He set the aircar gently down on the valley floor, undid his seat restraints, and turned to regard Tonya and Ariel in the backseat. Ariel betrayed no emotion, of course, but Tonya Welton, Queen of the Settlers, was obviously on the edge of hysteria. “All right,” Kresh said. “Ariel, Donald, Madame Welton—I’m going to need all of you to be careful here. The situation is still dangerous. If someone makes a mistake, and someone gets hurt—well, that would not be good. I want everyone alive at the end of this, if for no other reason than so we’ll be able to get the whole story. I don’t want any loose ends. All right?”
“Yes,” Tonya Welton said, her face pale, her expression stem and unreadable. Kresh knew she could crack at any moment.
“Good,” Kresh said. “Then let’s go.”
Tonya nodded rather jerkily and opened the hatch. She stepped out the door, Ariel following.
But neither Kresh nor Donald made any effort to follow the other two out. Interesting that Donald knew Kresh wanted him to stay put. But then, Donald had been a little bit ahead every step of the way, ever since he had gotten to the crime scene before everyone else.
“Donald,” Kresh said, “you mentioned something about a theory you wanted to test. I believe I understand now what you meant. You know, don’t you?”
Donald did not speak, but instead stared straight ahead and watched the tableau taking shape on the ground outside. Kresh followed his gaze. The man who lived here stood next to Caliban. Terach and Leving stood on Caliban’s other side, getting a good hard look at their creation. Tonya Welton, her face strained and nervous, stood next to Leving, Ariel behind her. Gubber Anshaw was at Welton’s side, holding her hand, clearly proud and relieved that he could now express his affection in public. They were forming up to stand in a rough, nervous half-circle facing the aircar, waiting for Kresh. But still Donald said nothing. And Alvar Kresh found that his heart was pounding so hard it seemed about to pop out of his chest. Donald could sense that, of course, with his lie-detection system. What would he make of it?
“Donald, I asked you a question,” Kresh said.
But still Donald kept his silence.
Kresh sighed. As always, it was a question of juggling the Law potentials. Weaken the First Law injunction to do no harm, strengthen the Second Law requirement to obey orders. “Donald, first noting that my ego will be quite unharmed no matter what your answer, I now order you to answer my question. You figured it out some time ago, didn’t you?”
“Yes, sir. I was not altogether certain of my conclusions until last night, however.”
“In future, Donald, I would suggest that holding back on your theories and opinions could do more harm to me and my career than speaking up and bruising my ego. But we will discuss this later. Just now, I think it is time to test your little theory. Might I suggest that you contrive to get Fredda Leving between yourself and Ariel?”
“I was about to offer the same arrangement, sir.”
“Good. Follow my cue. Let’s get to it.”
Kresh opened his door and stepped down out of the car as Donald got out the other side. Kresh noted, somewhat absently, that the palms of his hands were slick with sweat. Careful. Careful. He wiped his hands on his pants legs. They were nearly all the way there, but he would only have one chance. He had to get it right, and he had to bear in mind that she was still damn-all dangerous. Things could still go wrong.
He stepped around the side of the car and strode slowly toward the semicircle. Good, Donald had positioned himself just behind Leving, with Ariel on his other side.
Alvar Kresh moved slowly, carefully, straight toward her. Time seemed to slow, events seemed to expand. Everything seemed to look larger, mort; important, with all details razor-sharp.
Fredda Leving lifted her hand, moved it toward a pocket on her tunic, began to pull something out. Kresh’s fingers twitched, but he forced himself to keep his hands at his sides. Not yet. Slowly. Carefully.
Leving pulled a piece of paper from her pocket and held it up. “Sheriff Kresh, I have a waiver. It permits me to own one No Law robot. It establishes Caliban as a legal chattel and causes his existence to conform with all—”
And time suddenly speeded up. Heart pounding, fear-sweat pouring out of him, Alvar Kresh pulled out his blaster, his body acting almost before his mind willed it to act. A misstep, a wrong guess, and she could be on him, kill him before his heart could beat again.
Now. Now. Now. Alvar Kresh leveled his blaster and aimed it straight for Fredda Leving’s heart. “Dr. Fredda Leving, I arrest you as a Settler spy and saboteur,” he said, his voice firm and strong, betraying none of his fear. “You faked the attack on yourself, programmed Caliban to wreak havoc on our planet, and then set him loose in the city. It was all part of a Settler plot to throw Inferno society into chaos.”
Fredda Leving’s jaw dropped in astonishment. She stepped forward to protest. The other humans in the semicircle, no less amazed, stepped back. She was isolated, with a robot behind her on either side, Ariel just a bit closer than Donald. Perfect.
“Do not move, Dr. Leving! Not one muscle, or I will be obliged to fire.”
Fredda Leving, the terror plain on her face, lowered the paper just a trifle. It was nothing, the merest involuntary movement, but it was all the excuse Alvar Kresh needed.
He fired.
Fredda Leving screamed.
A brilliant roar of light leapt out from the blaster and struck her square in the chest.
20
AND nothing happened.
Fredda Leving stared down where the hole in her chest should have been, but she was whole and intact. For one moment, immeasurably short and infinitely long, nobody moved.
And then Ariel leapt forward, placing her body in the path of the blast that had just been.
“Too late, Ariel,” said Alvar Kresh, reholstering the training unit and pulling his real blaster from his pocket. He pointed the real blaster square at Ariel. “Nice try, but too late. A robot that truly had First Law would have been in front of Dr. Leving before my finger could tighten on the trigger. But then, all you have is the knowledge of how to simulate obedience to the Three Laws. And dying would make your simulation just a little too authentic, wouldn’t it? On the other hand, I expect that death at police hands of the one person who could expose you was an awfully tempting idea.”
Ariel spoke. “There was no chance to save her!” she protested. “Your own robot, Donald, made no move to block your shot.”
“Donald knew that was a training blaster. The ruse was his idea.”
“I have First Law! I am a Three Law robot!”
“Be quiet, Ariel!” Kresh barked.
“But you are mistaken!” Ariel protested.
“I am afraid you just violated a very clear order to be quiet,” Donald said, staying well clear of Ariel. “I must note there was no First Law conflict involved that would explain this lapse.”
“That’s not my idea of a Three Law robot, Ariel,” Kresh said.
“I don’t understand,” Tonya said.
“It’s perfectly simple,” Kresh said. “It all makes sense when you consider the evidence very strongly suggested that a robot committed the crime—but that Caliban did not commit it. That’s what blinded us. We assumed that he was the only robot with no laws, the only one capable of attacking a human. None of us considered Ariel, even though she had precisely the same dimensions, the same tread pattern on the soles of her feet, the same length to her stride, the same shape to her forearm. She could make it seem as if those were Caliban’s footprints, and leave exactly the same wound in Fredda’s head as Caliban would have if he had struck her.”