Wait! There was something wrong. Something he had to do. Something about the-the-yes, the police. He had to call them. Call them. Get them to take this horrifying robot out of here out of here out of here. Wait. Focus. Have to do it without alerting Calicalicaliban. He knew there was a way. How? How? Yes! Hyperwave. Call police hyperwave. Call. Concentrate. Hyperwave. Make the link. Call. Call.
“Sheriff’s Dispatcher,”the voice whispered inside his head, as Caliban related his journeys through the tunnels of the city.
With a feeling of palpable relief, Horatio recognized that he had reached a human dispatcher. Just the sound of a human voice made him feel better. How wise of the Sheriff’s Department to use human dispatchers on the robot call-in frequency.“This is robot HRT -234,” he transmitted, struggling to get the words out. Even over hyperwave, even with a human on the other end of the line, First Law conflict reaction was making it all but impossible to form words. How to tell them? Suddenly he knew.“Caaaan’t ta-talk,” he sent to the dispatcher.“Calib-b-b-an.” Caliban had said the police were after him. If the police had learned his name
“What? Say again, HRT-234.” There was something urgent, eager, in the dispatcher’s voice, something that told Horatio that the human knew who Caliban was.
Horatio concentrated, forced all his effort into sending clearly.“CaliCalibanban. Speeeeechlock.”
“I understand. The rogue robot Caliban is with you and you are suffering speechlock. Good work, HRT-234.Keep your send frequency open to provide a homing signal. Aircar units will be there in ninety seconds. “
Good work,the human dispatcher had said. Horatio suddenly felt better, felt capable of noticing his surroundings again.
“-iend Horatio! What is wrong with you? Horatio!” Horatio came back to himself and found Caliban reaching out across the table, shaking him by the shoulder. “Wha! Sorr sorr sorry. Lost touch. Could not hear you you while hype hype hype-” Too late, Horatio regained partial control over his speech centers. It had blurted out.
“Could not hear me while you what?” Caliban demanded, but Horatio could say no more. “Hyperwave!” Caliban said. “While you hyperwaved to the Sheriff for help! What else should I have expected!”
“I-I-I had to call! You danger! Danger!”
Suddenly there was the wind-rush sound of an aircar coming down fast. Both robots turned to look out the windows on the north side of the building. Horatio felt a surge of relief as he saw the sky-blue deputy’s cars swoop down for a landing.
But he was still badly slowed by First Law conflict shock. He just barely turned his head back in time to see Caliban smash his fist through the south window and leap through the opening. Horatio got up, moved toward the south window as slowly as though he were moving through hip-deep mud.
There was the thunder of heavy boots in the hallway, and then a squad of deputies in battle armor burst into the room. It was all Horatio could do to point toward Caliban’ s retreating figure as it vanished down one of the tunnel entrances to the vast underground maze of the depot.
Two of the deputies raised their weapons and fired out the window. A DAA-BOR robot exploded into a shower of metallic-blue confetti, but Caliban was not there anymore.
“Damn it!” one of the deputies cried out. “Come on, after him!” The humans smashed out more glass with the butts of the rifles and jumped the meter drop to ground level. They ran toward the tunnel, and Horatio watched them go.
But he knew already they would never catch Caliban.
CALIBAN ran.
Full speed, full out, dodging the busy herds of robots, picking his tunnels and turnings and movements to leave the most tangled trail possible for his pursuers.
All were against him. Robots, deputies, Settlers, civilians. And they would never give up chasing him through the city. He did not understand why, but it was plain from Horatio’ s reactions that they regarded him as a threat, a menace.
Which is what they were to him.
Very well, then. It was time to do everyone a favor. If they intended to chase him the length and breadth of the city, it was time to leave the city. He needed to make plans.
Caliban ran on, into the darkness.
DONALD guided Alvar’s aircar skillfully through the gathering dusk toward the Central Auditorium. “Unfortunately, the deputies were unable to track him through the tunnels,” he said as he drove. “Caliban has clearly learned to make good use of the underground ways.”
Kresh shook his head. He had managed a quick nap in midafternoon, but he was still dead tired. It was hard to concentrate. Of course, the second failure of his deputies to effect Caliban ‘s capture did tend to bring things into focus. “Back down into the tunnels,” he said, half to himself. “ And my deputies hardly ever have need to go down there. They don’t know their way around.” Kresh thought for a minute. “What about the robots on the scene? Why the devil didn’t the deputies simply order the robots in the area to surround and subdue Caliban?”
“I suspect it was for the very simple reason that no one thought of it. No member of your force, no robot on this planet, has ever needed to pursue a rogue robot before. The idea of chasing a robot almost seems a contradiction in terms.”
“No one has thought of the implications of the situation,” Kresh agreed. “Even I have trouble remembering that it’s a dangerousrobot we’re after. Hell, there have probably been a half dozen times we could have used other robots to catch him. But it’s too late now. Now he knows to beware of other robots as well. Ah, well. If nothing else, there is a certain consistency to this case.Everything goes wrong.”
“Sir, I am receiving an incoming call from Tonya Welton.”
Alvar Kresh groaned. The damned woman must have called a half dozen times since he left the Governor’s office.
He did not want to talk to that woman-and the Governor had hinted pretty strongly that he would not much care if Welton didn’t get every bit of news instantly. “Tell her there is no new information, Donald.”
“Sir, that would be an untruth. The incident at Limbo Depot occurred after her last call-”
“Then tell her Isaid there was no new information.That much is the truth.” That was the trouble with having a robot screen your calls-the damned things were so truthful.
“Yes, sir, but she is calling to report information of her own.”
“Wonderful,” he said with bitter sarcasm. “Put her through, audio only.”
“Sheriff Kresh,” Tonya’s voice said, coming out of Donald’s speaker grille. “Sorry to be calling so often, but there is something you should know.”
“Good news, I hope,” Alvar said, mostly for want of anything else to say.
“Actually it is. Our people have picked up one Reybon Derue. We’ve got him dead to rights as the leader of that robot-basher gang our friend Caliban happened to run into. As best we can tell, we’ve got the rest of the gang, too, and they’re trying to see who can spill the beans on each other first. Caliban scared the merry hell out of them. I don’t think there’ll be any more incidents for a while. The bad news is none of them were able to tell us much of anything about Caliban that we didn’t already know.”
“I see,” Kresh said. No more robot bashing. Three days ago, he would have regarded that news as a major victory. Today it was incidental. “That’ s good to know, Madame Welton. Thank you for reporting in.”
“While I’m on the line, Sheriff, can you giveme any updates?”
“No, Madame Welton. I might have something for you later, but just at the moment, you know all that I do,” Kresh lied. “I’m afraid I have to get back to work now. I’ll call you when there is some meaningful information. Goodbye for now.” He made a throat-cutting gesture to Donald, and the line went dead.