But it didn’t matter. For if the combination did not work, he would in any event have no other way out. He was locked in here, and that combination was the only key that might open the way. Caliban punched in the keypad combination, moving his fingers as rapidly as possible.
A light stabbed down on him from the opposite end of the tunnel, bright enough to dazzle his infrared vision. “There he is!” Spar’s voice shouted from behind the blinding light. There was a roar, and a whoosh, and Caliban threw himself to one side of the tunnel. There was a violent impact, dead on the center of the hatch. A roaring explosion tore through the reinforced hatch and ripped it to shreds, littering the tunnel with shrapnel and smoke. Debris ricocheted off Caliban’s body case, knocking him down. He scrambled back to his feet. The impact had blown a hole clear through the armored door, just big enough for Caliban to get through. He scrambled through it, the white-hot armor plate hissing and popping, sending his thermosensors into maximum overload. But then he was through, and out into the tunnels, and gone.
12
“I have had my fill and more of shambles, Donald,” Alvar Kresh said as he read the action reports over a belated breakfast at his desk. A breakfast he had been looking forward to since the early hours of the morning, and one he was now not enjoying at all.
He had wanted to eat in the privacy of his own home, not at his desk at headquarters. Circumstances dictated otherwise, to put it mildly. Nor did the circumstances of the situation improve his mood.
Minutes after he came out of the Governor’s office, he learned that his officers had lost the leading suspect in the case that might literally decide the fate of the world. This did not make him a happy man.
“We go for a nice, quiet chat with the Governor, you and I,” Alvar said, in a voice that was low and reasonable, in a tone of patently false calm. “I am out of contact with the force for perhaps all of an hour, and come back to find that my deputies have been using the airspace over downtown to practice their aerobatics and scare the hell out of half the population.” Alvar’s voice started to get louder, angrier. He stood and glared at Donald. “I find that one of my officers disregarded all orders and made a creditable effort to kill that suspect before he could be questioned and examined. Instead he made a good start toward blowing up half the city tunnel system.”
He knew it was unfair and illogical to yell at Donald, but he had to take his anger out on someone. And there Donald was, right in front of him, an easy target for his fury, and one that would not fight back.
But even in the depths of his fury, Alvar knew that he was playing to the squad room outside his office as well. It was not by chance that his office was not well soundproofed. Some times it did the force some good to hear the Old Man blow up. By now Alvar was shouting out loud, deliberately shouting not at Donald, but at the thin walls and the men and women outside.
“In other words, the only reason my stunt-flying, trigger-happy deputies have not wrecked everything is that they are lousy shots as well. What is wrong with everyone?”
The rhetorical question hung in the air for perhaps half a minute. Donald stood silently before Alvar’s desk. At last Alvar sighed, sat back down, and picked up his fork. He took another moody stab at his sausages. “I am not a happy man, Donald,” he said at last, in a quieter voice, now speaking almost to himself. “On top of everything else, I have not a doubt that this whole fiasco has set a whole new series of rumors flying. Besides the hundreds of witnesses to our overreaction, there is a civilian we can do nothing to silence, and he is no doubt out there cheerfully telling all his friends about the robot who refused orders. God knows where that will end.”
“Yes, sir. It is most unfortunate. There is some other rather awkward news. There is a current rumor that Fredda Leving’s announcement tonight is related to the events of this morning, though what the connection is, no one seems to know.”
“That’s quite a rumor,” Alvar growled ruefully. “Hell, I’m heading the investigation, and even I don’t know for sure if that’s true. It’ll get her a hell of a big audience tonight.”
“The same thought crossed my mind,” Donald said. “You were proved correct in your concerns over a massive police effort. It has forced the whole situation at least partly into the public view. We have set off the panic that might well have been the perpetrator’s actual goal.”
“Yes, yes, I know. But damn it, what other chance did we have but to respond to the situation? We could not allow this Caliban to go loose—a robot capable of violence against humans—just because a police chase might upset a few people. Not when we had a solid position and a positive ID on him. Expect we blew it, and by now he could be anywhere in or under the city.”
“Sir, if I could interject just a moment,” Donald said in his most deferential voice. Alvar looked up sharply. He recognized that tone. It was the one Donald used when he was going to be his most contrary. “You are proceeding from an assumption that I now feel we must regard as unproved.”
“And what might that be?” Alvar asked cautiously as he used his fork to chase the last of his eggs around the plate.
“That Caliban is a robot capable of violence against humans.”
The office was wreathed in silence once again, other than the muffled noise from the exterior offices that managed to seep in. This time it was Alvar who knew no way to respond. But it was obvious that Donald was going to say no more. “Wait a second,” Alvar said, dropping his fork back on his plate and giving the service robot a half-conscious signal to remove the tray. “You were the one trying to convince me that our suspect was a robot.”
“Yes, sir. But circumstances have changed. New evidence and patterns of evidence have come to light. Tentative conclusions must be reviewed against revised data.”
“What evidence and patterns of evidence?”
“One pattern in particular, sir, that I have not examined as yet. I need to run a thought experiment. I have a hypothesis which I need to test. If you will bear with me for a moment, this experiment will be difficult for me. But to perform this mental experiment, I will be forced—to—contemplate—a—robot doing—violence—to human beings. No doubt that will make it hard for me to speak and think. Indeed, you will note that even offering up the idea causes my speech to slow and slur noticeably.”
The serving robot turned toward Donald, moving so jerkily that the silverware flew off the serving tray. It knelt and scooped up the fork and knife before rising again, weaving back and forth a bit.
Donald noticed the other robot’s reaction. “Ah, sir, before we discuss this further, perhaps you should excuse the serving robot so as to prevent needless damage to its brain.”
“What? Oh, yes, of course.” Alvar waved the serving robot out, and it left the room, still holding the tray. “Now then, what is this thought experiment? If it’s risky, I don’t want to do it. I don’t want you to damage yourself, Donald,” Alvar said, concern in his voice. “I need you.”
“That is most kind of you to say, sir. However, I believe that, given the police-robot reinforcements to my positronic brain, the risk of significant permanent damage is negligible. However, you will need to be patient with me. Nor do I wish to work through this thought process more than once. It will no doubt be unpleasant for me, and the risk of permanent damage will increase should I need to repeat it. So I would request that you pay strict attention.
“I wish to place myself in the circumstances that this Caliban has faced on at least two occasions, once at the warehouse with the robot bashers, and once just now with the deputies in the tunnel. In both cases, Caliban was surrounded by a group of human beings who were clearly threatening his very existence. I intend to work through the circumstances of each event and see how a high-level robot with the Three Laws would react, what the outcome would be. In short, what would have happened if a robot with my mind and Caliban’s. size and strength faced such circumstances?”