“So what do we do about it all?” Cinta asked, her voice a study in neutrality.
“Why ask her to choose now?” Gubber asked. “There’s no need for rushed decisions. Better to take time, to study things calmly first.”
Tonya wheeled about and glared at both of them. “You’re handling me,” she said. “Humoring me. Don’t. I’m still in command of the Settlers on this planet, and don’t you forget it.”
“I’m not forgetting it for one minute,” Cinta said. “And that’s what scares the living daylights out of me. You’re in charge, and I’ll follow your orders. But your orders have not had good results in recent days.”
The look on Tonya’s face was indescribable, a tangle of fear, anger, mad fury, hatred, and shame. Gubber saw Tonya raise her hand, as if to strike Cinta in the face.
“No!” he cried out. “No.”
Tonya looked at him in shock, as if she not were surprised to see him there.
“No,” he said again, surprised by the firmness in his own voice. When had he even spoken to Tonya, or anyone else, for that matter, in this tone of voice? “Foolishness will accomplish nothing,” he went on. “Now is the time to pause and consider. You are the leader here. Our leader. No one disputes that. So lead us. But do not lead us with fear, or anger, or frustration, or because you do not approve of the available situation. Lead us with reason and care.”
Tonya looked at him in shock. “How dare you!” she said. “How dare you speak to me that way?”
“I—I dare because no one else can, and someone must,” Gubber said, his voice unsteadier than he would have liked. “Cinta just tried, and you wanted to strike her for telling the truth. Well, strike me as well, if that is the way of things. I won’t stop you.”
His heart was pounding, but he forced himself to look up at her steadily. She lowered her hand, than raised it again, but then, at last, let it drop to her side. She turned and walked to the other side of the room, and dropped heavily into a chair. “You’re right,” she said. “But I sure as hell wish you weren’t.”
The silence in the room was a near-palpable thing for a time. Tonya sat in her chair, staring at nothing at all. Cinta sat stone-still, her gaze moving back and forth between Gubber and Tonya.
Gubber knew Tonya. He knew she only needed another push, another nudge in the proper direction. And it was plainly up to him to provide that nudge. This was up to him. He cleared his throat and began, speaking in a calm, casual tone that no doubt fooled no one at all. “I’ve just finished speaking with a New Law robot by the name of Lancon-03. Prospero seems to have dropped out of sight, and left her in charge. She had heard the governor’s speech as well, and she called me, asking for advice as to what the New Law Robots should do. That comet is going to drop right on top of them. I couldn’t think of anything to suggest. Can—can you think of anything?”
Tonya laughed wearily and shook her head. “Oh, Gubber. Dear, dear Gubber. The only thing to tell them is to accept the available universe and the bad situation they are in, and make the best of it. And, of course, their situation is much worse than ours. I think you have made your point.”
“Very well, then,” he said, pressing one last time, “what are we going to do?”
Tonya leaned back against the back of her chair, rubbed her eyes, and stared at the ceiling. “We are going to do two things. First off, I want as close a watch as possible put on Beddle and Gildern. There is more going on there than meets the eye. Jadelo Gildern never does anything for just one reason. I want to know what his hidden agendas are this time.”
“We’re already working on it,” Cinta said, plainly relieved that Gubber had managed to get Tonya to behave sensibly. “What’s the second thing?”
“The second thing is that we are going to admit defeat.”
“Ma’am?” Cinta asked, shifting on her seat and looking at Tonya with a puzzled expression.
“Gubber’s right. There’s no stopping it now,” said Tonya, gesturing toward the sky. “They know where the comet is, and they’re going to go for it, and drop it right down on top of their own damn planet, and trust that every little thing will go right, so they don’t get everyone killed. I still don’t believe they can do it. They don’t have the skill or the experience. And I’ve seen what happens to a world when an attempt like this goes wrong. Some old nightmares have come back to me since we found out about this. I think they’re going to kill the planet. But short of shooting down their space fleet, there’s no way to stop them.”
Shooting down their fleet? Gubber thought he had talked her around. But maybe not. For a moment of heart-pounding terror, Gubber thought Tonya had gone far enough around the bend to order just such a thing. “You’re not—”
“No,” said Tonya wearily. “I’m not. Mostly because I don’t think we have the firepower on hand to do it—and because I’m not sure anyone would obey any such orders. But absent that option, there is no way we can stop them.” Tonya stood up and went back to the comm station. She switched it back on, activated the full-wall flatscreen, and brought up a view of the night sky as seen from the cameras up on the surface. It was a scene of heart-stopping loveliness, the jet-black sky blanketed with a cloud of dimmer stars setting off the larger, brighter ones, white and yellow and blue and red points of color glowing in the night. “And therefore we might as well see to it that they do it right. I’m going to go back to my office and draft an announcement offering our complete cooperation, and access to all our expertise in this area. Maybe we can at least keep the damage to a minimum.”
Tonya Welton bunched up her shoulders and then let them go limp, a gesture of humiliation and resignation and frustration, all in one. “And of course there is the little matter of their tracking down whoever was responsible for the Plaza attack. Maybe if we start helping out, that will muddy the trail, keep them from kicking us off the planet.”
She was silent again for a moment, and when she spoke, she all but choked on the emotion she had been struggling to hold in. Anger, frustration, shame, fear, all of them and more welled up in her voice. It was plain that the words were pure gall to her. But it was also plain that words had to be spoken. “And if, or rather when, they do catch us,” she said, “maybe it will count in our favor if we’ve already made amends.”
THE AIRCAR CRUISED slowly along the silent, empty streets of Depot in the pre-morning darkness and came to a halt not far from the edge of the small town. Prospero operated the controls with the relaxed skill of a master pilot and set the craft down in a small hollow, well out of sight from any of the surrounding buildings.
“Here’s where I get out,” said Norlan Fiyle with undisguised relief. He stood up and opened the side passenger door of the aircar. He climbed down out of the vehicle and stretched his arms and legs gratefully. “No offense to either of you,” he said through the open door, “but I’m very glad to get out of that damned car.”
“And what about you, friend Caliban?” Prospero said. “This is your last chance. Are you sure you won’t go with me?”
“No, friend Prospero,” said Caliban. “Go to Valhalla. You are needed there far more than I. Besides, you might well need a friend on the scene here in Depot. It is better if I remain.” Caliban’s reasons were true enough as far as they went, but they were far from the whole truth. The core, basic, essential reason was that he no longer wished to be close to Prospero, either literally or ideologically. There had been time enough and more to think things over on the long and wearying trip. Prospero was a magnet for risk, for danger. Caliban had had enough of risking his life in the name of causes that were not his own. “I will remain here,” said Caliban. “I will remain in Depot.”
Fiyle smiled thoughtfully. “Somehow, that sounds very familiar”, he said. “Prospero used almost exactly those words when he and I parted company on Purgatory, years ago.”
“Let us hope that the journey that begins with this parting works out somewhat better than that one did,” Prospero said.
“Well, at least this time you’re the one doing the traveling, not me,” said Fiyle. “This is the end of the line for me. At least until the comet hits.”
“What will you do, Fiyle?” Caliban asked. “Where will you go?”
The human shook his head back and forth, shrugged, and smiled. “I haven’t the faintest idea. Out. Away. Someplace they won’t look for me. Someplace I can start over. But I’ll stay in Depot for a while. No one knows me here.”
Depot was the largest human settlement in the Utopia region, which was not saying a great deal. As its name implied, it was little more than a shipping point for the small and scattered settlements of that part of eastern Terra Grande.
“But why?” asked Caliban. “We have reasons for coming here, but why should you want to hide out in a town
