Major Namm plucked at his Imperial insignia absently,
chewing on his lower lip. Vara focused on him with a hatred she had seldom felt before-but
she dared not hurt him.
“Nobody?” he asked in a gruff tone.
“I've found nobody for the last three days, ” she said. “You've scared them all away. ”
He stepped back from the edge of the balcony overlooking the crowded Trans-Dahl
thoroughfare through Fleshplay. Throngs on foot passed below the balcony, while trains and
robos on elevated rails and narrow slaveways rumbled a few meters above them, rattling the
empty apartment. Vara had been surveying the crowds from that location for seven hours;
dark was falling quickly and the bright street signs across the thoroughfare were
beginning to give her a headache. She simply wanted to sleep.
“Councilor Sinter would appreciate some results, ” the young man said.
“Farad must have some concern for my health!” Vara shot back. “If I become ill or burn
myself out, what will he do then? I'm all the ammunition he has in this little war of
his!” Her tone surprised her. She was close to the limits of her endurance. But rather
than keep the focus on Farad's need for her, she pushed the onus onto the major. “If
you're responsible for my effectiveness being reduced... What will Councilor Sinter say
then?”
The young man considered this possibility with little apparent emotion. “You're the one
who has to answer to him. I'm just here to watch over you. ”
Vara Liso held back a sharp bolt of anger. How close they come! They don't even know!
“Well, take me to a place where I can rest, ” she demanded sharply. “She's not here. I
don't know where she is. I haven't sensed her for three days!”
“Councilor Sinter is especially concerned that you should find her. You told us she was
the strongest-”
“Other than me!” Vara shouted. “But I haven't felt her!”
The blond major seemed to get it through his head that she wasn't going to work anymore
today.
“The councilor will be disappointed, ” he said, then bit his lower lip again.
Is everybody here an idiot? Vara raged inwardly, but realized anger, letting her
exhaustion control her, would get her nowhere, and could even harm her chances of getting
what she wanted from Sinter. “I need to be alone for a while, rest, not talk, ” she said
hoarsely. “We can try again tomorrow, in another Sector. I need a smaller area to work
in-a few blocks at most. We need more agents and better reports. ”
“Of course, ” the major said, matching her tone with a more reasonable approach of his
own. “Our intelligence has been a little weak. We'll try it again tomorrow. ”
“Thank you, ” she said softly. The major walked through the empty apartment and stood by
the door, holding it open for her. She was almost through the door when a sharp spike of
what she could only call envy shot through her: the sudden awareness she was close to a
fellow human with talents like her own. Her face went white, and she stammered, “N-n-not
yet. She's here!”
“Where?” the major demanded, pushing her back to the window.
“Yes, yes, yes, ” Vara muttered as he propelled her. They treat me like a despicable runt!
But the excitement of the chase was strong. She pointed a trembling finger and wiped her
lips with the back of her other hand. “Down there! She's close!”
The agent peered down into the crowd, following the line of the small woman's finger. He
saw a female figure, swift and almost colorless, dart through the crowds toward the
entrance of a plunger.
Immediately, he used his comm to alert other agents on the street below.
“You're sure?” he demanded of Vara, but she could only point and rub her lips, the
sensation was so great. She had to
work hard to keep from trembling. She hated this sensation- had come to know it whenever
she was around the others in Wanda and Stettin's group, but never as strongly as this.
Envy like an ache in her chest, as if this girl could steal everything in life from her
and leave only empty expectations and endless disappointment!
“Her!” she said. “Get her, please!”
Something made Klia's scalp feel as if it were on fire, and she cried out as she darted
into the plunger cab. Two older men with heavy black-and-gray mustaches looked at her with
mild concern.
Klia could not see over their shoulders. She jumped and caught a glimpse of two
square-featured men running as fast as they could toward the open plunger doors. The doors
started to close; the agents shouted for it to stop, and even flashed code blinkers to
take control of the mechanism.
Klia dug into her pocket and produced a maintenance key, illegal but standard issue for
couriers. The elevator doors hesitated, then stopped. She plunged her key into the control
panel and shouted, “Emergency! Down now!”
The doors resumed closing. The two men could not make it and pounded on the outside,
shouting for her to stop.
The older males gave her a wide berth. “Where would you like to get off?” she asked
breathlessly, smiling.
“The next level, please, ” one of them said.
“Fine. ” She gave the plunger its instructions, then made the older males forget they had
seen her or experienced anything out of the ordinary.
They stepped out onto the next level, and she quickly ordered the doors to close again.
With a sigh, she leaned against the dirt-smeared wall. A scratchy mechanical voice said,
“Emergency instructions. Which maintenance level?”
She reached out with all her strength and found spots of
trouble for many levels above and below. Her scalp still hurt. She had to get out of range
of the teams sent to find her. There was only one likely direction-down.
“Bottom, ” she answered. “Zero. ”
Four kilometers beneath all the occupied levels-
The suburban rivers.
Tritch met Mors Planch in neutral territory, far from the hold but aft of the crew
quarters, in a weightless service hallway. If she had hoped to have him at a disadvantage
in weightless conditions, she had hoped in vain; Planch was as much at home weightless as
in standard gravitation.
“Your corpse has some remarkable talents, ” she said as Planch pushed into view around the
curve of the bulkhead.
“Your crew suffers some remarkable ethical lapses, ” Planch replied.
Tritch shrugged. “Ambition is a constant curse these days. I found Gela Andanch outside
the hold, in very bad condition. He's stable now in the infirmary. ”
Planch nodded; Lodovik had not heard the man's name, and had just happened to run into
Planch while carrying the limp body forward. Planch had taken Andanch and told Lodovik to
return to the hold. Presumably, he was still there.
“What were they looking for?”
“Someone paid them off, ” Tritch said lightly. “I presume it was someone opposed to the
party or parties paying you. If they delivered Lodovik Trema, they'd each get fifty times
what I pay them in a standard year. That's a lot of money, even for Imperial corruption. ”
“What are you going to do with them?” Planch asked.
"I presume they would have taken the ship and put us out of action, maybe killed us. Trin
is in my cabin now, drinking
heavily-and not Trillian, either. When she's drunk enough, I might just toss her out of
the hold over Trantor, and hope she burns up over the Palace. “ Tritch's eyelids fluttered
slightly, and her lips grew tight. ”She was a good first mate. My problem now is, what
should I do with you?"
“I haven't betrayed you, ” Planch said.
“And you haven't told me the truth. Whatever Lodovik Trema is, he isn't human. Trin is
babbling about simulacra, robots. Whoever paid her off told her she'd be looking for
mechanical men. What do you know about robots?”
“He's not a robot, ” Planch said with a shake of his head and a smile. “Nobody makes
robots anymore. ”
“In our nightmares, ” Tritch said. “Class B filmbooks. Tiktoks with mutated brains bent on
mindless revenge. But Lodovik Trema... first councilor to the Chief Commissioner of Public
Safety?”
“It's nonsense, ” Planch said shortly, as if this entire conversation was beneath his
dignity.
“I looked it up, Mors. ” Tritch's face suddenly became sad, assuming a kind of limpness
away from the draw of gravitation. “You were right. Neutrinos in sufficient numbers are
deadly. And there's no shielding against neutrino flux. ”
“He's dying, ” Planch lied. “His condition in any case has to be kept secret. ”
Tritch shook her head. “I don't believe you. But I'm going to keep my word and drop you on
Madder Loss. ” She mused for a moment. “Maybe I'll drop Trin and Andanch there with you,
let you all work things out. Now go confer with your dead minister. ”
She turned and headed forward.
“What about getting back into my cabin?” Planch said.
“I'll send food and a cot back to the hold. If I let someone who consorts with a living
corpse go forward, I'd have a mutiny on my hands. We'll be at Madder Loss in a day and a
half. ”
Planch shuddered as she passed out of sight. He, too, didn't like associating with Lodovik
Trema. Tritch was perfectly correct.
Nobody aboard the Arrow of Destiny could have survived. Nobody human.
Lodovik stood in the hold beside his box, hands folded, waiting for Planch to return. By
his actions, Lodovik had apparently brought severe harm to a human being, and yet the
expected difficulties of such a situation-decrease in mental frequency, critical
reexamination, and under extreme circumstances, even complete shut-down-did not affect him
much, if at all. Even allowing for the extended nature of his long-term mission for
Daneel-and under the provisions of the Zeroth Law-there should have been deeply
uncomfortable repercussions.
Yet there were none to speak of. Lodovik felt calm and fully functional. He did not feel
contented-he had caused damage and was aware of that, quite clearly-but he experienced
nothing like the near-paralyzing realization of having broken one of the Calvinian Three
Laws.
Clearly, something within him had changed. He was trying to track down what that might be
when Planch returned.
“We're stuck back here for the duration, ” Planch said matter-of-factly. “I had a very
nice cabin, too. And the captain and I were... ” He shook his head sadly, then his
features sharpened. “Never mind. Something is very wrong with this whole scenario. ”
“What might that be?” Lodovik asked. He stretched and smiled. The human persona slid
smoothly over all his other functions. The box was cramped, but I've spent time in worse
conditions. I emerged at the wrong moment, I suppose?"
“No supposing about it. The man suffered a heart attack. ”
“I'm very sorry. But they were up to no good, I'm afraid. ”
“Someone else wants you, alive or dead, ” Planch said. “I thought the Chief Commissioner
of Public Safety was pretty much unassailable. Invincible. ”
“Nobody is invincible in this forsaken time, ” Lodovik said. “I apologize for causing you
difficulties. ”
Planch stared hard at Lodovik. “Up until now I've ignored all my misapprehensions about
this mission, about you. In Imperial politics, anything can happen-individuals can be
worth entire solar systems. That's how centralized politics works. ”
“Surely you're not a diffusionist, Mors Planch?”
“No. There's no money and not much life in being a traitor to Linge Chen. ”
“You mean, to the Emperor. ”
Planch did not correct himself. “My curiosity has been piqued to dangerous levels,
however. Curiosity is like neutrino flux-it can penetrate anything, and in sufficient
quantity, it can kill. I'm aware of that... But my curiosity about you... ” He clamped his
jaw shut and looked away.
“I'm a middle-aged man with extraordinary good fortune, let's leave it at that, ” Lodovik
said, making a wry face. “There are things neither you nor I can be told... and we would
be best served by keeping our curiosities in check. Yes, I should be dead. I know that
better than anybody. The reason I am not dead, however, has nothing to do with
extraordinary superstitions about... what was it... robots? You can rest assured on that
point, Mors Planch. ”
“This isn't the first I've heard about robots, you know, ” Planch said. “Murmurs about
artificial humans sweep the worlds from time to time, like a dusty breeze. Thirty-five
years ago, there was a massacre in a Seventh Octant system. Four planets were involved,
quite prosperous worlds, united by a proud common culture, shaping up to be a real force
in Imperial economics. ”
“I remember, ” Lodovik said. "The ruler claimed he had
positive proof that robots had infiltrated to the highest levels, and were fomenting
rebellion. Very sad. "
“Billions died, ” Mors Planch said.
Lodovik said, “I presume you will be paid well for your heroic rescue. ”
Planch's face went slack. “That's the trouble with this whole situation, ” he said. "The
captain and crew don't like us. Honor is a sometimes thing with these people, and I should
know... It's the same with my people, ancestral traits as it were. They'll take us where
we want to go, but there's always a chance they'll talk out of turn in a spaceport
somewhere... And there's nothing I can do about that. But it's all incredible enough, I
suppose nobody will believe. I wouldn't myself.
“I've told Linge Chen you're dead. The rescue failed. ”
Lodovik drew his head back, pressing his chin into double folds of flesh. “And we go to
Madder Loss?”
Planch nodded. A look of sadness crossed his face, but he said no more.
Linge Chen was preparing for the informal dinner party at the Emperor's private quarters
when Kreen brought him the sealed message from Planch. In the green oceanic depths of his
meditation and personal room, he put aside the straight razor and soap he was using to
shave, took a deep breath as Kreen departed, and placed his thumb on the small gray
parcel. The first seal, applied by the receiver and decoder, came open at this
touch-confirming his unique identity through microanalysis of his skin chemistry, as well
as the pattern of his thumbprint. The second seal, within the disk's message itself, he
opened through a few words spoken in his voice, known only to himself. The message
flowered before him.