“Well, you saw who won that argument, and you saw the results last night. Tonya finally convinced Fredda by threatening to pull the Settlers off the planet altogether. I doubt she was serious, but Fredda had to take it seriously. If you knew how bad the ecological situation was—”
“I do know,” Kresh said. “I was briefed by the Governor.”
“Ah. Well, then. You can see why Fredda felt she could not take any chances. She gave in, but there was a great deal of bad feeling between the two women in any event. It was not the first time Tonya felt she was forced to threaten Fredda with a Settler pullout. Later, she did tell me it would be the last time she’d have to do that to Fredda.”
Kresh looked surprised and leaned forward in his chair. “Did she indeed?” All of a sudden the case against Tonya Welton was looking stronger and stronger. Gubber was a most reluctant witness against her, but even so he was providing some damning information. “Why did she say that?”
“Oh, no, no. It’s nothing like what you’re thinking. She meant that once the announcement was made, it would be too late to turn back. With the Settlers in place on Purgatory, and the New Law robots there on the job, she would have won and there would be no need for such threats.
“Besides, both she and Fredda had gotten tired of the fighting. I think what Tonya really meant was that they had reconciled their differences. The argument that day didn’t end with shouts and slamming doors, but with quiet voices. You couldn’t hear them at the end. I had the door to my lab open so I could ‘accidentally’ run into Tonya when they were done, without arousing suspicion. But even with my door open, I couldn’t hear them. When Tonya came out with Ariel, I sort of drifted over to the door. I could see that both Tonya and Fredda looked a bit drawn and weary, but they shook hands and smiled, as if they had finally pounded out an agreement they could both live with.”
“What was the agreement?” Donald asked.
“I think it was something along the lines of Fredda letting Tonya have her way with the announcement, in exchange for Fredda heading up recruitment for Limbo. They will need a lot of people out there, and choosing the staff will be a complicated matter. Fredda wanted control of it so that she could surround her New Law robots with Settlers and Spacers who would be able to deal with them.
“Anyway, Fredda said her goodbyes at her doorway and said something about having to get back to her inventory problems. Some serial number didn’t jibe or something. Fredda can be very compulsive about details. She closed the door and Tonya came into my lab. She told Ariel to leave and come back later. That told me that she wanted some real privacy. Tonya is funny that way—she doesn’t really feel private if there are any robots around.”
Gubber Anshaw shifted uncomfortably in his seat, and seemed, unwilling to say more. Alvar Kresh would have been able to guess the cause even without his police training. But just because he knew the answer for himself, that did not mean he did not need Gubber to speak the words. Gubber needed to know that Alvar Kresh needed to know all the details, and would settle for nothing else. Otherwise, Gubber Anshaw could easily get the idea it was all right to leave out other details Kresh did need.
“What happened then, Gubber?” Kresh asked gently. “Why was it that Tonya wanted privacy?”
Gubber cleared his throat and turned his gaze back toward that featureless patch of wall, something approaching a defiant glint in his eye. “I ordered all the staff robots to leave us alone and we went to the duty office at the end of the hallway and made love,” he said, his voice firmer than it had been.
“I see,” said Alvar, more because Gubber seemed to expect him to say something than for any other reason. Alvar supposed that Gubber thought he might be shocked. The only strong emotion Kresh felt was an overwhelming desire to kick himself. He should have seen it! It was so obvious. The skilled orders for all the lab robots to go away on repeated occasions should have told him what was going on. And who but someone of Gubber’s skill would have been able to hide those orders so perfectly? So much for Tonya Welton’s theory that it had been done with hardware, with microcircuits. That had been a blind, a false lead, of course. Kresh wondered what other smoke she had blown in his face. He was tempted to pursue all those questions, but none of it mattered now. After this was all over, perhaps he could waste time tidying up loose ends.
Kresh looked thoughtfully at Gubber Anshaw. The man was deeply embarrassed. Knowledge of Gubber’s personal relations didn’t bother Alvar, but he could understand Gubber fearing it might. Inferno was not a particularly straitlaced sort of place, but more than a few Infernals would not approve of such an intimate encounter between one of their own and a Settler—especially in a place of business. “So, anyway, the two of you went to the duty office. Go on from there.”
“There was nothing crude or unseemly about it,” Gubber Anshaw went on, seemingly determined to answer objections that had not been raised. “It’s not as if we dumped everything off one of my work counters and, ah, well, did it with the doors open. We went to the duty station office at the end of the hallway. It’s set up to allow someone to spend the night at the lab if an experiment requires it. Do you know where it is?”
“Yes,” Alvar said, struggling to keep a straight face. “We used it the next morning to perform our initial interrogations. I seem to recall there was a full bed in the corner of the room. I thought at the time that was unusual. We have a room like that in my office, but we manage to get by with just a simple cot.”
Gubber Anshaw reddened violently, and clenched his knitted fingers together so tightly that the skin at the base of his fingers turned quite pale with the pressure. He cleared his throat awkwardly and went on. “Yes, well, there it is, you know,” he said, somewhat enigmatically. “In any event—we, ah, were, ah, there for at least two or three hours all told. Not that we, ah, well, you know, all that time. We talked and visited. We get so little time together.”
“I see,” Kresh said again, encouragingly.
“Well, I suppose it’s quite obvious that this wasn’t the first time we had been together at the lab. It might sound odd, but it was the safest place for us. I stick out like a sore thumb if I go to her at Settlertown, and Tonya is a public figure. My neighbors would be bound to spot her. At the lab, there was the cover of official business. People tend to work on their own there, so there really wasn’t that much risk of, ah, being caught. At any event, our usual arrangement was for Tonya to leave first.”
“Is that what happened that night?”
Gubber thought for a minute. “Yes, yes, it was. I remember because, just when she was about to go, we could hear Jomaine in the hallway. He lives just by the lab, you see, and he’s forever going back and forth at odd hours. I heard him call something to Fredda.”
“Did you hear her answer back?” Kresh asked, trying not to make it sound like the vital question it was. They had the access recorder data, confirming Jomaine’s statement that he had entered and exited the building within a space of ten minutes. The interesting point was that those ten minutes took place right dead smack in the period of time during which the attack took place, according to the medical evidence.
Now here was Gubber confirming Jomaine’s statement as well, down to Jomaine calling out—though Jomaine had claimed he had called out to see if “anyone” was around. Gubber had him calling out for Fredda specifically. If Gubber had heard Fredda reply at that moment, the period when the attack could have taken place would be chopped in half.
Anshaw thought for a moment. “No, no, I didn’t,” he said. “But I wouldn’t expect to, you know. Jomaine was in the hallway, which is rather echoey. But if Fredda was in one of the labs—hers or mine—at that point, I doubt I would have heard her if she answered in a normal speaking voice. I could have heard her if she was yelling at the top of her lungs, but I wasn’t likely to otherwise. All I heard was Jomaine’s voice calling out that one time.”