“Those are nice pleasant words, too. Keep it up, Derec.”
“It's the truth, though. That's why I came in here.”
“How Wolruf feels isn't what's really bothering you, is it, Derec?”
“Oh? What would you suggest?”
“It's really Jacob, isn't it? You're jealous of a robot, aren't you?”
“I don't care if you love that freak machine. It's none of my affair.”
Ariel didn't say anything to rebut that last remark. She was a tease, and she wanted him to dwell on his last thought without being distracted.
“No,” Derec said after the space of a breath or two, “I do care because if it's true, you would be darn sick. And I do love you, Ariel, whether you want me to or not, whether you love a robot or not. So if it's true, I want to help you, and rather desperately.”
He walked into the adjoining personal and closed the door. It went on like that the rest of the night. They didn't get much sleep. Nor did they make up as they usually did when they had finally exhausted one another emotionally.
Derec slept on his side of the room, and Ariel slept on hers, but they didn't sleep much, keeping each other awake by tossing and turning, and generally flouncing around to enhance the other's anger.
Morning finally came. They ate an early breakfast in silence, and they all rode in the lorry to the opening in the dome well before the time when dome construction would normally start if it were going to take place.
It did not take place. Instead the two aliens Synapo and Sarco arrived in their usual dramatic fashion with a great show of black wings. Ariel, Derec, and Wolruf climbed down from the lorry to stand near the right front wheel and talk with the two Ceremyons.
“It is our turn to request an audience, Miss Ariel Welsh,” Synapo said, “for we have discovered that a misunderstanding exists between us. You should not be held responsible for the errant behavior of servant machinery-apparently not yours-trying to pursue its orders in the best way it knows how. I am referring, of course, to the servant you call SilverSide. The question is: Whose machinery is it and whence did it come? It came to our world aboard your vessel, Wolruf. At that time it had your form. Can you explain that?”
“No more than you can explain why it took your form,” Wolruf said. “Derec knows more about it than anyone else.”
“I first encountered it on another planet,” Derec said. “At that time it was the leader of a pack of intelligent lupine beings. They were attacking and interfering with Avery robots during their construction of a city much like the one you have enclosed with your weather node compensator. I made a sort of peace with it in order to study its physical nature and programmed behavior. I recognized at the time that that involved certain risks. I alone am responsible for any inconvenience the robot may have caused you. As you have recognized, its objectives are basically benign even though its behavior may at times seem erratic.”
“As you also recognize, by your own words, benign objectives can sometimes motivate evil doings, particularly when two aberrants interact. I must warn you all that we have an aberrant Cerebron on the wing, more irrational than your SilverSide, and the two have already begun to interact.
“You are familiar with the Cerebron, Neuronius, Miss Ariel Welsh. It was he who impetuously curtailed one of our earlier meetings. The Cerebrons in full caucus have now stripped him of all authority, something I could not do on my own during our meeting because of the rules that regulate our government. We Cerebrons can do little more at this time. Yet he is a danger to all of us, and his interaction with SilverSide, benign though it may seem to the robot, could create a very explosive situation.
“So you see, Derec, you feel responsible for SilverSide, and we feel responsible for Neuronius, but our feelings can do little at this time to correct a nasty situation created by your scientific interest and our governmental restrictions, which prevent both of us from neutralizing the agitators.
“But the primary purpose of this meeting is to inform you that the compensator will not be closed and you may proceed with cultivation of your plants and construction of your transportation terminal. “
“Thank you,” Ariel said. “We are grateful for your foresight and will proceed with those projects.”
“We have not seen SilverSide for almost a full day now,” Derec said. “Do you know where he is or what he's been doing?”
Sarco spoke now.
“He is exceedingly confused about who his master should be. Based on his own programming, Miss Ariel Welsh is his most likely master, and Synapo so instructed him yesterday afternoon at The Cliff of Time. He immediately began a transformation into the form of your robot Jacob Winterson, and was last seen that afternoon climbing down the rock face of the escarpment.
“Then early this morning he ascended to meet me in the form of a Ceremyon, as best he can manage, and as you know, that is a startlingly huge Ceremyon.
“It was then that we learned of his interaction with Neuronius, who had tried to pass himself off as the only human on the planet in order to win SilverSide's allegiance. I hope I was able to forestall that. I watched SilverSide descend to The Plain of Serenity and watched as he transformed to a being that looked from that distance somewhat like Wolruf, but probably twice her size. I last saw him entering The Forest of Repose in that form.”
“That would be his KeenEye imprint,” Derec said, “one of the lupine creatures he copied on that other planet. Thank you. At least we know he's still alive and hope he'll return. Thank you very much.”
The two Ceremyons turned then and took to the air.
Immediately after the meeting, in the short time that was left before lunch, Ariel, Derec, and Wolruf began planning the robot farm experiment, discussing in broad outline the revisions in the programming of the Avery robots that would be required, not only for the many different farms themselves, but also for the creation of the city's new terminal facilities that would be needed to support the farms.
SilverSide had not returned by the time they sat down to lunch. In spite of all the trouble he had caused her, Ariel felt inexplicably concerned about his welfare.
Chapter 22. The Egg
Once again SilverSide was in turmoil. All was confusion. Who should he believe? He wished only to evade the dilemma. He metamorphosed, escaping back to the relative peace of his wolfish “childhood,” back to the days when LifeCrier had guided him into the life of the pack on the wolf planet.
Thus, midmorning found SilverSide imprinted on the wolflike female KeenEye, trotting along an animal trail far from the robot city. As she had the night before, she spent the late morning and early afternoon exploring the vast Forest of Repose, its trails, brooks, rivers, and lakes that lay within ten kilometers of the city.
Monitoring the field lines of Oyster World's natural magnetism kept her oriented during her aimless roving, so that as the morning waned, she began to zero in on the dome without dwelling on what she was going to do when she got there.
In the early afternoon, she came to the edge of the forest opposite the mirage-like transparency that concealed the robot city. She sat down on her haunches and stared at the dome with unseeing eyes, mulling over-as she had all morning-what Neuronius and then Sarco had told her.
She could not escape the essential validity of Sarco's assessment of Neuronius-a self-centered, paranoid psychopath-nor could she any longer ignore Synapo's directive to serve Miss Ariel and the feeling that that could best be done in the male imprint of Jacob Winterson, who was already serving Miss Ariel with apparently great efficiency and to her obvious satisfaction.