President of the Legislative Council, I deemed it wise to provide you with early notification of this policy.
“With deep regret and apologies for any distress this decision might cause you, I will say good-bye.”
The screen showed Grieg’s authenticator seal, and then went blank.
Shelabas Quellam stared at the blank display in slack-jawed shock. He was not the Designate. He was not the Governor. He was nothing, nobody again.
But wait just a moment. Suppose Grieg had not named a new Designate before he died? As Shelabas recalled, the old Designation remained in force until the new Designation was made. For a mad instant, he considered erasing the letter, destroying all record of it, and declaring himself the Governor at once. But no. There would be copies placed with all the proper authorities. Destroying his copy could do no good—and would only throw suspicion on him—if he was not suspected of the crime already!
He stood up suddenly, his heart pounding. Grieg’s murder! If no new Designate had been named, Shelabas Quellam was going to be a prime suspect the moment copies of Grieg’s letter were found.
So Shelabas Quellam was not the Governor—and would not be, if Grieg had indeed named a new Designate.
Shelabas Quellam was simply a man who had a first-rate motive for the murder of the Governor.
And soon, very soon, everyone in the world was going to know it.
A half hour after running out on Anshaw, Caliban had reached a place of safety, a secret rustback escape office in an unused tunnel far below Limbo City Center. The office had an unregistered—and, it was to be hoped, untraceable—hyperwave set. He was all but certain no human knew about the hideout. It meant he could monitor the news reports without fear of being taken, and have a chance to think. The news nets were full of Grieg’s death, and little else, and soon told him all he needed to know.
It required little imagination on Caliban’s part to think he and Prospero might be suspects of some sort in the case—and with good reason. Caliban had been pursued by Alvar Kresh before, and he had no wish to repeat the experience. He had to call Prospero.
Caliban was the only robot on the planet of Inferno who was obliged to use a comm center in order to place a call. That was for the very good reason that every other robot had a full hyperwave comm system built in.
Caliban had been built for a laboratory experiment, and keeping him cut off from communications with the outside world had been part of the experiment. He could have arranged to have hyperwave equipment installed long ago, but Caliban had many very good reasons for not wishing to be turned off for even as brief a time as it would take to plug in the gear. There were too many things that could happen to him while he was switched off—too many things had happened to him when he had been switched off before. There were too many humans—and robots—who did not wish him well.
Normally, not having a hyperwave link was not much of a disadvantage. Right now, he needed desperately to speak with Prospero—and he did not know where Prospero’s hidden study cell was. Prospero, too, had faced a number of threats in his day. But that did not matter. Prospero had long ago provided Caliban with a covert audio- only hyperwave link code that would connect to Prospero’s office without being traceable.
He punched the comm code and spoke as soon as the connection was made. Prospero never spoke to anyone via hyperwave until he knew who it was. “Prospero, this is Caliban.”
“Friend Caliban,” Prospero’s voice said through the speaker. “We must meet, most urgently.”
“I agree the need is urgent,” said Caliban. “This is a terrible crisis. But I feel that merely meeting will accomplish nothing.”
“We had a plan as to what to do if things went wrong,” Prospero said. “It is time for us to flee.”
“We never expected things to go this wrong,” Caliban objected. “I have no doubt your escape route would serve quite well under normal circumstances—but these are not normal circumstances. If we decamp now, we will have every human with a badge on the planet after us before nightfall. I have been tracked by Alvar Kresh before. I, for one, have no desire to be hunted again. It was only by the greatest good fortune that I survived the last time.”
“The planet is large, and I have vast experience in covert movement,” Prospero said.
“You have vast experience in arranging covert movement,” Caliban said. “You yourself have never even been off the island of Purgatory. Besides, there is the question of corollary damage. If we were to flee, how many fugitive New Law robots will be destroyed as a consequence? How many of their hiding places will be exposed during the search for us?”
“There is something in what you say,” Prospero said.
“Also bear in mind that if we flee, we will be instantly perceived as the prime suspects in the Governor’s death. That would do tremendous damage to the cause of the New Law robots. You have professed many times how nothing was more important to you than the rights—and the survival—of New Law robots. If we flee, we may well be dooming all New Law robots everywhere.”
“Your points are well taken,” Prospero said. “But if we do not flee—what are we to do?”
“We must turn ourselves in. Submit to their questions. Cooperate. We will be exposing ourselves to grave danger, but, in my judgment, far less danger than in fleeing—and we will not be endangering the New Law robots.”
Prospero did not reply for a moment. Caliban could not blame him for hesitating. The two evils they were forced to choose between were daunting, to say the least. At last, the New Law robot spoke. “Agreed,” he said. “But how are we to do it? I do not wish to walk into a trap, or surrender myself to some SSS agent or Ranger who has been longing for the chance to blast a hole in a New Law robot.”
Caliban had anticipated that question. He could see only one chance for them—a solution that might well be nothing more than a somewhat less elaborate form of suicide than fleeing Purgatory. “There is a robot,” he said. “One that I believe we ought to contact. I believe it is the safest way. If he agrees to take us in without harming us, he will keep his word without trickery.”
“Is this robot a friend of yours?”
“Oh, no,” Caliban said. “On the contrary. If there is any robot in the universe I could count as an enemy, it is Donald 111.”
“Kresh’s robot? Why contact him?” Prospero asked.
“Because there are times,” Caliban said, “when it is wiser to trust an enemy than a friend.” It was not the most tactful of remarks, under the circumstances. But Caliban felt no compunction about saying those words to his closest friend. After all, it was entirely possible that friend Prospero had gotten Caliban in trouble so deep that not even his deadliest enemy could save him.
Donald 111 banked the aircar slightly more to the east as he flew toward the agreed rendezvous point. He was flying faster than he would have dared if there were a human onboard, but time was short, and he could fly as fast as he wanted since there was no risk of First Law violation.
A scant twelve hours had passed since Grieg’s body had been discovered, though it seemed even to Donald that a lifetime had passed since then.
Donald had need to hurry. He was due back at the Residence for the briefing session with Sheriff Kresh and the others. But this was an opportunity he could not forgo. Accepting the surrender of Caliban and Prospero surely took precedence.
He did not know what to make of it all, but that did not matter. He would meet their conditions and bring them in secretly, without consulting with anyone else. It was not necessary to understand why the two pseudo- robots wished to surrender to him, personally. It was enough to know they wished to surrender. It would be the greatest possible satisfaction to take the two of them into custody.
There. He was at the coordinates Caliban had specified. Donald circled once, low and slow, over the gravel- strewn open field, making sure those on the ground could see him. No surprises.
He brought the aircar into a hover thirty meters above the ground and then brought it down vertically, a slow, careful landing. Donald found himself moving with elaborate care, concentrating on the importance of not moving suddenly. Strange, very strange, to be considering the possibility that two robots—even pseudo-robots—might have lured him here as part of some trap. There was nothing to prevent them from greeting Donald with a blaster shot between the eyes.
Nor, Donald realized with surprise, was there anything preventing him from dispatching them. There was nothing at all in the Three Laws to prevent one robot from destroying another. Nothing at all about a robot wielding
