Caliban

Kresh had a pretty fair instinct for estimating the First Law situation in such cases, and he was reasonably sure that Donald would not speak up. But there was always thechance that he would jump in at exactly the wrong moment. Kresh sometimes thought that all the problems of lost energy and low morale in Spacer society could be eliminated in a stroke if some way could be found to eliminate all such dithering over robotic behavior.

“All right, then,” Gubber Anshaw said at last, rubbing his chin with his palm and staring out into space. “I suppose you are right. Neither Tonya nor I had anything to do with it. I know that. In fact, I think I can provide an alibi for her, if that is the right term. I can tell you where she was, show she had no chance to commit the crime. But that might require me to speak of certain-ah-personalthings.”

“Indeed,” Alvar said, trying to keep the amusement out of his voice.

Gubber Anshaw sat up a little straighter and folded his hands tightly together. “Nothing criminal, or immoral, or-or anything like that,” he said, blurting the last words out in a rush, staring carefully at the tabletop. “But still they will be-difficult-totalk about,” Gubber said. He raised his eyes from the tabletop and fixed his gaze on a blank piece of wall over Kresh’ s left shoulder. “It was a most difficult evening,” he began, “most difficult. As I expect you know, Fredda and Tonya had been fighting almost every time they met. About what didn’t really matter. The details of shipping the robots to Limbo, the timing of the announcement, policy for recruiting Settlers and Spacers to the project. Whatever it was, they would have a battle over it. The issue itself was never really the point.

“The only real question waswhich one of them was in charge. As you can imagine, it was a rather difficult situation for me. On the one side, I wanted to keep Tonya happy. On the other, I had to deal with Fredda, my colleague and superior-and she, needless to say, was the last person I wanted to know about Tonya and myself.

“In any event, that day it had been worse than ever. Fredda had wheeled in a new robot on its test rack and asked me to do final checkout of its mechanical systems. The robot, of course, was Caliban; but I had no idea at the time that there was anything out of the ordinary about it. Thinking back on it now, I suppose I should have found it odd that she did not tell me to do a cognitive checkout. I was in my lab working on that when Tonya and Ariel. arrived. Tonya poked her head in my door and said she was headed down the hall to meet with Fredda. I knew Fredda was going over the inventory, and that was something that never put her in a good mood. I warned Tonya of that, and then she went down the hall to Fredda’ s lab.

“Well, it wasn’t five minutes later that I could hear them arguing. I tried not to listen as I got the robot-Caliban-off the test stand and started working on him. But voices carry in that building. I think the fight was over the timing of the announcement of New Law robots, and whether it should be immediately connected with the Limbo Project. I had certainly heard enough about that, from both sides, on previous occasions. I didn’t pay much attention.

“Fredda was concerned that a simultaneous announcement would tie the whole New Law concept too closely to the Settlers in the eyes of the Spacers. Tonya refused to see why or how that might be a problem. Fredda wanted to announce the New Law concept first, let people get used to it, and then let it be known that the New Law robots were moving from the labs here into actual productive labor, on the Limbo Project, safely distant on the island of Purgatory. Tonya insisted on her way, disclosing everything at once. I think she felt that there simply wasn’t time to be wasted on the delicate feelings of the Infernals.

“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?”