Caliban

It had happened more than once that a suspect had refused to come out for a long period of time. Precedents and rules of procedure had long ago been established in such cases, setting out what could and could not be done. The police could cut off all communications links to the surrounded house, but not food, or water, or power. Sometimes the prohibition against home arrests actually worked to police advantage: If kept up long enough, the police-robot vigil outside a suspect’s home amounted to house arrest without all the bother and expense of a trial.

“Well, it might come to an arrest perimeter if we don’t hear from him soon,” Kresh said warningly. “You might get that information to him.”

Jomaine cocked a surprised eyebrow at Kresh. “Have a little patience, Sheriff. Gubber rarely comes in much before midday on the days he does come in,” he said. “He spends his mornings at his home, working on other research projects. Most days-but not all of them-he comes in here and works on Leving Lab projects about midday and through the evening. But as I said, he doesn’t always come in. He’s not held to any sort of schedule.”

Jomaine thought for a moment. “Come to think of it, I don’t recall seeing him when I came through here last night. I doubt he was here. My guess is he’s been at home, working, the entire time, quite unaware that anything has happened. And yes, his robots have strict orders to prevent his being disturbed. But that is routine with him. I wouldn’t suggest that you read anything into his absence, or waste any time thinkinghe had something to do with the attack on Fredda.”

Alvar Kresh frowned. “Why not? It was his lab she was attacked in. At this point we have no suspects, no motive, no real information at all. I don’t know Gubber Anshaw or anything about him. I see no reason to eliminate anyone at this point, especially someone who would seem to have the opportunity to commit the crime. Coworkershave been known to have motives for murder.”

“Well, there’s your argument against suspecting him right there,” Jomaine said, a bit overeagerly. “Gubber Anshaw had no motive for attacking Fredda, and every reason for wishing her well. I suppose, yes, hemight have had the means and the opportunity to assault her-but Sheriff Kresh, you have the means and the opportunity to pull your blaster from your holster right now and vaporize my head. That doesn’t mean youwill do it. You have no motives for killing me-and a lot of motives fornot hurting me. You ‘ d lose your job and get thrown in jail, at the very least. But it goes past that. Fredda was a great help to Gubber. He would most definitely not want to lose that.”

“You are suggesting that Gubber Anshaw would have a great deal to lose if something happened to Fredda Leving?” Donald asked.

Jomaine Terach looked cautiously at Donald, and then at Kresh. “Once again, that gets us into classified areas. But yes, I think that would be safe to say. Gubber had made some remarkable advances, advances that required the rejection of some very tried and true technology in favor of something newer and better and more flexible. However, he didn’t get far in promoting his discoveries. Robotics is in many ways a very conservative field. Leving Labs was the only place that was willing to use his work.”

“I suppose we’re talking about gravitonic brains here,” Kresh said.

Terach breathed in sharply, clearly surprised and unsettled. “How did you-”

“There was a stack of them in neatly labeled boxes in Anshaw ‘ s lab,” Kresh said, more than a bit sardonically. “I think perhaps you need to work a little on security procedures down at the lab.”

“Apparently so,” Terach said, clearly nonplussed.

“So what the devil are gravitonic brains? Some sort of replacement for the positronic brain?”

Donald turned his head toward Kresh. “Sir! That would be quite impossible. The positronic brain is the basis, the core, of all robotics. The Three Laws are intrinsic to it, built into its very structure, burned into its fundamental pathways.”

“Take it easy, Donald,” Kresh said. “That doesn’t mean that the Three Laws couldn’t be built into another form of brain. Right, Terach?”

Terach blinked and nodded, still a bit distracted. “Of course, of course. I really cannot say anything specific about gravitonic brains, but I suppose it can’t do any harm to speak in broad generalities. Gubber Anshaw is really just at the beginning of his research on gravitonics, but in my opinion he’ s already made tremendous breakthroughs. It’s time someone did.”

“How do you mean?”