Inferno

“Yes, sir. Might I ask how we are going to prevent them from corning here on their own?”

“We aren’t going to tell them what’s happened, that’s how. Not until my people and my robots are here, and we’ve started an investigation I can trust. We can use the room where we met with Tonya Welton for our command post. ” Alvar Kresh considered the risks he was ru

But that didn’t matter. If he could sit on this thing long enough, even just two or three hours, that would be enough to protect the investigation, get his deputies well enough entrenched and in charge so that the SSS or the Rangers would not be able to kick them out.

They solved the most minor part of the mystery first, a question so minor that it could barely be dignified by the name mystery. Still, it was nice to know how Grieg had managed to answer the phone after he was dead, and the details of the answer might lead them somewhere. Kresh found a miniature Settler-made image box, a rather sophisticated one, hooked into the comm system. It was sitting on a side table in the bedroom, plugged into the room’s comm jack. The fact that it was Settler-made meant nothing, of course. Image processors and sim units were in common use for many legitimate purposes. If anything, the use of a Settler unit suggested a Spacer involvement in the case, an attempt to throw off the scent. Actually, it was more likely the plotters had chosen that model because it was a cube about ten centimeters square, small enough to be easily smuggled into the Residence.

Kresh was tempted to examine the box himself, but he knew that was a job for the lab techs. They might well be able to tell something from the way it was programmed-and they would be better able than he to overcome any booby-trapping in the software. He left it alone. It occurred to him that it might even prove useful to leave it in place. If anyone called, and it managed to fool them, that could be all to the good, if it kept the Rangers and SSS out of here a bit longer.

Was he right to suspect them? What was it that he suspected them of? Conspiracy to kill the Governor? It seemed outlandish, but the night had already been full of suspicious incidents. It had to be that the staged attack on Welton had something to do with it, that Huthwitz had been killed as part of the same plot, but Kresh could see no way to thread them all together.

And if not the SSS or Rangers, then who had done it? Kresh could come up with any number of suspects, starting with the Ironheads, or some lunatic faction of Ironheads, down to practically any fed-up robot owner.

Who knew who else’s toes the Governor might have stepped on? Even if you kept to Grieg’s known enemies, you still ended up with half the planet as suspects.

Time. It was turning into a question of time. What could he do in the time left to them before the deputies arrived, or before the Rangers or the SSS or the Governor’s first morning appointment arrived? The victim. Take a good hard took at the victim. Kresh went over to the bed and knelt down next to the Governor’s corpse, careful not to touch it or disturb anything. No sense making the Crime Scene robots work harder.

Grieg had been sitting up reading in bed, by the looks of it, and reading an old-fashioned print book at that. It had fallen forward into his lap, still open to the page he had been reading. The tops of the pages had been singed by the blaster shot.

Grieg was still sitting up, his head slumped forward, eyes shut, his hands fallen into his lap with the book on top of them. There was no sign that he had reacted at all, or struggled to get out of the way. He hadn’t tried to duck away from the blast or jump out of bed. Either he had been taken utterly by surprise, or he had known his attacker, perhaps even been expecting him-or her. There was a thought, and one of some delicacy, to put it mildly. Had the Governor arranged some sort of after-hours assignation? Could he have been killed by an assassin posing as a lover-or could he have been killed by, say, lover A in a jealous rage over lover B? Kresh realized he knew less about the Governor’s sex life than he should have. That to one side, it would be wise to bear in mind there were other motives for murder besides political ones.

But there was another question-the security robots. Why had they failed? How did the assassin overcome them? For that matter, how the devil had the assassin gotten into the bedroom? Kresh stepped out into the dimly lit hallway and looked down it both ways. Where had the rest of the robots gone?

Kresh walked back the way he had come, and soon had his answer. There was a slumped-over shape he had not paid much mind when he had first rushed down the hallway. It was another SPR security robot, this one blasted out as well. Except this one had not been killed with a single neat shot through the chest. It had been scorched on the left arm, had its head half-melted off, and then taken a final bum hole through the chest. Three shots at least, from increasingly close range. It looked as if this robot had been on the move, trying to react, and had nearly reached its attacker before it finally went down. Kresh felt more certain than ever that there was something suspicious about the ease with which the robots in the bedroom had died. He went farther down the hall and saw two more SPR robots, both shot through the head and the chest. The one in front of the entrance to Grieg’s office had been shot the same way.

He stepped back into the bedroom where Donald was waiting for him. “Donald,” he said, “who manufactured these security robots?”

“The models used here are manufactured by Rholand Scientific, “ Donald said-

“Good, “ Kresh said. “Then Fredda Leving can examine them without a biased opinion. Hand me the voicephone and co

“Sir, in terms of security, may I remind you that Fredda Leving was present last night and may well have had the opportunity to tamper with the robots-”

“In terms of security we will be utterly paralyzed if we are too careful. Fredda Leving was not part of this, I can tell you that straight out. ”

“I agree that the balance of probabilities weighs heavily against suspecting her,” Donald said. “However, these robots have clearly been tampered with, and she was perhaps the only person who was present who had the expertise for that job. My First Law potential does extend to preventing you doing professional harm to yourself, and to the potential harm to others if an investigation this serious and dangerous were suborned. I must therefore point out there is no logical basis upon which she can be excluded absolutely.”

Kresh took a deep breath and forced himself not to explode. Handling robots could be a damned nuisance, but it was only made doubly hard by losing one’s patience. Of course the same thing was true of people: You were forced to deal with unreasonable demands by being excessively reasonable. “Donald,” he said in a calm, slow voice. “I agree with you that there is no logical basis for excluding Fredda Leving as a suspect. However, I can assure you that there are reasons, outside of logic, that make me utterly certain she had nothing to do with this.”

“Sir, you have said yourself, many times, that any human being is capable of murder.”

“But I have also said that no one human is capable of every murder. Fredda Leving might kill to defend herself, or in a fit of passion, but she is incapable of involving herself in this level of brutality. Nor is she much good as a conspirator, and this was clearly a conspiracy. Fredda Leving was not capable of this killing, and she would have no motive for it. Indeed, I ca