“In what respect, Miss Ariel?” Wohler asked.
“With respect to the city, Wohler. The dome will be closed day after tomorrow unless we can get through to those monsters. What are you doing about it?”
“We are moving the necessary materiel for construction of a second Compass Tower and city on the other side of the plain, five kilometers away.”
“Yes, I believe those were the very words you used earlier,” she said. How could she be irritated by a machine that, given the same stimulus, came up with the same answer? “So your grand plan is to hop allover the planet, a jump ahead of the aliens, constructing Compass Towers and cities-weather nodes-while they follow along behind neutralizing them with their domes?”
Was she still feeling guilty about Wohler-1 and taking it out on this poor machine that wouldn't know it even if she were?
“We tried first to neutralize them and lost a pilot robot and flier,” Wohler-9 said, “and then we tried to learn more about them and lost a surgeon and laser scalpel.”
“You could have learned a lot more about them by just talking to them.”
“That has not proved to be true, Miss Ariel, and did not seem to be necessary at first since they destroyed only that one witness. They did not interfere with our endeavor once we enlarged the patrol circle to avoid construction of the dome. It did not appear they were violating our governing laws nor interfering with the Prime Directive until their construction work began to circle inward-to close the dome. Then we did begin to talk, and they succeeded in learning our language, but we learned very little except specialized terminology which you have now determined to be meteorological in nature.”
“What about the central core?” Ariel said. “You'll surely not leave that behind.”
“No, Miss Ariel. Our control computer's mainframe is mobile. When the blackbodies begin construction on the last day, we'll move it out to serve the new city.”
“Which will then shortly be covered by a dome.”
“Yes. That was why we hyperwaved Robot City for help.”
“Come upstairs with us, Wohler,” Ariel said as Wohler-9 pulled to the curb in front of the apartment building.
When they walked into the apartment, both Jacob and Wohler-9 headed for wall storage niches.,
“Jacob,” Ariel said, “would you rassle up some lunch for me? See if you can get a crisp garden salad out of that thing. And then sit down at the table. I'll freshen up and be right out.”
When she came out, the salad and a glass of milk were waiting on the table; Jacob sat across the table from where he had set her place, and Wohler-9 was standing in his niche.
She felt uncomfortable when the humaniform, Jacob, stood in a niche. Her Auroran upbringing made it seem natural for Wohler-9 to do so. That was where he was supposed to be when he wasn't doing some task for her. And she should have felt exactly the same way about Jacob, but his appearance didn't allow it.
“Now,” she said as she began eating, “our most pressing problem is how to carry out the objective of making this planet suitable for human life and at the same time avoid disrupting the weather. The weather does seem to be the main concern of the aliens.
“However, that's too tough to handle during lunch. It will ruin my appetite and upset my digestion.
“Let's talk instead about the hyperwave noise, the other way we're apparently disturbing them. I can understand the weather problem, sort of, and even have a glimmer of what a puncture node is-hot air punching up through a cold air layer, I suppose -but I've got no idea what they mean by discrete and continuous modulation. What's that all about, Jacob?”
“I'm not sure myself, Miss Ariel,” Jacob said. “I am aware of only one type of modulation of hyperwave: that which the alien called discrete. Nor had I drawn the connection of hyperwave modulation with jump technology, which permits us to travel through hyperspace. Were you aware of such a connection, Wohler?”
“No,” Wohler-9 replied, “but I was aware that teleportation using a Key to Perihelion is technologically different from jump teleportation.”
“This seems to me a minor problem involving new technology that we obviously should have been aware of,” Ariel said in true managerial style. “Get to work on it, Jacob.”
“Very well, Miss Ariel,” Jacob said. “Where would you suggest I start?”
For a moment Ariel thought that perhaps Jacob was being sarcastic, and then she realized that could not be the case. He was just a robot. Still, could the Robotics Institute have included an optional sarcastic module for the positronic brain of their humaniforms? Not likely. But it was an interesting thought that diverted her from these pesky engineering problems. They were more Derec's forte than hers. Social problems, people problems, sarcastic positronic modules; all those. she doted on. Not pesky problems with meteorology and hyperwave.
She was quiet for awhile. Jacob at the table, and Wohler-9 in his niche, said nothing.
Then she said, “Wohler, is there a Keymo on the planet?”
“Yes,” Wohler-9 said. “Keymo, eighth generation, is in charge of Key control.”
“There's your lead then, Jacob,” she said. It was merely a people problem-robot problem-after all. “We want to develop continuous hyperwave modulation. Synapo said there was a connection between continuous hyperwave modulation and Key teleportation. Keymo on Robot City manufactured the Keys. Keymo here, in charge of Key control, of all those here, should be most familiar with Key teleportation and the one most likely to fathom continuous modulation. See if the two of you can't cobble up some equipment to implement it.”
“Very well, Miss Ariel,” Jacob replied.
“Wohler,” Ariel said, “find Jacob a comlink cartridge, plug it into him so he can find Keymo on his own, and then come back and help me. With your knowledge of the aliens, we've got to figure out a solution to this dome problem.”
Jacob and Wohler-9, when not conversing audibly, close at hand, had been communicating with their cumbersome, long-distance, radio frequency systems. The comlink cartridge would hook Jacob into their more sophisticated, short-range, microwave telephone network.
“Very well, Miss Welsh,” Wohler-9 said.
Ariel did not hold out much hope that Keymo and Jacob would come up with anything significant. In her experience, ordinary robots just weren't creative. Yet there was that extraordinary exception: that brief period on Robot City when Shakespeare's Hamlet had lived again, supported by robot actors, and the robot Lucius had created his artistic masterpiece, the dynamically chromatic edifice called Circuit Breaker.
A half-hour later Wohler-9 returned.
“Did Jacob locate Keymo?” Ariel asked.
“I believe so,” Wohler-9 said. “He had contacted Keymo over the comlink before I left.”
“Good. Does this apartment have a memory projector?”
“Yes. The niches are equipped with sockets, and that wall serves as the screen.”
“Just what we need. How many times did you meet with the alien Synapo?”
“Thirty-four.”
“How long each time?”
When Wohler-9 began reciting the list that contained the time for each meeting, Ariel interrupted him.
“On the average!” she said.
“Forty-two minutes,” Wohler said.
“I'll not have time to go over all that before tomorrow morning. Yet I desperately need some clue as to how we may resolve this dilemma.
“Wohler, while I'm thinking how to screen that material rapidly, download to central core just the dialogue of your meetings with Synapo, and get a printout back to me as soon as possible.”
“Download in progress,” Wohler-9 said.
A fraction of a minute later, while Ariel was still pondering her problem, Wohler-9 said, “Download complete.”
A couple of minutes later, she said, “I really don't know what I'm looking for, but I do know what I'm not looking for. Wohler, delete all sections of the meetings dealing with linguistics and play back the rest at double speed.”