Caliban

flying the aircar through the darkness just before dawn. She was a typical newbie, he decided: conscientious as all hell, overly determined to do every part of her job perfectly, almost touchingly devoted to duty. It had taken a direct order before she would call him by his first name. She took the regs seriously and was burningly anxious to do everything right.

All of which meant that she usually wanted to fly the aircar, which suited Meldor just fine. He had had his fill of manual flying years ago. Robots could not fly Sheriff’s patrol aircraft, not when many Sheriff’s Department duties had at least the potential for causing harm to humans. So human deputies were forced to do robots’ work, flying the damned aircars for themselves instead of letting the robots do it, the way civilians could.

The joke of it was the Spacers had never gone in much for automating their equipment, because it was the robots who were going to operate it, anyway. Anything that could be done manually was done that way, making the job of flying a car far more complex than it had to be. Not for the first time, Meldor found himself wishing they could use Settler aircars. He had got a look inside one or two of them during some of the Settlertown dustups, and even ridden in one of them. The damn things could fly themselves, with no need for a human or a robot at the controls. The autopilots on those things went far beyond the rudimentary systems on Spacer aircars.

But no, they were stuck with Spacer-style controls. In which case, it suited him just fine to have Lusser do the flying, if they had to be up at this hour, anyway. Damn Kresh! Why did he have to bump up the rapid-response patrols? Meldor wanted to be home in bed, asleep, not up here watching the dust blow in from the desert.

Oh, well. Maybe they’d get lucky, and something worthwhile would happen.

Meldor had missed the latest Ironhead riots. He could do with a little excitement.

DAWN lit the sky.

Caliban had quartered the city during the night, walked through every district, up and down streets of all descriptions, wandered many grand, empty avenues and boulevards. Some part of him knew that it was madly dangerous to be out on the streets. He had to assume that whoever those people were who ordered him to kill himself would try again. He had to assume that there were others who wished him no better fate.

He knew he should hide, duck away out of sight where no one could find him. But he could not bring himself to do that. He was gradually coming to realize that he was searching for something without knowing what that something was. An object, an idea, a bit of knowledge his datastore did not possess. An answer.

He knew not what he sought, and that alone made him hunger for it all the more.

But daytime was here. The robots of night—the laborers, the builders—were giving way to the robots of morning. Personal servants, messengers, aircar drivers were starting to appear—and in their wake, humans were arriving as well, more and more of them as daytime drew them back to the center city.

Thus far, no robot had paid him the slightest attention. But humans. They were the danger. He had to hide. But where? He had no idea of what made a good hiding place, where he might be safe.

Again he had one of those strange moments of sensation, wherein he felt some internal whisper that his thought processes were skewing to one side. Somehow he knew that fear of personal danger was abnormal, all but unheard-of, in a robot. It was another leakage from the emotion-set that seemed to hover around the edges of his datastore. He might well be the first of his kind to be a fugitive.

But where to hide, and how? In the sections of the city he had explored, or in the parts he had not yet seen?

Caliban stopped at the next intersection, by the entrance to some sort of store. He considered his options. He consulted the city map in his datastore and saw that there was a great deal of the city he had not seen yet. He had walked great strips and swatches of the town, but he had had no reason to quarter it systematically, block by block, street by street. What he had established from his wandering was that the datastore city map was not very detailed, and far from being complete or accurate. The city had changed since the map had been made. He himself had witnessed some of that change happening the night before. Whole buildings were missing from the datastore map, or on the map but missing from the real city. Clearly he could not rely on the datastore.

It would have to be in the area of town he had already seen, then. But even there his knowledge was far from complete. Where could he—

“You! Help my robot with those packages and follow me to my aircar.”

Caliban turned around in some surprise. There was a heavyset man behind him, followed by a personal robot, coming out of the store. The robot was carrying a huge stack of packages, piled so high it could not see over them.

“Come on, come on. The damn store’s robots are all out on deliveries, and damned if I’m going to play seeing-eye guide to a robot.”

Caliban did not move. He had learned last night, the hard way, the danger in blindly obeying orders, and the danger in associating with humans.

“What’s the matter with you?” the man snapped. “You under superseding orders already, waiting for your master, he tell you not to help anyone or some damn thing?”

“No,” Caliban said.

“Then help my robot. That’s a direct order!”

But Caliban knew now there was no safety in playing along, mimicking other robots. Suppose this man ordered him into his aircar and flew him to some unknown place, someplace off the map in his datastore? Suppose this man was collecting robots for the thrill of destroying them, just as the woman had been the night before?

Caliban wanted no part of it. Best to get away from this man, get away and find a place to hide from all the humans.

He turned his back on the man and walked away.

“Hey! Come back here!”

But the lessons of the night before were burned deeply into Caliban’s brain. He determinedly ignored the man and walked on. Suddenly there was a hand around his arm. The man was grabbing at him, trying to restrain him. Caliban pulled himself free. The man reached out to grab him again, but Caliban sidestepped him. At last he decided to run. There was much he did not understand, but he knew he did not want to be in this place any longer than necessary.

Without a backwards glance, Caliban stepped into the street, lengthened his stride into a smooth, steady run, and took off down the avenue.

CENTOR Pallichan watched in astonishment as the big red robot ran away. Pallichan was utterly flabbergasted and more than a little unnerved. The robot had refused a direct order, and shaken loose from Centor’s grip in the bargain! That was tantamount to violent behavior, violence against a human being, and refusal of orders to boot. With trembling fingers, not even entirely sure what he was doing, Pallichan pulled his pocketphone out, flipped it open, and punched in the police emergency code.

He put the little phone to his ear. There was a half moment’s silence, and then the robot operator came on. “Sheriff’s Department Emergency Line. Please state the nature of your difficulty.” It was a smooth, calm, perfectly modulated voice. It soothed Pallichan’s agitated mind, helped him think clearly, as no doubt it was meant to do.

“I wish to report a major robot malfunction. A robot, a big metallic-red robot, has just refused my direct order, and then shook me off when I took him by the arm. He ran away.”

“I see. Now establishing lock on your present location. Sir, what direction was he moving when he ran away?”

“Ah, oh, let’s see.” Pallichan had to think for a moment and get his bearings. He forced himself to think clearly, struggling to keep from getting flustered. “North,” he said at last. “Due north from here, heading up Aurora Boulevard.”

“That would be in the direction of Government Tower?” the deferential robot voice asked.

Pallichan looked up the avenue and saw the tower. “Yes, yes, that’s right.” The dispatch robot must have consulted a map system and located an obvious landmark Pallichan could use to confirm position and direction. Damned clever of the police to have the robots verify things that way.