“Is there something else, Miss Ariel?”
“Oh, yes, Jacob. There is. I just hadn't anticipated it back on Aurora when I first asked for your companionship.”
After all, he was only a robot. She kept telling herself that, over and over.
“Then I can be of further service?” Jacob said, questioning.
“You could, indeed, Jacob. It's just that I can't accept that service, no matter how delightful I might find it.”
And then there popped into her mind the image of Derec, waving, standing far away at the end of a long row of waving green corn. And she wondered where that memory came from. She had never been in a cornfield with Derec. Not that she could remember.
And that brought her back to her present responsibility, which was more an obligation to Derec, to carry out his wishes, for she had only negative feelings for the robot city otherwise.
Still, the obligation remained.
“Do you see any sign of the aliens, Jacob?” she asked.
“Possibly,” Jacob said. “I see three blackbodies that have just descended into a circular flight pattern around the dome.”
“Can you time our return so that we arrive just after they have landed?”
“I will endeavor to do so.”
He succeeded.
She got out of the runabout, walked over to face the aliens, and decided not to bow. Jacob stood to one side and slightly behind her.
Affecting a faint note of haughtiness, she said, “Good morning, ambassadors.”
They had called themselves leaders the day before, but she refused to use that term for fear they might misconstrue themselves to be her leaders.
“Gud mahnin', Miz Ahyahl Wilsh,” the middle alien said.
Ariel could not help smiling broadly. The Webster Grove accent took her by surprise again, but she immediately set her mind to eliminate it from consideration so as to avoid the less-than-serious attitude she had briefly lapsed into the day before.
“This is my assistant, Neuronius,” the middle alien continued, bunching on the right side what looked like a shoulder in silhouette, “and this is my third in command, Axonius,” and he bunched his silhouette on the left.
Ariel responded by inclining her head in the appropriate direction as each was introduced, a casual, restrained acknowledgment short of a pronounced nod.
The alien did not use the grand gesture that Sarco had used the day before when he had introduced Synapo, but it still left Ariel wondering whether she was dealing with Synapo or Sarco.
Here she was, on thin ice already, and the meeting had just begun. She guessed that it must be Synapo. It was he who had dominated the meeting the day before. On the other hand, these others were subordinates. They did not rate the grand gesture, even if this were Sarco.
She had nothing with which to parley except the analysis of hyperwave modulation that Jacob and Keymo had concocted at her prodding. And if this were Synapo, and if she had construed properly-that his green flaming the day before was an impatient assessment of Sarco's complaint-then it must have been a trivial complaint in Synapo's mind and not much of a bargaining chip for her side.
Not knowing for sure whom she was dealing with, she decided to stall.
She said, “I trust that you have now concluded that closing the dome does not have any immediate importance since it is already ninety-nine-point-two percent effective.”
“On the contrary, we feel it would be better to close the compensator and to completely enclose any such creations in the future,” the alien replied. “Although the emissions from the creation that Wohler-9 calls a city have been brought under control, we are still concerned, for the city may merely be a harbinger of worse things yet, things that lie off-world and are yet to be inflicted upon us.”
“I can assure you that no such dire things exist. We merely want to share this planet with you and are quite willing to go to great lengths to insure our mutual compatibility.”
“That would be more reassuring if it were to come from a leader. That would be a member of your he clan, if I downloaded Wohler-9 correctly.”
Another male chauvinist like Wohler-9, Ariel thought. This big bat had to be a male. Clearly.
The entire universe was filled with insufferable males.
“Not necessarily. Women-our she clan as you describe them -have often been leaders, and able leaders, functioning quite as well as men-our he clan.”
“But most leaders are still members of the he clan. Is that correct?”
“Yes,” Ariel was forced to reply.
The discussion was certainly not going well. Ariel decided to risk her only bargaining chip in an effort to turn things around.
Without giving the other a chance to respond, she said, “But let's get back to the main points of our discussion, the things we have been doing that are disturbing to you. We do not wish to disturb you in any way and are willing to go far to insure that that does not occur.
“For instance, we can change our modulation of hyperwave from discrete to continuous so as not to disrupt your listening comfort.”
A small flame of irritation shot from beneath his eyes, smaller than the day before, but still a respectable, quite noticeable, luminous green jet.
“Sarco!” he said like he was uttering a curse. “That hyperwave disturbance is not important enough to discuss here. My esteemed colleague is a music lover and prone to give those minor disturbances more attention than they deserve.”
She had shot her wad, and at the wrong alien.
“Still,” she said, “that does show how far we are willing to go to avoid disturbing your people. That should reassure you as to our intentions.”
“Proper reassurance can only be supplied by your leader.”
With strangely mixed emotions-longing and irritation inexplicably intertwined-she thought, I am the leader here, mister bat, and you're stuck with me. But I wish my darn partner were here instead of way off cruising down some alien cornfield.
She didn't stop to question where that strange image came from-the vision of Derec at the other end of a green, green cornfield; the yearning for Derec was too intense; and then the answer to the dome problem struck her with that marvelous insight that can come only from one brain hemisphere communicating with the other, passing on the subconscious machinations of the one that are hidden from the other.
For the first time, she felt in command of the situation.
Chapter 10. Neuronius Strikes
Synapo was growing impatient with the she alien. The discussion was becoming tedious and unrewarding, and at the same time had not yet provided a suitable circumstance for embarrassing and discrediting his striking subordinate, Neuronius.
It was becoming more and more obvious that the small alien was in no sense a leader; that Synapo must somehow contrive to bring to his world a true leader of the aliens. In the meantime, he would have to direct Sarco to close the compensator and to start construction of the next one if, as he suspected, they were beginning to construct a second city on the other side of The Plain of Serenity.
Those were the thoughts that had led up to his last remark, and now the small, tedious alien was speaking again.
“There is no need to bring another leader to this world. You are looking at one. I had hoped to continue with the construction of our city, but that appears now to be impossible in view of your irrational fear that we have some insidious and covert plan to irrevocably disturb this planet.”
The manner and bearing of the little alien had changed; her voice had taken on a different timbre. Had Neuronius noticed the subtle changes?
He discounted her attempt to belittle them by use of the adjective irrational. Disparagement was a not uncommon diplomatic ploy that was sometimes effective, but not often so, yet still worth the gamble in her case. He recognized that, but would the haughty Neuronius recognize her ploy and properly discount it? Or would he let irritation distort his analysis?