The blood had virtually all clotted or dried by now. Kresh pulled a stylus from his pocket and tested the surface. Almost completely solidified. It always amazed him how fast it happened. He looked up and from the pool of blood, noted the pattern of a med-robot’s foot and then noted something else he had seen before but merely filed away until he had seen the whole room. Two other sets of prints, clearly from robotic feet, but wholly different from the med-robot’s treads. One set of prints led out the front interior into the hallway, the other out the front exterior door to the outside of the building.
And the two sets of prints might be different from the med-robot’s, but they were utterly identical to each other.
Two sets of mystery prints, exactly like each other.
“That’s what’s bothering you, isn’t it, Donald?” Alvar said, standing back up.
“What is, sir?”
“The robot footprints. The ones that make it clear that a robot—two robots—walked through the pool of blood and left Fredda Leving, quite possibly to die.”
“Yes, sir, that did bother me. The flaw is obvious, but it is what the evidence suggests.”
“Then the evidence is wrong. The First Law makes it impossible for any robot to behave that way,” Alvar said.
“And therefore,” a brash new voice suddenly declared from the door Alvar had come through, “therefore, someone must have staged the attack to make it seem like a robot—two robots—did it. Brilliant, Sheriff Kresh. That took me all of thirty seconds to figure out. How long have you been here?”
Alvar turned around and clenched his teeth to keep from letting out a string of curses. It was Tonya Welton. A tall, dark-skinned woman, long-limbed and graceful, she stood just inside the doorway, a tall, dusky-yellow robot behind her. Alvar Kresh would not even have noticed the robot except that Welton was a Settler. He always got a certain grim pleasure out of seeing robots inflicted on the people who hated them so passionately, but at the moment at least, Welton seemed bothered not at all. Her expression was one of amused condescension.
She was dressed in a disturbingly tight and extravagantly patterned blue one-piece bodysuit. The Spacer population on Inferno preferred much more modest clothing and far more subdued colors. On Inferno, robots were brightly colored, not people. But no one had told the leader of the Settlers on Inferno that—or else she had ignored them when they did tell her. Welton, more than likely, had gotten it backwards deliberately.
But what the hell was Tonya Welton doing here now?
“Good evening, Lady Tonya,” Donald said in his smoothest and most urbane tones. It was rare, surpassing rare, for a robot to speak except when spoken to, but Donald was smart enough to know this situation needed defusing. “What a pleasant surprise to have you join us here.”
“I doubt it,” Tonya Welton said with a smile that Alvar scored as being at least an attempt at courtesy. “Forgive me, Sheriff Kresh, for my rather rude entrance. I’m afraid the news about Fredda Leving unsettled me. I tend to be a bit sharp-tongued when I am upset.”
And at all other times, Kresh thought to himself. “Quite all right, Madame Welton,” he replied in a tone of voice that made it clear it was anything but all right. “I don’t know what business brings you here, but there has been an attack on one of Inferno’s top scientists here tonight, and I cannot allow anything to interfere. This is an official investigation, Madame Welton, which has nothing to do with the Settlers, and I’m afraid I must ask you to leave.”
“Oh, no, I can’t. You see, that’s why I’m here. Governor Grieg himself called me not an hour ago and asked that I come here tonight and join in your investigation.”
Alvar Kresh stared at the Settler woman in openmouthed astonishment. What in the devil was going on here? “Are we done here, Donald?” he asked. “Anything else I need to see immediately?”
“No, sir, I think not.”
“Very well, then, Donald. Seal this room as a crime scene. No one in or out. Just now, I think perhaps Madame Welton and I need to have a little talk, and this is not the place for it. Join us when you have completed the arrangements.”
“Very good, sir,” Donald said.
“Let’s go to my car, Madame Welton. We can talk there.”
“Yes, let’s do that, Sheriff,” Tonya Welton said, rather stiffly. “There are a few things we need to get straight. Come along, Ariel.”
ALVAR Kresh and Tonya Welton sat down in the Sheriff’s aircar, facing each other, both of them clearly wary. Welton’s robot, Ariel, stood behind her mistress, fading into the background as far as Kresh was concerned. Robots didn’t count.
“All right, then,” he said. “What’s all this about? Why did the Governor call you in? What possible connection does this case have with the Settlers?”
Tonya Welton folded her hands carefully and looked Kresh straight in the eye. “In a day or two you’ll get the answer to that. But for now, it’s classified.”
“I see,” Kresh said, though he most certainly did not. “I’m afraid that is not much of an explanation.”
“No, and I am sorry for that, but my hands are tied. There is, however, one thing I can tell you that will at least in part explain my being here. I do have authority to be here, under the agreement permitting a Settler presence on this world. I have the right to protect the safety of my employees.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Oh, yes, didn’t you know?” Tonya Welton asked. “Fredda Leving is working for me.”
There was a half minute’s dead silence. Fredda Leving was famous, one of the top roboticists on the planet. Most Infernals regarded her not as a person, but as a planetary asset. For her and her labs to be reduced to mere employees of the Settlers—Welton might as well have announced that the Settlers had purchased Government Tower, or gotten title to the Great Bay.
At last Alvar found his voice again. “If I could make a suggestion, Madame Welton, I think it might be wise to keep that fact very quiet indeed,” he said gruffly.
Welton looked surprised. “Why? We haven’t publicized it widely, but we haven’t tried to keep it secret.”
“Then I suggest you start,” Alvar said.
“I’m afraid I don’t understand,” Welton said.
“Then let me make this clear, Madame Welton. The average citizen of Inferno will not regard this attack as a mere assault, or as attempted murder. The citizens will see an attack on a top scientist, especially a roboticist, as sabotage. Many of them will simply assume your people did it, even without knowledge of Settler involvement in Leving Labs. Once they hear Settlers are involved, that will only make it worse.”
“Our involvement!” Tonya Welton exclaimed. “We had nothing to do with the attack!”
“That’s as may be,” Alvar said. Clearly Welton was upset, and he wanted her that way, wanted her off balance. What was she doing here, anyway? How had she gotten here so quickly? There was something damned suspicious in her haste and eagerness. Just what the hell kind of robotics work would the Settlers be interested in, anyway? There was more than one mystery in the air tonight.
Donald slipped back into the aircar and took a place standing against the wall, next to Ariel. Kresh glanced at him and nodded. There was something comforting in having his loyal servant present. But Donald was not the issue here. Kresh took a good hard look at Welton, trying to gauge her mood. If he was any judge of such matters, there was an underlayer of uncertainty below all her brave talk. “You deny involvement,” he said, “but just now you spoke of Fredda Leving working for you. That is involvement enough. That alone will be seen as a threat by most of the people on this world.”