a calling card.”
Normalcy. The need for normalcy was painfully obvious. Caliban knew it was so—and yet, somehow, it was difficult to act on that knowledge.
Still, the demands of the day, the strictures of routine, helped a great deal. He had his job to do.
In theory, both Caliban and Prospero worked as field representatives for Fredda Leving, observing the behavior and actions of New Law robots, and reporting it to Dr. Leving’s office. But their duties went far beyond those tasks. They were roving troubleshooters, tasked to find problems that slowed down work and resolve them.
In practice, Prospero was worse than useless in such work. He was far more likely to urge the New Law robots to set down their tools and make for Valhalla than he was to sort out a job-site scheduling dispute. These days, Prospero spent most of his time with his internal hyperwave system shut off so he would not be disturbed—or tracked. He liked to hide out from the world in an abandoned office somewhere under the streets of Limbo, reading and writing and studying, developing his philosophy.
Caliban, on the other hand, found that he was good at the job. He understood at least something of both the human and robotic point of view, and could often bring the two sides together. He had waded into the middle of any number of disputes between humans and New Law robots—and, for that matter, between robot and robot- struggling to find the common ground.
But there were times, be it confessed, when he wondered if New Law robots were worthy of freedom.
For the past two weeks, Caliban had been working with a team of New Law robots engaged in the refurbishment of an old windshifter force field coil, a massive, powerful, and intricate device. Its repair required careful planning and the coordination of many steps. The robot team was working without any direct human supervision, and every robot on the team was enthusiastic about the job.
Unfortunately, it seemed to Caliban that every New Law robot on the job had come up with a different better idea as to how the job should be done. There were so many ideas to sort through that it seemed unlikely that the job itself would ever be done.
It was up to Caliban to convince the robots that better was often the enemy of good, and that seeking perfection could mean accomplishing nothing. It was frustrating, at times, to see the trivial uses to which the New Law robots put their freedom. Fredda Leving had meant them to advance, to move in new directions—not waste time around a conference table, bickering once again over the most efficient way to retune a stasis suppression coil. He had agreed last night to come in well ahead of schedule this morning, in hopes of resolving a few of the issues at hand.
“Come, friends,” Caliban said again. “Let us try again. Cannot we agree on this very minor point?”
“How can you dismiss maximized efficiency as a minor point?” Dextran 22 demanded.
“And what good is theoretical efficiency when your enhancement routines will leave the system unstable?” Shelkcas 6 asked.
“The enhancement routines are stable,” Dextran replied, “or at least they would be in a properly normalized field environment.”
“Please!” Caliban interjected. “The normalization issue is resolved. There is no need to reopen it. Friends, once again we face the same old choice. We can solve the problem, or we can have the argument, but we cannot do both. Dextran, your enhancement system will work, and we can use it—so long as we do not press for greater than ninety-nine-plus percent efficiency. Is a half-percent improvement in efficiency truly worth major reliability degradation?”
“Perhaps not,” Dextran admitted. “Perhaps the enhancement system alone will—”
“Caliban! Caliban!”
A voice, a human voice, and one he recognized, calling from the outer office. But what would bring Gubber Anshaw here? “Excuse me, friends. If we are resolved on this issue, perhaps you could move to the next point on the agenda while I step out.”
Caliban rose, crossed the room, opened the door, and stepped through. There was Gubber, plainly agitated and upset. Caliban closed the door behind him. There was something in Dr. Anshaw’s face that said his news would be best discussed in private.
“Caliban! Thank the stars you are here! What the devil are we going to do?”
“Do? Do about what?”
“Grieg, of course. Governor Grieg. They’re sure to suspect Tonya. Caliban, you were there. You’re a witness. She didn’t do anything. You can tell them that.”
“Dr. Anshaw, you confuse me,” Caliban said, increasingly alarmed. All of Prospero’s assurances that there would be no trouble, no danger, were clearly worth as little as Caliban had feared. “What about last night? What about the Governor?”
“Haven’t you heard? Don’t you know? Grieg is dead. He was killed last night just after—”
But Caliban was already gone before Anshaw could finish speaking. If things were uncertain enough that Anshaw feared Tonya Welton might be a suspect, then Caliban had no doubt whatsoever that he was in danger as well. He had to get away from where he could be found. Get away fast.
Shelabas Quellam was flushed with excitement. Governor. He was going to be Governor. Importance, power, respect. All his. All his. But there was so much he had to do to get ready. What to do first? A speech. Yes. He should write a speech for when he took over. Something along the lines of sorrow and courage, and the need to move forward—yes, that would be about the right approach.
He sat down at his comm console and settled in to start dictating—but then he noticed the status board was indicating all sorts of pending mail waiting for him in his office system—some of it official, and several days old.
Shelabas had never much bothered keeping close track of all his incoming correspondence. His robots read it for him, and wrote up summaries about the things he needed to deal with. But, come to think of it, he hadn’t even checked their summaries in a while. He really ought to check it all now. There might be something in there of vital interest to the new Governor.
Shelabas Quellam scrolled the pending mail list—and then let out a little gasp. There was a letter from Grieg there, coded for Quellam’s eyes only. But how could that be? But then he checked the dateline and saw that it had been waiting for him more than a week.
A week! Now that he thought of it, he could remember his robots advising him that there was urgent mail waiting for him in the system. He had no one but himself to blame for waiting this long to check.
His hand trembling, he worked the controls and saw Governor Chanto Grieg’s face appear on the screen, looking confident, sure of himself, very much in charge. Not a printed letter, then, but a video record. There was something vaguely insulting about that. You sent video letters to those who might not have the patience to deal with the written word.
“Greetings to you, Legislator,” Grieg’s image said. It was plain to see that Grieg was speaking in formal mode, for the official record. This was not a personal letter—it was a policy statement. “It is with some reluctance that I came to the decision I must now report to you—and to you alone. As you know, I have long believed that the laws of succession to my office are excessively complex and could lead to great uncertainty in a crisis. For that reason, I named you, the man fated to succeed if I were removed from office by legal means, to be my successor if I were to die in office.
“As you are no doubt aware, there are currently moves afoot to impeach or recall me. As you may not be aware, Sheriff Kresh, Commander Devray, and Security Captain Melloy have all recently warned me of threats to my life. Thus, my removal from office, either by legal means or through my death, becomes increasingly more likely. I find that I can no longer treat it as a remote theoretical possibility, but as a probable event.
“I can no longer treat the principle of unified succession as being of paramount importance. While important in its own right, it cannot be allowed to stand in the way of the vital reforms, the diplomatic and economic policies upon which this government is embarked. It is my opinion that should you succeed me, the pressure for you to call early elections would be insurmountable. It is my further opinion that elections under such circumstances would almost certainly result in a government that would set policies likely to result in planetary disaster.
“For all of these reasons, I hereby inform you that I am withdrawing you from the Designation, in favor of a new name. After suitable discussion with the new Designate, I plan to announce the new name publicly. This I expect to transpire within a few weeks. Out of respect for you, for our long association, and for your office as
