Caliban

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.”

“What in deep space are you talking about?” Welton demanded.

“My fellow Infernals will see interference in robot research as an attack on the Spacers’ hopes of survival in a universe that seems to be surrendering itself to the Settlers. Given the slightest hint of any connection between the Settlers and the attack, however slender and tenuous, the people of this world will assume your people were behind it. They won’t care if it is true or not. They will believe.

“They will associate this attack with the Settlers—the same damn Settlers they see wandering free all over Inferno, poking their noses into everything, treating the people of Inferno as little better than savages. It will be enough to make the situation even more tense than it is already. The people of Inferno are sure you Settlers regard us all as amusing little natives to be brushed aside on your way to conquering the galaxy.”

Tonya colored a bit, and she folded her arms in front of her. “Politics. Always it comes down to politics and prejudice. My dear Sheriff. It is not we Settlers who are holding you Spacers back. You are doing it to yourselves, with no need of help from us. You have had endless generations in which to colonize new worlds of your own. You could have peopled thousands of worlds by now. Instead you have but fifty worlds—forty-nine after this Solaria business.

“We did not stop you from going on to further colonization. You chose not to continue. Nor are we preventing you from starting a new effort at colonization now. But instead of taking action, you choose to remain at home and blame us for moving outward. Is it our fault that you have made your refusal to settle new worlds a mark of virtue?”

“Madame Welton. You must excuse me,” Kresh said. “I allowed my own emotions to get the better of me. I did not intend to accuse you, but you are entitled to fair warning of what the people of Inferno will think if your— ah—involvement becomes known. I don’t hold such views myself, though I must admit some sympathy for them. But if a Settler relationship with Fredda Leving comes out in connection with this crime, or in any way at all, it is my considered professional opinion that there will be hell to pay.”

Tonya Welton stared at him, unblinking, her face unreadable.

At last she spoke. “Then I think you can look forward to having to pay that hell in about two days’ time,” she said, rather soberly.

“What happens then?” he asked, his voice flat, his face deadpan.

“There will be an—announcement,” she said, clearly being careful of what words she used. “I am not at liberty to say more, but if there are to be the sort of difficulties you are talking about, they will happen then.”

“Beg pardon, Madame Welton, but do you think it possible that tonight’s attack has some connection to that announcement?” Donald asked. “Perhaps an attempt to stop or delay it?”

Welton turned her head sharply toward Donald, her expression suddenly wild and uncontrolled. Obviously, she had not noticed him coming in. “Yes,” she said, a bit too eagerly. “Yes, I believe that is a real possibility. If it is true, then I believe we are all in terrible danger.”

“What the devil are you—” Kresh began.

“No,” Welton said, turning back toward Kresh. “I can say no more. But solve this case quickly, Sheriff. If there is anything in this life, this world, that you value, solve it!” She took a deep breath and seemed to come back to herself a bit. “It was a mistake for me to