But, if all went well, they wouldn’t get the chance. Cinta looked up Aurora Boulevard. There it was. A land-transport bus, parked a few blocks away. In a minute or so, it was going to be heading toward Government Plaza at just slightly too high a rate of speed. Cinta smiled to herself. It was hard to control that particular model of bus. If the driver wasn’t careful, there was likely to be an accident.
JUSTEN DEVRAY WAS nearly home when the call came in. Gervad was flying them by the slow, scenic, restful route. Justen had had a long day, and he was glad of taking the easy way home. He liked to unwind on the ride home. A long day indeed. It was midday on the day after he had started work. He had been up nearly thirty hours straight at this point. Strange to be flying home to rest in the bright light of midday.
His eyes were heavy. He was almost tempted to turn off the hyperwave tuned to scan the police frequencies. But the constant low mutter of voices was a part of the everyday background of his life. He left it on, leaned back in his chair, and shut his eyes.
And then he heard the voice.
“CIP Metro Dispatch, this is Government Tower Topside.”
Something about the voice jerked Justen awake. Then he understood. It was a human voice. A robot should have been the one handling communications from the rooftop guard post. And another thing: Lentrall’s security detail was waiting for him on the rooftop landing pad.
Suddenly Justen was wide awake. He sat bolt upright in his seat. “Turn this thing around!” he told Gervad. “Back toward Government Tower at full speed.”
“Yes, sir,” the robot replied, calm and imperturbable. He brought the car about in a wide arc and headed back toward the center of the city.
Justen reached for the scanner controls, and turned up the volume.
“-ave an accident in progress here,” the voice went on. “A transport landed a little hard, and one of the containers on board must have popped a seam. We’ve got a flammable liquid spill up here. Can’t tell you more than that. The robots up here have forced us off the roof proper.”
“We are receiving hyperwave reports from the security robots on the scene, Government Tower Topside,” a calm robotic voice replied from somewhere, probably CIP HQ. “Clean-up crews are being dispatched.”
The damned fools! Justen stabbed at the controls, and set his aircar mike to the same frequency. “This is Commander Devray, en route to Government Tower and monitoring. Who is that at Topside?”
“Sergeant Senall Delmok, sir.”
Perfect. Delmok was the least experienced officer on the Topside detail. “Delmok, since when are cleaning supplies delivered to the roof landing pad? What do you think the city tunnel system is for?”
“Sir? I, ah-”
“It’s not an accident, Delmok. Someone has deliberately shut down the rooftop landing pad.”
“But why-”
“I don’t know,” Justen said. “Maybe they plan to land on it. Get back out on that rooftop and get your people in control of it. That is a direct order.”
“But the robots are keeping us-”
Justen cut him off. “CIP Metro Dispatch. Are you still on this line?”
“Yes, Commander,” the calm robot voice replied
“I hereby issue a direct, top-priority order for relay via hyperwave to all robots on the roof of Government Tower. You are to permit the human CIP detachment to return to the roof at once. The supposed spilling accident is a ruse or a diversion perpetrated by a group intending harm to human beings. By forcing the CIP detachment away from their posts, you are permitting danger to humans. Relay that at once.”
“Yes, sir. It has been relayed.”
“Delmok, if that does not work, I hereby order you to shoot your way past the robots to regain control of that landing pad. Is that understood?”
There was sort of a nervous gulping noise on the line, but then Delmok answered. “Yes, sir.”
“Good,” he said. “Watch that you don’t catch that cleaning fluid with a blaster shot, or we’ll have a real mess on our hands. Devray out.”
Justen glanced toward Gervad. “How soon?” he asked.
“We will arrive over Government Tower in approximately three minutes. However, sir, First Law prevents me from landing this craft in the vicinity of an uncontrolled toxic and flammable material while a human is on board.”
“I know,” Justen said, working the comm system controls again. “Once we arrive, circle the building near the roof.” He got the controls to where he wanted them. “This is Commander Devray on crash emergency circuit. I need immediate voice contact with Governor Kresh.”
After a remarkably brief delay, the governor came on the line. “Kresh here.”
“Devray here. The code query is Emoch Huthwitz.”
“Burning stars,” the governor replied, the surprise plain in his voice. But for all of that, he recovered quickly and gave the proper response. “The code reply is melted Sappers.”
“Thank you, sir. I’m glad to know it is really you.” Devray and Kresh had agreed on the query and reply after what had happened to Governor Grieg. The opposition had planted a device that simulated Grieg’s voice, and made it seem as if he were alive and well after he was dead. The ruse had nearly worked then. Devray did not wish to be fooled by the same sort of impostor.
“So am I, Commander. Something is going on.” It was not a question.
“Yes, sir, and I don’t know what. There’s been a staged accident on the roof of Government Tower. You might be the target-but I suspect it is our young friend. Please go to heightened security status.”
“At once,” Kresh said. “I can tell you our friend left here not ten minutes ago. Keep me informed. Kresh out.”
Justen allowed himself a half a minute to give thanks once again for the blessings of a governor who used to be a cop. Kresh knew better than to tie up the line with a lot of foolish questions.
Justen thought fast. The odds were good that Lentrall was still in the building. And standard operating procedure was for all visitors to the governor to be tracked as they moved through the building. If Lentrall was already with his security detail, maybe everything would be all right. Justen switched to yet another channel. “Commander Justen Devray. Priority call to Central Control, Government Tower.”
“This is Central Control.” Another calm, unflappable robot voice. Good.
“I need an immediate location fix on a visitor to the governor, named Davlo Lentrall, and a fix on the security detail assigned to him.”
“Davlo Lentrall left the building and exited out onto the main plaza approximately thirty seconds ago. His security detail is on the rooftop landing pad and in the Topside command center adjacent to it.”
“Damnation!” Devray cut the connection. Now he saw it. The point of the staged accident was to split off Lentrall from his security detail. It had to mean they were going to make a try for him right now. Kill him, or grab him, or something. And there was nothing Justen could do to
Wait a second. There was something. Even if Lentrall didn’t have the security detail on him, he did have something nearly as good. His robot. His robot was right there with him. If he could get through to the robot on hyperwave…There had to be a way. There had to be.
“We have reached Government Tower,” Gervad announced. “Commencing orbit of the rooftop level.”
“Excellent,” Justen said, though there was very little all that excellent about the situation. He looked up from the comm system controls. There was the flat top of the huge building, about thirty meters away. It looked as if the robots had formed a sort of protective cordon about the airtruck, keeping all the human personnel well away. He could see several officers arguing with the robots, gesturing vigorously. Damnation. They should be shooting robots, not debating them. He could see one of the police officers waving to him. But the situation on the rooftop was nothing but a diversion. Justen was sure of that. He was determined, therefore, not to be diverted by it. Let the rooftop cops argue with robots all they liked. For a moment he considered heading down toward the plaza below, but thought better of it. No doubt whoever was running this show could see his car up here by the rooftop landing pad. Let them think he was still worried about the accident up there. Besides, he didn’t even know Lentrall. He had never seen the man, or even a photo of him. What good could he do in the plaza? But he could at least get some help in. “Call for backup,” he told his pilot robot. “I want a full emergency team in here as fast as possible.”