Utopia

But there was some possibility that the message Lentrall carried was important, no matter how annoying the messenger might be. “Let’s both back off on this, just for the moment,” Kresh said. “We’re not getting anywhere anyway.”

Lentrall shifted uncomfortably on his feet. He seemed to debate the idea of protesting again, and then think better of it. “Very well, sir,” he said. “I-I apologize for my outburst. It’s just that the strain of all this, the thought that the survival of the planet might be in my hands-it’s a lot to deal with.”

“I know,” Kresh said, his voice suddenly gentle. “I know it very well. I have been living with just that thought for years now.”

Once again, Lentrall reddened a bit. “Yes, sir. I know you have. It’s just the idea of letting this chance slip away. But even so, I shouldn’t have presumed to, to-”

“That’s all right, son. Let’s just leave it there. We’ll talk again in a few days. In fact, tomorrow. Come in tomorrow morning. I will bring my wife, and you can give the full presentation to both of us. I would very much value her opinion on all this.” And that was true for more reasons than he would care to share with young Dr. Lentrall just at the moment.

“Yes, sir. I’ll do that. Tomorrow, first thing. Would ten be all right?”

“That would be perfect. Donald, get the door for our guest, will you?”

“Of course, sir.” Donald 111, Kresh’s personal robot, stepped out of his wall niche and walked smoothly across the floor. He led Lentrall to the door, activated the door controls, and watched Lentrall leave.

Donald was a short, rounded-off sort of robot, all smooth curves and no hard edges, quite specifically designed to be as nondescript and nonthreatening in appearance as possible. He was sky-blue in color, the sky-blue of the old Hades Sheriff’s Department, a hold-over from the days when Kresh was the sheriff of the city-and there was a sheriff. Perhaps Kresh should have had Fredda recoat him in some other color. But Kresh liked the reminder of those days, when he had dealt with problems a lot smaller than the ones he had now-even if they had seemed quite large enough at the time.

Donald closed the door after Lentrall and turned back to face Kresh.

“Your opinion, Donald?”

“Of what sir? The message, or the man who delivered it?”

“Both, I suppose. But start with the messenger. Quite a determined young man, isn’t he?”

“Yes, sir. If I may say so, he puts me in mind of what I know of your own early days.”

Kresh looked toward Donald suspiciously. “What do you know about my early days?” he demanded. “How could you know about them? You weren’t even built until after I was sheriff.”

“True enough, sir, but you have been my master for many years now, and I have made you my study. After all, the better I know you, the better I can serve you. I have examined all the extant records regarding you. And, unless every record is misleading or inaccurate, that young man there bears a striking resemblance to the man you were at his age.”

“Donald, that comes dangerously close to being sentimental.”

“I trust not, sir. I do not have any of the emotional overlay protocols needed to experience sentimentality. Rather, I have merely stated an objective opinion.”

“Have you indeed?” Kresh asked. “Well, if you have, it is a most disconcerting one.” Kresh stood up and stretched. It had been a long day, and Lentrall had given him a lot to think about. “Come on, Donald, let’s go home.”

“Yes, sir.” Donald turned back toward the door, unlocked it, and reopened it. He led Kresh and out of the office, down the hallway, and over to the governor’s private elevator. The elevator door opened, and man and robot stepped into it. The door closed behind them, and carried them up toward the roof of Government Tower, where Kresh’s private aircar waited in a secured hangar. There were actually two landing pads on the roof-a smaller one on the very apex of the building, for the use of the governor only, and a larger one about fifteen meters lower down. The governor’s private landing pad had been added after the Grieg incident, by the simple expedient of building a ten-meter-wide, hollow stresscrete-and-steel pillar in one corner of the existing landing pad. The builders then put a flat disk thirty meters across atop of the pillar and used heavy buttressing to reinforce it. There was a small observation post built into the pillar itself, about ten meters above the original landing pad. The CIP used it as a sort of control tower for the main landing area.

Locked doors, private elevators, secured hangars, controlled-access landing pads. Kresh brooded over it all as they rode up in the elevator. Sometimes it seemed to Kresh that the walls between him and the world he was supposed to be governing were impossibly high. How could he run the planet if the whole system conspired to keep him cut off from it all, in the name of his own safety?