“That’s different. That’s part of the experiment design. It’s not false data.”
“Nonsense,” Kresh said, a bit more steel coming into his voice as the gentleness left it. “You have set up this entire situation for the sole purpose of allowing her to take risks, to do her job, while believing she could no harm to humans.”
“But—”
Kresh kept talking, rolling right over her protests. “I could even do damage to her if I told her it was just a simulation. There must be some doubt in her mind as to whether her simulants—the people of Inferno—are real. Otherwise she would not be experiencing the slightest First Law conflict concerning them. If I assured her that I was not real, Space alone knows what she would make of that paradox. It seems to me as likely as not that she would reach the conclusion that I was real, and that I was lying to her. If I lie to her, she might realize the truth—and then where would you be, Dr. Soggdon? Only you can do it. Only you can reassure her. And you must do it.”
Soggdon glared at Kresh, the anger and fear plain on her face as she switched on her mike again. “Dee, this is Dr. Soggdon. I am still monitoring the simulation. I am detecting what appear to be First Law conflicts in the positronic pathing display. There is no First Law element to the simulated circumstances under consideration.” Soggdon hesitated, made a face, and then spoke again. “There is absolutely no possibility of harm to human beings,” she said. “Do you understand?”
There was another distinct pause, and Kresh thought he detected another, but much slighter, flicker in the image of the Inferno that was to be. But then Dee spoke again, and her voice was firm and confident. “Yes, Doctor Soggdon. I do understand,” she said. “Thank you. Excuse me. I must return to my conversation with the simulant governor.” Another pause, and then Dee was speaking to Kresh. “I beg your pardon, Governor. Other processing demands took my time up for the moment.”
“Quite all right,” Kresh said. Of course, Dee was no doubt linked to a thousand other sites and operations, and probably having a dozen other conversations with field workers right now. It was not quite a little white lie, but it was certainly close enough to being one. Robots were supposed to be incapable of lying—but this one was clever enough to manage a truthful and yet misleading statement. Dee was a sophisticated unit indeed.
“Can you tell me more about this… idea under discussion?” Dee asked him.
“Certainly,” said Kresh. “The idea is to evacuate everyone from the target area, and provide safeguards for the population outside the target area.” It could not hurt to emphasize safety procedures first off. Let her know that even the fictional simulants would be safe. They needed as many defenses as possible against a First Law reaction. “Once that is accomplished, a large comet is to be broken up and the fragments targeted individually, the overlapping craters running through existing lowlands. More conventional earth-moving will no doubt be required afterwards, but the linked and overlapping craters will form the basis for the Utopia Inlet.”
“I see,” Dee replied, her voice still strained and tense. “Unit Dum and I will require a great deal more information before we can evaluate this plan.”
“Certainly,” said Kresh. He pulled a piece of paper out of his tunic and unfolded it. “Refer to network access node 4313, identity Davlo Lentrall, subgroup 919, referent code Comet Grieg.” Lentrall had given him the access address earlier. Now seemed the moment to put it to good use. “Examine the data there and you will be able to do your evaluations,” said Kresh.
“There is no identity Davlo Lentrall on access node 4313,” Dee said at once.
“What?” said Kresh.
“No one named Davlo Lentrall is linked into that access node,” said Dee.
“The number must be wrong, or something,” said Kresh.
“Quite likely,” said Dee. “I’m going to hand off to Dum. He is directly linked to the network in question and can perform the search more effectively.”
“There is no Davlo Lentrall on node 4313,” Dum announced, almost at once, speaking in an even flatter monotone than usual. “Searching all net nodes. No Davlo Lentrall found. Searching maintenance archives. Information on identity Davlo Lentrall discovered.”
“Report on that information,” Kresh said. How could Lentrall’s files have vanished off the net? Something was wrong. Something was seriously and dangerously wrong.
“Network action logs show that all files, including all backups, linked to the identity Davlo Lentrall, were invasively and irrevocably erased from the network eighteen hours, ten minutes, and three seconds ago,” Unit Dum announced.
Kresh was stunned. He looked to Soggdon, not quite knowing why he hoped for an answer from that quarter. He switched off his mike and spoke to her. “I don’t understand,” he said. “How could it all be erased? Why would anyone do that?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “He used a term I’m not familiar with in this context. Let me check.” She keyed on her own mike again. “Dum, this is Soggdon, monitoring. Define meaning of the term ‘invasive’ in present situation.”
“Invasive—contextual definition: performed by an invader, an attack from the outside, the act of an invader.”
“In other words,” said Kresh, his voice as cold and hard as he could make it, “someone has broken in and deliberately destroyed the files.” He suddenly remembered what Fredda had said, about the things you thought you knew. She had said something about never really being sure about what you knew. Here it was, happening again. He had thought he knew where the comet was. Now he knew he did not. “It would seem,” he said, “that someone out there agrees with you, Dr. Soggdon. They don’t want anyone playing with comets.”
11
“IT’S GONE, GOVERNOR,” said Davlo Lentrall. “Everything I’ve ever worked on is gone.” He was glad to be speaking over an audio-only link to the governor. Kresh had called on an audio link because it was easier to maintain a secure line that way, but Davlo didn’t care about that. He was simply glad he did not have to show his face. It was bad enough that Kresh could hear the panic in his voice. He wouldn’t want anyone to see him this way. Davlo Lentrall paced frantically up and down in front of his comm center. “All my core files, all the backups, everything.”
“Take it easy, son. Easy now. There must be some way to retrieve it all. I thought the system was designed to make it impossible to lose things irretrievably.”
Davlo tried to calm himself. Kresh had called from—from wherever he was—just as Davlo had finally, absolutely confirmed that all was lost. It was no easy thing to talk to the planetary leader when he was at his lowest ebb.
“Normally, yes, sir. But this wasn’t an accident. This was sabotage. Five minutes after I discovered that my files were gone, I got a call from University Security. Someone broke into my office there and threw in a firebomb. They think there were at least two separate break-ins. By the end of the second intrusion, everything that wasn’t stolen was bummed. They say there’s nothing left. Nothing at all. All my notes and work—including the comet data. The comet coordinates, the tracking information, the orbital projections—everything.”
“Burning stars,” Kresh’s voice half whispered. “Maybe that whole escapade at Government Tower was just a diversion.”