“I understand that part, Mistress Ariel, and I am making a serious effort to integrate those memories into my current personality. Perhaps you have noticed that I no longer call you Mistress Kathryn?
“But that’s not my dilemma. My real question is, what is this confused and conflicting stream of potentials that I experience whenever I think about Wolruf?”
“It’s called heartache,” Adam said. “Wolruf was your friend, and now you fear that you have lost her. The same condition prompts feelings of guilt, anger, grief, and remorse-sometimes simultaneously.
“Use these emotions,’ Mandelbrot. Integrating your two minds will make you stronger. ”
Mandelbrot’ s voice synthesizer took on a hopeful note. “Are you confident that it is heartache?”
Adam turned away and looked at Tau Puppis IV, glowing like a blue-white jewel in a field of velvet and diamonds. “I am certain of it. I left many friends behind on that world; some were depending on me to protect and lead them. I am very familiar with that feeling. ” Abruptly, Adam walked to the lift and stepped inside. The doors hissed closed.
Ariel was still trying to understand why she felt so disturbed by the exchange between Adam and Mandelbrot when the lift doors reopened. Avery and Derec spilled onto the bridge, arguing heatedly.
“You’re being paranoid, Dad!”
“No, I’m not. He found us twice; we have to assume that he’ll find us again. ”
“And spend the rest of our lives playing dead every time some crummy little freighter passes by?”
Avery threw up his hands. “Look, I said I was wrong four days ago. It was probably just some Settler ship making a course correction between jumps. But if that had been Aranimas-”
“But it wasn ’ t!”
Smiling sweetly, Ariel stepped in between Derec and Avery. “Having fun, boys?”
Avery’s white moustache was bristling with anger. “ Ariel, maybe you can talk some sense into my son. The question is not whether, but when Aranimas will find us again-” He bobbed left and fired a glare at Derec over Ariel’s shoulder. “- and we frosted well better have some kind of defense ready this time!”
Derec popped up and poked an accusing finger at Avery over Ariel’s head. “You’re nuts, old man! Finding us the second time was an accident. Pure dumb luck! We toasted his boarding crew and we gave him the slip. He’s given up, I tell you!”
“And I say he can track your commlink!”
“You’re paranoid!”
“You’re insolent!”
“Toad!”
“Nit!”
“Boys, boys. ” Ariel was shorter than either Derec or Avery, but she pushed the two of them apart with an authority born from centuries of selective breeding by short, motherly women. “Now Derec, listen to your father; he’s only being sensible. ” Avery’s face lit up in an I gotcha smile, but it collapsed the instant that Ariel turned on him. “And Dr. Avery, you listen to me.
“This ship is a robot, fully subject to the Laws of Robotics. Even if we could come up with a weapon, the ship wouldn’t let us use it unless we could prove that there were no humans on board Aranimas’s ship.
“So what we have to do-” Derec and Avery were glaring at each other again, so she grabbed them both by the ears and steered them around until they were looking at the viewscreen. “-What we have to do is go down to the planet and develop our defense there. With all the resources of a Robot City at our disposal, I’m sure that we can find a way to protect ourselves from Aranimas. ”
Smiling sweetly, she looked first to Derec and then to Avery. “ Agreed?” They were a little slow on the uptake, so she dug her long red fingernails into their earlobes.
“Ow! Yes! We agree!”
“Good, I’m glad you decided to be reasonable about this. ” She released her grip. “Mandelbrot? Begin preparations to deorbit and land in Robot City. ”
“There will be a time delay of approximately six hours,” Mandelbrot answered. “Reconfiguring the ship for atmospheric entry will take two hours, and then-owing to the damage we suffered in the fight-I must insist on full visual inspection and structural testing before we attempt reentry. ”
“Okay. Get on with it. Is there anything that we can do to help you?”
“Yes. ” Mandelbrot turned to face Ariel, and his eyes dimmed momentarily as he worked his way through some kind of Robotic Law dilemma. “Mistress Ariel? I would appreciate it if you could locate Mistress Wolruf and… reasonwith her. ” His gaze dropped to focus on her fingernails.
“Don’t worry, Mandelbrot, Wolruf’s a smart girl. I’ll get her back on the bridge before reentry, and I won’t use anything sharper than words. ”
Chapter 19. Maverick
It was a good stretch; the kind that starts in the hips, snakes forward along the spine through the shoulders, and ends in an enormous yawn and fully spread toes on the forepaws. Maverick recovered from the yawn, shifted forward to stretch his back legs, and then indulged in a little shake.
WhiteTail just looked at him and growled softly.
“Oh, c’rnon, girl, let your ears down once in a while. ” With a little spring, he jumped up to stand with his hind feet on the pavement and his front feet up on the low, square railing that bordered the scenic overlook. Behind him, a quartet of younglings dashed by on the slidewalk, yipping happily.
“Y’know, WhiteTail, you could learn something from them. ” He looked over his shoulder and pointed his nose at the younglings as they leapt off the slidewalk and disappeared into a pocket park. “They don’t try to figure things out. They don’t question the wisdom of SilverSides. They simply trust and enjoy. ”
WhiteTail’s voice was low, barely above a growl. “I prefer to trust my own nose. And it tells me that there’s something really wrong here. ”
“Here?”Maverick laughed. “Face it, girl, you’ve been seeing sharpfangs in the shadows ever since we arrived. ”
She trotted over and jumped up to stand next to Maverick. “Mavvy, doesn’t it bother you that we’re the only living things in this city?” She pointed to the enormous silver-blue den across the way. “A cliff face like that should be home to a whole flock of cragnesters. But look at it: there’s not one white splat to be seen. ”
Maverick laughed again. “And you’re complaining?”
WhiteTail shot him a distempered look and then turned to look at the pocket park. “Have you taken a close look at those trees? No, of course not, you’re a male; the only time you notice trees is when you want to mark one.
“Yesterday I chewed some bark off a tree, and you know what I found? Blue grit, just the same as we found inside that WalkingStone’s chest. ”
“You’re kidding. ” Maverick squinted at the park just in time to see a youngling scare up a nuteater and chase it halfway up a tree. The other three younglings dashed over to join in, and the four of them danced around the tree, barking like happy fools and trying to get running starts at climbing the trunk. “Stone trees? Don’t be ridiculous; what do the nuteaters eat?”
“Funny you should mention that. Have you tried to catch a nuteater yet?”
Maverick sputtered. “What a silly-I mean, do I look like someone who plays youngling games?” WhiteTail glared sharply at him; he coughed a bit and then swallowed his pride. “Okay, I have. But only once or twice. Just for fun. ”
“I saw a youngling catch a nuteater this morning,” WhiteTail announced. Maverick’s ears went straight up and his eyes widened. “Don’t worry, dear, he wasn’t faster than you. What happened was he’d been chasing the same nuteater for a while, and he was getting tired. Somehow, no matter how patient he was, no matter how far down the tree he let it get, the nuteater always managed to get back up the tree just an instant before the youngling bit it.