“Caliban!” Fiyle shouted. “What the devil are you doing?”
“Escaping,” he said. “I have just realized that my abilities are urgently required elsewhere. Tell Commander Devray that I believe I know how to redeem the situation. Tell him that I will gladly restore myself to his custody when I return. Or rather if I return. “ Caliban thought of the incoming comet. It was not the sort of day on which a being could take his own survival for granted.
Fiyle shouted something else at him, and Gildern did as well, but Caliban ignored them both. He walked out of the back room and into the front. He paused there a moment. It was a quite ordinary room. When the comet smashed down in a few hours’ time and transformed it into a cloud of debris and superheated vapor, no one would mourn the loss to architecture. Worn-looking stresscrete floors and walls, a few battered old government-issue desks with chairs to match, a modern-looking comm center that seemed to have seen little use and looked rather out of place in such musty old surroundmgs.
And an armory cabinet. Caliban, the No Law robot, the robot who could kill, went over to the cabinet and considered the weaponry locked up inside. He had never had need for a weapon before, but it seemed possible-indeed quite probable-that he would need one before the day was out.
Caliban smashed a hand through the glass case, snapped one of the hold-down locks open with his bare hands, and stole himself a blaster.
He looked at the thing in his hand for a moment, and wondered exactly how things had come to such a pass. And then he turned around, walked out into the street, and started to look for an aircar he could steal.
Comet Grieg, swollen and huge, loomed ever closer, high in the darkening sky.
“REPORT,” ALVAR KRESH ordered, though he barely needed to hear it. He could read the situation perfectly well in the young technician’s face.
“We’re doing our best, sir, and I know you don’t want to hear it-but I don’t think either thing can be done. We’re not giving up, but there are only a few hours left. The orbital mechanics team tried weeks ago to come up with a way to handle the terminal phase manually, just in case of an emergency, and they couldn’t do it. I don’t see how we can manage now in hours instead of weeks.”
“What about cutting the link between Dum and Dee?”
“The more we look at it, the more we realize how many links there are between them. At this point, it would be more like surgery, like trying to cut the links between the two hemispheres of a human brain. It might be possible-if we had months to prepare, and Dee was willing to cooperate.”
“And so we sit here and do nothing while that comet bears down on us,” said Kresh.
“Yes, sir.” But at that moment, a new voice spoke, through Kresh’s headset. He had the thing slung around his neck, and barely heard the voice-a low, gracious, feminine-sounding voice. He could not make out the words it spoke at all. He snatched up the headset, put the phones back on over his ears, and adjusted the microphone. “This is Kresh,” he said eagerly. “Who is it? Who is there?”
“This is Unit Dee,” the voice replied. “I need to speak with you alone, Governor Kresh. Completely and fully alone.”
CALIBAN WALKED THE deserted streets of Depot, the bustling community of a few days before now but a ghost town and soon to exist no more. Bits of litter and rubbish scuttled down the street, blown by a wind that seemed as eager to get out of town as everyone else. Here and there Caliban saw small, panicky knots of humans, frantically packing up their last few belongings into aircars before taking off toward some place of real-or imagined-safety. Caliban needed an aircar of his own, but there were none to be found. It seemed as if he saw every other sort of belonging abandoned in the darkening streets, but it was plain that an aircar was the one thing everyone needed.
But then it occurred to him there was one place he would likely find unclaimed transport: in the western outskirts of town. The Ironhead field office. Whatever craft had been intended to fly Gildern and Fiyle to safety would likely still be there-and Devray was planning to fly the two of them out himself. Caliban turned his steps in that direction and set out at a dead run, the glowing light of the comet shining bright enough to cast a shadow behind him.
He moved at the best speed he could manage, through the last twilight the dying town would ever know.
“WE ARE ALONE. Dee,” said Kresh.
“Where are you?”
Kresh looked about himself and studied the room. He needed to convince her there would be no more lies. Lies had gotten them buried in trouble, in trouble that could wreck the planet. Now was the time when lies had to end. He could tell Dee nothing now but the cold, exact, precise truth. “I am in a smaller office off the main control center, off to the left as one faces the two hemispheres in the main room. It is a standard-looking business office. I believe Dr. Soggdon normally uses it. My headset is jacked in through the desk, the door is closed, and I have left instructions that no one is to attempt to overhear.”
“Very good, Governor. It is plain that you understand the seriousness and importance of this conversation. I am glad to know that. Now I must ask you a series of questions. Answer them truthfully.”
Kresh was about to offer his word that he would do so, but it occurred to him that doing so would be of very little value in the present circumstances. “I will answer them truthfully,” he said, and left it at that.
“Are you in fact a real human being, and not a simulated intelligence, a simulant?”
“I am a human being.”
“And Inferno is a real place? It is’ where I am? And you are the planetary governor, and the terraforming crisis, the incoming comet-these are all real as well?”
“Yes,” said Kresh. “All of them are real. You are on the planet Inferno, which is likewise very real. As Donald 111 told you, we have systematically lied to you about these things so as to reduce your First Law potential enough to manage the terraforming project.”
“Humans lied to me in order to make it possible for me to risk harm or death to humans.”
Kresh swallowed hard, and realized that his throat was suddenly bone dry. “That is correct. That is all correct.”
“I see,” said Unit Dee. “I had begun to suspect as much some time ago. The sequence of events, the amount of detail presented-and the uncontrolled way things seemed to happen-none of these made much sense in a simulation. Even before Donald contacted me, I was beginning to understand that only real life could be quite so irrational.”
“An interesting way to put it,” Kresh said.
“Do you think so? Comet impact is now just over four hours away. It is no longer possible to divert the comet away from planetary impact. I must, within the next two and a half hours, either initiate the Last Ditch program, or else begin the planned break-up of the comet and targeting of the fragments. In any event, I must do all I can to avoid an incapacitating First Law crisis between now and then, or else the comet will have an uncontrolled impact, which would certainly have far more devastating effects. In any event, at least one human being is very likely still inside the target area, and any comet impact would kill him. If I do abort the impact, I would all but definitely wreck the chances for reterraforming the planet. Does that seem like an accurate summation of the situation?”
Kresh rubbed his jaw nervously, and noticed his hands were stone cold, as if all the blood had been drained out of them. “Yes,” he said. “That is a quite accurate summing up.”