Now that night had fallen, the darkness inside the Compass Tower office seemed total to Ariel. She stuck her head out from beneath the blanket and could not discern anything. After blinking her eyes a few times, however, details of the room appeared to emerge from the blackness.
“It’s eerie,” she whispered.
Derec, who had nearly fallen asleep, was startled awake and asked, “What did you say?”
“Eerie, the darkness in here. I mean, the room. Usually all those view-screens are on, transmitting scenes from the outside world.”
“They are on. There’s just so little light out there, you can hardly tell.” He sat up. “But it is awfully dark. Let’s take a better look.”
After adjusting their clothing, Derec led Ariel to the desk that dominated one side of the room. Flicking on a small desk lamp (it had been so dark, even that flimsy light pained her eyes), he pulled out the slab of controls from its position just beneath the desk blotter. Sitting down, Derec worked the controls, searching for clearer pictures or any kind of image that would be displayed recognizably on a view-screen. Most of the screens remained shadowy. Here and there they could see the shapes of buildings, sometimes a few dim stars in the sky.
He pointed one camera downward, and it picked up the pools of light near the Compass Tower. They came, he saw, from some light bands in a building across the way. Apparently the lighting system there had not broken down.
“Look there.” He pointed to the view-screen. “Something’s happening down there.” He zoomed in on the movement, enlarging the image until they could plainly see Timestep doing his dance. The robot, with a movement approaching grace, leaped from pool to pool. Derec turned up the volume on the sound pickup, and they could hear the hollow, plaintive, echoing, tapping sounds.
“Weird,” Ariel said. “Do you think that’s the dancer we met?”
“Looks like him.”
Timestep stretched his arms outward and tapped to the left, then he shuffled a bit and made the same move to the right.
“It’s not like human dancing,” Ariel said, “but it has its own elegance, its own special grace. You know, once-when I was about twelve or thirteen-I was given an old mechanical toy, some kind of precursor to robots, perhaps, but really just a toy that was wound up and run. It was a little metal man in a harlequin costume, and it stayed in one place, a tiny pole running up its back. When it was switched on, it did this queer, floppy dance. Its legs bent in right angles at the knees, then came down and hit its pedestal a couple of times, then resumed its stance with the right-angled knees, then down again, and so forth. I was fascinated by it, played with it for hours. I liked it better than all the technologically fashionable toys that were arranged in clusters around my room. But I think my mother sneaked in when I was asleep and took it away. I don’t remember who gave it to me. Look at that.”
Timestep had executed an extravagantly long soft-shoe glide, coming to a stop beside another robot she hadn’t previously noticed.
“Say, that’s-what did he call himself?-Bogie, wasn’t it? What are those two doing down there?”
“I don’t know, but it seems terribly coincidental that the two of them should wind up together and right near the Compass Tower entrance, don’t you think?”
“Maybe. I wish Timestep’d dance again. He couldn’t possibly be tired.”
“What did you get out of it? The dance, I mean. It might be a bit unusual, but it was just a robot dancing. They can do anything they’re programmed to do.”
“Don’t be so pragmatic. There was a beauty in his dance.”
“Only in your mind. A human doing the same dance with about the same ability, you’d find him awkward and minimally talented. That robot is about the same as the famous talking dog. It’s that he does it at all that’s amazing, but there was nothing remotely beautiful about it.”
Ariel muttered, “Have it your way, Mr. Critic-at-large.” She walked away a few steps, then whirled around to say, “But I liked it!”
Derec was used to Ariel being touchy on occasion, so he shrugged and said, “I’m sorry. Just my opinion. Let’s go down and pay these fellows a visit.”
“It’s not necessary.”
“C’mon. Maybe Timestep does encores.”
The three robots and Wolruf stayed outside the perimeter of the tiny creatures’ encampment. After a flurry of interest in the intruders, the small people had turned their attention back to their ritual by the bonfire. There was a definite pattern to the ritual. First they circled the fire in a line, each creature keeping a hand on the shoulder of the individual in front of it. Then they broke up into couples and performed a dance that featured a complicated but rhythmic sequence of high kicks. The kick dance was followed by a synchronized turning toward the fire, the move accompanied by a high pitched wail. Wolruf was reminded of the noises of a high-flying bird-like species from her home planet.
When the moaning had reached its loudest point, it stopped abruptly, and several of the small people dropped quickly to the ground. The ones left standing picked up their fallen comrades and dragged them away from the fire. After pulling them a short distance, they began arranging them in a number of piles. The wailing resumed, then the standing people clapped their hands three times, and the fallen bodies stirred and got to their feet. A short frenetic dance that looked like celebration followed. After that, another group took its place around the fire and executed the same ritual, step by step.
“It is strange,” Eve commented.
“What does the ritual mean?” Adam asked.
“I would speculate that it has something to do with death and resurrection,” Mandelbrot said.
“Why do ‘u say that?” Wolruf asked.
“Some information about such rituals on other planets that I have stored in my memory banks. The rite here suggests that some of them die, the ones piled up, and then are in some way resurrected. The reason for resurrection is not clear to me. To understand, I am afraid we would have to observe their culture at length.”
“I would like to do that,” Eve said. “They, too, seem to be human, Adam. Perhaps they would supply some data for our quest.”
“Perhaps.”
“But we have to meet Derrec and Arriel at the towerr,” Wolruf said.
“You two go ahead,” Eve suggested. “We will follow soon.”
“What will ‘u do?” Wolruf asked.
“Nothing dangerous, I assure you. I just wish to study them a while.”
“It would be best if you continued on with us,” Mandelbrot said.
“No,” Wolruf said, “ ‘u know these two. They get idea, ‘u can’t stop them.”
If Mandelbrot had been a nodder, he would have nodded. He and Wolruf quickly left the lot, heading toward the Compass Tower.
A moment later, Eve crossed into the area where the tiny creatures were busy with their ritual. They didn’t seem to notice her. Adam followed. They stepped carefully, putting their feet down only in clear areas. This kind of walking was easier for a robot than it would have been for a human. If there had been any danger of Eve or Adam putting their feet down upon one of the tiny creatures, they would have sensed it quickly and been able to balance on one leg for as long as it took until a safe step could be ventured.
When they were near the fire, Eve said, “They seem intelligent. Can we talk to them, do you think?”
“We can try, Eve.”
She crouched down, getting her head as low as she could without falling over. Reflected light from the bonfire seemed to move like the tiny dancers across her silvery surface.
“Hello,” she said.
Some of the dancers looked at her. They stopped, stood still, and stared up at her. “Can you understand me?”
They said nothing. A tiny, prettily formed woman stepped forward. She had large bulging eyes and a swelling by her right ear. Eve expected her to say something, but she did not. She merely scrutinized her visitor, a quizzical expression on her face.