Utopia

At last Prospero stopped so abruptly that Caliban nearly walked into him. As Caliban had no hyperwave receiver, and could neither see nor hear Prospero, there was no way for Caliban to know at first what had made Prospero stop. After a pause, Prospero moved on again for thirty or forty meters-and then the world lit up in fire and thunder.

Blaster fire! Dazzlingly bright and deafeningly loud. Caliban’s sound and vision receptors adjusted themselves all but instantly, but not fast enough to keep him from being badly disoriented.

Prospero dove for the right wall of the tunnel, and Caliban for the left. No sense in hiding themselves now-not when they had already been spotted. Caliban switched on his infrared emitter system and his infrared vision. There! Up ahead in the tunnel, a burly man, standing in the entrance to a tunnelside office, peering into the darkness, his blaster still at the ready. More than likely he had been dazzled by his own blaster fire. The man fumbled with his free hand and pulled a handlight out of one of his pockets. Caliban rushed forward before the man could switch it on and bring the light to bear. He grabbed the blaster out of the man’s hand and knocked the light from the other.

The man flailed around blindly with his arms until he managed to put a hand on Caliban. He ran his hand over Caliban’s chest and up to his head. Caliban grabbed at the man and held him at arm’s length.

“Don’t hurt me!” the man cried out.

And that was a remarkable thing for a human to ask of a robot. Even New Law robots were prohibited from harming humans. Caliban, the No Law robot, was the only robot in existence who could, in theory, hurt a human being. Either the man was a Settler with no experience whatsoever of robots or else

“You know who I am,” Caliban said.

“Now! I do now!” the man said. “You’re Caliban. Aren’t you? And I could hear two of you. The other one is over there somewhere. That’s Prospero, isn’t it?” He pointed in the general direction of Prospero, who was walking toward Caliban and his prisoner.

“Why did you fire on us, Fiyle?” Prospero demanded.

“Because you were sneaking up on me. No lights, almost no sound. I thought you were…were someone else.”

“Who?” Caliban demanded.

“I don’t know,” Fiyle said, sagging back a bit, relaxing in Caliban’s grasp. “You could have been anyone. All hell is breaking loose up there, and I think it’s possible that I’ve made myself just a little bit too popular. “ Fiyle hesitated for a moment, and then spoke again. “Look, you’ve got my blaster, and that’s the only weapon I had. You can search me for other weapons if you like, but would you mind turning me loose and letting me switch on a light? I’ve driven myself half crazy sitting here in the dark.”

“It is all right, friend Caliban,” said Prospero. “Let him go.”

Caliban hesitated, having not felt the urge to trust Fiyle overmuch even before he had shot at them. Nor was he completely confident in Prospero’s judgment. But he was either in this, or not. There was no middle ground. And he was already rather deep in to begin with. He looked down at the man he held. Even in visible light, Caliban knew he was no great judge of human expression. In infrared, he was far from skilled. But the man staring blindly into the darkness of his visible-light vision certainly seemed harmless enough. Caliban released his grasp on Fiyle, albeit reluctantly.

“The light,” said Fiyle, peering about in the darkness, and reaching out blindly with his hands.

Prospero knelt down, picked up the man’s handlight, and handed it to Caliban. Caliban realized that Prospero could have handed the light to Fiyle just as easily. Prospero was letting Caliban decide, letting him choose what to do with this man.

Caliban placed the light in Fiyle’s outstretched hand, but kept the blaster for himself.

Fiyle grabbed at the light, fumbled for it eagerly, and let out a deep, heartfelt sigh of relief when he found the switch and the beam of light came on. “Oh, I’m glad to see that,” he said, as he squinted a bit in the light. “Very glad indeed.”

“But if you are being followed, those who pursue you would be even more glad to see it,” said Caliban.

Fiyle nodded worriedly. “You’re right,” he said. “Let’s get out of the corridor and into the side office, where we can talk.”