Isaac Asimov's Caliban 1 Caliban

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robots would cause enough trouble all by itself--and it did, in case you
didn t notice. So I took a chance on keeping quiet--and lost. I must thank you
for leaving the decision to me. You could have spoken up, too.
That was a purely selfish decision. I didn t want to be thrown in prison. Not
when there were still hopes that there would be no further trouble. But then,
the more trouble there was, the more dangerous it would be to confess.
And now, I can hardly see how it could get worse, Fredda said. She let down
her guard a bit and sighed. We should have told Kresh about Caliban. But
that s the past. We have to look at the present and the future. What do we do
now?
Let s think on that for a moment, Jomaine said. The police may have
theories and reports from specialists, but you and I still are the only ones
who know for certain that Caliban is a No-Law.
Gubber has his suspicions, Fredda said. I m sure he does. But Gubber is in
no state or position to go talking to the Sheriff just now.
I agree, Jomaine said. I m not worried about him. My point is that no
matter what happened between Caliban and Horatio, Kresh can t be certain that
Caliban isn t just a New Law robot, or even some specialized form of standard
Three Law robot. There have been cases where robots have been built unaware
that they obeyed the Three Laws, but they obeyed them, anyway. All Kresh could
have would be Horatio s report--and I doubt that Horatio would be an
altogether reliable informant. As I recall you built him with extremely high
First Law and Third Law potential, with Second Law reduced somewhat. The idea
was to give him the ability to make independent decisions.
So what s your point? Fredda asked.
An enhanced First Law robot like him wouldn t be able to deal with
Caliban very well or very long without malfunctioning, Jomaine said. If
Caliban talked to him, and described doing much of anything well outside
normal robotic behavior, Horatio would probably suffer severe cognitive
dissonance and malfunction.
So?
You ve just finished making a long speech where you said we rely too much on
robots. We believe in them so much we can t quite believe they could be built
any other way. I think if Kresh is given the choice between believing there
could be such a thing as a No Law robot, or believing that a malfunctioning
robot was confused, he ll go with the confused robot.
Fredda shifted in her seat and sighed. It was tempting, sorely tempting, to
agree with Jomaine. She had spent her whole life in a culture that believed
what it wanted and resolutely ignored the facts. She looked at Jomaine and saw
his eager, hopeful expression as he continued to speak, desperately trying to
convince himself and Fredda both.
Caliban was meant to live in the laboratory, Jomaine said. He only has a
low-capacity power source, and we never taught him how to recharge it.
At best, it will last a day or two longer. Maybe it s died already. If not,
then it will fail soon, and he ll run out of power. He ll stop dead. If he s
in hiding when that happens, he ll just vanish. Maybe he was already on
reserves when he went to see Horatio. Maybe he s already keeled over in some
tunnel where no one will look for the next twenty years.
And maybe Horatio told him how to plug into a recharge receptacle, or maybe
Caliban saw a robot charge up somewhere, or maybe he worked it out for
himself. We can hope that he will lose power, but we can t count on it.
Fredda hesitated a moment, then spoke again. Besides, there s something you
don t know. The information from Gubber that you handed to me in the
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hospital? It was the full police report. I didn t tell you about it before now
because I didn t think you d want to know. They have very strong evidence that
a robot committed the attack against me. They weren t ready to believe that
evidence before, but now it will be different. And they know a robot named
Caliban was involved in a situation with a bunch of robot-bashing Settlers
that ended up burning down a building. And there must be more, besides, things
that have happened since then. Kresh is not the sort of man to sit still and
wait for things to happen. Even if he can t quite accept the idea of a No Law
robot, by now he has a lot more than Horatio s statement to convince him that
Caliban is strange and dangerous. I doubt he d give up looking even if
Caliban loses power and vanishes without a trace.
Do you really think Kresh believes Caliban to be dangerous? Jomaine
Terach asked.
Fredda Leving felt an ache in the pit of her stomach and a throbbing pain in
her head. It was time to speak truths she had not been able to face.
My point, Jomaine, is that Caliban is dangerous. At least we must work on the
assumption that he is. Perhaps he did attack me. You and I know better than
anyone else, there was nothing, literally nothing at all, to stop him. Maybe
he intends to track me down and finish me off. Who knows?
Yes, maybe Caliban will simply go into hiding, or vanish into the desert, or [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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