“One other question, sir,” Donald went on. “Can you characterize any marks or things you might have noticed on the floor of the room?”
“I’m sorry?”
“You said you saw the smashed mug and the blood pooling under Dr. Leving’s head. Was there anything else of note?”
“Oh, I see. No, not that I noticed. But I can assure you that I was not in much of a state to notice anything at all. The moment I heard the tone code coming out of that robot, there was nothing on my mind but leaving. I doubt that I was in the room more than thirty seconds at most.”
“This tone code,” Kresh said. “You said it was part of the robot’s wake-up sequence, and that it indicated how long until the robot would come on. Can you tell us how long before that tone the robot would be switched on?”
“Not without knowing a great deal more about how that unit was configured. There are three or four brain types, gravitonic and positronic, that can be installed in that body type, and there is other equipment that can add variation. The size and type of the on-board datastore, for example. It could take anywhere from fifteen minutes to an hour to go from a cold gravitonic robot to a tripled triple.”
Damnation. Events seemed to be conspiring against solving the case. Each new bit of information seemed only to muddle the time sequence or confuse the issue. Kresh felt he would go mad if he did not come up with some sort of witness, and it seemed there was only one potential witness left. “Is there any way that Caliban would have been aware or operational before the moment you came in?” he asked.
“Yes, certainly,” Gubber said. “I realized that afterwards. From the time I left him to see Tonya, there was more than enough time for him to power up, run his full activation sequence, and then be switched off again—or switch himself off, for whatever reason. Then he could be switched on again, or program his own delayed power-up. Most robots have the capacity to set themselves to switch off and on again. It’s quite likely something like that is what happened.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Well, somehow or another, Caliban moved off the service rack to a standing position. Besides which, his arm was raised as if to strike a blow. That’s not how I’d position his limbs if I was getting him off a rack. It seems to me that either Fredda got him down off the rack, or he got down himself, but it’s more likely he did it on his own. Pity she can’t remember the incident.”
“Traumatic amnesia does that to a person,” Kresh said dryly. “But how could she possibly get him down off that rack?” Kresh objected. “A robot that size must weigh five times what she does.”
“The rack has all sorts of power-assistance features. It’s designed to lift and carry robots, pick them up and put them down, and hold them in any position.”
“All right. Let’s go back to your actions. You saw Caliban over the body, you panicked, and you left. What happened then?”
“I went home,” Gubber said. “I went out to my aircar, and my pilot robot flew me home. I called Tonya from home and—” Gubber stopped.
“And what?”
“Well, at first, I was going to accuse her, ask how she could have done such a thing. But then I saw her face on the screen. Fresh, and calm, very much at ease. I knew she could not have done it. And it was starting to sink in how wrong it had been for me to run off that way. I didn’t want to admit that to Tonya. All of a sudden I realized that I couldn’t say anything to Tonya. I told her—I told her that something terrible had happened at the lab and that I was going into seclusion. Then I locked all the doors and cut off all the comm systems, and left them that way for the next few days.”
Leaving Tonya Welton knowing just enough that she would be bound and determined to find out more at any cost, Kresh thought. Unless, of course, his whole story is fabricated from beginning to end and they cooked it up together. They would have wanted a detail like that in there, to account for Tonya jumping into my investigation like a ton of bricks, ready and willing to misdirect it toward every direction but the right one.
“And that’s it,” Kresh said. “That’s all you saw, and all you did.”
“Yes, sir. I assure you that I would be delighted if there were more I could tell you—but that is honestly all I know.”
And it’s enough to wipe out every start toward a lead I’ve made in this case, Kresh thought. “All right, then,” he said. “You are free to go, at least for the moment.”
Gubber Anshaw looked surprised. “You mean, that’s it?”
“That’s it for now,” Kresh growled. “Go. Now. Before I change my mind.”
Gubber swallowed hard, stood up, and went.
ALVAR Kresh watched Anshaw go and then turned toward Donald. “All right, what have you got? Were they telling the truth?”
“Before I answer that, I must note that the situation is of course complicated by the fact that both Anshaw and Terach had a hand in my design and construction. They are therefore riot only more aware than the average citizen that I have sensors designed to serve to assist in detecting falsehoods by witnesses, they have detailed knowledge of how those sensors operate. It is possible they could be able to use that knowledge and feign the sort of responses that tend to indicate veracity.”
“Do you judge that to be likely?”
“No, sir. It seems quite unlikely that either of them is capable of the sort of fine control of their involuntary reactions required for such a gambit to succeed. Indeed, they both seemed so nervous that I would not be surprised if they both had forgotten about my capabilities in that area. On the other hand, if one or both were skillful enough to feign the biomarkers of veracity while lying, that is exactly what I would expect to detect.”
“Very well, then. I will keep in mind that your answer will be more of a balance of probabilities than a hard-and-fast answer. What is your judgment of their veracity?”
“Both men exhibited the classic suite of biophysical reactions for truthful male adults in stressful situations. They were agitated, worried, upset, but all that is to be expected. I believe that both were telling the truth—and indeed, at some pains to conceal nothing.”
Alvar nodded and sighed. “I am forced to agree. If I’m any judge at all, the two of them were both telling the truth. But if they were telling the truth, then we are further from a solution than ever before. All they managed to do was muddy the waters. Did you notice any sort of unusual emotional reaction that might possibly tell us something?”
“I did note several strong emotional reactions, but I doubt they will be of much use. Gubber Anshaw’s exhibited evidence of strong feeling for Tonya Welton. I will freely confess, sir, that I am no expert in the arena of human emotions, but there is much there that baffles me. I do not quite understand what there is in Gubber Anshaw that Tonya Welton finds attractive. Judging against the romantic couples I have had occasion to observe, the two of them do not strike me as, well, compatible.”
Alvar Kresh laughed, and it felt good to do so. There had not been a lot to laugh about in the past few days. “Donald, you are far more expert than you think. I would expect that every single person who knows about this affair has wondered the same thing. And wondered why Anshaw worships her, instead of being terrified by her.”
“That question also crossed my mind. She is a rather intimidating person. But what is the answer, then? How can this sort of unlikely alliance be explained?”
Kresh shook his head. “No one has ever figured that out, and no one ever will, I expect. Perhaps Tonya Welton does not care a bit about Anshaw, and is merely using him for some end of her own. She’s the sort of woman who could turn a Gubber Anshaw into a willing slave without a great deal of trouble, if she set her mind to it.”