Mirage

Twenty-One

Mia watched the argument escalate, amazed at Ariel. She had always seen her friend as impatient but controlled, usually even-tempered, never enraged and irrational. But this was a side of Ariel with which Mia had no experience. The unreasoned hatred she directed at Bogard reminded Mia more of an anti-robot fanatic than of a Spacer who ought to be at ease with robots.

"Ariel-" Derec said tightly, obviously reining in his own anger.

Ariel left the room.

Derec closed his eyes, leaning back in his chair.

"You two have known each other a long time?" Mia asked.

Derec gave a wan smile. "Too long, I sometimes think. In a way, I've known her all my life."

"You're not-"

"Related? No. It's just I-we-both had amnemonic plague. Burundi's Fever. We've been complete amnesiacs. When I had my bout, Ariel was the first human I came into contact with."

"And you were with her when she had hers?"

Derec nodded.

"So… why don't you explain this dispute to me. I didn't understand half of what you were talking about."

Derec drew a deep breath, clearly uncomfortable. "Well. I started investigating the way positronic memory works, especially in the aftermath of collapse. Sometimes you can recover a collapsed positronic brain-not often, but it can happen. There's something… unpredictable… in the way they collapse. I was curious about that."

"Having been an amnesiac have anything to do with this?"

"More than a little. What differs between human and robot is in the way we're locked into our perceptual realities. The way we interface with the world. Humans have a plasticity robots lack-we can indulge fiction, for instance, and know the difference, even when it's a full-sensory entertainment that is designed to mimic reality in the finest detail. A robot can't do that. Tell its senses that what it is perceiving is 'real,' and it acts upon that stimulus. It can't make the intuitive distinction. If what it perceives causes a conflict with its Three Law imperatives, collapse is likely unless quickly resolved."

"Even a fictional crisis?" Mia asked.

Derec nodded. "Exactly. Convince a robot a lie is real, and it has no way to treat the lie as a conditional reality pending further data, like a human does. Now in either case, unacceptable realities can cause breakdowns. Humans still suffer nervous collapses, psychotic amnesia, reactive psychoses-a variety of disorders in which the brain tries to deal with an emotional or physical shock that the mind cannot accept. It happens faster and under more concrete conditions to a robot. But in the case of humans, the attempted resolution is also an attempt to circumvent the trauma to allow the organism to continue functioning."

"Amnesia victims can still carry on living even if they can't remember who they are or where they came from."

"Simply put, yes. I wanted to see if some sort of the same mechanism could be duplicated in a positronic brain."

Mia looked over at Bogard. "It seems you succeeded."

"Not completely. What I established was a bypass, true. The memory is still there, but inaccessible to the primary matrix. I shunted it over to a buffer. Eventually, it has to be dealt with or Bogard will start suffering from diagnostic neurosis."

"What's that?"

"It's what I tried to explain to you before. A positronic brain runs a self-diagnostic every few hours. At some point, Bogard's diagnostic will register the absence of a specific memory node as a chronic problem. It won't be able to fix it, so Bogard will start feeling the need to be serviced. It can impair function."

Mia felt a ripple of anxiety. She still did not want to release Bogard. "So tell me why Ariel doesn't like this."

"Anything that tampers with the full function of the Three Laws she sees as a step away from heresy," Derec said. "In her view, by giving Bogard the ability to continue functioning in the wake of a Three Law conflict that should shut it down, I've created a monster." He grunted. "It was her work that gave me the direction to go, though."

"How's that?"

"Her doctoral thesis from Calvin. 'Three Law Conflict Under Alternative Concretizations. ' Basically, she proposed the possibility of an informational loop that is created when a robot has incomplete data which strongly suggests the necessity of action." Derec frowned. "Unfortunately, it can't make the determination of which kind of action because the information is incomplete. It starts running probability scenarios, to fill in-basically by Occam's Razor-the blanks in its information so it can make a decision. But it still can't. It can theoretically create its own delusional scenario wherein collapse is imminent based on an unreal situation. One of Ariel's inferences was that a positronic brain could be lied to on a fundamental level and thus create a false standard of reality for it. The hierarchical response to perception would be distorted. And it would be stuck in it, the loop causing a cascade of alternative perceptions."

"How would you do that? Just walk up to it and say 'By the way, black is white, and people can fly'?"

"No, the hardwiring prevents the brain from accepting that kind of input. It would have to be a more direct interference, like a virus that could change pathways in the brain structure. Something that would directly affect the positronic pathways themselves."

"Doesn't that describe what happened to the RI at Union Station?"

Derec looked worriedly at her. "Yes. That's what I wanted to see by doing the physical inspection. There's evidence of a direct intervention at certain sensory nodes, but we can't tell which ones they were."

"Could anyone have accessed your research?"

Derec shook his head, but Mia saw uncertainty in his face. The notion had occurred to him, but he did not want to give it too much consideration.

"If I understand everything you've told me so far," Mia continued, "that means that Bogard could only have malfunctioned if it had been ordered to do so. If it had been given a set of operational parameters that allowed it to perceive reality a little bit differently."

"I suppose… yes, that's logical. But-"

"So someone told it to fail. That's the only way it could have. Correct? Because it's been performing flawlessly for me."

Derec shifted uncomfortably. "I'm not sure I completely follow."

"Somehow, someone convinced Bogard that Eliton was in no danger. Someone programmed it to ignore the real situation."

"But it went into full protect mode. It enshielded Eliton."

"Bogard was linked to the RI's sensory net at the time."

Derec stared at her for a long time, then nodded. "Bogard would have been affected by the same thing that altered the RI's realtime perception. But it still enshielded Eliton…"

"It looked to me like Eliton had ordered Bogard to go protect Humadros."

"Eliton would have needed the override codes. He didn't have them, did he?"

"No… unless someone gave them to him." Mia rapped her fist on the arm of her chair. "I have to get access to the Service datum."

"There may be a way to do that. But I have to debrief Bogard before we go much further. You have to release it to me."

Mia knew he was right. Bogard carried information they needed and she did not have the skills to get to it. But she still walked painfully and badly, and she felt more vulnerable than she ever had in her life.

Bogard could not protect her forever, though. The only way to feel safe again, on her own, would be to solve this. For that, Derec needed Bogard. She had to hand it over to him.

Do Spacers feel this way all the time? she wondered. Vulnerable without their robots? Lost, insecure, incapable? Maybe it wasn't such a bad thing to get rid of them…

The thought shocked her. Robots were tools. If people had allowed themselves to become so overdependent on them that they could no longer function without them, was that the fault of the tool? Hardly. But it was always easier to change an environment than change the people who lived in it. Getting rid of robots was far easier than making the necessary-and probably beneficial-changes in people.

But what do I know? I'm just a cop, not a philosopher.

"Very well, Mr. Avery," she said. She turned to the robot. "Bogard?" Mia knocked on Ariel's bedroom door. She heard nothing and nearly returned to the living room when it opened. Ariel had changed her clothes. She had an appointment with the representative from the Settler's Coalition this afternoon, Mia remembered.

"Sorry," Ariel said.

"For what?"

Ariel shrugged, smiled, scowled, and turned away with a look of disgust, all within the space of a second. "I get a little irrational on certain subjects. I hate losing control in front of people."

"You enjoy it in private?"

Ariel looked startled, then laughed. She came out and went into the living room. She stopped and looked around. "Where are they?"

"I, uh, turned Bogard over to Derec. It was time."

Ariel nodded thoughtfully. "You know, this is the only thing Derec and I have ever disagreed on."

"I'm sure."

Ariel smiled wryly. "You're very politic. But I'm talking about serious issues, not the annoying debris that clutters up anyone's life."

"Besides bodyguard work, what else would such a robot be good for?"

"Good for? Nothing." Ariel paused. "No, that's not fair. Quite a few situations would suit a robot that was able to more loosely interpret the Three Laws. Starships rarely have mi. xed bridge crews. Usually, the robotic contingents are on stand-by till needed. It's still dangerous to travel space. Exploration, certain kinds of lab work, some heavy industries. It's feasible that where now we have to either leave it all to robots or all to people, a robot like Bogard would make it possible for a mi. xed presence. Police work, certainly. Forensics robots are lab technicians that are specifically programmed to ignore the fact that a corpse was once a human being in the sense of a person in need of protection. But those are very limited refinements, nothing like what Derec has done."

"You really disapprove," Mia said.

"It really scares me."

Silence stretched between them. Mia could find no worthwhile response to her friend's admission. She shrugged.

"We have plenty to keep us busy. You got another interesting call while you and Derec were gone." Mia ran a query through the public datum on the garage. The place was serviced under general contract by a maintenance firm called Cyvan. Cyvan Services did upkeep on a variety of storage facilities and a few government buildings. They were owned by a holding company, though: Glovax Diversified. It took time to find out who owned Glovax, but the answer, even though she would have guessed another, did not surprise her.

"Imbitek. Just like the ambulance."

"Imbitek bought the ambulance?" Ariel asked.

"Not directly. It took me the whole time you were gone to track that one down. The bid was submitted by Holden Transport and Combined Services, who took possession. But the credits came from Lexington-Siever Financial. Holden Transport banks with them, but it's not their primary account, just a short term cache for incidental expenditures. It was certainly large enough for this purchase, but the credits were replenished the next day from another in the same institution-a private account for one Nis Garvander, who sits on the board of directors of Glovax Diversified. Three days after the transfer of funds, Garvander closed his account down."

"Glovax…" Ariel mused. "So we're right back at Imbitek."

"Looks that way."

Ariel tapped her lips. "But this is still circumstantial, isn't it? After all, Imbitek suffered casualties. How come DyNan didn't?"

"Good question. Rega Looms certainly looks like the more obvious suspect."

"Which might be exactly why DyNan took no hits."

Mia looked at Ariel. "You're thinking they were set up."

Ariel nodded. Mia respected Ariel's perceptiveness. She would have made a good security specialist.

"But," Mia said, "we shouldn't discount DyNan completely. I'm trying to find out if there have been any funds exchanged between the two companies. It's still possible that DyNan engineered everything and left this trail just so we'd find it."

"I could never be a cop," Ariel said, shaking her head. "It must drive you crazy to suspect everyone all the time."

"Oh, it's not that bad. I don't suspect you."

Ariel grinned. "Thanks. It would help if we knew why this happened."

"Motive. Both those firms have motive. Positronics could directly impact their markets, and in DyNan's case there's a moral aspect."

"I don't believe anyone seriously thinks positronics will ever have the presence on Earth it once had. I've talked to Alda Mikels a couple of times. He's far too sensible to think that way."

Mia gestured at the crate with the positronic brain. "What about that?"

"Certain people will always buy things that are illegal, just to be daring. There's no doubt that Earth has enough of a market to sustain an illicit trade in positronics, but it would never support a legitimate traffic."

"But it would have an impact on interstellar trade, wouldn't it? I mean, Mikels wants to export his products. Competition with positronics isn't a big deal here, but on Settler worlds and Spacer worlds?"

Ariel pursed her lips thoughtfully. "Hmm. But the conference would have addressed those issues."

"If he trusted the outcome."

"And Rega Looms?"

"He doesn't even think we should be in space."

Ariel fell silent, deep in thought, and Mia turned her attention to the datum. The ambulance log Ariel and Derec had retrieved gave little enough information, but it was sufficient for them to construct the scenario. The false ambulance team arrived, got hold of Eliton's body, and took it back to the garage. The travel time recorded allowed for no other possibility. So they at least knew that the body lying in the morgue adjacent to Reed Hospital Complex was not Eliton's.

But, then, where was the real body?

Or was Eliton really dead?

Mia cleared her throat. "There's something else. I did a public data search on the connections between the various people in this and…" She hated her own reticence. "I found something that shouldn't be. Derec mentioned that Imbitek was doing the refit at Union Station. They started the next morning, after the attack, which is incredibly fast. I thought it had been an emergency appropriation that had been rushed through to meet the crisis, but I checked and found that the contract for the refit was part of the original deal for Union Station. When the contract was drawn up two years ago, Imbitek was the first company signed for work. There's a clause that gives them exclusivity in case of a failure."

"That sounds unbelievably foresighted. Or…"

"Or collusive. Senator Eliton-it was his committee that vetted the contract."

"Of course," Ariel said.

"It turns out that Eliton and Mikels have another connection. Mikels' son died in the military. At Ganymede. Eliton was the Brigade commandant on that action."

Ariel's eyebrows rose. "I had no idea that Eliton had been in the military."

Mia nodded. "Eliton and Mikels knew each other then. Eliton had arranged for Mikels' son to be transferred into his unit. Shortly afterward, Mikels gave him a significant share of stock in Imbitek. As far as I have been able to determine, Eliton never divested. There are nondisclosure restrictions on private actions dating back over fifteen years."

"Convenient. So Mikels and Eliton knew each other. And Eliton got Mikels' son killed. So what is this? Revenge?"

"I suppose that depends on whether or not Eliton is still alive. But if they hated each other, why would Eliton give this kind of a concession to Imbitek on Union Station?"

"Blackmail?"

Mia shrugged uncomfortably. "Which reminds me. You have an appointment to make."

Ariel looked at her quizzically. "Hmm? Oh, your acquaintance. Coren Lanra?"

"Correct."

Ariel went to the com. "Tell me about him."

"He used to be Special Service. He quit last year in protest over Senator Eliton's pro-positronic leanings. He's a committed anti-robot humanist."

"'Flesh, not steel'?"

"He wasn't quite there when he quit, but he works for Looms now."

"Why do you think he contacted me?"

"That's what we need to find out."

Ariel entered Lanra's code and waited.

"Lanra."

"Mr. Lanra, this is Ariel Burgess again." Mia started at the sound of Ariel's voice; she was making it rough and gravelly. "Where would you be comfortable meeting?"

There was a long pause. "Are you sure you want to? Your voice sounds-"

"It's been a long day and I've been talking most of it, Mr. Lanra. That's the kind of job I have. Now, if you please?"

"I see. All right. Um… do you know Sullivan's?"

"Very well."

"In… four hours?"

"How will I know you?"

"I know you. I'll meet you."

The connection broke and Ariel cleared her throat.

"Why'd you do that?" Mia asked.

"You and I don't sound that much alike. Now what?"

Mia looked at the assortment of devices Ariel had gotten, some from a specialty dealer Mia knew, others from her own embassy security people, and wondered if it would be enough. She picked up a transceiver pair and rolled the small beads around in the palm of her hand. They were good for several kilometers. She sighed and held them out to Ariel.

"We meet him at Sullivan's." Sullivan's occupied three floors of the Lexington-Coriolis Hotel and offered a view of the Mall just south of the ancient Lincoln Memorial. Mia could not remember now if the Memorial was one of the reconstructions or the original. A good part of the old Washington D. C. had been destroyed in the Riot Years, during which, among other things, robots were banned from Earth. It looked crowded and out-of-place beneath the enclosing roof that now covered all urban habitats on Earth. The Mall itself was an anachronism, a holdover of a time known now only to professional historians and a few antiquarian enthusiasts. It served more as a reminder that there had been a past than what that past meant.

Mia sat by the terrace on the second level, alone at a small table. She had been terrified when she stepped out of the embassy. Her leg still ached, but Ariel had gotten her painkillers and an adrenal analog in case she needed to move faster than she should. Still, she was not one hundred percent and she felt open and vulnerable.

But the terror subsided and it felt good to be out. She was Doing Something and it surprised her how much she had missed that feeling.

She absently scratched her left ear and pressed the small bead more firmly in. Ariel wore the other of the pair as a pin on her jacket.

The other tool Mia had brought along rested inside her jacket -a short, blunt tube that projected a jolt of electricity, enough to stun. She had wanted to bring a sidearm, but decided against it -this time.

"Ms. Burgess?" said a male voice through the transceiver.

Mia casually looked toward Ariel's table, in the center of the main dining room. Lanra stood there now, introducing himself.

"Yes?" Ariel said.

"I'm Coren Lanra, chief of security for DyNan Manual Industries."

"Pleased to meet you." Ariel gestured for him to sit. "I appreciate you coming to talk. I realize that you've got a busy schedule."

"I do, Mr. Lanra, so please make the time count."

Lanra grinned slightly, apparently surprised by Ariel's abruptness. "Yes, well. My employers are concerned at the reaction over the Union Station incident. Certain charges are being made. They fear arrests are imminent."

"And why would that be?"

"You saw the recordings? No one from our group was injured. Every other group suffered casualties, but not one of our people was shot."

"You make that sound like a bad thing. "

"In this instance, it is. We look very culpable."

"Are you?"

"No." Pause. "You don't believe me."

"I think I could accept that you aren't culpable, Mr. Lanra, at least not directly," Ariel replied. "But Looms has been railing against Spacers and robots since I've been here and, I'm assured, long before that. He's been very explicit in his desire to cut off all contact between Earth and the Spacer worlds and to stop the exodus of Settlers. Now, on the eve of a conference which would strengthen all those ties and possibly enable an even freer exchange of immigrants and ideas, he and his entourage are the only ones untouched by assassins, who themselves may be affiliated with a group in sympathy with Mr. Looms' own Church. Tell me that doesn't make a persuasive case against him."

Lanra nodded. "It does. It's almost perfect. And that should tell you that it's not true. How often does reality match up so well with appearances?"

"You have a different view, of course."

"Looms is on record as being opposed to any kind of technology that isolates people from direct control."

"True."

"Then why would he use that very technology to commit a crime for which he'd be likely to be implicated? And where would he get the expertise to implement it?"

"Expertise can be bought," Ariel noted.

"To what end? Close down a conference that might give him the best platform he's ever had from which to be heard?"

Ariel shook her head. "All you're doing is arguing motive, Mr. Lanra. There is as much motive to implicate him as there is to exonerate him."

"All right, what do you think was accomplished by this assassination? What was there in this conference that was so threatening that someone would commit murder to stop it?"

"A lot of tradition, a lot of credits, a lot of territorial imperative."

"All that, yes. But it's the money. Now ask yourself: what part of the proposed treaty was most likely to pass that would cost the most money."

"Cost who?"

"Answer the first, you answer that."

"There were a lot of elements"

"Let me give you a hint. Tiberius."

"The boarding incident?"

Lanra nodded. "That almost triggered a war, yes."

"I'm not sure I follow, Mr. Lanra."

Lanra leaned toward her, folding his hands on the table. "A year-and-a-half ago, Mr. Looms was approached by a group of industrialists to join an investment portfolio being funded by certain shipping lines. Mr. Looms declined, since he disapproves of interstellar settlement and, although the money looked very good, he could not afford to appear hypocritical on this issue. Most of his own investors are members of his church and they invest in DyNan as much from ideological conviction as out of the hope for potential profit. The fact is, DyNan doesn't perform nearly as well as its closest competitors, so that loyalty is significant. We make a lot of money, but our profit margins are narrower than average. This group assured him that his participation would be entirely anonymous. In fact, all of their participation in it was anonymous and completely off-record. The profits were funneled directly into the mutual fund, loaned out, and returned as interest free payments, at which time the funds could go into any account without the hint of taint. When Mr. Looms inquired into this shipping line through other channels, he found no such line existed. Officially."

"Black market," Ariel said.

"Exactly."

"The pirates."

"Who are not, strictly speaking, pirates," Lanra pointed out. "The thefts are all prearranged. The part of the treaty that would put a damper on it was the clause concerning robotic inspection of all ships, coming or going, to any recognized colony or Spacer world."

"I'd considered that, of course. How does this let Looms off?"

"He has no investment in this enterprise and, in fact, would not mind seeing such inspection. He feels that Terrans would resent it so much that it would significantly reduce trade. In time, it could curtail colonization. Hurt both enough, and you might see the day when Earth can extricate itself from involvement with Spacers and Settlers."

"That seems a bit optimistic, don't you think?" Ariel asked.

"Maybe. All I'm concerned with here is that it reduces Rega Looms' culpability."

"Disrupting the conference could accomplish the same thing, though. Give me something more concrete."

Lanra shook his head. "I can't. I'm looking into it, but right now I can't. I needed to see you to find out what you intend to do."

Ariel raised her eyebrows. "Me?"

"Spacers."

"We're hardly a monolith, Mr. Lanra. My own people are taking a wait-and-see approach. When and if the Terran authorities make arrests, then we can see."

"They're likely to arrest Rega Looms. What then?"

"It's a question of evidence."

"Look," Lanra said. "Mr. Looms is not especially liked here, either."

"What do you mean, 'either'?"

"Like Spacers. See, people want stability, they want comfort, they want reassurance. They don't want disruption. Change scares them. The way things are right now, it's fairly comfortable. Both you and my employer advocate changes. Whoever is setting this up will give the people something they want-two avenues of unwelcome change closed down. Who's going to be on Rega Looms' side in this when he's been telling people for years what lazy bastards they've been because they won't peel their own potatoes or make their own clothes? He sees the average technological environment today as no better than one with positronics. People resent it -enough to not care that he might not be guilty."

"He's the perfect scapegoat, in other words," Ariel said.

"As you say."

"You still haven't given me an alternative."

"Alda Mikels."

"Imbitek? Why would he?"

"You should look at his finances. And you should look at your own people. This didn't happen entirely here on Earth. The black market exists to serve Spacers and Settlers as well as Terrans."

"You're very good at making broad claims that you can't back up," Ariel said dryly.

"There's a very, very old saying on Earth, Ms. Burgess: 'Follow the money. ' "

Lanra stood then. "Thanks for meeting with me. I hope it wasn't fruitless."

Mia watched him cross the dining room. Halfway toward the entrance, he did a casual turn, sweeping the room. A very professional move, one she should have seen coming, but did not. She froze in place as his gaze swept past her, then returned, briefly. She thought she saw a faint frown of puzzlement, followed by a quick smile.

Then he was gone.