"Allen, Roger Macbride - 01 - Isaac Asimov's Caliban" - читать интересную книгу автора (Allen Roger Macbride)

Then there was industrial espionage, more than likely the motive for the attack on Fredda Leving. If there was little original research performed on Inferno, that just made the little that was done that much more precious.
But none of these motives would have much force if not for another factor, one that, in AlvarТs opinion, few observers and theorists gave anywhere near sufficient weight: Boredom.
There was nothing much to do on a Spacer world. There were certain personality types that did not adapt well to the endless leisure, the endless robotic protection and pampering. Some small fraction of such types became thrillseekers.
There was one last thing to throw into the mix, of course--the Settlers. They had been here just over a standard year, and the SheriffТs Department had never been busier. There had been endless barroom brawls, scuffles in the street, mass demonstrations--and riots.
Such as the one they were coming up on now. They were nearly at Settlertown.
Kresh let Donald take the controls. He wanted to be able to see it all from the air, watch the riot in progress, learn the pattern, learn how to counter the IronheadsТ latest moves. He had to keep one step ahead of them, keep them from getting completely out of control.
Which was ironic, of course, because he believed in everything the Ironheads professed. But a lawman could not let his politics prevent him from quashing a riot.
Settlertown. Now there was a mad lapse of policy, one that could only result in the sort of strife that had apparently just broken out again. Chanto Grieg and the City Council had granted the Settlers an enclave inside Hades, given them a large tract of unused land, meant for an industrial park that had never been built. If Grieg had to have the damned Settlers on the planet, why in the devilТs name couldnТt he have granted them an enclave well and safely outside the city limits? Putting them inside Hades was an incitement to riot all by itself.
But no, Grieg let the Settlers in, and the Settlers went to work. And there, coming into view at the horizon, was the result, barely a year after the land was granted. No building in view, of course, but that was deceiving. The Settlers preferred to put their buildings underground, leaving the landscape undisturbed. And if there was no landscape to speak of, why, then, they would build one.
AlvarТs eyes dropped from the horizon to watch the landscape below. The city of Hades swept past, its proud towers a bit tired and sand-blown, many of its parks faded about the edges, the empty quarters at the edge of town fading from sight on the horizon behind them. And then, up ahead, coming up fast, Settlertown swept to the fore, a sword of green seeming to point at the brown heart of Hades, a huge and idyllic park of great meadows, proud newborn forests of seedlings, the very air over it softened by the mists of its lakes and ponds.
Incredible, simply incredible, what they had accomplished in a bare year--and without the use of a single robot. Spacers tended to equate robots with machines, and thus Spacers wondered how the Settlers managed without machines. Obviously that was a misconception. The Settlers used highly automated systems and hardware. Those forests had been planted by machines, not stoop labor. The catch was that none of the Settler machines were remotely like Spacer robots. They had virtually no capacity for thought or independent action. The most sophisticated of Settler computer systems would not even register on any of the robotic intelligence tests.
But the lesson of Settlertown was plain: Dumb machines could do a great deal in the hands of smart, determined people. Alvar Kresh looked down at the green and growing place and wondered: Had there truly ever been a time when the Spacers had been so energetic, so ambitious? What had happened that made the Spacers doze off and let history move past them?
Yes, Settlertown was a most impressive lesson, but there were those Spacers who did not appreciate being educated. There, near the southern gate of the enclave. A plume of black smoke was rising, a small fleet of sky-blue deputyТs cars circling around it. ДTake us in, Donald,У Alvar said, quite needlessly pointing toward the gleam of fire on the ground. Donald was already guiding the aircar down, setting it into a broad circle over the center of the disturbance. Another protest rally against the Settlers, obviously enough. The protesters had a good fire going this time, made out of pulled-up park benches, trash brought along for the purpose, and whatever else burnable they might find. It looked like two dummies of some sort were being dangled in the fire on the ends of long poles.
Kresh pulled a pair of farviewers out of the aircarТs gearbag and put them to his eyes. ДIronheads,У he announced. ДBurning Grieg in effigy again, by the looks of it,У he said, offering the commentary even though he knew perfectly well DonaldТs vision was superior to his own. The robot needed merely to increase the magnification of one or both of his eyes. Д And another figure being burned next to him. Maybe Tonya Welton. At least it isnТt me this time. Good.У For a moment, Kresh had feared that word of the attack on Leving had gotten out, in spite of the news blackout he had ordered. But none of the banners he could see mentioned Leving, or anything about the attack.
Unless the Ironheads had found out about her connection to the Settlers and taken their revenge. That would give them a motive for keeping quiet.
ДSir,У Donald said, Дto the rear of the bonfire--У
Kresh swung his viewers around and swore. ДBurning hellfire, thatТs just great. ThatТll make the Settlers just happy as could be.У There was a group of masked Ironheads off in a copse of young trees, destroying as many of the saplings as they could, firing point-blank at their trunks with blasters. Not even dragging them back for fuel, which would almost make some sense. But no, this was just wanton destruction for the hell of it. Damned idiots. The Settlers loved their trees, yes, and killing a few would get them mad. But didnТt it occur to the Ironheads that a group of people preparing to reterraform a planet would have the capacity to replace a few trees? And what sort of idiots would kill trees on a planet with a weakened ecology?
Fools. Maybe, with a little luck, theyТd take a few of themselves out with sloppy cross fire. It made Kresh more than a little uncomfortable that he agreed with the Ironhead philosophy. Yes, fine, make more robots, better robots, give the Infernals a real chance to revive the terraforming before handing the job over to outsiders. That all made sense. But politics did not excuse vandalism. Kresh reached for the aircarТs comm mike, but even before he could give the order, one of the circling deputyТs cars dove down almost to treetop level, pumping out a cloud of trank-gas behind itself. The Ironheads scattered, but one or two were dropped by the gas, unable to outrun it. Another deputyТ s car swept down to a landing. Two deputies jumped out and had the unconscious protesters cuffed and ready for pickup in seconds. Their aircar was already back in the air, in pursuit of the escaping Ironheads. Meanwhile, a fire department airtruck was coming in. It fired twin water cannons at the bonfire and the effigies. More deputyТ s cars landed. Deputies poured out and started rounding up the protesters. Good. Good. Kresh was glad to see his people doing so well.
This was work for humans, no question about it. Riot control was something that robots simply could not do. Which was why, of course, there were still human police. Sheriffs and deputies had to be ready to do a lot of things that broke the First Law.
Kresh watched his people at work with real pride. There had been no need for him to command or direct. They were getting this sort of operation down to a science. But there was a dark side to that truth. How could they not get better? The devil himself knew they were getting enough practice.
ДLetТs land this thing, Donald,У he said. Д As long as weТre here, we might as well pay a call on Madame Welton. Call ahead to her.У

TONYA Welton was there on the ground, looking up, watching their aircar land. She was standing by the main entrance shaft to Settlertown, waiting for them. There was something missing about her, Kresh thought, something that should have been there. Then it came to him. Her robot, Ariel. No Spacer would go out of doors without at least one robot in attendance, and in the city Tonya kept to that convention. But here, on her own turf, perhaps she felt she could avoid Spacer absurdities.
The aircar set down. Man and robot disembarked.
ДSheriff Kresh, Donald 111,У Tonya said. ДWelcome to our humble abode. Come in, come in out of that frightful cloud of smoke your friends have dumped into the atmosphere.У
ДThe Ironheads arenТt my friends,У Kresh said, stepping forward. He and Donald followed her into the elevator car for the ride down.
ДNo, I doubt that a policeman would approve of their tactics,У Welton said. ДBut surely you donТt pretend to be opposed to their goals.У
The doors slid shut, and the elevator began its high-speed descent to the interior of Settlertown. The ride always did odd things to AlvarТs stomach and inner ears. Or maybe it was just that he didnТt like the idea of being a half kilometer underground.
He shoved those thoughts from his mind and answered the Settler leader. ДNo, maТam, I donТt,У Kresh said. ДThey want you people out of here, they want Governor Grieg to use robots, not Settlers, to reterraform Inferno, and they want Inferno to be a Spacer world, not some half-breed between Spacer and Settler. They believe that such a situation could only be an interlude until your people took over completely. I believe all those things, too. But the ends do not justify the means. Savagery has no place in a political debate.У
Tonya looked at the Sheriff with a smile that was not entirely at ease with itself. ДWell said, Sheriff Kresh. What a pity Chanto Grieg is only a year into his first term. You would make quite an opposition candidate.У
ДThe thought had crossed my mind,У Alvar said, drawing himself up to his full height and staring straight ahead. ДSomeone will have to take him on sooner or later. But the next election will be time enough.У
ДIt sounds like an exciting campaign,У Tonya said dryly. The elevator door slid open and Tonya Welton led them out into a large open space underground. It was a huge, vaulted space, to KreshТ s eye perhaps a kilometer long and half that wide. There was an elaborate false sky overhead which seemed to be mimicking the true conditions in the real sky--from the gleaming sun down to the column of smoke still rising from the direction of the Ironhead demonstration. Welton noticed Kresh looking upward. ДYes, the real-time simulation is a new touch since the last time you were here. The theory is it will be much less disorienting to go back and forth between Settlertown and Hades if our undersky matches the real one precisely. With just the generalized day-night sky program we had before, moving from inside to outside got quite confusing.У
ДHmmph.У Alvar looked around, feeling most unhappy. perhaps his eyes saw the wide-open spaces of the great cavern, but his mind was aware of every single gram of the millions of kilograms of rock over his head. ДI suppose it might help, but I find this place sufficiently disorienting no matter what is projected on your false sky. How can you bear to live underground?У
Tonya gestured grandly about the huge artificial cavern. Brilliant simulated sunlight shone down on a pretty little park. A fountain jetted a stream of water into the air, a breeze tickled her hair. Small, handsomely designed buildings were dotted here and there about the landscape. ДWe Settlers are quite used to life below ground. And besides, you can hardly argue that this place is some dank, dismal dungeon. These days, we are able to make our underground homes seem quite like the surface, without interfering with the landscape or suffering the inconveniences of bad weather. Your dust storms cannot touch us here. But we have other matters to discuss. Come.У
She led them from the bottom of the elevator shaft to a waiting runcart. She sat down in it and waited for Alvar and Donald to do the same. They did so--Alvar next to her in the front seat, Donald in the back--and the cart took off with no apparent command from Tonya. It drove them through the central cavern and into a broad side tunnel. It stopped outside her outer office.
Alvar resisted the temptation to renew the endless philosophical argument Settlers and Infernals had been having since the day the Settlers arrived. The argument about the cart, and all the other Дsmart,У nonrobotic, automated hardware the Settlers used. It still seemed suicidally dangerous to trust to automatic devices that did not contain the Three Laws, but the Settlers took a perverse pride in the knowledge that their machines would not prevent people from killing themselves--as if that were a useful design feature. Yes, nonsentient machinery left more scope for human initiative--but what benefit if all that scope gave you was more chances to get squashed like a bug in a crash?
The three of them disembarked and went through the ornately carved glass double doors into the reception area, and then through to WeltonТs surprisingly austere office. Most places in Settlertown were comfortable, even downright luxurious--except for the lack of robots--but Welton seemed to like things kept to a minimum. There was not so much as a desk in the room, at least at the moment, though Kresh knew a worktable could be extruded from the wall quickly enough. There was nothing but four chairs in a circle with a low, round table in the center.
It seemed to Alvar that the furniture had been rearranged every time he came in here, in accordance with whatever sort of use to which the room was to be put--working office, meeting room, dinner reception, whatever. A Spacer would have had a room for each function. Perhaps this was a cultural holdover from when the SettlersТ underground cities were more cramped. Or perhaps the mock austerity was a mere affectation on Welton С s part. Kresh noted one addition to the room since the last time he had been here. A very standard robot niche, occupied by Ariel at the moment.
Tonya noticed Kresh looking at Ariel and shrugged irritably. ДWell, I had to have some place for her when she is off duty. She herself suggested the niche, and it seemed as good a place as any. I believe she has herself on standby at the moment. Ariel?У
There was no answer. Kresh raised an eyebrow. ДYou let your robot go into standby whenever it chooses?У
ДAriel, poor thing, serves no other purpose than to act as window dressing when I go out among the Spacers. It upsets your people no end to see someone without a robot in attendance. It made it almost impossible to do my work. She calms the passersby a bit. Otherwise, she has no other duties, and I let her do what she pleases. If she wishes to be dormant for a while, so be it. But come, we have much to discuss.У
Alvar Kresh was more than a bit unsettled by the arrangement with Ariel. Every robot was ordered into standby once in a while, to conserve power or for maintenance, but he had never heard of a robot going into standby on its own. In standby, how could a robot obey the First and Second Laws? Well, no matter, let Welton make her own arrangements. No doubt she told Ariel to choose her own standby times in such a way that Ariel considered it an order. No matter. It was time for business.
He took a seat, and Tonya Welton took the seat opposite. Donald, as a matter of course, remained standing. But Welton would have none of that. ДDonald, sit down,У she said. Donald obeyed and Alvar gritted his teeth, determined not to be annoyed. Tonya Welton knew damn well that it would irritate him to have Donald treated as an equal. She was doing it deliberately.
ДNow then,У she said. ДStarting with your Ironheads, Sheriff. This is the most serious and violent demonstration they have mounted. Can you give me any assurance that these provocations will end?У
Kresh shifted uncomfortably in his seat. ДNo,У he said at last. ДI donТt see much point in my pretending otherwise. There are literally thousands of years of animosity built up between your people and mine. Our people considered yours to be subhuman for a long time, and I suspect Сsome Settlers have had that opinion of us. I think we are all past that stage now, but the fact remains that we donТt like each other. Prejudices remain. There is also a great deal of resentment over the behavior of the Settlers on Inferno.У
ДI cannot see that my people have been overly rude or disrespectful--though I, too, have my uncontrollable hotheads. You picked up a mob of robot bashers just last week. Is it their actions that is causing the resentment? I have done all I could to punish such actions quickly and publicly.У
ДGangs of drunken Settlers wandering the streets of Hades, destroying valuable robots, have not helped your cause,У Kresh said dryly. ДHowever, I am willing to accept the point that you cannot control your people--the devil knows I canТt control mine. I am even prepared to believe that a terraforming project might well require some rough-and-ready sorts to make it work. The sort that might find ordering a robot to commit suicide amusing.У He glared at her, but she displayed no reaction.
ДNone of the bashing incidents have been good public relations for you,У he went on. ДBut the root cause of resentment is your very presence, your annoying self -confidence that you can so easily solve the climate problems that have bedeviled us.У He made a gesture with his right hand, indicating all of the vast underground settlement he was in. ДThe casual way in which you built this place was disconcerting. And I might add it seems a very permanent home for Сa group that does not intend to--ah--settle permanently.У
Tonya Welton nodded thoughtfully. ДI have heard all these points before, and they are good ones. But must we act as if we donТt know what we are doing, just to salve the feelings of the Infernals? We have assembled the finest experts on terraforming from all the leading Settler worlds. They are good, they are skilled, and they brought their equipment. They used it to build their own--temporary-dwelling place. Would you trust the rebuilding of your world to people who were unsure of their skills? Or to people who could not excavate a simple cavern?У Tonya gestured toward Ariel, inert in her niche. ДYou have seen to it that many of us have robots, to convince us of the worth of your lifestyle. When we go, and leave this place behind as a gift to the city of Hades, we hope that some number of your people will take up residence, and see the advantages of our way of life.У
ДThere is little chance of that,У Kresh said, a bit too sharply.