Inferno

It was yet another example of the absurd tit-for-tat bickering between the Spacers and the Settlers. The Spacer government had banned New Law robots on the mainland. Therefore the Settlers were damned well going to ban normal, proper Three-Law robots on the island of Purgatory. All Three-Law robots shipped to the Governor’s Compound from the mainland had to be powered down and shipped in sealed containers during their transit across the Settler-controlled area of the island. Kresh had obtained a waiver from the rules for Donald, but that didn’t make him like the situation any more.

And the posturing and nonsense didn’t stop even at the banning and counterbanning of the two forms of robots. All the Spacer movers and shakers had another audience to play to-the folks back home, the voters. And the voters were none too happy about the sudden shortage of household robots.

Of course, the very idea of a robot shortage was absurd. The latest estimates were that robots outnumbered humans on Inferno by just under a hundred to one. But most of those robots were no longer with the people. Grieg had confiscated them, sent them off to plant trees in the northern wastes of Terra Grande. Maybe-just maybe-Grieg was right. Maybe excessive use of personal robots had been wasteful. Maybe, in the current emergency situation, it made sense for robots to be put to work rebuilding the planet rather than serving as uselessly redundant servants.

But all that to one side, these days, wealth was equated, more than ever, with robots. And in these days of hardships, one simply did not flaunt one’s wealth.

Kresh, however, equated robots not with wealth but with safety. The First Law turned every robot into a superb bodyguard-and suddenly Kresh didn’t have any such bodyguards handy.

The Governor’s Compound had a full staff of service robots, of course. They had been shipped in from the capital just a week before in preparation for the visit. Tonight, however, all but a handful of them were back in their air-cargo transport, powered down and out of sight. The Governor’s Rangers were providing the catering staff-and most of the Rangers on duty seemed none too happy about it. They were, after all, law enforcement professionals, more or less, not waiters.

After the reception tonight, the household robots would be permitted to make their appearance. But tonight, with all the powerful and elite on hand, and the reception being recorded for broadcast on all the news feeds, it would not do for the Governor to be seen surrounded by robots.

Tonight, when the crowds around him were thickest, the Governor would have the least protection. In normal times, Kresh would not have worried so much. But these were not normal times.

The planet Inferno was changing, experiencing the most wrenching of upheavals. The change was needed and, perhaps, would be for the best-but for all of that, it would leave unhappy and frustrated people in its wake.

Change hurt, and some of the people it was hurting had already tried to strike back. There had been more than a few unpleasant incidents in recent weeks. Kresh’s deputies had been going half mad trying to keep the lid on. It was Kresh’s professional opinion that there was no way he could feel certain of the Governor’s safety in public. Not without an army of robotic bodyguards.

Aside from Donald, there was not a single powered-up robot in the entire building. They should have been serving the drinks, opening the doors, circulating with trays of food, catering to whatever whim one of the guests might have-and protecting against any chance of one human harming another.

Even the guests had no personal robots in tow. It would be political suicide for any of the Governor’s friends to be seen here with a flock of robots. Indeed, the whole point of the evening was to be seen without robots during the shortage. Politics made for very strange logic sometimes.

Most of the Spacer dignitaries looked a trifle lost, out by themselves. For some of them, this was the first time in their lives they had ever set foot outside their own doors without robotic servants following along.

Punishment. Shortage. It was all nonsense, of course. The new regulations limited each household to a maximum of twenty robots. Somehow, to Kresh’s point of view, getting through the day with only twenty personal servants at one’s beck and call did not seem that much of a hardship.

But right now, Alvar Kresh had little or no patience with politics or economics. The plain fact was that it was a lot tougher for an assassin to act if there were robots allover the place, and there weren’t any such here.

In the old days, with a swarm of robots always there, always taken for granted, security had been so easy, so taken for granted, that even the most prominent and controversial public figures never gave it a thought. Not anymore. Now they could not take any chances at all. “Anything more, Donald?”