robots. There was nothing in the least constricted about his reaction in a case of actual and current danger to his own master. He started moving before Commander Devray had even finished speaking.
Without a word of explanation, Kaelor lunged forward and grabbed Davlo Lentrall, throwing both arms around Lentrall’s waist from the rear, and lifting him bodily off the ground.
“Kaelor! What are you doing? Have you lost your mind?”
Kaelor ignored his master’s protests. He had already spotted an ideal protective spot. Kaelor moved toward it, fast.
The Government Tower Plaza had a number of long, low benches scattered about, each bench carved from a single block of stone. The rear portion of each bench’s backrest was carved away, no doubt in order to form a pleasing curve. But it also meant the carved-out area below and behind the backrest had solid stone over it and in front of it.
Kaelor rushed for the nearest bench, swung Lentrall’s body around into a reclining position, and forced him to lie down behind the bench, with his back on the ground. With the reflexes of a Spacer who knows not to argue with a robot determined to obey the First Law, Lentrall gave up struggling and cooperated. Kaelor lay down in front of his master with his back to him, so that his eyes were facing out and he could keep watch. Five seconds after the CIP commander had called him, he had his master lying flat on his back, shielded by a stone bench on one side and over him, and Kaelor’s own body serving as a shield for the other side.
“There is a threat against you, sir,” said the robot, before his master could ask any of the obvious questions. “The police just hyperwaved a warning to me a few seconds ago. They fear your assassination or kidnapping.”
“That’s absurd!” Lentrall said. “Who in the devil would want to attack me?”
“I do not know. Someone who does not like the idea of you dropping a comet on them, perhaps.”
For once, Davlo Lentrall had no reply. All he could do was wait and see what happened next.
Kaelor was fairly sure he would not have long to wait.
7
“THE BUS IS rolling!” the voice in Cinta’s ear announced, telling her something she could see with her own eyes. She watched the bus pull away from the curb and head toward the plaza, gradually gathering speed as it moved forward.
Most of the passengers aboard that bus were merely highly realistic dummies, some of them programmed to moan, cry out, and writhe about a bit, even spurt realistic blood. The four or five real people aboard the bus were in the best padded seats, ready with bladders full of simulated blood that would pop open on cue, and with ghastly- looking injuries that were testaments to the skills of the makeup artist. For the moment, the mock injuries were hidden beneath wigs and tear-away clothing. Once the bus had crashed, all would be revealed.
A nice job, all around—doubly so, given the rush nature of the assignment. It wouldn’t have been possible at all if the SSS Covert Office hadn’t had most of the gear and people available on standby. By all accounts, there were some very interesting things in the CO warehouse.
Cinta swung the magniviewers to see if she could spot Lentrall. Still no luck. Nothing to see but a crowd of people looking up toward the roof, waiting for their aircars to be shuttled down to them.
It was just as well she knew the lobby team and the plaza team were tracking him, or else-there was something wrong. She spotted sudden, abrupt movement in the plaza. She zoomed in to the action, and swore a blue streak—just as the voices on the headset chimed in, telling her more things she already knew.
“Lentrall’s robot has grabbed him! He’s pulled him under cover!”
Cinta watched the robot shove Lentrall under a bench and cover the opening with his body. He’d been warned. Someone on the CIP had been very smart, and very, very fast. And if they were able to send a warning, that almost certainly meant help was on the way as well. It would have been tough enough spiriting Lentrall away without CIP cops all over the place. She glanced toward the single CIP aircar orbiting the top of the tower. She had hoped the situation up there would have created a sufficient distraction, but it would seem they were only pretending to have been fooled by it.
“Order an abort!” she said. “Cancel! Stop the bus and everyone go home, now!”
“It’s too late, ma’am,” the watch controller said. “All the teams are already in motion. The snatch car is already on approach.”
Cinta looked up into the sky, but could not see the snatch car yet. She looked back to the bus, and saw that it was already moving too fast to stop. Another second or two, and it was going to hit.
And then all hell would break loose, even if there was no longer any use for the hell.
“WHAT’S GOING ON?” Davlo Lentrall demanded. “I can’t see a damned thing back here.”
“Good,” the robot Kaelor replied. “Then no one can see you. There is nothing significant happening—”
Suddenly, Kaelor heard a horn blaring, and the squealing brakes of a large ground vehicle. He looked toward the noise, at the Aurora Boulevard end of the plaza, and saw a large groundbus moving far too fast. It was not going to be able to make the turn. Every human aboard, as well as any number of humans on the plaza, was in danger. Kaelor felt the pull of First Law imperative telling him to rush toward the bus to be ready to render aid, but the First Law requirement that he protect his master from danger was stronger—if only just.
No other robot on the plaza had any such First Law conflicts. They moved with the blinding speed of robots in a hurry. Some dove in to snatch humans from out of the path of the bus, while some ran to where they judged the bus would come to a halt, to be ready to rescue the victims the first moment it was possible. Three robots rushed out into the road and threw themselves directly in the path of the bus, no doubt hoping the force of the impact with their bodies would be enough to slow it down safely. The bus smashed into each one of them, one after the other, and just kept on coming. It hit the curb with a resounding crash, bouncing and lurching, skidding wildly before it tipped over on its side with a terrible booming thud, and the shriek of tearing metal. It skidded a good twenty meters on its side before coming to a halt.
The first of the robots was on the bus before it had even come to a complete stop, and within seconds the bus was all but hidden from view beneath a swarm of robots rushing to rescue the injured humans aboard. Two of them tore the remains of the driver’s windshield off, and gained access that way. Five others tore the side windows out and scrambled in.
In seconds, the chaos of the crash site was transformed into an organized rescue operation.
“Kaelor! What the devil is all that noise! What’s going on?”
Kaelor, the robot designed, built, and trained to assist in the analysis of hypothetical cataclysms, did not answer for a moment, frozen into immobility by a complex conflict between contradictory First Law and Second Law imperatives. He had to protect his master from danger, of course—but the danger to Davlo Lentrall was unstated, and unseen, and possibly hypothetical, while the danger to humans right in front of him was real, definite, and direct. However, the Second Law potential of the situation had been tremendously strengthened by the power, the authority, and the urgency of Commander Devray’s order. The presence of so many robots rushing to the bus crash diminished the First Law imperative to go to the aid of the victims, but it did not extinguish it. The urge to go, to help, was strong.
“Kaelor, what the devil is going on?” Lentrall asked again.
“I am not sure,” he said. “There appears to have been a violent and dramatic bus crash.”
“What do you mean ‘appears’?” Lentrall demanded.
“Something does not make sense,” Kaelor replied. He considered. The unspecified safety hazard on the roof, the warning of danger to his master, and this bus crash, each in itself an unlikely event, all had taken place within a few minutes of each other, and very close to each other. There had not been a safety evacuation, or an out-of- control ground vehicle anywhere in the city, for years. While the level of violent crime had increased in recent years, it was still quite rare, and generally either was related to gang activity, or consisted of crimes of passion. This was clearly neither. The odds of three such low-probability events happening so close to each other was almost microscopic.
Suppose one of them hadn’t happened? Suppose he, Kaelor, had not received the warning? Then, undoubtedly, he would be over there, helping with the rescue, and his master would be out in the open, away from
