“Surely the need to hide its location is now all but moot,” Caliban objected. “Especially since you ordered Valhalla to be evacuated ahead of schedule. It was not easy to accomplish the job, but the vast majority of the city’s population is already gone. They’re all here, milling around in Depot, trying to get transport out. There is no one left in Valhalla but a few caretakers dealing with last-minute removal of equipment. Why worry about hiding the city any longer when it is about to be destroyed?”
“I do not apologize for rushing the evacuation of Valhalla,” Prospero said. “Transport craft became available, and I deemed it wise to use them when we could, for fear they would not be there when we needed them. A schedule change in our favor reminded me that one to our disadvantage could happen just as easily.”
“Your point is taken,” said Caliban.
“As for the need to keep the city hidden even now, we might well need to use the same concealment technique again in future. Further, one must consider the human viewpoint. We might gain some psychological advantage in future from the story of the city they never found. We might even be able to foster some legend that the city still existed, that everyone was looking in completely the wrong place. That could be useful, one day. Besides, there are things about us that could be learned by examining Valhalla. We have enough weaknesses and vulnerabilities already. We do not need to offer the humans more advantages over us.”
Caliban considered for a moment. Once again, he was impressed by the amount of thought Prospero had put into things. “Your arguments are well formed, friend Prospero. You are quite right. We must do all we can do. Now I will let you get on with your work.”
“Thank you for informing me of this new development, friend Caliban. I must thank Dr. Leving too, of course-once it is safe to do so. Of all humans, she at least is a woman who keeps faith.”
“Agreed. She is an admirable woman,” said Caliban. “Goodbye for now, friend Prospero.”
“But not goodbye for long, I am sure,” said Prospero, his attention already on the next item requiring his attention.
Caliban reopened the door and left Prospero’s office. He made his way downstairs, and out into the busy, bustling street. He looked up into the sky, to the fat, bright point of light that grew larger with every passing moment. Closer. Closer. All the time closer. There was so little time left.
What was it Prospero had said? We must do all the things we can to protect the New Law robots. In recent days Caliban had felt himself drawn back to their cause. The more the world had no time for them, no interest in them, the more it seemed ready to let them all die if that was marginally more convenient, the more he empathized with them. AU the things we can. It would require breaking his word to Fredda Leving. It would require doing her a small amount of harm-but surely nothing she could not recover from. And it could prevent a brutal purge of New Law robots. Being a No Law robot-the only No Law robot-should have meant Caliban could act without compulsion. But there were more things than hard-wired, preprogrammed Laws that could compel a being to act.
Caliban turned and headed down the street, in the direction of the temporary field headquarters of the Combined Infernal Police, in Constable Bukket’s old offices.
DONALD 111 WAITED. HIDING in the woods a kilometer or two from the Winter Residence. A cleft in an outcropping of rock provided shielding not only from visual detection, but from infrared and most other sorts of detectors. So long as he operated at minimum power, thus cutting back on waste heat and other detectable emissions, he judged that he ought to be able to stay hidden long enough-though how long that would be was impossible to say.
He had deliberately violated his master’s very specific order. First Law had forced him to do so. Had he obeyed, the governor would no doubt have powered him down to prevent him telling what he knew to other Three-Law robots. Allowing that to happen would have been inaction that allowed harm to a human being. He could not act to save Beddle if he were powered down.
But he had not yet taken any action to save Beddle. As yet it was not necessary. Even if Beddle were in the comet impact area, and there was no particular reason to assume that he was, there were still just over three days left in which the humans could do their best to save him. Donald understood perfectly well that any action to save Beddle might well cause harm to other humans, for example by compelling robot aircar pilots to refuse to transport vital equipment while they joined the search. The more robots there were in the impact area this close to the comet’s arrival, the larger the number of robots likely to be caught by the impact. A shortage of robotic labor in the post-impact period could easily cause great harm to humans.
In short, distracting robots from the evacuation could cause endless mischief. Besides which, the clear intent of Governor Kresh’s order had been to prevent Donald from talking. By disobeying only part of Kresh’s order, he had minimized his violation of Second Law. Donald had done his best to balance all the conflicting demands, retaining the option of hyperwaving a warning to the other Three-Law robots while refraining from actually doing so.
But the time would come. He knew that. Unless Beddle was rescued in time, the First Law demand that Donald act to save him would, sooner or later, overwhelm the conflicting First and Second demands that he keep silent. Sooner or later, he would be compelled to act. Understanding the compulsion he was under in no way reduced the force of that compulsion.
He would have to do something. But he had no idea what.
NORLAN FIYLE WAS an old hand at being questioned. He had been through it many times before. As he sat in the improvised interrogation room of the CIP’s Depot field office, waiting for Commander Devray to come in and get started, it occurred to him that he might well have taken part in more interrogations than Devray himself had, albeit from the other side of the table. That was quite likely to come in handy.
Fiyle had learned a thing or two about being questioned. First off, it was vitally important not to give up everything, even if you were willing to cooperate with the powers that be. An interrogation was a negotiation, a bargaining session. Give me some of yours and I’ll give you some of mine. It was never smart to say too much too soon, even if you wanted to talk, or else you lost all chance of making a deal. A corollary of that was that it was rarely wise to tell the whole and complete truth right at the start. They felt better if they had to force it out of you, catch you in a fib or two first. Once they had caught you lying, and they knew you knew you had been caught, they would be better prepared to believe the real truth when they heard it. Norlan knew how it all worked on a level that was closer to instinct than to conscious thought.
But it was also important in a case like this that you appeared cooperative, a tricky business if you had a thing or two to hide-and who didn’t? Sometimes the best way to do that was to try and distract the questioner. He would not have been so foolish as to try such a trick on an old hand like Alvar Kresh, but Justen Devray might just be a different story. He was smart, Devray was, but he did not have much in the way of experience. During the arrest, Devray had gone so far as to tell Fiyle that Beddle had been kidnapped, rather than keeping him in the dark to find out how much Fiyle knew already. A man who could make that mistake could make others.
The door opened and Devray came in. Alone. No robot in attendance. That in itself was interesting. Fiyle smiled and leaned back in his chair as Devray sat down and spread out his paperwork.