by Isaac Asimov
“He would sshoot, if he could,” Wolruf agreed.
Mandelbrot’s voice came over the radio. “I will enter the other ship and bring forth what items I can,” he said. “You will need more organic feedstock for the food synthesizers, and of course air. Perhaps it would be wise to explore the alien ship also.”
That was a thought. It made Derec more than a little nervous, and he could see that Ariel wasn’t much happier.
“That wreckage is grinding around a good bit. Still, the bigger pieces are getting farther and farther away from each other,” she said. “It should be safe — as things go.”
“That apartment back on Earth looks more and more cozy every minute,” said Derec with a weak laugh.
“I sstay behind and fly ship,” said Wolruf. “I glad to do thiss; do not thank me!”
Laughing crazily, they floundered into their suits and crowded into the airlock with Wolruf’s plastic bag.
Normally it was used to convey perishable items across vacuum. Now they pumped it up to half cabin pressure, pushed it up against the inner door of the lock, and started the lock pumps. As soon as lock pressure fell below half cabin pressure, the bag began to push them against the outer door.
Their suits braced them against the push, and the expansion of the balloon speeded the removal of the air outside of the bag from the lock. When the outer door was opened they were shoved out — Ariel just quick enough to grab a handhold on the door, Derec grabbing her foot. Laughing again, they shoved the balloon back inside and slammed the lock.
Their first item was to transfer the undamaged antennas of Wolruf’s ship to their own, and to replace the burnt-out or smashed eyes. The two ships floated near to each other, linked by the light, strong line.
Derec had brought tools, and also made a stop-gap repair on Mandelbrot’s knee. An hour of work saw that completed, while the pieces of the alien ship got farther and farther away.
They squeezed back inside the ship to rest, recharge their air, and eat. Ariel said tiredly, “How did you come to be here — near Earth — Wolruf?”
The caninoid snapped hungrily at synthetic cabbage. “When ‘ou Jump with Key, I hear static hyperwave. I hear two burrsts static, and I get fix on one. I expect it to be Robot City, but iss not. We know coordinatess of Robot City. It a long way away, but Mandelbrrot and I Jump to follow.
Dangerouss, one long Jump. But we darrre not make more, orr we lose bearings. Sso one Jump all we take.”
She paused to gulp more food. They were used to her table manners.
“When we arrive at Earth, Mandelbrot make identification. He lissten to broadcasst — hyperwave still not worrking — and tell me, iss Earth, and explain Earth. We do not have to wonderr for long if thiss where ‘ou went with Key. I hear two more burrstss static, close together, same place: Earth. I not know how ‘ou use Key so close together.”
“Simple,” said Derec. He was tired and his head felt unduly light, even more than free-fall would explain.
“The Key was focused on that apartment. Using it to leave anyplace else, even on the same planet, takes you back to the apartment. We won’t starve — if necessary we can always go back to Number 21, Sub-Corridor 16, Corridor M, Sub Section a, Section 5, of Webster Groves, in St. Louis City.”
“Anyway, we wait. After a while, though, we detect hyperwave burrst of Aranimas’s sship arriving, and we know therre will be trrouble. He also had detected Key use.”
“How long has he known how to do that?” Ariel asked.
Wolruf shrugged. “Possible he always knew. Aranimass not one for saying all he know. Or more likely he learrned since we left him at Rockliffe Station. Is obviouss when ‘ou think about it.”
“How so?” Ariel asked sharply.
“Obviouss, Key must be hyperatomic motor,” said Wolruf, and Derec interrupted.
“I don’t think so. The robots of Robot City learned to duplicate them — they may even have made the Key we have. I don’t think humans or their robots could duplicate any such radical advance in science and technology as would be represented by the reduction of a hyperatomic motor to pocket size. I think the Keys are very compact hyperwave radios. These subetherics trigger the hyperatomic motors, which are elsewhere, and focused on the Keys.’.’
“Ah, ‘ou think motors are in Perihelion?”
Wolruf was a starship pilot too, and knew the theory of hyperatomics. “Probably,” said Derec.
The caninoid made a sound of interest, paused to eat more, and resumed her tale after pondering Derec’s conclusion. “Anyway, we sat therre waiting, and Aranimas sat there waiting. We expected ‘ou to use the Key and escape. Aranimas musst have been chewing nails and sspitting rivets. He could not know what wass going on, and Earth too big even for reckless one like him to attack.”
“How did you know we were us?” Ariel asked, and Derec, head throbbing, tried to follow the logic of her sentence.
“When ‘ou used ‘our hyperwave radio, he musst have known. Aranimas bum to intercept, and we follow him. We fortunate to be closerr by half a solar orbit, get in firrst. Aranimas not sstop to think how lucky he be to have crock to hide behind, going just his way almost as fasst as he. Only mistake he evecr make.”
Derec hoped it would be his last.
“What did you do to his ship, though?” Ariel asked, exasperated.
“Blow up. All time we waiting in orrbit, we were making explosivess. Carbonite recipe in Dr. Avery ship data bank. I know enough chemistry to add oxidizer. Had to use food synthesizerr feedstock, but only one of me to feed, and I ssmall.”
The robots had no doubt needed carbonite for the building of Robot City. Derec knew generally how it was made: it was a super form of black powder, using activated charcoal saturated with potassium nitrate or sodium nitrate. Since the carbon was nearly all burned up — it approached one hundred percent efficiency and was therefore nearly smokeless-carbonite was about ten times as powerful as TNT.
“Even so, it would not worrk if Aranimass had not panicked and Jumped. But he could not know what wass happening.”
Derec nodded, immediately wished he hadn’t; the room seemed to spin. “His panic is understandable,”
he said.
“Are’ ou all right?” Wolruff asked.
“No, but I’m not getting worse. I mean, I’m feeling no worse than before the battle.”
Ariel broke in to explain about the chemfets, and Wolruf was concerned but unable to help. She knew nothing of robots, nor did any race she knew of, save humans.
“I hope ‘ou will be well,” she said, but clearly had her doubts. She seemed shaken by the idea of this invasion.
Derec thought of it as a disease, and at least had the hope that the chemfets were programmed with the Three Laws.
“Shall we go?” he asked. He turned and found Mandelbrot looking at him.
“What do you intend to do about this infestation?” the robot asked.
“Go to Robot City and either turn the problem over to the Human Medical Team or seize Dr. Avery and force him to reverse it — or both,” said Ariel.
“I see. I can think of nothing better, for I do not believe that the medical and/or robotic resources of Aurora or the other Spacer worlds would be adequate to the task of eradication of chemfets,”
Mandelbrot said. “That then must remain purely as a final resort.”
“Rright,” said Wolruf. “We go find Dr. Avery. He worrse than Aranimass!”
The next step was to explore the alien ship. They cast off from Wolruf’s Star Seeker and jetted lightly toward one of the larger, more intact hulls. They carried clubs, and Ariel a knife from the galley, but they found it airless and had little fear of survivors. There were none, as it turned out. Nor were there all that many bodies.
“Aranimas musst have sounded the recall and called them to the main hull,” Wolruf said. “They would be valuable to him, of courrse.”
Still, a good number of innocent Narwe — and not-so-innocent starfish folk — h
ad died in the battle. They found nothing of immediate use in the first two hulls, and became depressed.
“We must have air, if nothing else,” Mandelbrot said. “And we should also find organic feedstock for the synthesizers. It is, you tell me, five Jumps to Robot City. It will take at least three weeks, and then there is the final approach, and a reserve against emergencies. This hull will not hold air for three days. It can be patched up more, but probably not enough to hold air for more than a week. We will need four complements of air, and even so, I must spend every moment patching till the Jump.”
“You’ll be patching after every Jump,” Derec said grimly.
Mandelbrot was right. They returned to the search, though the hulls were getting far apart now.
The next hull had been one occupied by the starfish folk, and they immediately gave up hope of finding air here; the strange aliens breathed a mix containing a sulfur compound that Wolruf called “yellow-gas.”
On the way out, though, they found a robot.
At Ariel’s cry, Derec shook his head and took a deep breath. The robot, when he came into the open chamber where she was, seemed a breath of sanity in unreality: the shot-up spaceship, in free-fall and airless, was like an Escher print of an upside down world. The body of one of the starfish folk was stuck to one wall, a vicious-looking energy piston in one tentacled grip. Ariel and the robot were spinning slowly in the vacuum, drifting toward a bulkhead. She had leaped to seize it.
“It’s dysfunctional,” she said.
Timing his moves with hers, he intercepted them at the bulkhead and they turned their lights on it. It made no move, but whether it was speaking or not, they could not tell.
Mandelbrot entered while they were examining the robot’s body. “Energy scoring on the head, and fuse marks here and there, mostly on the body. It looks like the starfish over there shot it up during the battle.
“How did it come to be in the ship?” Ariel asked.
“Hmm. I suppose Aranimas must have come upon it somewhere and captured it,” said Derec.
“Where could he have found it?”
Derec considered. “Possibly it’s one he found at the ice asteroid. But I doubt it. He was desperate for me to make him a robot. He’d have given me all the parts he had.”
Mandelbrot fixed his cold eyes on the damaged robot. “This is a robot from Robot City.”
“Yes.” The design style was unmistakable to the trained eye.
“Let’s get it into air; maybe it’s trying to speak,” said Ariel.
But back in the Star Seeker it lay as inert as before. Removing his spacesuit, Derec got out the toolkit and looked at Mandelbrot. The prospect of work on the robot made him feel better than he had in days.
A matter of interest. They quickly learned that power to the brain was off. Reenergizing it, though, did no good.
“A near-miss from an energy beam might well cause brain burn-out without visibly damaging the brain,”
said Mandelbrot.
The positronic brain was a platinum-iridium sponge, with a high refractivity; it wouldn’t melt easily. But the positronic paths through it were not so resistant.
“So we can learn nothing from questioning it,” Derec said, dejected. “Wait a minute. What’s this?”
Clutched tightly in its fist was a shiny object. A shiny rectangular object.
“A Key to Perihelion,” said Mandelbrot expressionlessly.”
Aranimas would have taken it away from the robot if he’d known it had one,” said Ariel. “I wonder what the robot was doing with it?”
“We’ll never know. Maybe it took the first moment it wasn’t under observation to try use the Key. And the starfish caught it in the act.” Derec gripped the Key and pulled it out of the fist. Instantly he knew it was different.
“It feels like two Keys built together!”
“It is,” said Mandelbrot, peering at it. “One, I suppose, to take the robot from Robot City. One to return him to Robot City.”
“Which is which?” Ariel asked.
Derec and Mandelbrot spent a few minutes determining that. They found that one Key had a cable plug in one end.
“I see,” Ariel said, when they showed her. “A tiny cable, with five tiny prongs. It must be for reprogramming. I don’t know what would plug into it —”
“Something like a calculator,” said Derec, “to enable one to input the coordinates of the destination.”
The other Key had no provision for changing its programming, and was therefore set permanently on Robot City.
“Not that it does us any good,” said Ariel wistfully. “It’s initialized for a robot. Too bad; we desperately need to get to Robot City, especially Derec. And only Mandelbrot can get there.”
“That is true; Derec must go to Robot City soon, and the Key is better than three weeks in a ship, even if the ship did not leak,” said Mandelbrot. “I will take you there, Derec.” He wrapped his normal arm around Derec, half carrying him.
“What about us?” Ariel cried. “This ship is no safer for Wolruf and me.”
Mandelbrot’s mutable Avery-designed arm was already stretching into a long tentacle. “That is correct — it is very likely that you and Wolruf will die if you do not accompany us,” he said. “Therefore, I shall have to take you all.”
The tentacle coiled about Ariel and Wolruf and splayed out into a small hand at the end. “The Key, if you please, Derec.”
Derec placed the doubled Key in the small hand. “At least Dr. Avery won’t be expecting us,” he said.
“He find out soon ‘nough,” said Wolruf.
Mandelbrot extruded another finger from the hand that held the Key to Perihelion. It rose up and pressed, in sequence, the corners of the Key, and waited for the activating button to appear. Knowing it was irrational, Derec felt the air get staler in the tiny pace of time it took. Then, Perihelion.
And then a planetary sky burst blue and brilliant above them. They were breathing deeply, standing atop the Compass Tower — the mighty pyramid that reared over Dr. Avery’s Robot City.
Perihelion
3604 A.D.
Chapter 1
THE COMPASS TOWER
DEREC STOOD ON the high, flat top of the Compass Tower, looking down from the great pyramid at the endless geometric wonders of Robot City beneath its blue and brilliant sky. Ariel leaned against him, still clutching his arm in both hands. Mandelbrot the robot and Wolruf, the little caninoid sentient alien, waited behind them.
“It’s changed so much,” Derec said quietly. They had just teleported back to the planet by using their double Key to Perihelion. Mandelbrot had carried them all here. “Keep the Key. It’ll be safest with you.”
“Yes, Derec,” said Mandelbrot.
Derec turned around to gaze in the other direction. The sight was the same: the lights and shapes of Robot City, stretching to a skyline barely limned by the reflected sunlight against the blue horizon. He could not escape it in any direction. His destiny seemed to be here.
“What’s changed?” Ariel asked. Her voice was meek. She had not recovered from her ordeal on Earth.
A critical illness had reached fullness there, destroying her memories and her entire identity with them.
They had not been there by choice, but fortunately he had been able to place a new matrix of chemical memories into her mind. They were to grow on the residue of her old memory, but they were still developing. She had not had time to get used to them, to integrate them, to understand who she was.
Derec squinted into the warm breeze that blew up the front face of the pyramid. It tossed his sandy hair.
Once brush cut, it had grown out to a golden shag. “They’ve done it. The robots have built the city out in all directions. It could cover the entire planet by now.”
“So it didn’t before.” She nodded, as if to herself, looking all around as he was.
“No. Still, we aren’t exactly strangers here. We know how to get along. And if we’re lucky, we can ge
t this trip over with and leave again before long.” Derec turned to Mandelbrot. “We have to find some shelter before we’re noticed. Can you still use your comlink to reach the city computer?”
“I will try.” Mandelbrot hesitated a few seconds, quite a long time for a robot. “Yes. The city computer has changed the frequency it uses, but I have identified the new one by the simple expedient of starting with the original and sending a variety of signals that run up and down the entire range of —.”
“Fine, excellent, thank you.” Derec grinned at his enthusiasm, gesturing with his hands palm forward.
“Believe me, I trust your competence. My next question is this: When Ariel and I first came to Robot City, I found an office in this pyramid, down below. It had been recently occupied. I think we can find Dr. Avery there, but we have to be careful. Can you find out from the city computer if the office is still in use?”
“I will try.” Mandelbrot then shook his head. “The computer will not reveal any information about the office. It will not even confirm that the office still exists.”
“All right. “Derec sighed.
“What if it’s gone?” Ariel asked.
“I’d be very surprised,” said Derec. “Avery just didn’t want his private office on file anywhere. We’ll have to take our chances and just go right in if we can.”
Ariel held her hair out of her face. “Just go in? How?”
“The ceiling of the office had a trapdoor that opened right up into this platform we’re on.” He got down on his hands and knees. “Come on, let’s find it.”
“Derec.” Ariel’s voice was a little stronger, showing some of her old spirit. “You’ve been growing weaker because of those... things Dr. Avery forced into your body. Just be careful, will you?”
“Can you find it?” he demanded irritably. “You’re not in the best condition of your life, either.”
“Well, I’m not sick anymore!” She folded her arms. “I’m well now, at least physically.” She watched him for a moment. Then, as if to prove the point, she knelt down and started feeling around the surface of the platform herself.
“You don’t even remember being here before, do you?” Derec asked accusingly. The tension was making him irritable.
