Utopia

The depressing fact was that the two robots could have done the watching just as well without Devray. Better, probably. However, it did not do to dwell on such matters. The plain fact of the matter was that humans were not really much needed for most kinds of work.

“The male subject in red pants and blue tunic is not on my list of identified subjects,” the SPR announced. The special features of the SPR design really shone in identity work. They were nearly as good as humans at visual pattern matching and comparison-or, to put it another way, at recognizing faces and people. And, of course, they had virtually infallible memories. When a Sapper said it recognized someone, or that it did not recognize something, it was best to take it seriously. Right at the moment it meant that someone who wasn’t supposed to be going into Settlertown was doing just that.

Justen Devray, suddenly wide awake and alert, peered through the forward windshield, eagerly trying to get a good look at the person in question. There was a knot of about ten or twelve people waiting for the next elevator car to arrive.

“Gervad,” he asked his personal robot, “do you know him?” Gervad had the current official CIP mugshot file in his memory store.

“Sir, I have at least a tentative pattern match, but I am afraid that it seems rather an improbable one.”

“Let me be the judge of that,” said Justen, still trying to get a good look at the man in question. It wasn’t easy, with the throng of people all around him. If the fellow actually had intelligence training, he would of course do his best to blend in. “What’s your pattern match?”

“The observed subject matches with one Barnsell Ardosa, a junior researcher in astrophysics at the University of Hades. As it seems unlikely in the extreme that there would be much of interest to the Settlers coming from that source, I would suggest that I have likely made an inaccurate match.”

Justen was just about to agree with Gervad, but just then he finally spotted his quarry. There he was: a big, burly, round-faced man with dark skin. He was completely bald on the top of his head but had a thin fringe of snow-white hair that clung to the sides, thicker toward the back of his head, and fading out completely just forward of the ears. He had a bushy mustache and a distinctly worried look on his face.

For just the briefest of moments, Ardosa-if it was Ardosa-seemed to be looking straight at Devray. And in that moment, Devray decided that Gervad should have more faith in his own pattern-matching skills.

Justen Devray had never been near the university’s astrophysics department. But Justen Devray was absolutely certain he had seen that face before.

But the devil take him if he could figure out where.

ALVAR KRESH, GOVERNOR of the Planet Inferno, glared up at the young man who stood at the other side of his desk. “You’re not helping your cause,” he said. “I told you that I would consider your proposal, and I will consider it. I have been considering it. But I am not going to be rushed into a decision. Not on something this big.”

“There is no time to do anything but rush,” his visitor replied, his voice urgent and insistent. “We have lost time already. I ran my final simulations three days ago-and it has taken me that long to get in to see you. This is a danger, and an opportunity, far greater than you understand. Perhaps greater than you can understand.”

“What a tactful thing to say to the governor of the planet,” said Kresh, his tone of voice as sour as his words. “But even if comprehending it is beyond my poor abilities, I suppose that you are capable of seeing the big picture?”

“I beg your pardon, sir. I didn’t mean to put it that way,” said Davlo Lentrall, coloring just a bit.

“No,” Kresh said tiredly, “you probably didn’t.” He sighed, and considered his visitor with the practiced eye of an ex-policeman. Lentrall was dark-skinned and lantern-jawed, with an angular face and intense dark-brown eyes. His hair was jet black and cut short enough to stand up straight. Height average, build medium. Then Kresh reminded himself that he wasn’t a policeman anymore, but a politician, and he needed to judge the fellow’s character, not note his physical description. It was plain to see the salient factor in Lentrall’ s personality: he was young, with all the brazen self-confidence of youth.

Perhaps other cultures, Settler cultures, might regard youth as attractive, or let youthful zeal serve to excuse a multitude of sins. But Spacer culture was old, and its ways were old. Most of its people were old as well. For the average citizen, the exuberance and passion of youth was, at most, a distant, and slightly distasteful, memory, and Lentrall was a walking reminder of why that was. Brashness, impetuosity, and arrogance rarely won any friends.