restrictors from a New Law robot's body. With the restrictor in place, a New Law simply shut down if it moved outside the prescribed radius of the restrictor control signal beamed from the central peak of Purgatory Island. With the right money paid, and the restrictor taken out, a New Law robot could go anywhere it pleased.
If it could manage to find a way off the island. Which is where men such as Fiyle came into the equation.
Fiyle lifted one of the stacks out and counted it, slowly and carefully, and placed it back in the case. He repeated the procedure with each of the other stacks. At last, satisfied, he closed the case.
"It's all there," he said as he stood.
"Yes, it is," Prospero agreed, handing the light back. "Shall we get on with the business at hand?"
"By all means," the man said, grinning evilly. "My ship will be tied up at the North Quay. Slip Fourteen. At 0300 hours, the guard watching the security screens is all of a sudden not going to be feeling so good. His staff robot will help him to his quarters, and the screens will be unattended. Because he won't be feeling well, he'll forget to turn on the recording system. No one will see who or what gets onto my ship. But the guard expects that he'll be feeling better and back at his post by 0400. Everything has to be nice and normal by then, or else-"
"Or else he turns us all in, you make a run for it, and my friends all die. I understand. Don't you worry. Everything will go according to plan."
"Yeah, I bet it will," Fiyle said. He lifted the case and patted it affectionately. "I hope it's as worth it for you as it is for me," he said, his voice suddenly a bit lower, gentler. "Things must be damned hard for you here if you're willing to pay this much to try and get away."
"They are hard," Prospero said, a trifle taken aback. He had not expected any show of sympathy from the likes of Fiyle.
"Bet you'll be glad to get out of here, won't you?" the man asked.
"I am not going," Prospero said, looking toward the quays and the ships and the sea. "It is needful that I remain here and coordinate the next escape, and the one after that. I cannot cross the seas to freedom. "
He turned his back on the sea and looked toward the land, the rough, hardscrabble island, and the contradictory, half-free, half-slave existence that was all he had ever known.
"I must remain here," he said. "I must remain on Purgatory."
Chapter 1
IT WAS A dark and quiet killing. A grunt, a gasp, a faint groan muffled by the pouring rain as the dying man breathed his last, a thud as the body dropped to the ground. No scream, no flash and roar of a blaster, nothing but a new corpse in the night and the splattering of raindrops.
But the man was dead for all of that.
The quiet would help. With no sound to attract attention, it could easily be hours before anyone found the Ranger's body. And by then, of course, it would be too late.
No one would know until it was all over.
The killer smiled, the expression on his pale face revealing a satiated blood lust, rather than happiness. Revenge was a pleasure of a rare and delicate nature, and one that could be savored long after the event that inspired it. But enough of his own private business. He had another job, a professional matter, to deal with.
Ottley Bissal stepped over the body, and moved toward the light and glitter of the party at the Governor's Winter Residence.
The South Hall of the Winter Residence was getting more crowded, and louder. To an untutored eye, it might well appear to be a calm and pleasant gathering, the movers and shakers of this world brought together for a night of celebration, a recognition of solidarity and cooperation.
Sheriff Alvar Kresh, watching the proceedings from a quiet corner as far from the bandstand as possible, did not see it that way. Not one little bit. "Well, Donald," he said, turning toward his companion. "What do you think?"
"Most unsatisfactory, sir," Donald replied. Donald 111 was Kresh's personal assistant, and one of the more advanced robots on the planet-certainly the most advanced police robot. He was painted the sky-blue of the Sheriffs Department, and built in a short, rounded-off approximation of the human form.