But he never arrived at the fifth.
17
THE ALERT COMM’S buzzer went off once again. Constable Pherlan Bukket opened one unhappy eye and glared at his bedside clock. It was barely 0700. Bukket was accustomed to sleeping until at least 0800—preferably later. Up until a month ago, doing so had usually been possible, even routine. Up until a month ago, most pleasant things had been routine. Now nothing was pleasant—and nothing was routine.
Up until a month ago, Constable Bukket had enjoyed his work—mostly because he was the only one doing it. Pherlan Bucket was responsible for enforcing the law and keeping the peace in the town of Depot—or at least he had been until a month ago, back when neither law nor peace was often disturbed in Depot.
Now it was different. Now alerts came in at all hours of the day and night. Most of the time, the CIP came thundering in and took over the situation anyway, just as they had shoved him out of his offices in town and taken them over for themselves.
It was, of course, just as well they came in and took over because Bukket didn’t have anything like the resources to deal with the problems that were coming up. But even so, the entire situation was deeply frustrating.
He slapped at the alert comm’s buzzer and cut it off, then picked up the unit. “This is Constable Bukket,” he said into the alert comm’s mike, making no attempt to hide the sleepiness from his voice. “Who is it and what do you want?”
“This is Depot Air Traffic Control,” a robotic voice replied. “We have a disaster beacon showing about three hundred kilometers south of here.”
“Then why call me?” Bukket demanded. “It’s nowhere near my jurisdiction.”
“Yes, sir. I called you because my standing orders require it. I am sending the text details of the incident now. If you will read them on the alert comm’s display screen, you will understand.”
Bukket shook his head irritably. Someday someone was going to come up with a set of standing orders that made sense. He turned the alert comm over so he could see the screen—
And three seconds later he knew two things very well. The robots at Depot Air Traffic Control had been quite right to call him in on this one.
And he would be only too happy to hand this one off to the CIP.
DONALD 111 RECEIVED the incoming high-priority call just as Governor Kresh and Dr. Leving were about to sit down to their evening meal at the governor’s Winter Residence.
Donald rarely concerned himself much with the governor’s meals, as the governor himself rarely paid them much mind, but tonight was an exception. In his judgment, this was likely to be the last evening for quite some time the governor and his wife would have any chance at all of a civilized meal together. Both of them had been working endless hours in preparation for the comet impact, and no doubt would be called upon to work even harder as the comet approached. Dr. Leving in particular had brought more work on herself—on all of them—with her insistence of diverting some small fraction of the evacuation aid to the New Law pseudo-robots—work that Donald regarded as massively counterproductive. The world could only benefit when the last of the New Laws were swept away.
But busy as recent days had been, and as busy as the remaining time before the comet would be, the days after it hit would be busier still. This would be their last chance to rest and relax, and Donald had decided this was the night to do everything right. He had personally overseen the table arrangement, the candles, the background music, the menu and its preparation, the elegant table setting. The governor and Dr. Leving’s reaction as they entered the dining was all that he could have hoped for. Both of them smiled, seemingly for the first time in days. The care and the worry of the last few weeks seemed to drain away from their faces.
“This is lovely, Donald,” said Dr. Leving as her husband helped her to her chair. “This is most thoughtful of you.”
“Fine work,” the governor said as he took his own seat. “This was exactly the night to do this.”
“You are both most kind,” said Donald. He was on the point of signaling the kitchen to bring in the first course when the call came in.
In less than a hundredth of a second, Donald received the signal, decoded it, and identified it as an incoming emergency priority voice call. Another one. The days had been full of them for weeks now.
Donald briefly debated handling this one by himself, or even refusing to answer it. But the governor’s orders on such matters were very clear and specific, and had been reinforced several times in the past few days. Donald really had no choice in the matter. With a slight dimming of his eyes that might have been the robotic equivalent of a sigh of resignation, Donald gave in to the inevitable. “Sir, I am most unhappy to tell you this, but there is an incoming emergency call. It is scrambled, the caller’s identity unknown.”
“Burning devils,” Kresh said, his irritation plain. “Don’t they ever stop calling? Patch it through yourself, Donald. Let’s clear this up here and now, whatever it is. Probably just another farmer who refuses to get off his land or something.”
“Yes, sir. Patching through—now.”
“This is Kresh,” said the governor. “Identify yourself and your business.”
“Sir!” a fussy, nervous-sounding voice answered. “I—I didn’t mean to get patched through to you, but the priority management system did it for me. I am trying to reach Commander Justen Devray.”
“You are speaking with the planetary governor, not an answering service. Who I am speaking with?” Kresh demanded.
“Oh! Ah, Constable Bukket, of the town of Depot. But honestly, the priority coding system put me through to you.”
“Which it only does when the situation demands my prompt attention,” said Kresh. “So what is the situation?”
There was a brief silence on the line, and then a sort of low gulping noise. “Simcor Beddle’s aircar has crashed, sir. At least we think it has. It vanished off Depot Air Traffic Control, and then the disaster beacon went off. And, ah—the beacon is stationary, at a position right in the center of the primary impact zone.”
“Burning devils!” Kresh said, abruptly standing up. “Search and rescue?”
“They launched four minutes ago. They should be there in about another five minutes. I know it’s evening where you are, but we’re early morning here. Local sunrise at the site isn’t for another twenty minutes and it’s very rough terrain, so—”
“So they may have to wait for daylight before they can even set down. Very well. Use the side-channel datapath of this frequency and send all the data you have. Thank you for your report. You will be contacted as needed. Kresh out.” The governor made a throat-cutting gesture and Donald cut the link.
“Damnation,” said Kresh. “Hellfire and damnation. Someone’s made some kind of try for Beddle.”
Fredda Leving’s face went pale. “But you can’t know that,” she protested. “It could have been an accident. His aircar could have malfunctioned. The pilot could have made a mistake.”
“Think so, Donald?” the governor asked.
“No, sir. Preventative maintenance on vehicles is one of the most basic means of preventing harm to humans. The mechanical failure rate on air vehicles is extremely low. Nor is there any plausible chance that it was pilot error. Not with a robotic pilot.”
“And there is no way Simcor Beddle would do his own flying,” said Kresh. “Even if he knew how—and I doubt he does—it would be against his principles to do anything a robot could do for him.”
“But it’s not impossible that it was an accident,” Fredda said. “Burning stars. The political upheaval when Grieg died. I don’t know that we could hold together through that again.”
What would happen if—if things turned out as badly as they might? The Ironheads would probably blame the government, or Alvar personally. Unless they pinned it on the Settlers. The Ironhead movement would be up in arms, that was for sure. Marches, riots, arrests, counter-demonstrations, lunatics and perfectly sane citizens suspecting plots and conspiracies under every rock. She could see it all, plain as day. How the devil were they supposed to contend with that and the comet impact at the same time? “Could it have been an accident, Donald?”
