Fredda blinked in surprise. She had always known that Caliban and the New Law robots had good sources of information, but she had not known they were that good. And then there was the way Caliban had phrased it. “Befall” the New Law city. A subtle pun that would reveal very little to anyone who did not know what was going on. It told her Caliban was being cautious-and that he wanted her to be equally cautious. Was he worried about eavesdroppers, or snooper robots with orders to listen for certain words? Or was he just assuming that Alvar was still there, and might be able to overhear? “I think you are being wise,” she said. “Events are moving quite rapidly, and I don’t think they will be easy to control.”
“I quite agree,” said Caliban. “We must set to work at once preparing our citizens for the contingency in question. We may well need to call on our friends for help.”
“You can certainly call on me,” said Fredda. “Whatever I can do, I will.” She hesitated for a moment. That was a rather sweeping promise, after all. It seemed likely that all of the Utopia region would have to be evacuated, and that would put a huge strain on transport and other resources. Few people were likely to worry about the New Law robots getting their fair share of the help. “But there will probably be limits-severe limits-on what I can do.”
“I understand that,” said Caliban. “We have always been on our own. But even marginal assistance could turn out to be vitally important.”
Fredda felt a pang of guilt. It was bad enough when you could do very little for your own creations. It was worse when they expected even less. “Contact me when you get there,” she said. “Let me know whatever you need, and I’ll do my damnedest to get it.”
There was a moment’s silence on the line. “What we need,” said Caliban, “is a place where we can be left alone. We thought we had that, up until now. Caliban out.”
The line went dead, and Fredda cursed to herself, fluently, violently, and at length. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. She had never asked for, never considered, the burden of obligation she had put on herself when she had created the New Law robots. She had never felt that she owed a debt, a creator’s debt to the Three-Law robots she had built. But with Caliban, with the New Law robots, she felt she owed them something, simply by virtue of calling them into existence.
Perhaps that was the difference between creating a race of willing slaves, and a race of beings who wanted to be free.
Fredda slumped back in bed. Damnation. Now she’d never get to sleep.
THE FIRST HINTS of dawn were a whisper in the eastern skies of Hades as Caliban, Prospero, and Fiyle rode Prospero’s aircar up out of the city’s tunnel system. Fiyle was clearly exhausted, yawning uncontrollably. He had been up all night, Prospero grilling him relentlessly for any tiny scrap of information he might have concerning the comet operation.
Caliban looked at the man with something very close to sympathy. Perhaps Fiyle was little better than a turncoat who sold himself to all and sundry, but even so, there was some whiff of honor about the man. Something in him had put limits on his petty betrayals and the buying and selling of trust. Something had put survival of the New Law robots above the lure of Trader Demand Notes. There was something to respect, even in this contemptible man.
And it was, after all, that impulse to decency that had placed Norlan Fiyle in danger. That meant Norlan Fiyle had best get out of town, and fast. And the two robots, needless to say, had their own reasons to travel. They needed to warn Valhalla.
Caliban looked from Fiyle to Prospero, and then at the city itself. He bid a farewell-and not an entirely fond one-to Hades. Perhaps he would someday return to the city. But events were moving too quickly, things were happening too fast. Somehow, a part of him knew that the city he saw now, here, today, would soon be changed beyond recognition, even if the buildings and the streets remained the same. For the lives of the people would be changed utterly, and the world beyond the city made anew.
Unless, of course, city, people, and world were all simply smashed flat instead. Utter destruction was one form of change.
The aircar reached for sky, and headed into the dawn.
ALVAR KRESH SWITCHED off the link to his data mailbox, surprised at his own sense of relief. He sat at the console in front of Dum and Dee, where, it seemed to him, he had spent several years, instead of merely most of a night and most of a morning, and tried to consider the situation. The day shift for the Terraforming Center had been filtering in for the last half an hour or so, all of them more than a trifle surprised to find Governor Alvar Kresh in possession. Kresh paid them as little mind, and as little attention, as possible. Dr. Soggdon was still at the center as well, for reasons Kresh did not entirely understand. Perhaps a sense of duty was keeping her there to protect Unit Dee’s honor against the interloper. If that was the case, she was not at her most effective. She was at her desk, head pillowed on her folded arms, fast asleep.
Kresh turned his attention back to the news he had just received. The people trying to wreck the comet-capture project did not know it, but they had done him a very large favor indeed. Kresh had been dreading the necessity of informing the world at large of the comet project. Sooner or later, Inferno would have to know, but he had enough on his hands without being forced to calm the inevitable public uproar at the same time.
By leaking the information, the opposition had relieved Kresh of the necessity of going before the cameras and the reporters. And Fredda had struck precisely the right note, deflating the uproar without actually discounting the story. Thank Space he hadn’t been home to receive that call himself.
When he had succeeded to the governorship, Kresh had made a point of eliminating all the layers of press secretaries and communications offices and scheduled appointments and all the other tricks of the trade meant to keep reporters well away from the governor, allowing the news people all but unlimited access to him. There had been plenty of times when he had regretted that policy, and today he thanked whatever source of luck he had that he had managed to avoid the press today. It might not be a bad idea to stay right where he was, keeping a nice, low profile for a while, with as little direct communication with the outside world as possible. Here he could focus on the project itself. If he went back to Hades, it was all but inevitable that he would get swept up talking about the project, rather than doing something about it.
Very well. Now the world knew about the comet, and he had not been the one to tell them. All to the good. But now there was another problem. The obvious thing to do now was to allow the public discussion move forward to the point where he could confirm the existence of the comet plan to a populace ready to accept the idea. But how the devil could he do that when he would be forced to make the ridiculous-sounding admission that they had misplaced the comet?
Plainly, the best answer to that problem was to relocate the comet as soon as possible. But Kresh had done as much as he could in that direction for the moment. Sometimes the job of leadership was simply to get things started, and trust in others to get them done. He would have to keep on here, focusing on other aspects of the project, working on the assumption that they would be able to find the comet in time. Back to work, he told himself.
“Still with me, Dee?” Kresh asked.
“Yes, sir, I am,” Unit Dee replied. “Was there anything of interest in your mailbox?”
“Quite a bit,” he said. “But nothing that you need worry about. I have a new task for you.”
“I would be delighted to be of further assistance.”
“Right,” said Kresh, his tone of voice deliberately brusque. There was something about courtly manners from a robot that got on his nerves. “My personal robot, Donald 111, is at work on the preliminary preparations for the cometary impact. Safety plans, evacuations plans, that sort of thing. I want to contact him and have him hand off that job to you. Clearly, you’re better suited to it than he is. I should have assigned the job to you in the first place. Relay my orders to that effect, then order Donald to join me here as soon as possible without revealing my whereabouts.”