Utopia

THE DOOR OPENED smoothly enough that one could have been forgiven for thinking the person who entered had a right to be there. No forcing of the lock, no furtive gimmicking of the security electronics. Jadelo Gildern was not that clumsy a person. He slipped the device he had used on the door into his pocket and stepped into Davlo Lentrall’s work office. He slid the door shut behind him and let out a small sigh. Gildern looked calm enough as he stood there and looked about the smallish room, but in truth the man was scared to death, his heart pounding so loudly in his chest that he felt sure it could be heard down the hallway.

Gildern knew he was not a brave man. The risks he took and the dangers he faced in his security work were all, always and ultimately, for his own benefit, his own personal gain. Even if the routes he took to gain that benefit were sometimes labyrinthine, the final destination was always there, in sight. Whatever he did, he did for himself.

And he would be very surprised indeed if this expedition to Lentrall’s office did not do him a great deal of good-all the more good for his having first told Beddle it was extremely risky.

In reality, there was very little risk at all. If Gildern had indeed gone after the computer data files, the odds of discovery and of capture would indeed have been fairly high. But the very fact that the data system security was so good played into Gildern’s hands. Good security made people feel safe. People who felt safe relaxed. And people who were relaxed made mistakes.

One such mistake was in assuming that good security in one area meant security in all the others was equally good. This assumption was often mistaken-as in the matter of the door lock Gildern had just gotten past. The computer security was good, so the physical security had to be good, so it was perfectly safe to leave books and papers and notes lying around, so long as the door was locked. Gildern had hoped that Lentrall’s train of thought had worked that way, and it seemed as if it had. The on-line computer files would likely have been of very little use in any event. Gildern was no technician, no scientist. It would likely take so long to analyze a technical report that the moment would be lost. No. What he was after were papers he could photograph. He wanted scribbled notes, summaries prepared to explain things to outsiders. And if he got lucky, datapads chock full of information Gildern could download and take with him.

The office was neat, but not so neat that it was a robot who had done the tidying. Gildern needed to look no further than the books on the shelf, slightly out of true with each other, than the papers that stacked up without being precisely squared up, than the way the chair sat in the middle of the floor instead of being shoved in neatly under the desk, for it to be instantly obvious to Gildern that Lentrall kept this room up himself. All to the good. If Gildern accidentally left something not precisely as he found it, it would more likely go unnoticed. And besides, if the man himself kept order here, the system of order itself might well tell Gildern something about the man.

He set to work searching Davlo Lentrall’s office.

FREDDA LEVING WATCHED her husband enter the room, and saw how his expression changed the moment the door was sealed behind him. The look of calm imperturbability vanished, and a deeply troubled expression took its place. He looked to her, and seemed to understand what she had seen. He smiled, a bit sadly, a bit worriedly. “I didn’t used to be able to do that, back when I was just a policeman,” he said. “It used to be that I could let my face express whatever it wanted. Politics does strange things to a man.”

Fredda got off her chair and took her husband by the hand. “I don’t know whether I should be happy to see you drop the act in front of me, or upset to see that you put on an act at all,” she said.

“Probably both,” he said, a tone of apology in his voice.

“What was it Devray wanted to tell you?”

“That our friends and our enemies-who mayor may not be the same people-probably already know most of what we’ve been trying to keep secret from them.”

“And from me.” Fredda moved a step or two away from her husband, folded her arms, and perched herself on the corner of his desk. “Maybe if they already know, you could finally break down and tell me what it’s all about.”

Kresh started to pace, up and down the length of the office, his hands clasped behind his back-a rare but certain sign of anxiety and impatience. “Where is the fellow?” he asked of the open air, and then glanced toward his wife without breaking stride. “It’s not that I wanted to keep it secret from you. I just wanted you to hear it the same way I did. I wanted your opinion of-of it, without hearing about my biases or opinions, one way or the other.”

“Well, you’ve certainly managed to keep from telling me much. All I know for sure is that it could mean trouble for the New Law robots.”