Utopia

Devray regarded the big, red, angular robot again. Caliban was offering himself as a kind of hostage, a way of keeping the mob from blaming others. Plainly, Caliban had a firm grasp on human psychology-and also an extremely low opinion of it. It was a hell of an indictment against humanity that Caliban had almost certainly read the situation precisely right. “Very well,” he said at last. “You can have the cell next to Fiyle.”

DONALD COULD NOT take it any longer. The time was growing too short, and the comet was drawing closer with every moment. He had been monitoring all the police and rescue hyperwave bands, as well as the public news channels, and there was no news at all of Simcor Beddle. The First Law requirement that he act to save Beddle had been growing stronger with every moment that the comet drew closer, every moment in which Beddle remained missing.

And now he could resist it no longer. Donald brought himself back up to normal operating power and emerged from his hiding place. It was evening, and he looked to the sky. There it was. A bright and shining dot of light, hanging low in the western sky, almost bright enough to cast a discernible shadow. There were only eighteen hours left.

He had to act. He had to. But he had left things so late. It was possible that there was now no time to take meaningful or effective action. There was certainly no time for him to get to Depot himself and take any significant part in the rescue effort. He did not have access to the sort of suborbital vehicle that had carried Justen Devray there. But if he could not act himself, he could at least induce others to action. Yes, indeed. There were most powerful and effective ways he could do that. Donald drew himself up to his full height and activated his hyperwave transmitter.

“This is Donald 111, personal service robot to his excellency, Governor Alvar Kresh, broadcasting to all robots within the sound of my voice. Simcor Beddle, leader of the Ironhead party, has been kidnapped. It is likely that he is being held somewhere in the primary impact zone for the first comet fragment. Those robots close enough to do so should take action to save Simcor Beddle at once. I will now broadcast a datastream containing all known information regarding the kidnapping.” Donald shifted his hyperwave transmitter to data mode and transmitted the complete evidence file. “That concludes the data file,” he announced. “That is all. Donald 111 out.”

But it was not all. There was one other action he could take, one that might go much further toward saving Simcor Beddle. One that he should have taken long ago. He opened a private hyperwave channel and placed a call to someone else who might be able to do some good. He did not encrypt the call. He knew the humans would intercept and monitor it. That did not matter. What was important was that they could not jam it, or stop him from speaking. For it was, at long last, time for him to speak.

It only took the briefest fraction of a second for the call to go through, and for the called party to come on the line. “This is Unit Dee answering a priority call from Donald 111,” a low, mellifluous, feminine voice announced.

“This is Donald 111 calling Unit Dee,” Donald replied. “I have vitally important information that you must receive and act upon at once.”

“I see,” the voice replied. “And what is the nature of that information?”

Donald hesitated a moment before proceeding further. He knew full well what sort of chaos and panic he must have set off among the robots of the Utopia region with his last announcement. He could imagine the robot-piloted transports dumping cargoes and heading back into the impact area to help with the search. He could imagine the ad-hoc groups of robots that were already cutting off all other communications in order to interlink with each other for effective searching. He could imagine the robots who had already brainlocked altogether, driven into overload by the conflict between the need to search for Beddle and other preexisting First and Second Law demands.