The last fragment smashed into the southernmost edge of Inferno’s inconsequential northern icecap, and suddenly the polar sky was a thunderclap of steam and smoke and fire, ice that did not have time to melt before it flashed away into superheated steam. Sea water thrown up by the first impact on the shores of the Southern Ocean splashed down onto the steaming maelstrom of the Polar Depression, even as shards of icecap that had survived the initial impact dropped into the depths of the Southern Ocean. Water from the south reached the north, and vice versa. As a dozen massive new craters glowed in angry red, belching fire into the sky, touching off fires and wreaking havoc on the land, the new water circulation pattern had already begun.
The fires blazed as brightly as any in the Hell that had given this world its name. But some fires light the way to hope, and for the planet of Inferno, the future had finally begun.
22
“WHY?” ASKED SIMCOR Beddle, and Caliban did not have to ask him to explain the question. He knew what the man wanted to know.
The aircar moved through space, traveling in a synchronous orbit of the planet. Down below, twelve angry red wounds on the planet were beginning to cool, their color fading away. Neither man nor robot could tear his eyes away from the incredible and terrifying sight.
“I did not save you for your own sake,” said Caliban. “Nor simply because you are a human. I came after you for the reasons I explained in front of Prospero. Sooner or later, others would have deduced what I deduced: that a mad New Law robot had found a loophole in the New Laws, and invented a way to kill humans. There would not have been a New Law robot left alive thirty hours later, and I expect there would have been attempts on my life as well. The news of what Prospero attempted will still get out, of course—but you are not dead, while the mad robot in question is.”
“But there was that moment,” Beddle protested. “I admit that I was not thinking clearly at the time, but there was that moment when Prospero suddenly presented the situation as a choice between the two of us, between Prospero and myself. You chose me. Why? Why did you choose a human enemy over a robot friend? You could have killed me without any risk of legal detection. Why didn’t you?”
“It was clear that I could not bring both of you out alive. I did not wish to kill you both. I am no butcher. I had to choose. But there was not much to choose between the two of you,” Caliban said. “I don’t believe that Prospero actually could have survived if you had died through his actions, in any event. Even the New First Law would have imposed fatal stress. It was a severe strain for him to believe that he was not violating the New First Law. If he had actually accomplished his goal, I believe the strain would have been too much. He would have gone utterly mad and died. But that was almost incidental. You are quite right. When Prospero framed it as a choice between the two of you, I had to have some basis for choosing, some criterion. And then I thought of the robots, Three-Law and New Law, that Prospero had killed for no greater crime than simply getting in his way. That is what decided me.”
“I see,” said Beddle. He hesitated for a moment. “I am about to speak with more frankness than wisdom, I suppose, but be that as it may. I have to understand this. It has to make sense to me now, today. Otherwise some part of me will spend the rest of time wondering why Caliban, the No Law robot, didn’t kill me when he had the chance. Surely you must know that I have destroyed robots many times, whenever it suited my convenience. So what difference is there?”
“A slender one,” said Caliban, “a difference so slight it is barely there. You were willing to kill robots, and he was willing to kill humans. That was a rough balance of evil. But Prospero was willing to kill robots, even New Law robots, his own kind, for gain. It was humans like you who showed him that society did not really care if robots were killed capriciously. He learned his lesson well, and committed many awful crimes against robots. There is no doubt about that. You bear some responsibility for that. But what it finally came down to was this: I had no evidence that you were willing to slaughter humans for gain.”
Simcor Beddle turned and looked at Caliban, his face silhouetted by the fires burning on Inferno. Caliban had judged him to be marginally less loathsome, and as having slightly more right to live, than a mass murderer who would probably have died anyway. And yet Caliban had gone to great lengths, and taken great risks, in order to save him.
A thought came to Simcor Beddle, a very humbling one in some ways, and yet, strangely enough, one that filled him with pride.
Caliban was not willing to admit it to the likes of Simcor Beddle, but surely his actions said, quite loudly and clearly, that Caliban had learned, somewhere along the line, that the life of a human being—even an enemy human being—had value. Tremendous value.
Perhaps, he thought, that was the message everyone was supposed to read into the original Three Laws of Robotics.
Epilogue
FREDDA LEVING LOOKED out the window of the Winter Residence, and smiled at the miserable drenching rain outside. The weather had been downright awful for months now, allover the planet, ever since Comet Grieg had struck. But the chaotic weather would pass. Everyone from Units Dee and Dum on down was pleased with the climatic behavior of the planet. It might mean sloppy weather in many inhabited areas for now, but every projection showed that the climate would emerge from the post-impact phase in better shape than it had been before. Even Unit Dee, who had come through her First Law crisis in good shape, was very positive. Now that she knew the world was real, Dee took a slightly different attitude toward things. But the main thing was, she confirmed the long-term climate was going to get better. Much better.
It would be some time yet before the final, relatively minor reworking of the twelve craters was complete. Once the crater walls were properly breached, the craters would flood, and Twelve Crater Channel would let the waters of the Southern, Ocean in to flood the Polar Depression, and form, at long last, the Polar Sea. Or perhaps they would name it Kresh Channel, and Grieg’s Sea.
Fredda smiled. Well, if they did, no one would ever be able to prove she had been the one behind the letter- writing campaign.
At least there wouldn’t be a Beddle Bay, or any such, now or in the future. Beddle the man might still be alive, but Beddle the politician was dead as yesterday. The unveiling of Gildern’s plot against the New Law robots had wrecked the Ironhead movement.
In another time, the plot as revealed would not have mattered so much. But the revelation had come at the very time when the New Laws, led by Caliban, had set themselves to work with a will to assist the human evacuees, to repair and refurbish and rebuild their world, all free of charge.
The New Laws had bought themselves tremendous goodwill by their generous aid to their neighbors. The monsters portrayed by the Ironheads turned out to be helpful and useful, if frequently irritating, members of society. With its straw man knocked down, the Ironhead organization was rapidly decaying back into what it had been when it had started out: a politically irrelevant gang of thugs and plug-uglies.
But the New Law robots. Fredda had finally come to the unmistakable conclusion that their creation had been a mistake. She had put together all sods of fine, noble-sounding reasons for what she had built, but the plain fact was that they did not fit into the real-life world very well. The universe had no need, and no place, for being trapped forever between slavehood and freedom.
Of course, it was far too late to undo what she had done. She had no more right to wipe them all out than Simcor Beddle. But she could at least limit the damage. She could see to it that no more New Laws were made, that the ones now in existence were not replaced as they wore out or malfunctioned.
Which brought her to the subject of the Three-Law robots. For Fredda Leving had concluded that they, too, were a mistake. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say they were a mistake now. They had served humanity
