Chapter 18. The Black Visitation

Ariel was about to wrap up the meeting. Wolruf had hit the high spots of the technical effort involved in establishing the robot farms and had given her detailed schedule; and Derec had described the external modifications of the city to provide local and interstellar terminal facilities, the minimal effect those changes would have on the meteorology, and the detailed schedule to effect those changes.

Ariel began her recap.

“I would like to briefly review the farm program again and summarize the schedule, but before I do, are there any other questions on the work that Wolruf and Derec described?”

“No,” Synapo said. “It was all quite clear.”

“Was it acceptable?” she asked.

“Yes.”

Synapo turned to look at his companion.

“Sarco?” he queried, “Any objections?”

“Not for the moment,” Sarco replied. “The farm machinery is highly suspect, but we must take you at your word, at least for now. Time may tell us otherwise. And, too, I am concerned…”

He stopped talking briefly, then:

“By the Great Petero!” he exclaimed. “What is that, Synapo?”

Both aliens had turned slightly to the left to focus those red eyes on something behind her. Ariel turned to look herself and saw a dark gray monstrosity on the back seat of the lorry with gigantic wings hovering over the vehicle like some kind of avenging angel.

Then it slowly folded its wings and started walking across the seat to the side of the lorry, where it spread them once again, and Ariel knew instantly what was going on.

But Wolruf had anticipated her by significant seconds and was already running toward the lorry, shouting, “SilverSide, SilverSide,” over and over again, as though shrill decibels would anchor him to the ground.

As it turned out, Wolruf had nothing to worry about. SilverSide came to rest flat on the ground, spread-eagled. And by the time he picked himself up and retracted his wings, Wolruf was clinging to his back, and then Derec was trussing them both up with a rope he had hastily dug out of a locker on the side of the lorry.

Ariel was torn between getting involved in the fracas herself and preserving some kind of composed demeanor for the benefit of the aliens. She felt her position as official negotiator and ostensible leader of the robot city task force with special keenness ever since she had been able to parlay her visit into that position: leader without portfolio.

As Derec was wrapping SilverSide and Wolruf round and round with rope, Ariel turned back to the aliens in time to hear Sarco say, “Perhaps this gives us a better idea what further menace lies off-world, Miss Ariel Welsh. We resume construction of the node compensator tomorrow morning.”

He had rotated his hook forward as he spoke. Then, as he turned away, a broad green flame a meter long blazed from below his eyes, and he flapped into the air.

The heat from the flame hit her like the breath of a blast furnace.

The alien Synapo stood facing her as his colleague flew off.

When he spoke it was in a fashion that left no doubt as to the temper of his thoughts. The words seemed to modulate the small green flame that flickered below his glaring red eyes, a waxing and waning fluorescence that resonated with the strange buzzing sound it imparted to his words.

“You have violated a trust and humiliated me before the elite, Miss Ariel Welsh.”

And he, too, turned and flapped into the air.

She stood there a long time watching them as they slowly and gracefully circled higher and higher above the dome. The first leveled off and took up a flight pattern around the exact center of the dome. The second, however, continued upward, circling and circling until she lost it in the shimmer of the atmosphere.

Derec had come back to stand beside her, but she had not heard him.

“A setback, surely, but perhaps not a large one,” he said.

Startled, she turned to look at him coldly but said nothing before walking back to the lorry. Jacob was standing at the controls. Mandelbrot, standing between him and SilverSide, had hold of the end of a rope where it trailed away from the coils that encircled SilverSide and pinned his wings to his sides. Wolruf was sitting on the front seat directly behind SilverSide. Derec had unwound her from SilverSide once they thought he was under control.

Ariel climbed slowly in and sat down on the back seat.

Derec climbed in and came back to sit beside her. Jacob drove the lorry onto the road and then headed rapidly down Main Street toward the apartment.

“I warned you about SilverSide,” Derec said. “You knew he could change form. I admit I didn't expect a change at so inauspicious a time. What did the aliens say before they flew off?”

“They were frightened, naturally, and angry. They had no reason to suspect we were going to produce a being in their own image, and twice as big. In their minds, I have betrayed their trust. They said as much. And they will close the dome tomorrow morning,” Ariel said. “Your new protege has just closed this planet to further development. Unless your genius and his remarkable abilities can somehow miraculously arrest the inevitable.”

“You're being sarcastic, my dear,” Derec confirmed.

A couple of intersections passed swiftly behind, and then he said, “But you know we might just pull off that miracle.”

“Fat chance,” she said.

“No. A slim chance, but a chance nonetheless.”

She didn't answer, but got up and went to the front of the lorry to sit on the front seat directly behind Jacob Winterson. Right then, Jacob seemed like the only friend she had. She looked right through him, though, staring into a grim tomorrow and not seeing at all his remarkable musculature.

Wolruf reached over and laid a fat-fingered hand atop Ariel's small hand. Ariel didn't move and hardly noticed. After a moment the hand was withdrawn.

When they got to the apartment, she jumped out before the others and strode off. It was a walking pout, a demonstration for Derec's benefit, and she admitted that with one part of her mind. With the other part, she half expected him to come after her and was disappointed when he didn't. She could now think of several things she wanted to say to him. She returned as Jacob was putting lunch on the table.

After a lunch that tasted like sawdust, she went out on the balcony to get away from the others but took Jacob with her. They sat down on the bench that lined the streetside rail.

“Jacob, did SilverSide give any indication he was going to pull a stunt like that? Where is he, anyway?”

She hadn't thought to ask until that moment. She had wanted to forget about SilverSide, and she had succeeded better than she expected. Her thoughts had been on Aurora. She had felt quite homesick all through lunch, and Derec hadn't helped. He had been just as silent as she. Her walk had cooled her irate thoughts. She didn't feel up to an argument so she kept quiet and ate. Immediately after lunch Derec had jumped up and gone into the small bedroom.

Her feeling of isolation had been intensified not only by Derec's silence, but by Wolruf's silence as well. That, too, had persisted all through lunch. She felt again the soft touch of Wolruf's hand as it came to rest on her hand when they were riding back in the lorry.

“To answer your most immediate question first, Master Derec forced SilverSide to lay on the floor of the small bedroom when we first came in,” Jacob said. “SilverSide had trouble getting through the doorways. He was both taller and wider than the openings. It was difficult for him to bend over and at the same time go through the doorway sideways while wrapped with rope.

“To answer your first question, the wild one, as Mandelbrot calls him-it seems particularly apt-the wild one talked to us briefly, but he gave no indication that a change was imminent.”

“He said nothing unusual, then?” Ariel asked.

“He seems not to know what humans are. This matter of imprinting and changing from one form to another: were you aware that he goes through these changes seeking to find the species he can finally call human?”

“Derec suggested that might be the case.”

“Will he then cease to protect what he considers the lesser species?”

“I presume so. Derec seems to think so.”

“Does that not make him an entity of some danger to humans?”

“It would seem so.”

“Then should he not be deactivated?”

“I hadn't thought so before today. Derec seems to regard him as a valuable experiment that must be protected. And from the brief conversation we had, I suspect he still feels that way.”

“Perhaps you should talk to him again, Miss Ariel. Both Mandelbrot and I are concerned that the wild one may get out of control. We are both perturbed by the First Law, and find it even more difficult to be around the wild one now that he has taken on this new alien form.”

“You're right, Jacob. I should talk to Derec.”

She placed her hand on Jacob's neck and softly traced the muscles as though she were stroking a pet. His concern touched her. It was she he was concerned about. It is difficult for a young woman to ignore such concern when it comes from a warm-skinned being as handsome as Jacob. He was a dear, like a big brother.

That thought confused her. When had she stopped thinking of Jacob as a robot? Her regard for him was sisterly, was it not? It couldn't be anything more than that, surely. In spite of the way Derec ignored her in his interest with the wild one, SilverSide.

Perhaps her own impetuous experiment was getting out of hand. Since Derec had arrived on Oyster World, he had not seemed the dear thing she had dreamed about so intensely.

And Jacob's concern was pleasing, and the feel of his muscular neck was certainly stimulating.

With that wild thought she jerked her hand away, jumped up, walked into the apartment, and threw open the door to the bedroom where Derec had gone immediately after lunch and where Jacob said they were keeping SilverSide.

Derec had removed the rope, and SilverSide was sitting on the floor between twin beds. He was leaning back against the wall and had balled in that curious way the aliens had of reducing their surface area. That decreased his height by half.

Derec was sitting on the far bed and had to look up to peer into the robot's red-rimmed eyes.

Ariel sat down on the other bed. Jacob had followed her. He stayed near the door, standing with his back against the wall.

“I have explained the crisis he has caused in our relations with the Ceremyons,” Derec said, “and SilverSide is willing to try to straighten things out. He does not wish to offend the beings he is trying to emulate and serve.”

“They might likely destroy him before he gets the chance to do any serving,” Ariel said. “They were quite disturbed.”

“That is the chance I must take, Ariel,” SilverSide said, “but I do not think that is likely.”

The title Miss was stressed by its absence in SilverSide's remark. He had clearly imprinted on the aliens in thought as well as in form.

“Still, you had best shout at them from a distance,” Ariel said. “Out of flamethrowing range.”

“Communication by radio accomplishes the same thing,” SilverSide said, “without the danger you suggest.”

“One must first understand their radiospeech,” Ariel said. “The modulation is pure ultrasonic gibberish. “

“I have been working on that ever since we arrived. It is not different from the ultrasound they used to converse privately during your meeting with them. That meeting provided the clues I needed to understand the radio transmissions I had picked up the evening of our arrival. I am now modestly fluent in the language.

“So fluent that I suspect you will find several representatives of their species awaiting us outside and probably well within flamethrowing range.”

Derec jumped up from the bed and ran from the bedroom to the French window that opened onto the balcony. Ariel followed him. He started to go out but stopped. There were two aliens perched on the balcony rail, clearly visible through the sheer curtains in spite of the permanent dusk created by the dome. They were silhouetted against the white building across the street like two huge black crows. There were probably more at street level.

Derec and Ariel went back to the bedroom.

“You have been talking to them!” Derec said quietly but with emphasis.

“Yes,” SilverSide said. “I have already opened my own negotiations.”

“And who have you been talking to?” Derec asked.

“The leader called Sarco.”

“And what do they want?”

“My release. I told them I was being held prisoner.”

“Hardly. You could have broken the ropes any time you wanted to, either before or after we got here.”

“Perhaps, but I didn't want to risk damaging my wings. To make myself aerodynamic I've had to sacrifice my original strength and ruggedness to the stamina and lightness needed for extended flight, which unavoidably entails a certain fragility.

“But now I must go talk to Master Sarco.”

“Tell them the truth,” Ariel said. “Explain our sincerity and our lack of knowledge of this last transformation of yours.”

“I must always tell the truth. I cannot do otherwise,” SilverSide said.

“But you do sometimes omit things,” Derec said. “Try to tell everything that is relevant to our situation.”

“My first concern must be for my new masters, but I do not easily forget those like LifeCrier and Wolruf who have been kind to me. Roping and binding, however, can hardly be described as kind.”

“Think of Wolruf, then,” Derec said. “And the many kindnesses I have shown you before this last incident.”

“I must go and confer with Sarco,” SilverSide said as he rolled to his feet, still balled. Then he partially straightened, still bent sideways, and sidled through the bedroom door.

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