Asimov, Isaac - Foundation Series 11 Isaac Asimovs Inferno by Asimov Isaac

Author:Asimov, Isaac
Language: eng
Format: epub

Page 70

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"Caliban isn't a New Law robot-"

"Burning hells, I know that better than anyone!" Kresh snapped. "But maybe he decided not to take chances on being caught up in a roundup. Or maybe he just acted in sympathy to the plight of his New Law brethren. It's a possible motive, and the two of them are definite suspects."

"But you can't just decide they did it. Any number of humans might have-"

"I said they were suspects, not the suspects," Kresh said. "Even if I were convinced they did it-and I'm not-I wouldn't dare stop investigating other possibilities. Not until the other shoe drops. Suppose it wasn't the robots?

Suppose humans did this job? What was their motive? Have they achieved it with Grieg's death, or is there more to follow? Is it a coup, or a simple assassination?"

"A coup? Stars above, I hadn't even thought of that," Fredda said.

"I haven't thought of much else," Kresh said. "But I'll tell you this-with every minute that passes, it becomes less likely that it was-is-a coup. If you're attempting to overthrow a government, you don't give it time to recover from the first blow before you strike again. Unless something has gone wrong with their plans. Or unless-hellfire, that's a tough one."

"What's a tough one?" Fredda demanded.

"Suppose the public announcement of Grieg's death is the signal for their next move?"

"Well, there's some chance of that," Devray agreed. "I doubt the killers expected the body would be discovered so soon-or that you would discover it.

They set up the image box to do the comm simulation, after all. "

"Yes," Fredda said. "Probably the killers weren't expecting discovery until this morning. " She looked up at Kresh and shrugged. "Maybe it was Tierlaw who was supposed to find the body. Unless Tierlaw did it and was planning to pretend to discover the body this morning. Except Donald said his monitors showed that Tierlaw was telling the truth."

"Don't trust Donald's sensors that far," Kresh said. "A trained man could beat his sensors-or any lie-detector system, short of a Psychic Probe. But Tierlaw could have been set up, a useful idiot. "

"How the devil can an idiot be useful?" Fredda asked.

"By being worse than useless to your opposition. Maybe we're supposed to pay so much attention to Tierlaw that we let the real perpetrators get away. But that's giving them an awful lot of credit, and assumes an incredibly complex and fragile plot. My guess is that the assassins are completely unaware of Tierlaw's existence, and he is telling the precise truth: He had nothing to do with it, and he slept through the whole thing. But don't worry, we're going to hold him and check him out all the same."

"If you're right," Devray said, "then how was the body supposed to be discovered? The plotters had to have thought about it. What were they expecting?"

"Well," Fredda said, "all the regular household robots had been ordered to clear off to an outbuilding for the night of the party.

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