There need be no more of this aimless existence, running from planet to planet, looking for a cure, for an excuse to go on hoping. There could be a home, a place in society, all the wealth of associations that membership in the human society meant.
They could even consider the Keys, the existence of aliens, Robot City itself-they could report Dr. Avery, turn the Key over to the proper authority, shift the burden to other shoulders.
Ariel sighed.
“You don’t look good,” she said.
After all, how much did she owe him, anyway? At lot of apologies, if nothing else. She’d blamed him wrongly for too much.
“I hope there are star charts in the ship,” he said. Derec put a hand to his brow. “If we can get back to Kappa Whale, we can take both ships back to Robot City. That’ll give us a spare. Dr. Avery won’t think of that-I hope.” He rubbed his face slowly; his eyes squinted as if the light were too bright.
“Is it getting dark?” he asked.
“Not yet,” Ariel said. “The sun will be setting in a little while, but it won’t start to get dark for another hour.”
“Oh.”
“What kind of dreams have you been having?” she asked skeptically, thinking that they might have been right: if he’d not been eating, or sleeping, it might all be strain-
“Like I said, I dream that Robot City has been shrunk into my bloodstream. I don’t know why it frosts me so, but it does. I can’t shake it off. It’s a -a haunting feeling.” He rubbed his face again, haggard.
Ariel didn’t know what to say. “It…doesn’t sound like an ordinary dream.”
“I’m sure it’s no dream,” he said instantly, looking sick. “Something’s going on.” R. Jennie entered the opening of the tent and he said, dully, “R. Jennie, what are chemfets?”
“I do not know, Mr. Avery.”
“Derec-”
“I wish I could sleep. It drives you crazy if you don’t have real dreams.”
“Derec, you really look-awful.” Ariel felt a stab of real fear. “Oh, Derec!”
He looked as if he were about to throw up. Drooling, he pushed his light camp chair back, starting to get up. He fell over.
“ Derec!”
R. Jennie came with a rush, cradled him as Derec’s arms and legs started to flail. “He is having convulsions. I do not know what is wrong,” she said. “Help me hold him-”
Ariel was too weak herself to be of much help, but after a few moments Derec’s seizure eased, he sighed heavily, and he began to breathe in a more normal fashion instead of inhaling in great tortured gasps. His limbs relaxed, and R. Jennie warily lowered him to the carpet-covered grass of the tent floor.
“He seems to be much better, but this is not a natural sleep,” said the robot. “Unfortunately, there is no communo in the area, nor do I possess a subetheric link. I must go for help. Ariel, you must watch him.”
“What do I do if he…has another seizure?” she asked, huskily.
“Hold him. Do not put a spoon in his mouth.” And with that puzzling admonition, the robot began to run toward the City.
Greatly to her relief, Derec awoke within ten minutes. “How are you?” she whispered, frightened.
“I’m okay,” he said faintly. He did look greatly relieved. “Chemfets,” he said.
“What?”
“Robot City is inside me, in a manner of speaking.” Derec struggled with her weak help to a sitting position. “I’m thirsty.”
Hastily, Ariel poured him some juice. He drank carefully, seeming a little dizzy.
“We keep thinking of robots in terms of positronic brains,” he said, seemingly at random. “But computers existed before positronic brains and are still widely in use. At least a dozen computers of different sizes for every positronic brain, even on the Spacer worlds. And for a long time there’ve been desultory attempts to reduce computers in size and give them some of the characteristics of life.”
“Derec-are you all right?”
He looked at her seriously, haunting knowledge in his sunken eyes. “No. I’ve been infected with chemfets. Microscopic, self-replicating computer circuits. Robot City is in my bloodstream. When I fell asleep just now, the monitor that Dr. Avery implanted in my brain opened communication with them.”
“What…what are they doing?” Ariel could scarcely grasp it, it was so strange. What would a chemfet want? Was it truly alive?
“Growing and multiplying, at the moment. I don’t think they’re anywhere near…call it maturity. The monitor…I don’t think it’s of any use yet. It’s as if they have nothing to say to me yet.”
“But they may later?” she asked swiftly.
“I suppose.” He looked at her, haggard. “I wonder if they’ve been programmed with the Three Laws?”
Ariel grunted. “Yes. I suppose they’ve been upsetting your body systems. No wonder you’ve been sick. Will… will the dreams continue?”
He thought about it, shook his head. “I don’t think so. I think those were just the monitor trying to open contact. Once the channel is opened, it won’t be worked unless they have something to say.”
“How about if you have something to say to them?” Ariel asked, with a flash of anger.
“I suppose…if I learn how to work the monitor,” he said dubiously.
“And tell them to get out of your body because they’re killing you! First Law,” she said.
Then: “I hope they’re programmed with the Three Laws.” Frightened, she looked at him.
Strength and purpose seemed to have flowed back into him: knowledge of what was going on, a drop in the subtle pressure the monitor had been putting on him, relief, a good meal. It was something merely to know what the problem was.
“We’ve got to get back to Robot City,” he said with determination. “I now know that part of my feeling on that was due to the pressure of the monitor. The chemfets want me back there for some reason. But we have our own reason for going back. We’ve got to confront Dr. Avery and make him reverse this -infestation. “
Ariel nodded in angry agreement. “Yes! Dr. Avery has played his games with us, and especially with you, for too long.”
He stood up, and though he leaned on the table, he seemed much stronger. “But how do we get off Earth?”
“We’ll have to consult with R. David. If we can get back to the apartment without a lot of…”
“Where’s R. Jennie?”
“She’s gone for help. You had-convulsions.”
“No wonder my muscles are sore. She’s gone for-doctors? I can’t let them examine me-”
Ariel grunted in understanding. “We’d never get away-they’d hospitalize you.” She looked at him. “They might even be able to cure you.”
Derec said, “I’ve come to have a lot of respect for Earth ‘s doctors, but this is a matter of robotics. I think we’d better go back to the source. I’d like to know what reason Dr. Avery had for this-what did he hope to accomplish?”
Ariel could only shake her head. “Just using you as a guinea pig, I suppose.”
“Yes, but that shows that he has some reason for developing chemfets, even if he doesn’t care about me. There must be some use for them.” As he spoke, Derec was groping in his pockets. He produced the Key to Perihelion. “At least, with R. Jennie gone, we can vanish without any questions being asked.”
“Questions will be asked,” she warned him.
“Yes,” Derec said, pressing the corners and taking her hand. “But not of us.”
Perihelion’s gray nothingness surrounded them. “They’ll assume some sensible explanation, involving the imaginary institute that sent us to Earth,” Derec added, looking around in the gray fog.
“I guess so,” she said dubiously. “As long as we aren’t spotted in the City. “
“Or any other City.”
The apartment appeared around them, and Derec sagged with the return to gravity. Alarmed, Ariel threw her arm around him and instantly R. David was there, supporting him from the other side.