“Very good,” said Unit Dee. “As you will see, I am entangled by a whole series of conflicting First Law imperatives. I can do nothing that will not cause harm to humans. Action will cause harm to humans. Inaction will cause harm to humans. I see no good options. I freely admit that I am suffering extremely high levels of law-conflict stress. Now then, I have one last question for you. I have just over two hours in which to make up my mind. So. Tell me. What should I do?”
Truthful answers, Kresh told himself. Nothing but the truth can save us now. Where was a course of action that a robot would be able to follow? Kill a man, and maybe save a world. Save one man, and perhaps let a world die. There were no certainties at all in the case, no guarantees that any act would have its intended result. The comet impact plan could go terribly wrong, or Beddle could already be dead, or outside the impact area. The choice would be difficult enough for any thoughtful human being, but to a robot, it was simply impossible. And it was a robot asking for advice. “Unit Dee, I will confess it. I have absolutely no idea.”
CALIBAN SNAPPED THE lock on the gate of the Ironhead motor pool and kicked the door in. There. Just inside the entrance. A long-range aircar, more than likely the twin of the one Beddle had been taken from. Caliban rushed aboard, went forward to the cockpit, and began a cursory preflight check. Not that there was much point to the checkout. He had no time to find another vehicle. Satisfied that the aircar probably had enough power in its storage cells, and that its navigation system at the very least seemed to be functional, he powered the craft up and launched vertically, straight up into the sky. He knew where he was going, and he had been there many times before, but now he did something he had never done. He turned the nose of his craft directly toward his destination, and flew straight for it.
Without any attempt at evasive action, with no attempt to hide his direction of travel or shield his craft from detection, Caliban flew the aircar straight toward Valhalla. By now the city had been completely evacuated. There was no longer the slightest legitimate purpose in hiding its location.
Illegitimate purposes, however, were a different matter. What better hiding place for Beddle than the hidden city, the city that, to hear Fiyle tell it, Beddle himself had been trying to find and destroy? Abandoned and empty now, the city would hide the kidnap victim as well as it had hidden its citizenry. Caliban checked his navigation boards and his other subsystems, then flicked on the autopilot. He was flying as fast as he could go, over the shortest course possible. For the moment, there was nothing further he could do. He looked out the viewport and the rough-and-tumble lands below. They had begun to make it bloom, the New Laws had. Even from this altitude, he could see splashes of green plant life, glints of cobalt-blue ponds and lakes. Forests, gardens, fishponds, farms, orchards-they had created them all. Now, for the sake of the greater world, all they had done was about to be taken from them.
Caliban spotted a fast-moving craft streaking past his present position, moving about a thousand meters below him. He had forgotten, at least for the moment, that he was not as alone out here as he had thought. He flipped his navigation system to full display mode, and suddenly the display screen was full of purposefully moving dots, every one an aircar. Every one with at least one robot aboard. And all of them searching fruitlessly, pointlessly for Simcor Beddle. None of them would ever think to look in the right place, because none of them would know where it was.
All of them would keep on searching, up to and past the last possible moment, hoping against hope for a miracle. All of them would be destroyed when the comet came.
It occurred to Caliban that there was one thing further he could do. It might or might not do any good. But he could not see how it could do any conceivable harm. He switched on the hyperwave transmitter, adjusted it to one of the robotic general-broadcast frequencies, and set the system to record a repeating message. “This is Caliban, robot number CBN-001. I have deduced the location of Simcor Beddle with a high degree of confidence, and am proceeding toward that location at maximum speed. The odds are approximately fifty percent that I will be able to effect a rescue of Simcor Beddle. I require no assistance. Any attempt to assist would likely serve only to interfere with my efforts. To all other search parties, I say this. The odds against any other searcher finding Simcor Beddle in time are on the order of millions to one. No useful purpose can be served by destroying yourself in a hopeless cause. Save yourselves. Turn back. Escape the comet. I swear and affirm on the honor of Fredda Leving, my creator, that all I have said is true. Message repeats. “ He stopped the recording and set to broadcast over and over on the general frequency…
He turned his attention back toward the navigation equipment. He was surprised how pleased he was to see that he had done at least some good. A few of the aircars, not all, but at least a few, were turning around, breaking off the search patterns, moving to direct courses and high speeds in an attempt to escape. Even as he watched, more and more aircraft began to head out of danger.
There was no logical reason why Caliban should have cared about Three-Law robots. There were few among them that felt he had any right to existence. But even so, it was good to see some of them would be spared such meaningless demises. Caliban had seen more than enough useless death.
The aircar flew south, to Valhalla.
And high overhead, the comet grew brighter in the sky.
21
ALVAR KRESH REMAINED alone in the office, alone with Unit Dee. There was very little one of them could say to the other-but Kresh could think of no more useful place for him to be. There was nothing else that could be done. All he could do was sit here and hold Unit Dee’s wholly imaginary hand and hope that she would
“Excuse me, Governor Kresh?”
“Yes, Dee. I am here. What is it?”
“There is a new development. There is a repeating broadcast being made over a general-purpose hyperwave frequency reserved for robot use. The broadcast is originating from an aircar flying at speed through the projected impact zone of the first fragment. I would ask you to listen to it.”
A new voice, one Kresh knew only too well, came in over the headphones. “This is Caliban, robot CBN-001,” it began.
Kresh listened intently to the message twice through, more and more astonished with every moment. What the devil was Caliban up to? Why did he think he could find Beddle when no one else could? How had he gotten into the air over the impact zone?
“Have you heard enough of it, Governor Kresh?” Dee asked.
“What? What? Yes, yes, of course.”
“According to my information,” said Dee, “Caliban is a No Law robot, with no restrictions on his behavior. He is capable of lying, stealing, cheating, and murder-just like a human. Is that correct?”
“In essence yes. Just like a human, there are no restrictions on his behavior save those he puts on himself.”
“I wonder how much such restrictions could be worth,” Dee said, a distinct note of disdain in her voice. “Very well. It seems that Caliban believes he can save Simcor Beddle before the impact. Answer honestly, on your honor. Do you believe him?”
Only the truth can save us, Kresh told himself. Only the truth. He thought-or at least he hoped-he knew what was going through Dee’s mind. If Caliban were indeed able to save Beddle, then the First Law requirement for Dee to protect Beddle would be diminished. Diminish it enough, and maybe-just maybe-it would allow Dee to act, allow her to perform the intended terminal descent package. Or had he figured it wrong? Would it somehow induce her to initiate Last Ditch? Or was the danger to Beddle some sort of crutch, a shield that Dee was using to save herself from having to make an impossible choice? There was no way to know.