Ariel turned back to the terminal, feigning an Auroran confidence in dealing with robots that she no longer felt.
Eve gathered her up in one quick swoop, handling her like a disobedient child, with none of the gentleness Adam had used when he had taken her to witness Eve's birth. That experience came immediately to mind. Twice now these wild robots had subjected her person to gross indignities.
They were going out the street door as Jacob started up the stairs from the basement to the small lobby. He heard Ariel's scream for help as his foot hit the first step.
“Jaaaacobbbbb,” it came with that trailing Doppler effect.
He took the rest of the steps three at a time, but he was slower than Eve, and though he trailed her all the way down Main Street, he could not overtake her. She gradually pulled away from him.
Wohler-9-a block away and walking down Main Street in the course of his official duties-also witnessed the abduction. The First Law overrode those duties, so he, too, took up the chase. Although he was faster than Jacob, the distance between them was too great and he never caught up.
Jacob put out an alarm on the comlink, but the robots on the street could do little to stop Eve with her burden because that would endanger Ariel. She was completely under the control of a wild thing who quite likely might not recognize their Laws of Robotics. Jacob and Mandelbrot had planted that seed of doubt in the Avery robots, and now it was working against them.
By the time Jacob emerged from the opening in the dome, Eve was disappearing around the curve of the structure with Ariel still cradled in her arms.
Jacob didn't slow; if anything, he speeded up, pounding down the trail of crushed grass left by Eve. When he had them in sight again, they were heading directly for the forest.
He was still a hundred meters away when they reached the cover of the trees and were lost to sight in the shrubbery. Then he was engulfed in a dark shadow as one of Oyster World's dominant species landed in front of him, wings outspread and blocking his path to the forest.
“SilverSide, you must not interfere,” the alien said.
“Out of my way!” Jacob shouted, not slowing or changing course or correcting the alien's mistaken notion of who he was.
The alien quickly withdrew its right wing just before Jacob would have run into it.
It flapped into the air, overtook him, and as it passed over him, he heard it shout again.
“You are making a great mistake, serving the wrong master!”
Again it landed in front of him, this time near the edge of the forest, but in its haste to brake, stall, and touchdown in front of him, the alien misjudged, not allowing enough time to retreat in case he didn't stop.
This time Jacob tried to avoid the wing, but the timing and his momentum didn't allow it. He ran into the wing, spinning the alien around and entangling himself in the thin but tough membrane. He could feel the wing bones cracking, and he heard the grunt of the alien ejecting gases as their bodies came together; then hot flame burned his eyes and his hair and his skin. He was blind when the last stimuli he recorded came to his ears and face: the muffled whoosh and the violent pressure of exploding hydrogen as his flailing arms crushed the alien's high pressure gas storage cells.
Jacob Winterson was essentially demolished except for the lower torso and thighs that remained in one piece, cartwheeling through the air, trailing remnants of burning clothing and synthetic skin, before landing in the grass a half-kilometer away, not far from the forest.
Neuronius was even more finely divided.
Chapter 28. A Sad Ritual
Derec and Ariel met at the apartment after the explosion. Using Derec's internal monitor, Wohler-9 had informed him of the accident immediately after it occurred.
Ariel had witnessed the spectacle from the shelter of the trees and had broken away from Eve and run out to where grass and dirt had been torn away by the explosion to form a shallow, bare depression in the ground, so she didn't see Adam retrieve what little was left of Jacob Winterson. He covered Jacob's remains with coils of rope before he picked up Ariel and Wohler-9 in the cargo robot. Eve had disappeared.
Ariel sat down on the pile of rope and rode that way to the apartment, not knowing she was sitting on what was left of Jacob. She went directly up to the apartment while Wohler-9 stood in the cargo robot explaining to Adam what had happened, as much as he knew. Adam had not seen what led up to the explosion.
Derec and Mandelbrot arrived while Adam was removing Jacob's remains from beneath the large pile of rope. Wohler-9 took the cargo robot to dispose of the remains. Derec and Adam stood on the sidewalk in front of the apartment while Adam took a quarter-hour to explain to Derec in detail what had happened and what had led up to it, including Eve's state of mind before and after she had talked to Neuronius. Then they went up to the apartment, and Derec told Ariel where Wohler-9 had gone.
“I didn't know there was anything left,” Ariel said.
“I'm sorry, Ariel, but there's not much,” Derec said.
“Where did Wohler take him?” Ariel felt a very strong loyalty and determination at that moment.
“The disassembly station,” Derec said.
“The recoverable parts area? At the robot factory?”
“Yes.”
“They're already picking him to pieces? About to stick little bits of him in some other robot!”
“Not likely. I doubt if he's plug-compatible.”
“They'll melt him down?” Her voice rose an octave. “Mandelbrot, get hold of Wohler-9 immediately. Tell him to stop them! Now!!” The last came out stridently, almost incoherent.
“Wohler-9 is probably on his way back,” Derec said. “Notify them at the factory, Mandelbrot.”
Mandelbrot, standing rigidly in his storage niche, shuddered slightly, eyes quickening. After a few seconds, he said, “They have not yet disposed of the remains and will now do nothing until they are told otherwise.”
“I've got to get over there,” Ariel said.
“I'll take you if you must go,” Derec said.
“No, Derec. Mandelbrot knows where it is. I don't want to make a big thing out of this, I just want to pay my respects. Sounds silly, doesn't it? Paying your respects to pieces of a robot?”
“I guess not, if you feel it's that important.”
“Would you like me to come along, Miss Ariel?” Adam SilverSide was standing near the door.
That was the first time since his transformation that she had got a Miss Ariel response. When he had come out of the bedroom that night, she had been demoted to plain Ariel.
“No, Adam, you had best stay here with Derec and Wolruf.”
Wolruf was sitting on the couch, listening and taking it all in, but not participating in what was a not very joyous moment in the mutual relations of the group.
When Ariel got to the factory, she put what was left of Jacob in a gray steel spare-parts box. It was the only time she smiled that evening-a gentle smile, pensive, brought on by the irony she felt. Adam SilverSide's imagination had not equaled the reality of Jacob Winterson. It was a good thing she had not explored further. She might not now be so content with Derec, at least in that one respect.
She and Mandelbrot buried Jacob Winterson in the ground at the west pedestrian exit from the new transportation terminal, near where she had stood in her meetings with the aliens. The funeral service was simple: just a few thoughts as she stood there while Mandelbrot lightly tamped the loose soil over Jacob's coffin with the small shovel he had fashioned from his microbotic arm.
At that moment, her recollection of Jacob's sensitivity came back and overwhelmed her. She was remembering his discerning contribution during that first meeting. They had been at a complete impasse in their negotiations. At that critical point, Jacob had suggested that she inquire concerning the effectiveness of the dome as a weather node compensator in its present state of completion. When she thought about it now, that knowledge seemed crucial to the final resolution of the dilemma she had been able to achieve in her negotiations with the aliens.