Caliban

No. He could not believe it.No one would be insane enough to build a robot without the Laws. There had to be some other explanation. There had to be some mistake.

Except Caliban, the robot in question, had been built by the woman up on the stage, who had used her first lecture to say how robots were no good for humans. So why the devil was she shielding the rogue robot who had attacked her? Alvar Kresh handed the last page to Donald, and the robot slipped the pages of the document into a storage slot on the side of his body.

“What are we to do, sir?” Donald asked.

Do? That was an excellent question. The situation was a tinderbox. In theory, he now had the evidence to move against Fredda Leving, but not now. What could he do? Clamber up on the stage and arrest her in the midst of her speech? No. Doing so could easily upend the entire intricate arrangement with the Settlers. Fredda Leving fit into that somehow, that much was clear. How, he had no idea. Besides, he had the very strong impression that he would need hear what she had to say if he was going to pursue this case.

But there were other avenues open to him besides the arrest of Fredda Leving.

“We can’t take Leving in, Donald, much as I’d like to,” Kresh said at last. “Not with the Governor and Welton with her. But the moment this damned talk is over with, we are picking up Terach and Anshaw. It’s time we sweated those two a little.”

As for Fredda Leving, maybe he could not arrest her tonight. But he had no intention of making her life easy. He glared up at the stage, waiting for the curtain to open.

AT long last, and far too soon, Fredda could hear the sound she had been waiting for-and dreading. The gong sounded, and the audience began to settle down, grow quiet. It was about to begin. A stagehand robot gave Governor Grieg a hand signal and he nodded. He came over to Fredda and touched her forearm. “Ready, Doctor?”

“What? Oh, yes, yes of course.”

“Then I think we should begin.” He guided her to a seat behind a table at one side of the stage, between Tonya Welton on one side, and Gubber and Jomaine on the other.

All had their attendant robots hovering nearby. Gubber’s old retainer Tetlak, with him since forever. Jomaine’s latest updated, upgraded unit. What was the name? Bertram? Something like that. The joke around the lab was that he changed his personal robot more frequently than he changed underwear. Tonya Welton with Ariel.

A strange, slight irony there. Tonya was here on Inferno to preach against reliance on robots, and here she was with the robot Fredda had given her in happier days. Meanwhile, she, Fredda, had no robot with her at all.

With a start, she realized that the curtain had opened, that the audience was applauding the Governor politely-with a few boos from the back of the house-and that the Governor was well launched into her introduction. In fact, he was finishing up. Hells and heavens! How could her mind wander that much? Was it some aftereffect of the injury, or the treatment, or just a subconscious way of dealing with stage fright?

“…not expect you to agree with all she has to say,” Governor Grieg was saying. “There is much that I do not agree with myself. But I do believe that hers is a voice to which we must listen. I am convinced that her ideas-and the news she will relate-will have tremendous repercussions for us all. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Dr. Fredda Leving.” He turned toward her, smiling, leading the applause.

Not quite sure if it would not be wiser to cut and run for the stage wings and the side exit, Fredda stood up and walked toward the lectern. Chanto Grieg retreated back toward the table at the rear of the stage and took a seat next to Jomaine.

She was there, all alone. She stared out into the sea of faces and asked herself what madness had brought her to this place. But here she was, and there was nothing to do but move forward.

She cleared her throat and began to speak.

14

“THANK you, my friends,” Fredda began. “Tonight I intend to present an analysis of the Three Laws. However, before we launch into a detailed law-by-law examination, I think it would be wise to review some background information and focus our historical perspective.

“In my previous lecture, I presented arguments intended to establish that humans hold robots in low regard, that misuse and abuse of robots is degrading to both us and them, that we humans have allowed our own slothful reliance on robots to rob from us the ability to perform the most basic tasks. There is a common thread that holds all these problems together, a theme that runs through them all.

“It is the theme, ladies and gentlemen, of the Three Laws. They are at the core of all things involving robotics.”