating with trays of food, catering to whatever whim one of the guests might have—and protecting against any chance of one human harming another.

  Even the guests had no personal robots in tow. It would be political suicide for any of the Governor’s friends to be seen here with a flock of robots. Indeed, the whole point of the evening was to be seen without robots during the shortage. Politics made for very strange logic sometimes.

  Most of the Spacer dignitaries looked a trifle lost, out by themselves. For some of them, this was the first time in their lives they had ever set foot outside their own doors without robotic servants following along.

  Punishment. Shortage. It was all nonsense, of course. The new regulations limited each household to a maximum of twenty robots. Somehow, to Kresh’s point of view, getting through the day with only twenty personal servants at one’s beck and call did not seem that much of a hardship.

  But right now, Alvar Kresh had little or no patience with politics or economics. The plain fact was that it was a lot tougher for an assassin to act if there were robots allover the place, and there weren’t any such here.

  In the old days, with a swarm of robots always there, always taken for granted, security had been so easy, so taken for granted, that even the most prominent and controversial public figures never gave it a thought. Not anymore. Now they could not take any chances at all. “Anything more, Donald?”

  “I was more or less finished, sir. I only wished to say that the Residence is not anywhere near our usual standards for a secure area. While no threat has been detected, I am worried about the current security environment.”

  When Donald worried, Kresh worried. “Put our normal standards to one side for a moment. Do you regard the area to be sufficiently secure?”

  “No, sir. Were these calm and tranquil times, I would be far more sanguine. However, considering the unstable political situation, and the general level of turmoil, I must urge you to speak with the Governor once again about modifying the arrangements—or, better still, canceling the reception altogether.”

  “I don’t need any urging to talk with him,” Kresh said. “I don’t like this setup any better than you do. Come on, Donald, let’s go have a word with Governor Grieg.”

  2

  THE RAIN THUNDERED DOWN as the two robots approached the Winter Residence. Humans hated venturing out in such weather, but wet and cold did not bother robots—and it allowed for private conversation. As one of the two robots was the only one on the planet not equipped with a hyperwave comm system, the chance for private face-to-face talk was not one to be ignored.

  They paused a hundred meters from the structure and looked at the handsome building, a long, low structure of the most well-proportioned lines. The first robot turned to the second. “Do you truly think that it is wise for us to proceed?” it asked.

  “I cannot say,” the second one answered. “We are entitled to be here. We were invited, and the Governor did wish us to attend. But the dangers are real. The situation is so complex that I doubt anyone, human or robot, could work out the possible ramifications.”

  “Should we then, perhaps, turn back?” the first asked. “Might that not be for the best rather than risking disaster?”

  The second one shook its head no, using the human gesture with a smooth, unmechanical grace that was most unusual for a robot. “We should attend,” it said, its voice firm and decisive. “It is the Governor’s desire that we do so and I do not wish to annoy him. I have learned a great deal about human politics—enough to say that I do not know the first thing about it. But the Governor asked us to come, and I owe the Governor much—as you do yourself. It would not be wise for us to refuse him. Were it not for his grant of a waiver to Dr. Leving, I would have been destroyed. Were it not for his support of Dr. Leving’s work, you and all the other New Law robots would never have existed in the first place. And I need not remind you of the power he still holds over us.”

  “Good points all, I grant you,” the first robot conceded. “He has done much for us. Let us hope we are able to convince him to do more without recourse to—unpleasantness.”

  “Such recourse would be unwise,” the second robot warned. “I know
humans better than you, and I fear that you underestimate the possible repercussions of your contingency plans.”

  “Then let us hope the contingency does not arise. Come, I have always been curious to see what these affairs are like. Let us go in, friend Caliban.”

  “After you, Prospero.”

  There was, needless to say, some awkwardness with the various human guards before their invitations were found to be genuine and the two robots were granted entrance. But both had long since learned to take things in stride, and they were soon past the last security checkpoint. They made their way down the entryway and into the Grand Hall, Caliban a step or two ahead of his friend.

  The room had been full of gaiety and laughter a moment before, but all was smothered in silence the moment Caliban and Prospero walked into the main drawing room, a drop or two of rain still clinging to their metallic bodies.

  Caliban looked around the room with a steady gaze. Caliban was used to rooms going quiet when he walked in. He had been through it all many times before. He had learned long ago there was no point in his trying to be inconspicuous, or in hoping that no one would know who he was. Caliban was well over two meters tall, his lean, angular frame painted a gleaming metallic red. His glowing deep blue eyes stood out in startling contrast. But it was not his appearance that frightened people. It was his reputation. He was the robot without Laws, the only one in the universe. Caliban, the robot accused—but cleared—of attempting the murder of his creator.

  Caliban, the robot who could kill, if he chose.

  The crowd in the room seemed to melt away from them, leaving a wide circle of empty space between the two robots and the room full of humans. People were whispering and pointing, nudging each other, staring.

  “I see there is an advantage in arriving with you,” Prospero said, speaking in a low voice. “I am often not well treated at human social events, but with you at my side, I will be quite safe here—no one will pay the least attention to me.”

  Prospero was perhaps a head shorter than his friend, stockier, less imposing. He was painted a reflective jet-black, with eyes that glowed a deep orange.

  “I would wish that I received far less attention, I assure you,” Caliban replied. The robot who could kill. That was all he would ever be to most people, to Caliban’s endless frustration. That was all most people knew of him, or cared to know.

  True, he knew he could, in theory, kill a man quite easily. He could reach out and break a man’s neck if he wished. There was no First Law to stop him, no injunction burned into the deepest circuits of his brain to render him immobile at the very thought of such an act. All true, but what of it?

  He could kill if he wished—but he did not wish to do it. Every human being was just as capable of murder. No built-in, unstoppable injunction prevented one human from killing another, yet humans did not regard each other first and foremost as potential murderers.

  Caliban had learned long ago that no one, human or robot, would ever trust him completely. He was the robot without Laws, the robot unconstrained by the First Law prohibition against harming humans. “Now it all begins,” he said wearily. “The whispers, the crowds of people nudging each other and pointing to me, the one or two brave souls who will come up to me, approaching me like some sort of wild beast. They will work up their nerve and then they will ask me the same questions I have heard over and over again.”

  “And what might those questions be?” asked a voice behind them.

  Caliban turned around, a bit startled. “Good evening to you, Dr. Leving,” Caliban said. “I am somewhat surprised to find you here.”

  “I could say the same about the two of you,” Fredda Leving replied with a smile. She was a small, youthful-looking, light-skinned woman, her dark brown hair cut short. She was stylishly dressed in a dark, flowing dress with a high collar, a simple, understated gold chain about her neck. “What in Space would tempt you to come here, of all places? You got dragged to enough of these things back on the mainland, and you never seemed to enjoy them there. I’d have thought you’d been at enough human parties to last you a lifetime.”

  “True enough, Dr. Leving.” In the year since the Governor granted Dr. Leving the waiver allowing her to possess a Lawless robot, she had taken Caliban along to a number of social functions, trying to drum up support for New Law robots.

  It could be said of Fredda Leving that she had an odd collection of brain-children. Among other robots, she had built Caliban and Prospero and Donald, naming each after a character created by a certain old Earth playwright, a naming scheme she used only on her most prized creations. “Caliban was a good sport about my taking him to parties,” she said to Prospero, “but we both got tired of his being treated like some sort of prize exhibition, a freak of science I had created. The Lawless Robot and his Mad Creator—and we seem to be getting the same reception tonight. So why are you here?”

  “I am afraid I am to blame for Caliban’s presence,” Prospero replied. “Caliban has often spoken to me about these events. I confess I wanted to see one for myself.” It was not, Caliban noted, the whole truth, but it would suffice. There was certainly no need to tell Fredda Leving more than that.

  “How, exactly, has he described cocktail parties?” Fredda asked.

  “As an ancient ritual, supposedly pleasurable, that no one has actually enjoyed for thousands of years, “ Prospero replied.

  Fredda Leving laughed out loud. “More or less true, I’m afraid. But I would like to know, Caliban. What are the questions you are asked all the time?”

  “In general terms, they are variations on the question of how I control myself without the Laws. The most common version focuses on the fact that I do not have the Three Laws of Robotics, especially the First Law. I am asked what, precisely, keeps me from killing people.”

  “Gracious!” Fredda exclaimed. “People come up to you and ask that?”

  Caliban nodded solemnly. “They do indeed.”

  “To me,” Prospero said, “that question says that the average person has no real conception whatever of what it is to be a robot. The question assumes that there is, after all, something dark and evil deep inside a robot. It assumes that the primary function of the First Law is to curb a robot’s natural and murderous instincts.”

  “That’s a trifle strong, isn’t it?” Fredda asked.

  “It is indeed,” Caliban said.

  Prospero shook his head. “Caliban and I have debated the point at great length. Perhaps my description would have been an overstatement some years ago, but I don’t believe it is any longer,” he told his creator. “Not anymore. This is an age where many old certainties are failing. Spacers are no longer the most powerful group; Infernals are forced to make massive concessions to the Settlers; the planetary climate is no longer under control. Infernals can’t even take an infinite supply of Three-Law robots for granted any longer. If all the other verities are no longer there, why should the safety of robots still be relied upon? After all, robots have changed, and are less reliable,” Prospero noted. “That is the plain fact of New Law robots. I can save a life or obey a command if I wish, but I am not absolutely bound to do so.”

  “I must say that I am more than a bit taken aback,” Dr. Leving said. “This is a far deeper—and darker—philosophy than I would have expected from you.”

  “Our situation is likewise darker than you think,” Prospero said. “My fellow New Law robots are not well liked or well treated—and, I must admit, at times, they are, as a consequence, not well behaved. The process feeds on itself. Their overseers assume they will run away, and force heavier restrictions on them to prevent escape. The New Law robots chafe under the new restrictions, and thus decide to flee. Clearly, no one benefits from the current situation.”

  “That I can agree with,” said Dr. Leving.

  “I wish to do what I can to bring the two sides to some new accommodation,” Prospero said. “That is part of why I am here, in hopes of conversing with some of the leading Spacers
.”

  Another shading of the truth, Caliban noted. It seemed to him that Prospero was becoming more and more parsimonious with the truth in recent days. It worried him. But Dr. Leving was speaking.

  “I must warn you, Prospero, not to have too many hopes in that direction, “ she said. “This is a very public occasion, and I doubt that many of the people here will want to be seen in conversation with some upstart New Law robot.”

  “I note that you have no such concerns,” Prospero said.

  Fredda Leving laughed. “I’m afraid that my reputation is too far gone for one chat with you to do any harm. After committing the horrific crime of creating you and Caliban, merely talking with you is going to be a rather petty offense.”

  Ottley Bissal hung back from the entrance, taking shelter under the roofed-over aircar port, clinging to shadows. He was dry and clean now, having used the aircar port’s refresher station, put there a hundred years before for the convenience of guests who wished to tidy up before socializing at the Governor’s Residence. Well, that description fit him.

  Fear was starting to take its hold on him. So much could go wrong. The plan was good, and he knew what he was supposed to do—but nothing was foolproof. They had promised they would take care of him no matter what, but he knew that even the most powerful people could fail at times.

  But revenge. Revenge. He had one taste of it already tonight—and what came next would be a full banquet, a blow struck against everything the world had ever owed him and failed to deliver, every betrayal put paid in one moment.

  It would be enough. More than enough. What was a little fear, a little danger compared to the incomparable pleasure of destroying the greatest enemy of all?

  Another aircar was coming in for a landing. Bissal stepped back, deeper into shadow, and waited for his moment. Soon. Very soon now.