The Darkside Of The Sun

table.
    ‘I’m sorry about that,’ said the Director. ‘Assassins are a hazard in my line.’
    ‘He was too noisy focusing that sonic,’ said Ways. ‘I hope you were given due notice?’
    ‘Oh yes, three days and a regular United Spies contract. But I didn’t expect anything here, the management have an arrangement. I trust they’ll register a complaint.’
    ‘Did the contract say who was behind him?’
    ‘No. It was the old standard Projectile or Energy Discharge form. I think it was one of my … but that’s my problem. Thank you.’
    Two Institute security guards walked in tactfully and removed the body. Ways scanned the room. Two minor Board of Earth officials were complaining to the head waiter, but the non-Earth diners had settled down again. Some of them may have thought it was part of the floor show. During the Starveall ceremony on Whole Erse there were dancers who … Ways clamped down on the unwanted information, and glanced at two diners half-hidden by the luxuriant growth of a dormant Eggplant pinpointer-plant, a large, scarred man in plain but well-grown clothes, and an antique serving robot. They hadn’t even looked up during the assassination attempt. They were playing some game with small robots on a chequerboard.
    He turned to Asman.
    ‘I will leave,’ he said. ‘After this last affair is concluded, I will sever my connection with the Institute under the seventeenth sub Law of Robotics. Thank you for the meal. It was most energizing. Good evening.’
    When the robot had gone Asman sat back and gazed at the far wall thoughtfully. There was a chiming in his inner ear, followed by a familiar voice. Two familiar voices. Except that they weren’t voices, they circumnavigated the tedious aural processes and arrived fresh at his consciousness.
    ‘Interesting.’
    ‘Possibly so, but I suggest you dissassemble him immediately,’ said the second voice.
    Asman thought: ‘Mr Chairman, how many are sitting in on this.’
    ‘Just myself and the Lady Ladkin. This is by no means a formal Board meeting. We watched the proceedings with interest, though without, I fear, unanimity as to conclusion,’ came the first voice.
    Asman nodded to the waiter and strolled out into the night, taking a winding, sand-strewn path back to the Institute.
    ‘Ways will go through with it,’ he thought.
    Lady Ladkin’s tone was petulant. ‘Why do we need to bother with this robot? I know a dozen people who have the required combination of loyalty and mayhem.’
    ‘My Lady, apart from the prediction that a robot such as Ways would be used by us,’ he hurried on quickly before she could interrupt, ‘he has certainly proved himself in similar assassinations. He initiated the Novean Board debacle, for example. My Lord Pan, may I be heard?’
    ‘Go ahead,’ came the rumbling tone of the Chairman. ‘At present I am attending the première concert of the Third Eye Tactile Orchestra. They lack sparkle.’
    ‘My Lord, and my Lady, I arranged this evening as you wished, at some risk to myself. The assassin might have succeeded. US were understanding about my request, but I had to sign a waiver, and I dare say they put their best man in. Now, you know we monitor the robot. He hates the Institute, of course, and to some extent he had sympathy for Sabalos—’
    ‘As indeed I do also,’ said Pan, and this time Asman caught the distant echo of the orchestra. ‘I believe I met him once. His grandmother and myself were once very friendly. Old, she must be now, very old. A fine woman. Ah, we have heard the chimes at twenty-four hundred hours, Master Shallow.’
    ‘We must consider the boy as an instrument, my Lord,’ thought Asman patiently, picking his way between the dunes. ‘Ways feels sorry for him, but I think I have proved to your satisfaction that in actions he has no choice but to be loyal to us. As he himself said, he is a robot, and even a Class Five can be built with certain imperatives.’
    ‘That collar …’ began Lady Ladkin.
    ‘It will activate itself in the unlikely event of Ways taking any but the prescribed course,’ thought Asman soothingly.
    She grumbled and was silent.
    ‘May I go ahead, then?’
    There was another echo of music. ‘This is derivative stuff. Oh, yes, go ahead. We are secure in our predictions, aren’t we? I am not altogether happy about booby-trapping his pet – I myself have several cats, of which I am fond – but we must be practical. Proceed. I look forward to