"Why did you stop working with them?"
"We discovered that we couldn't program in the Three Laws. Something in the mix, probably-undoubtedly-from the organic side kept overwriting them. The one consistent attribute that emerged was self-preservation. Beyond that, we had no idea how to cope with them. After a while it seemed immoral to continue the experiments."
"Immoral. You actually shut down a line of research on moral grounds?"
"Why not? Spacers don't get to be moral?"
Coren shook his head. "No, it's not that. I-never mind. So you're saying that we were attacked by a cyborg. "
"That's my first guess. A robot would never have done that. I doubt a human-even one of your military modifications-could have survived those shots. I'd like to hope I'm wrong, but…" Ariel blinked at him, suddenly understanding something. "I see. You Earthers wouldn't have shut down the experiments. You didn't. The only thing that kept you from building cyborgs was the fact that you'd outlawed positronics. "
Coren's expression showed his ill-ease. He did not like what she had said but he could not deny it. Ariel had always been puzzled by Terran perversity, the apparent willingness to do what clearly should not be done. But perhaps the real puzzle was why Spacers chose not to do those things. Maybe their long lives gave them a better understanding of consequences. Maybe their smaller populations made them less willing to take risks on questionable projects. Terrans seemed only to care in hindsight, when things went wrong.
One of their spasms of late conscience banished positronics…
"How," Coren said finally, "does this relate to Nyom Looms?"
"That robot you saw."
Coren nodded. "Cyborg."
"More than likely. "
"And the blood Avery found on Nyom's robot…"
"A cyborg composed partly of a relative?"
Coren's face contorted in harsh distaste. "Where? How? We can't build them here, you won't build them there…" His eyes widened. "Pirates. Black market. "
"A reasonable guess." Which would explain Aurora's sudden interest in helping the Terran authorities with the baley problem. Where are all those baleys going?
"Could someone somewhere be converting baleys-?"
"No. A cyborg doesn't work that way. You couldn't take a full-grown human and make the conversion." Ariel thought about that. "At least, I don't think you could. From what I recall, a cyborg has to be grown. The mix has to mature in symbiosis, so ideally you'd start with a fetus."
"A newborn?"
"Possibly. The organic system is still in transition through puberty, so I suppose children could be used, but the older the material the more difficult the process."
"But where would they get all the raw material?" Coren asked.
"I said at the beginning of this evening that we need to talk to this retired policeman. "
"Wenithal." He blinked. "Orphanages."
Seventeen
Coren slept for an hour, then showered, swallowed more painblock, and found a change of clothes for Ariel. Dressed now in plain pants, work boots, and a dull blue jacket, she looked like any other T-rated office worker just off third shift, going home or shopping. He took her to the mall where RW Enterprises was and they waited in an open kitchen across from the entrance. Twenty minutes later, Wenithal emerged and trudged wearily down the concourse.
Ariel drifted away, quickly and unobtrusively falling several meters behind Wenithal on the way out of the mall. Coren was mildly surprised and impressed at how quickly and easily she blended with Terrans. The more time he spent with her the less Spacer she seemed.
He sat at a table at the edge of the pantry, nibbling on a meat pastry and sipping a cup of acrid coffee. After about ten minutes, he crumpled up the wrapper and dropped it and the half-full cup into the waste.
At the door to RW Enterprises, he took out his palm monitor and a small device that he pressed to the wall just below the lock. While it worked to decode the access sequence, Coren pulled out a few of his little devices and activated them. He glanced around. The mall was pretty deserted, but a few people milled around. The trick was to gain entry as fast as possible, making it look as if he had been admitted. The longer it took the more conspicuous he became.
The palm monitor chirped at him. He had the code. He entered a command that turned the ID scan on the door into a recorder, pocketed the reader, and pressed his right hand against the panel above the lock. A second later, the door slid open for him.
He snatched his decoder from the wall and dropped his devices just inside the doorway. They scurried off to run interference for him as he proceeded on, into the plant.
Machinery hummed. Coren went directly to Wenithal's private office. As he stepped through the door, he thumbed his hemisphere for a little added security, set it in the middle of Wenithal's cluttered desk, and paused.
Where to start?
Coren did a slow turn.
It was a working office, that was clear. A few changes of clothes lay scattered over chairs, stacks of paper and disks filled corners, three empty cups sat on the desk.
Coren looked for a personal datum. He found it tucked in a desk drawer.
He took a disk from his pocket and inserted it into the datum's reader. The screen scrolled up, went cloudy, then blank. Coren waited, listening intently to the distant sounds of automated machinery.
Less than a minute later-a long time for the decryption 'ware Coren used-the screen presented a menu.
Letters, memos, profiles on clients, quarterly reports. Coren opened the latest of these and perused RW Enterprise's Profits and Losses statements. One of the largest customers, he noted, was a Solarian firm-Strychos-that bought nearly half a million meters of a synthetic fabric a year. The lot was identified only by a batch number. Coren opened his palm monitor, switched it to record, and began taking notes.
Far down the menu he found a file named GRATUITES. Coren grunted in surprise. Well, he never thought anyone would open this…
The file contained what it suggested: a list of people to whom Wenithal paid bribes.
Brun Damik was halfway down. A very generous allocation.
Gale Chassik appeared several lines further.
Coren copied the list and closed the file. Studying the menu, he wondered how much more he needed to know about Ree Wenithal.
Why you resigned after becoming a hero would be useful…
He saw nothing that would seem to contain the answer to that, so he closed the datum down and returned it to the desk drawer.
So Wenithal was paying bribes to Damik. Coren still did not understand what any of this had to do with baleys… though he felt he should know.
There were several files of correspondence. Coren opened each one and perused addresses. He found several to a location in Petrabor. The documents themselves proved cryptic-evidently a code Coren did not recognize. Still, messages to someone in Petrabor seemed suggestive enough. He looked for replies and found them attached to each document-all of them were initialed either T.R. or Y.P.
Yuri Pocivil…?
Coren swiveled in the chair, searching the office walls. Nothing.
He closed up his palm monitor and left the office. Sitting down at one of the secretarial stations, he accessed the production records. He located the batch number for the synthetic, and went into the main plant to look for it.
The synthesizers looked like huge columns of dark gray segments piled high to the ceiling. Heavy conduits ran from their bases back into the shadows of the cavernous chamber. They hummed with activity, though only a few seemed to be outputting product into the deep troughs below their extrusion slots.
Coren followed the row of machines to the one marked "Line 18" and stopped. It was on-they all were, it cost too much to shut them down completely and restart them-but nothing was coming out. Coren studied the control panel.
"Imbitek," he noted, recognizing the logo. He keyed for access. The screen gave him a list of options. He entered the code for a sample.