Isaac Asimov's Have Robot, Will Travel by Alexander C. Irvine

Author:Alexander C. Irvine [Irvine, Alexander C.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction, Fiction
ISBN: 0743479572
Publisher: ibooks, Inc.
Published: 2004-05-17T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER

18

Nova Boulevard was gridlocked the next morning. A demonstration in front of the Triangle had attracted seemingly half the population of the city.

Ariel attended the hearing knowing more or less exactly what would happen, and as usual her political instincts were accurate. Eza Lamina held the gavel, seven of her fellow Spacer senators made up the rest of the committee, and Vilios Kalienin remained close at hand, offering whispered advice at every break in the proceedings.

“Ambassador Burgess,” Lamina said after an hour or so of preliminaries. “Your association with the question of cyborg citizenship is terribly discrediting to what this government is trying to accomplish. It is difficult for me to understand how you can continue in your present liaison capacity, and it is even more difficult to see how your project can continue without you.”

Ariel had lost all interest in political niceties. “That’s quite a tidy assessment of the situation, Senator. You get rid of me and the only compartment of the Triangle interested in government transparency, all at one stroke.”

One of the other senators spoke. Arvid Aanesen, from Acrisia. Privately Ariel thought of him as Senator Vowel, and his speech fed into the caricature. He was the kind of politician who always spoke as if he was changing the course of human history; he thundered, he boomed, he devoted himself to the pursuit of the orotund and obfuscatory. “This is beneath you, Ms. Burgess,” he said. “The gravity of this situation demands a certain decorum from us all, but perhaps most especially from yourself.”

“You’ll excuse me if I see no reason to be decorous when I’m being scapegoated,” Ariel shot back. “A corporate citizen in good standing of this planet asked me to investigate a legal question. I am in the process of doing so. I have taken no position on the question and do not intend to. It is manifestly useless for this panel to attach to me motives imputed by subetheric parasites.”

“Who has asked you to investigate the question?” Lamina asked.

“Given the irrational response to the question,” Ariel said, “I believe it is in no one’s best interests for me to divulge that information.”

“I will remind you that you are under compulsion to answer direct inquiries here, Ms. Burgess.” This time the speaker was Brin Houser, cashiered from the Solarian diplomatic corps for profiteering on Settled worlds.

That I should be grilled by a group of corrupt exiles, Ariel thought. At least the last time people tried to scapegoat me, they had power that meant something beyond a pathogenic backwater.

“I assert that the committee has no legitimate interest in knowing the answer,” she said. “The purpose of the question is solely to widen the smear that is as of now only being perpetrated on me and my project.”

“You will answer the question, or you will be held in contempt,” Houser said, drawing the last few words out for effect.

“The committee can hold me in no greater contempt than I already feel for each of its members,” Ariel said.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.