“Derec, I don’t know anything more than I already told you,” Katherine said pleadingly, taking a step forward.
Derec stiffened and gripped the artifact even more tightly. “Don’t try it. Talk to me.”
Katherine retreated a step. “Derec, I don’t want to fight you. But this is crazy. We’re all part of a team. I’m not keeping any secrets from you. I never saw or heard of that thing before Aranimas asked me about it. I couldn’t tell him anything and he didn’t tell me anything.”
She turned and looked into the half-shadow where Wolruf stood. “But Wolrufwas Aranimas’s top aide. And when the robots took the key from the spacecraft, she thought it was worth the risk to follow and find out where it was taken. How about it, Wolruf?”
“I was ‘ungry. I thought there would be food.”
“Really? How hungry? Not six weeks’ worth. Three days, that’s all. Is that hungry enough to send you out where the robots were and take the chance of being caught by them? Especially considering how you feel about robots.”
“If anyone’s keeping secrets, p’rhaps iss ‘u, Derec,” Wolruf said challengingly. “The key was found on the asteroid ‘u claim ‘u were shipwrecked on. Why did ‘u go to that spot when ‘u were escaping? Because ‘u knew that it was therr? Maybe because ‘u’d put it therr and wanted to get it back?”
Without warning, the lights in the room suddenly flared to life. The only one who did not jump was Derec; he had been expecting it. “The robots are looking for us,” he said. “They’ve reactivated this section, maybe the whole station. They can use the environmental systems to find out where lights are being used, where the oxygen demand is up.”
“We can’t stay here,” Katherine said simply. “We’ve got to move. We’ve got to get the key hidden again before they find us.”
Derec shook his head. “Wrong. Unless one of you starts talking, I’m going to wait right here until the robots show up and then hand it to them,” he said with quiet calm. “It’s up to you.”
“If you let them have it back, we’ll never be able to get it again,” Katherine said angrily.
“I think you can count on that,” Derec said, undisturbed.
She turned on Wolruf. “If you do know something, you’d better tell him straight and tell him fast, or the key’s lost,” she ordered. “If you wait any longer we’ll never get away.”
A wild look in her eyes, Wolruf backed away a step. “ ’U’ll take it and leave me and I’ll never get ‘ome,” she said desperately.
“That won’t happen,” Katherine said. “We won’t abandon you.”
“I already promised you that,” Derec said. “I meant it.”
“Tell him,” Katherine prodded. “Tell us.”
Wolruf’s darting eyes fixed first on Katherine’s face, then on Derec’s. “Iss one of the Keys to Perihelion,” she said finally.
“Perihelion? What’s that?” Katherine said.
“Iss said to be the place nearest to every other place in the universe,” Wolruf said. “ ’U ‘old the key to the room which is the center of all. With the key, through Perihelion, ‘u should be able to travel anywhere.”
Derec shook his head in disbelief. “Some kind of matter transporter?”
“No,” Wolruf said. “It is a key that opens the door to Perihelion.”
Her anger forgotten for the moment, Katherine looked to Derec. “Could it be something that uses the same principle as the Jump?”
“In a package this size?” he asked skeptically. To Wolruf he added, “You said one of the keys. How many are there?”
“By the stories Aranimas ‘eard, seven.”
“What stories? Where did he hear them?”
“Therr werr three ships before this one came aboard,” Wolruf said, gesturing toward Katherine. “Aranimas learned much from the ‘umans aboard before he ‘urt them so much they died. Learn ‘ur language. ‘ear many stories.”
Katherine looked at Derec. “I’ve never heard any stories about a Key to Perihelion. They must have been Settler ships.”
“That fits-otherwise Aranimas would have run into robots sooner.” Derec turned to Wolruf. “Where did the keys come from?”
Wolruf twitched her cheeks, a gesture equivalent to a shrug. “Aranimas could not even learn wherr the tales came from.”
Derec looked back to the key and turned it over in his hands. “How does it work? Where are the controls?”
“There iss only one control that Aranimas could find,” Wolruf said. “Push each corner in turn. A button will appear.”
“Press the corners clockwise or counterclockwise? Starting where? And which side?”
“It does not matter,” Wolruf said. “Turn it any way ‘u choose. The button always appears in the last corner ‘u touch and always on the side facing ‘u. If ‘u do nothing, the button disappears again.”
“And if you push the button you go to Perihelion?” asked Katherine.
“No,” Wolruf said sadly. “That is what should happen, I think. But it does not. The key does not function.”
“You tried it? With Aranimas?”
“Many times.”
Derec looked down at the glittering metal bar resting in his hands. Its finish was mirror-smooth and seamless. There was no sign of a concealed switch. When he squeezed the upper right corner between thumb and forefinger, there was no give, no sign he had done anything at all.
But when Derec pressed the fourth corner, it pressed back against his thumb. A three-centimeter square section on the corner sprang smoothly upward, looking just like a button waiting to be pushed. At the same time, it seemed to be an immovable part of the rest of the artifact, as though the silver covering was some sort of metallic membrane.
Katherine looked back to Wolruf. “If it doesn’t work, why were you so eager to get it back?”
“Maybe Wolruf can fix,” was her forlorn reply. “Only way to go ‘ome now.”
Just then, they heard a voice calling them from the corridor outside. “Derec-Katherine-come out,” it said. “Derec-Katherine-you do not have to hide.”
Wolruf dropped to her crouch and loosed a barrage of guttural moaning sounds. “Shut up!” Katherine hissed at the alien, then turned to Derec. “Do something,” she urged.
“What?” Derec snapped back. “This room has only one exit.”
At that moment the door slid open, drawing Derec’s attention away from Katherine. He glimpsed a golden robot filling the doorway and advancing across the threshold. Then suddenly Katherine was blocking his view. She had moved closer and was reaching for the key, a determined expression on her face.
Derec’s immediate thought was that she was going to grab the key and try to run. He did not have enough time to snatch the gleaming artifact out of her reach. There was time only to tighten his grip.
Too late he realized Katherine had never meant to take the key. Her hands closed firmly over his, locking them in place. Her thumb drove the small square button back down into the body of the key.
“No!” cried Wolruf.
“Wait-” Derec started to say.
But there was nothing anyone could do to stop it-not Derec, not the robot, not even Katherine. There was a soundless burst of color that stabbed deep into Derec’s eyes, driving out the sight of all else. And when the light faded to gray and his sight was restored, Wolruf, the robot, and the room had all vanished.
They found themselves standing as they had been standing, both gripping the key, at the center of a tiny place within a great space. There was nothing to prevent them from seeing vast distances, except that there was nothing to see.
All around them was a soft gray light that was to the eye what a hum is to the ear. The air had the fuggy, dusty odor of a house that has been closed up for the summer. There was no sound except their own tight, frightened breathing.
They clung to each other and to the key and tried to understand and accept their sudden displacement to this unreal reality. It was a place which could be nowhere in space. They were somewhere outside, thrown there by the staggering power of the little silver bar. It was a place without time, without life.
“Perihelion,” Katherine whispered.