Caliban

“Oh, no, no. It’s nothing like what you’re thinking. She meant that once the announcement was made, it would be too late to turn back. With the Settlers in place on Purgatory, and the New Law robots there on the job, she would have won and there would be no need for such threats.

“Besides, both she and Fredda had gotten tired of the fighting. I think what Tonya really meant was that they had reconciled their differences. The argument that day didn’t end with shouts and slamming doors, but with quiet voices. You couldn’t hear them at the end. I had the door to my lab open so I could ‘accidentally’ run into Tonya when they were done, without arousing suspicion. But even with my door open, I couldn’t hear them. When Tonya came out with Ariel, I sort of drifted over to the door. I could see that both Tonya and Fredda looked a bit drawn and weary, but they shook hands and smiled, as if they had finally pounded out an agreement they could both live with.”

“What was the agreement?” Donald asked.

“I think it was something along the lines of Fredda letting Tonya have her way with the announcement, in exchange for Fredda heading up recruitment for Limbo. They will need a lot of people out there, and choosing the staff will be a complicated matter. Fredda wanted control of it so that she could surround her New Law robots with Settlers and Spacers who would be able to deal with them.

“Anyway, Fredda said her goodbyes at her doorway and said something about having to get back to her inventory problems. Some serial number didn’t jibe or something. Fredda can be very compulsive about details. She closed the door and Tonya came into my lab. She told Ariel to leave and come back later.That told me that she wanted some real privacy. Tonya is funny that way-she doesn’t really feel private if there are any robots around.”

Gubber Anshaw shifted uncomfortably in his seat, and seemed, unwilling to say more. Alvar Kresh would have been able to guess the cause even without his police training. But just because he knew the answer for himself, that did not mean he did not need Gubber to speak the words. Gubber needed to know that Alvar Kresh needed to know all the details, and would settle for nothing else. Otherwise, Gubber Anshaw could easily get the idea it was all right to leave out other details Kresh did need.

“What happened then, Gubber?” Kresh asked gently. “Why was it that Tonya wanted privacy?”

Gubber cleared his throat and turned his gaze back toward that featureless patch of wall, something approaching a defiant glint in his eye. “I ordered all the staff robots to leave us alone and we went to the duty office at the end of the hallway and made love,” he said, his voice firmer than it had been.

“I see,” said Alvar, more because Gubber seemed to expect him. to say something than for any other reason. Alvar supposed that Gubber thought he might be shocked. The only strong emotion Kresh felt was an overwhelming desire to kick himself. He should have seen it! It was so obvious. The skilled orders for all the lab robots to go away on repeated occasions should have told him what was going on. And who but someone of Gubber’s skill would have been able to hide those orders so perfectly? So much for Tonya Welton’s theory that it had been done with hardware, with microcircuits. That had been a blind, a false lead, of course. Kresh wondered what other smoke she had blown in his face. He was tempted to pursue all those questions, but none of it mattered now. After this was allover, perhaps he could waste time tidying up loose ends.

Kresh looked thoughtfully at Gubber Anshaw. The man was deeply embarrassed. Knowledge of Gubber’s personal relations didn’t bother Alvar, but he could understand Gubber fearing it might. Inferno was not a particularly straitlaced sort of place, but more than a few Infernals would not approve of such an intimate encounter between one of their own and a Settler-especially in a place of business. “So, anyway, the two of you went to the duty office. Go on from there.”

“There was nothing crude or unseemly about it,” Gubber Anshaw went on, seemingly determined to answer objections that had not been raised. “It’s not as if we dumped everything off one of my work counters and, ah, well, did it with the doors open. We went to the duty station office at the end of the hallway. It’s set up to allow someone to spend the night at the lab if an experiment requires it. Do you know where it is?”

“Yes,” Alvar said, struggling to keep a straight face. “We used it the next morning to perform our initial interrogations. I seem to recall there was a full bed in the corner of the room. I thought at the time that was unusual. We have a room like that in my office, but we manage to get by with just a sim~ pIe cot.”