The Warlock`s Companion

Chapter 5

"DAMN! It doesn't work!" Dar sat back and glared at the chipped enamel on the robot's claws. "What happened, X-HB-9?"

"I did just as you said, sir," the little robot answered. In size and shape, it resembled nothing so much as a canister vacuum cleaner—but one with jointed arms extruded from the top.

"All I said was to go into the kitchen and take the breakfast tray out of the autochef!"

"I did, sir, but my clamps encountered a solid vertical instead of a vacant space."

"They sure did." Dar had heard the clang all the way to the bedroom. Not that he'd been sleeping, of course; after all, it was 1:00 p.m.—Terran Standard Time; if they'd gone by local Maxima time, they would have had a noon and a midnight four times a day, and sometimes five. Maxima was big, as asteroids go, almost a kilometer and a half in diameter, but it was still miniscule on the planetary scale.

So why was a robot delivering breakfast in bed? Purely a trial run, with an imitation breakfast. Food was too scarce to waste on a simulation.

And if this was a trial, X-HB-9 was doomed. Dar frowned. "But I don't understand. All you had to do was wait until the door was open. Fess!"

"Yes, Dar?" A humanoid robot stepped into the room. His head was a stainless steel sphere with binocular lenses, an audio pickup, and a loudspeaker, positioned in a rough semblance of a human face. His body was a flattened tube, big enough to have some storage capacity for tools and spare components; his arms and legs were sections of pipe with universal joints. His gait was a bit awkward, like that of a gangly adolescent.

"What did you see in the kitchen?"

"X-HB-9 came up to the autochef, waited for its chime, then reached up to crash into the door. The enamel on the autochef is chipped, too."

Dar sighed. "One more fix-up for me to get to. Damn! This whole shelter's put together with chewing gum and baling wire!"

"It is still more salubrious than a PEST prison, Dar—especially when you consider that no one is torturing you to reveal psionic powers that you do not have."

"Yeah, but it doesn't work! Why didn't the autochef open its door?"

"Because X-HB-9 has no provision for cueing it to do so."

Dar lifted his head slowly, eyes widening. "Of course! Why didn't I think of that?"

Fess tactfully forbore to comment; from contextual analysis, it could tell Dar's question was rhetorical.

"I was so chirpy about getting the take-out-the-tray part of the program right, that I forgot to program X-HB-9 to open the door!" Dar slapped his forehead with the heel of his hand. "All these details that I keep overlooking. Where the hell is Lona, anyway?"

Fess was unexpectedly silent.

"No, no!" Dar said quickly. "The PEST immigration authorities might trace the radio signal. Don't try to contact her."

"I am merely attempting an extrapolation of her activities, based on past records, Dar."

"Back when you used to take her there, you mean." It still rankled that Lona had only started leaving Fess with Dar after she had made herself a new guidance computer that did even better piloting than Fess had.

"After all, he's just a general purpose robot," she had explained. "GAP is built to do guidance and piloting only—of course he's better at it! And I really do need a specialist. PEST has tightened security around Terra again, and it takes some very careful astrogating to slip through their net."

"No argument." Dar held up a hand. "The important thing about sending you away, is to get you back. Just seems kind of poor of you to dump good old Fess just because you've got a new one."

"Oh, he won't mind. He really won't, Dar—he's a machine": You keep forgetting that. Computers are just machines; they don't really think, and they don't have feelings."

"I know, I know! It's just that… well… I wouldn't have expected it of you, that's all."

"But you shouldn't care." Lona swayed a little closer. "Or do you identify with him, darling? You shouldn't, you know."

"Yeah. After all, I never get to go to Terra with you, at all."

"But you did—vicariously. As long as I was taking Fess with me. And now you're feeling rejected. Is that it?"

"What can I feel, when you keep going off and leaving me? I know, I know, you don't have any choice—but you don't have to be so damned happy about it."

"Poor darling." The sway turned into a snuggle. "I know you feel left out—but honestly, it wouldn't make sense to put us both into danger of being arrested, and I'm the one who has the contacts."

"You didn't, the first time you went."

"No, I had one—Lari Plandor."

Dar felt a stab of jealousy. "Yes, just a close friend left over from your college days."

"And that's all he ever was, too. Mind you, I'm not saying he didn't want to be more—but I didn't."

"Yeah, I know. And you didn't want to be cruel, so you stayed friendly. Aloof, but friendly."

"Yes, and it came in handy when we decided to start up our own business. A friend in the purchasing department of Amalgamated Automatons was just what we needed."

"Still do, I suppose," Dar sighed. "And are you still aloof to him?"

"Well, I can't be, now, can I? When I'm trying to get him to place an order for a thousand new components. I mean, I have to be a little warmer."

"Just so long as you don't get him fired up." But Dar felt his stomach sinking; how could any man not get fired up when he looked at Lona?

"I can't control what he feels."

The hell she couldn't. "Let me amend that—'just so long as you don't get interested in him.' "

"Silly! Do you really think I could feel amorous with anybody but you?"

Do lady kangaroos have pockets? Dar carefully noted that she had avoided the direct answer. "What've I got that he hasn't got?"

"Me," Lona answered. "All my clients have are my order forms. After all, I don't feel toward them the way I feel toward you."

"Oh? And how do you feel toward me?"

"I'm in love with you," she murmured as her lips met his, and her body curved into his.

Dar shook his head with a sigh—it had been a wonderful way to say "good-bye." He couldn't understand his luck—her clients had status, wealth, influence, sophistication, looks—but, true to her word, he had her.

On the other hand, two hours later, she'd been space-borne again, heading for Terra—and he'd stayed here to watch the factory, with her discarded robot. It still rankled.

But not too much—it had been very lonely whenever she had taken off for the fleshpots of Terra, and Fess was good company.

Fleshpots—the thought sent a shiver through Dar. What was she up to, down there in Sin City? Which, as far as he was concerned, meant the whole planet. What was she up to, and how many times had she been unfaithful to him?

Not that it mattered. Or at least, he knew it wouldn't when he saw her again, live and vibrant, before him. She always came home with stars in her eyes and contracts in her hands. So who was he to criticize?

"Her husband, that's who," he muttered.

"Not officially," Fess corrected.

"Does it matter?"

"Certainly. Your current status is only that of business partners."

"Yeah, business partners who've been living together for seven years!"

"Still, that is only a matter of convenience and mutual pleasure," Fess said primly. "Neither of you is legally bound to the other."

"Well, fine. You talk about the legalities, but I have to live with the actualities."

"You are free to leave, Dar."

"Yeah, and she keeps all the patents." But Dar knew that was only the smallest part of it.

"You have become so skilled an engineer that you could earn a living anywhere in inhabited space, Dar."

"Yeah, but she wouldn't be there." Fess wouldn't say it, but Dar knew he had a problem with his self-image. It resembled nothing so much as a large, multicolored lollipop. "Come on. If I'm such a hotshot engineer, I gotta be able to figure out how to make a simple little housecleaner deliver breakfast, don't I?"

"Yes, Dar. After that we can move on to the really interesting program—enabling it to wash windows."

Dar thought of the chipped enamel and shuddered. He glanced at the skylight. "Well, we've got time—a good two hours till the next sunrise. Come on, X-HB-9." He headed for the shop.

They finished the next (successful) test just as the first ray of sunrise fingered the skylight dome. Dar looked up at it, swallowed his toast (well, it had been time for tea), and said, "Go stand in the corner, X-HB-9."

"Yes, sir." The little canister turned, rolled over to the corner, plugged itself in to recharge, and went immobile.

"I'll meet you at the airlock," Dar called. He took a last swallow of tea, wiped the cup, dropped it into the dishwasher, and headed for his pressure suit.

He suited up, checked his seals, stepped into the airlock, and floated. The hatch closed automatically behind him, but he had to grab a handhold with his right while he spun the locking wheel with his left, or he would have gone spinning away in the other direction. As the air hissed back into its storage tank, he allowed himself a glow of self-satisfaction; he'd been wise to insist on not having artificial gravity under the airlock, so that he could get used to weightlessness before he stepped out onto the surface. Dar's enduring nightmare was a breakdown in the gravity plates.

On the other hand, he wouldn't have to worry about falling. No, strike that—in weightlessness, he was always falling. He just didn't have to worry about the sudden stop at the end. Of course, he was good at landing—he tripped a lot, and had learned how to hit safely, if not softly—but he didn't like it much.

Fess was waiting for him just outside the airlock, one more sharp-angled piece of rock in a surreal landscape of glaring light and total shadow. "Visual inspection, please," Dar requested.

"No leaks in evidence," the robot answered as Dar turned slowly, changing hands on the grab-handle next to the hatch. "All seals appear intact. Good manners are not necessary when dealing with a robot, Dar."

"Yeah, but if I neglect them, I'll get out of the habit of using them, and I'll start being rude to people. Can't afford that, Fess—I need every friend I've got, especially when there are only two hundred fifty-six of us on Maxima. Come on, let's see how the cutter's been doing the last three hours." He clipped his safety lead to the guide wire and pushed off toward the north side.

The robot rock-cutter had produced another forty blocks during the three-hour night.

"Well, production's up to standard." Dar looked back over the cutter's trail. "Just wish we could afford another one."

"That would be desirable, Dar, but it would push the limits of our power output. Slagging requires sixty percent of our reactor's capacity, and the crane and factory require the rest."

"So we could buy a bigger power plant." Dar glanced at the cable running from the crane off to the reactor, dug into the foot of an outcrop a hundred meters from the house. "Then we wouldn't have to depend on the solar-cell screens for the household."

"You should be able to afford one in the not too distant future, Dar."

"How far is 'not too distant'?" Dar growled.

"Only four years now," Lona had answered. "Our ship will come in, Dar. You'll see."

"Yeah, but will it be a tug or a freighter?"

"A freighter." Lona raised a hand as though she were being sworn in. "Cross my heart."

"Okay." Dar reached for her.

"Not yet, naughty." Lona slapped his hand away. "I have work to do first.''

"I take a lot of doing," Dar suggested.

"Braggart. Next thing I know, you'll tell me you do a lot of taking."

"Well, as a matter of fact…"

"Don't try." She pressed a finger over his lips. "Any teacher who really does his job, doesn't qualify as a taker."

"I stopped teaching six years ago."

"Only because the sheriff was after you. You'd open school here, if there were any children."

"That's a vile canard; there are fourteen children."

"Yes, but the oldest is only four."

"Well, I specialized in adult education, anyway. Is it my fault nobody here has less than a B.S.? Except me…"

"A B.A. will do quite well, thank you. Especially since you've learned enough about engineering to qualify for the other bachelor's anyway."

"Yeah, but I was only interested in the bachelor girl."

"So I was a great motivational device." Lona shrugged impatiently. "You're the one who did the learning."

"Yeah, but you did the teaching."

"Me and a small library. You've even learned enough not to be afraid of the reactor."

"Oh, I wouldn't say that." Dar turned to look out the port at the outcrop where he had just finished burying the power plant. "Intellectually, I know no radiation can get out of that plasma bottle—but emotionally, I still want it as far away from me as I can get it."

"Well, you're only human." Lona came up behind him, slipped her arms under his, and began to trace geometrical figures on his chest.

"Of course, five hundred meters wouldn't do any good if it blew. We'd still be right inside the fireball."

Her hands stilled. "You know it can't blow up, though."

"Yeah, my mind knows it, but my stomach doesn't."

"If anything did go wrong enough to make the plasma bottle collapse, there wouldn't be anything to hold the hydrogen in, so the fusion reaction would stop."

"I know, I know. I just don't like the feeling of living next door to a hydrogen bomb, even if it is in a bottle. I keep thinking about what happened when they broke the seal and let the genie out."

"Well, this is one genie that isn't going anywhere, and in the meantime, it's going to make all your wishes come true."

"Is that why we need a bigger genie?"

"Of course. That's the only way this one can fulfill your more extravagant hopes—by calling in his big brother.'' Her hands began moving again.

Dar held still, trying to let the sensation wash through every inch of himself. "What do you think you're doing—rubbing the lamp?"

"All right, so I have designs on you. I told you I have to leave for Terra tomorrow, didn't I?"

"Yeah, but you promised to make today worthwhile."

"Then carpe diem."

"I thought I'd done enough carping." Dar turned around, reaching out. "And the moment is not what I wanted to seize."

She had, though. He could have sworn she had—she'd led him on into a place where time slowed down, and he could have sworn the climactic moment lasted for an hour. He blew out a long breath and gave his head a shake, remembering.

"May I remind you of the project at hand, Dar?"

"Huh?" He looked up to see Fess's rod-and-canister body silhouetted against stark, jagged rocks, and wrenched himself back into reality and the present. "Just letting my mind wander for a minute."

"I am concerned for your safety while you are operating the crane, Dar."

"Don't worry, I'll turn on the radio."

"There is no real reason for you to assist. I am perfectly capable of building the wall."

"Yeah, but if I do, too, it'll take half the time."

"You are needed to supervise the factory."

"So what's to see? I checked the automatons just before tea break, Fess. They were in fine shape, as always, and the alarm will sound if anything goes wrong."

"Quality control…"

"I'll check the monitor at triple-speed and run the other checks in the morning. Come on—time to throw stones." Dar pushed gently against the rock and glided to the crane, unhitched his safety line while he held onto its grab-handle, hitched onto it, and climbed in.

"You do not yet live in a glass house, Dar," Fess's voice said in his earphones.

"Then I'd better toss rocks while I can. And the house is glass, on the outside, after we get done slagging it. Or at least obsidian—and if it's not, it's too close to tell." He powered up the crane, checked its water level, turned up the hold-down jets, and retracted the anchor. Then he dipped the arm, lifted a block of stone in its tongs, and turned to trundle over to the wall of the house.

Fess was there before him, fitting a block onto the top of the wall, interlocking it into the corner beside it. He stepped back. "Clear, Dar."

"Going in." Dar eased the crane forward and lowered his block into place. Nothing another robot couldn't have done, of course—but one more brain in the crane meant one less they could sell to a company on Terra. It was cheaper for Dar to do the guiding himself, boring as it might be.

As he trundled away, Fess came up with his next block—and so it went, the two of them taking turns for an hour and a half, as the wall grew higher and higher.

Eventually, Fess said, "Midday, Dar."

"Gotcha." Dar threw the crane into neutral and glanced back at the cutter. "Timed out just right; it's only three blocks ahead of us. Okay, faithful worker—let's slag."

"I shall assume a discreet distance, Dar."

"Please do." Dar turned the crane to face away from the wall, turned his seat around, and took hold of the torch's controls.

"Good thing we've got a decent water supply on this asteroid." He pressed the on patch for the big laser.

"I believe that was one of the factors in the founders' selection of Maxima as a dwelling place, Dar."

"Yeah. It wasn't for aesthetic factors, that's for sure."

"That statement is debatable, Dar. I find great satisfaction in contemplation of the mathematical interrelationships of the landforms in our vicinity."

"I'd like to say it's the kind of vista only a robot could love—but I know that some of our more eminent members think this stark, harshly lit landscape is the epitome of beauty."

"It is not your aesthetic ideal, though, Dar."

"No." A brief vision of Lona flashed before his mind's eye. "My notion of beauty runs more to curves than to planes." He felt a surge of frustration-charged irritation, knew it for what it was, and tried to quell it. "Come on, let's spit."

All the meters were in the green—at least, he knew it was green, though it looked more like charcoal gray, between the glaring sunlight and the filter in his faceplate. He thumbed the pressure point at the top of the handle, and a bolt of coherent light stabbed out at the wall, searing the shadows and darkening his faceplate. He yelled for the sheer joy of it and moved the beam slowly back and forth over the rocks he'd just been stacking, watching the cold rock glow red, then begin to flow. He panned the beam over to the next area, and the stone congealed as the beam left it, glowing an angry ruby, darkening as it cooled.

Off to his right, Fess's laser seared the adjacent wall.

They kept it up until sunset forced them to stop, darkness hiding their target; the laser beam lit only the stone it was currently melting.

Dar shut down his systems and climbed down from the crane, feeling stiff but satisfied, recognizing the sublimation involved, but happy about it anyway. He went toward the new wall.

"Please be careful, Dar," Fess reminded him.

"Don't worry, I'm not stupid enough to touch it." In fact, Dar stopped a good five feet away from the wall. Without air, there was no possibility of the heat reaching out to him—but he was planet-born, and inbred caution held him back. He could admire his handiwork, though, by the light of his headlamp—the first section had cooled into darkness now. It was a great effect—a towering wall of wax left too near the fire, melted into drips and runnels. He stepped back, then remembered what tripping and falling might do to a pressure suit and turned away, stalking off fifty meters before he turned back to take in the whole of the shelter he and Fess were building.

"It is good to take pride in your handiwork, Dar."

"Thanks." Dar grinned. "Though I wasn't about to squelch the feeling, Fess—I'm not that much of a Puritan."

Fess didn't respond.

"Besides, it's not my design—though I can't see why Lona wants another room for the factory. We can just barely sell the dozen brains we make in a month, as it is." Dar cocked his head to the side. "But I think I'm beginning to see the effect she's trying for, now."

He was silent long enough so that Fess prompted him: "And that effect is?"

"A castle." Dar turned away. "Not that she doesn't deserve it—but she also doesn't have to let everybody know."

The call light on the console was blinking as Dar stepped in from the airlock. He pulled his suit open just enough to tilt back the helmet as he stepped over to punch for playback. The comm screen lit up with the face of Maxima's Director of Imports. He knew Myrtle was plain, as women go, but she looked very attractive at the moment. Dar remembered his vision of Lona, and realized how much too long she'd been away.

"Shipment coming in, Dar," Myrtle's face said. "A miner's trying to make a few kwahers on his way back out from Ceres. He's bringing in the usual mixed bag—silicon, metals, and replacement parts. If you're interested, he'll be opening shop about 1600. 'Bye, now." She favored him with her favorite sheep's eyes just before the screen went dark.

"She'll never stop," Dar sighed. "I swear that woman has given me the best leers of her life."

"No doubt because she is certain it is safe to do so," Fess assured him. "Will you go, Dar?"

"Are you kidding? We've only got a month's supply of pure silicon left! And the aluminum and gold are getting low, too." Dar stripped off his suit in a hurry and hung it on its peg in passing, heading for the shower.

"You could buy a smelter," Fess reminded him, "and buy raw minerals much more cheaply, from the local miners."

His answer was a blast of water-noise—Dar preferred the sensation of spray to the admittedly quicker supersonic vibration that shook dirt loose; and why not use water, when it was only going to be purified and fed into the fusion reactor, anyway? His voice rose above the burble. "Don't trust 'em, Fess. The big one on Ceres does a better job than any home bottle could do—and I can buy an awful lot of pure minerals for what a smelter would cost."

Besides, with his own furnace, he wouldn't have as many occasions to go into town and see other people.

Dar headed out a half-hour later, cleansed, depilated, and anointed, with a hot meal in his belly and Lona's shopping list in his pocket. He knew well enough what they were low on, of course, but she always hit a few things he wouldn't have thought of. He had to admit she was more experienced at shopping.

Of course, it could also be that she knew more about building and programming computers.

"No question there," he said, holding up a hand and closing his eyes. "I defer to your superior wisdom." It was galling to have to admit it, but he did. "I scarcely know how to grow rock candy, let alone a molecular circuit."

"But there's nothing to it," she'd said. "You see, this little sawtoothed line means a resistor, and the number over it tells you how many ohms it has to be."

Dar frowned and peered over her shoulder.

"The paper," she reminded him.

"I am looking at the paper."

"But I want you to concentrate, too." Lona pushed her chair aside so that the schematic was between them. "And these parallel lines show a capacitor."

"But how do I tell how many ohms the resistor is? The real one, I mean, not the one in the drawing."

"It's printed on the side of the box."

"Yeah, but we're talking about me being able to make sure the robots are using the right ones. What if the wrong number gets stamped on the side? Or if it's the right number, but a stray resistor is in there with the wrong number of ohms?"

"Hm." Her brow knit (she had a very pretty frown, Dar thought). "That is a good point, my love. So that's why Mama taught me how to read the color code."

"Color code?"

"Yes. You see how each of these rings painted on the resistor has a different color? Well, each color is equivalent to a number…"

And so it had gone—electronics, chemistry, particle physics, with Lona always impatient, always trying to breeze past and hit only the points absolutely necessary for the job, and Dar always doggedly pulling her back to the part she'd skipped, knowing that if he didn't keep asking "Why?" it wouldn't be very long before he wouldn't understand what she was talking about.

When you're trying to learn, it helps being a teacher.

She'd taught him enough to be able to supervise the factory, which meant that he knew how to do every job himself, if he had to—but he still didn't know enough to plan a job, and certainly couldn't have designed anything more complicated than an autobar. He was studying whenever he could, of course—and she'd been delighted, when she had come home from that third trip to Terra and had found the hard copy sitting out on his desk…

"Dar! You've been studying!"

"Huh?" Dar had looked around in panic. "I won't do it again! I promise!"

"No, do!" Lona bent over to look more closely, and Dar bad a dizzy spell. "It's about wave propagation!"

Dar glanced at his desk, irritated; waves were the last thing he'd wanted to propagate, just then. "Well, sure. I promised you I'd learn enough to run the factory, remember?"

"But I already taught you enough for that. This is above and beyond the call—and it's all on your own! Oh, you wonderful man!" And she turned to him, hauling his face up to hers for a kiss that was so deep and dazzling that he began to think maybe he was pretty wonderful, after all.

When she let him up for air, he gasped, "You keep that up, and I'll have to study all the time."

She did it again, then propped him up before he could slide to the floor. "All right, I'm keeping it up—and you! So start studying. Even when I'm around. Why didn't you before?"

"Uh…" Dar bit his lip. "Well, uh… I kinda thought you might feel like I was, uh…"

"Poaching on my territory?" She shook her head (her hair bounced so prettily when she did that!), eyes shining up at him. "Knowledge is free, sweetheart—or at least, the price is limited to how much studying you're willing to do to gain it. And the more you know, the prouder I am to be with you." Then she'd co-opted his lips again, to show just what form her pride took.

Well, she was body-proud, Dar reflected—and had a perfect right to be. She'd sure given him reason to keep his nose in the books when she was gone. He'd learned calculus and was beginning on some of the more esoteric branches of mathematics, and was almost up to date on wave mechanics—but that still left an awful lot he didn't know: circuitry, information theory, particle physics… "I wonder if I'll ever be able to learn it faster than the scientists are developing the knowledge," he wondered aloud.

"That is possible, Dar." Fess lay in the cargo hold, his computer plugged into the car's controls. "The rate of new discoveries is slowing down, on Terra. There are as many articles published as ever, but they are increasingly derivative. The number of original concepts published and tested declines every year."

Dar frowned. "Odd, that. I'd heard the universities were graduating more Ph.D.s than ever."

"True, Dar, but they no longer require truly original work for their dissertations. Nor will they—bureaucracy tends toward stability, and truly new ideas can upset that stability."

"Well, the Proletarian Eclectic State of Terra is bureaucratic." Dar frowned. "But its most prominent characteristic is that it's one of the tightest totalitarian governments ever seen. I thought dictatorships wanted research, to give them new and better weapons."

"Only if there is an enemy who threatens the dictator's rule, Dar—and PEST has no rivals for the government of the Terran Sphere, at the moment. Such weapons research as is done, is only a seeking after new applications of existing principles. A dictatorship does not encourage the discovery of new ideas."

"I can understand their viewpoint; I'm a little reluctant to try coming up with new ideas, myself."

"That is only because you know enough to know how little you know."

"In which case, I'll probably never outgrow it. Still, I'll be glad when I've learned enough to understand why Lona tells me to do something a certain way. It'd be nice to know what I'm doing, instead of just following her directions blindly."

"That will boost your self-esteem, Dar, perhaps to the point of developing the occasional idea or two, yourself."

Dar shuddered. "Please! I want to court Lona, not disaster. I'm not about to start trying to do things my own way for a long time, yet."

"I think you have Lona on a bit of a pedestal, Dar."

"No, I'm only awed by her knowledge. Well, maybe by her business instincts, too. All of her instincts, in fact…"

He stifled the thought. Later, boy, he told himself sternly. When she comes home. Let's keep to the business at hand here.

Unfortunate turn of phrase.

"Your attention is drifting again, Dar."

"That's, why I've got a robot pilot." But Dar reluctantly hauled his mind back to business. "In the meantime, if I don't follow Lona's instructions to the letter, our little five-robot factory will break down or start producing defective computers."

"True, Dar, and you will start losing sales."

Dar nodded. "No sales means no money—and on Maxima, no money means no food."

"That statement is true in any civilized society, Dar."

"True. But on an asteroid, 'no money' also means no water after we finish mining the ice on our own homestead—and there're only two pockets left, scarcely ten years' supply. And no water means no oxygen to breathe, and no hydrogen for fusion, which means no electricity."

"True—and, though our airproofing is very good, there is always a slight loss from day to day."

"Yes, and 'No money' also means no nitrogen or trace gases for the atmosphere, and no replacement parts for the life-support machinery. 'No money, no life,' as the Chinese say."

"I do not think Maxima is in any economic danger, though, Dar."

"Not as a whole, no." Dar gazed at the Ngoyas' house, off in the distance. It was a French chateau that could have rivaled Versailles. In fact, it was a copy of Versailles, on a smaller scale (but not much smaller). "The Ngoyas don't seem to be doing too badly. Of course, their factory is almost as big as their house, now." He could see its skylights poking above the ground behind the mansion. (That was the nice thing about ice pockets—when you mined them out, you had great underground chambers for automated machinery). "Their sales have to be over a million therms a year.''

"One million three hundred sixty-eight thousand, Dar. It is a matter of public record."

"Which means our income is, too." Dar winced. "No wonder they're being patronizing toward us."

"I still believe that to be primarily a matter of your perception, Dar. An analysis of speech patterns and facial expressions does not reveal any such attitude in any of your neighbors but the Laurentians, the Mulhearns, and the Bolwheels."

"Those are definitely the worst of them, yes.'' Dar watched a small mountain of a house come into view. "There's the Mulhearns' palace, now." It was Buckingham Palace, in fact—the Maximans were not shy in their pretensions. "Remind me to try to stay away from them."

"If you insist, Dar, though they are relatively harmless."

"Which means they won't harm me, if I don't come near them. Oh, don't worry, I won't insult them. They are human, after all."

"You must not sneer at your neighbors, Dar, if you plan to co-exist with them."

"Come on, Fess! You know I get along okay with most of 'em. I just don't particularly have a yen to build a palace in a vacuum, that's all."

"But you would, if you could surround it with atmosphere and a grassy park?"

"Well, maybe." Dar frowned. "There must be some way to enclose those mansions. Maybe if we built underground…"

Fess made a buzzing noise, the robotic equivalent of clearing his throat.

Dar looked up sharply, startled. "Was I drifting again?"

"Yes, Dar, and such speculation is to be encouraged—but within the context of the present discussion, I would like to point out that you are not entirely out of sympathy with the pretensions of your technocratic fellows.''

"Well, maybe a little." Dar frowned. "But then, I'm only skilled labor so far."

"Yes, and you have not yet begun your own dynasty."

The simple thought of offspring made Dar's head whirl.

"Town" was a cluster of one-story basalt buildings in three concentric circles; at their hub was a spaceport. The structures were almost all shops—ship repair, retail import/export, and recreation. There was even a small hotel mixed in with the three bars, but it was only for genuine lodging. The good citizens of Maxima were all engineers, scientists, programmers, and other high-tech workers; none of the women had the time, or the need, to be prostitutes. They had also been very successful in keeping professionals from moving in; the last entrepreneur who had tried it had been chained to a desk with a computer terminal which was hooked to an autochef. The 'chef wouldn't supply food unless the prisoner took, and passed, a computerized exam.

She dug in her heels and maintained the pride of her calling—but after three days of nothing but water, she caved in and learned how to study. A "C" in a basic algebra lesson won her a bowl of chili and a glass of milk. Thus fortified, she plowed ahead through history, algebra, plane geometry, basic chemistry, and a survey of Terran literature, working her way up to pot roast and stringbeans. By the end of three months, she had saddle sores and a high school diploma, at which point she was released from durance vile and packed aboard the next Ceres-bound burro-boat. She spread the word, and Maxima rarely had trouble with women in her line again. She, however, had come back five years later and applied for a job. She turned out to have a talent for organization and was currently coordinating the import-export trade.

"You know," Dar said, as he watched the blocks of the town grow, "these people haven't done all that badly, in some ways."

"Their concern for their offspring has moved them to altruism," Fess agreed. "I would ask you to bear that in mind when you talk to them."

"Oh, I'll be nice," Dar growled. In actuality, he could hardly wait. Living human beings… !

Fess slowed the car, banking it around to point it toward the largest building in town, and Dar tensed, not wanting to say anything—in fact, definitely not wanting to say anything, to give Fess one less datum to process. He was ready, though. Sometimes it happened, sometimes it didn't.

The comm screen crackled into life. "Dar, if you're coming, you'd better…"

The screen went black, and the instrument panel went dead. The car dropped like a rock.

Dar slapped the manual override, and the instrument panel glowed to life again. He brought the car down in front of the port, as the commscreen showed Myrtle finishing saying, "… stuff will be gone," and faded from sight.

Dar cut the power, sighed, and lifted the floor plate that gave him access to the prone robot. He pushed the circuit breaker at the base of Fess's "brain," and waited.

"Wwhhhaddtt… DDddaarrrr… whhhhadddttt…"

"You had a seizure," Dar explained gently. "You were coping just fine with the landing, but Myrtle came on the air to tell me to hurry up, and the extra item of processing overloaded your weak capacitor.''

"AAAiiii… ammmm… verrry…"

"Nothing to be sorry about, mon vieux," Dar said quickly. "Just keep practicing your meditation exercises, eh? Concentration does it! Lona assured us that's how to control it."

"Iii… willl… attemmptt…it."

"Good. Have a good rest, now." Dar climbed out of the car, making a mental note to try to figure out some way to accelerate Fess's recoveries. He chained his car to the pylon alongside a score of other cars, all of them newer and fancier. Not that he, or any of his neighbors, doubted anyone's honesty—but with the gravity so low, the cars might easily drift away. He turned to survey the row of pylons that curved around the great dome of the meeting hall. It was a very gay display, all colors of the rainbow, with sweeping fins and airscoops and baroque ornamentation—all of it perfectly nonfunctional, of course; how much good could airscoops be in vacuum?

They could look nice. And they did. And by looking nice, they proclaimed their owner's wealth and, consequently, status.

The hell with that. It looked pretty. Beauty was its own excuse for being. Dar turned, clipped his safety to the guy wire, and hauled himself into the hall.

He came through the airlock, opening his faceplate, splitting his seal, tilting his helmet back—and a ham of a hand caught him between the shoulder blades. "Hey, Dar boy! Great t' see ya! How ya been?"

Dar recovered and caught the offending hand with a grin. "Hello, Estivan. What's germane?"

"Not much." Estivan squeezed back. "In fact, from what I hear, the miner only brought in silicon, steel, gold, and some plastic."

"No germanium at all, huh?"

"Yeah, but who uses it any more? So what's been happening at Maison d'Armand, huh?"

"She's not back yet. But as soon as she is, we'll declare party."

"I'll look forward to it. Hey, Carolita!" Estivan waved his daughter over. Carolita looked up from a box of crystals she was fingering, saw Dar, and broke into a smile. "Hi, Dar!" She came over to catch his hand in a warm clasp. "Getting lonely yet?"

"Fess doesn't let me go out alone, Carol," Dar answered, grinning. "Shopping for ornaments, or raw materials?"

Carol shrugged. "Depends on how pretty they are. Need any help on your organic chem?"

"No, but I wish I did."

"Gallant, very gallant—though untrue. Be off with you, though—I know you want to look over the merchandise. You might take a look at the minerals, too."

"Yeah, I gotta at least pretend I'm doing business. Drink after the auction?"

"Suits. Go get ready to be an adversary, now."

Dar turned away, warmed by camaraderie, but also relieved. Carol was right—she wasn't exactly pretty. Not quite ugly, but who was he to talk?

Lona's husband. Whether it was official or not, all the neighbor women knew it, and respected her claim—which made it easier for Dar, since he could enjoy their friendship without worrying about avoiding overtures.

He threaded through the throng, exchanging handshakes and shop talk, and occasional hugs with the ladies, when he couldn't avoid it.

"Dar-ling!" Bridget threw her arms around his neck and leaned down to plant a kiss on his cheek. "What have you been doing with yourself all these weeks?"

"Working, eating, and sleeping, Bridget." Dar pecked at her cheek, reflecting that the daughter of the Mulhearns, at least, didn't patronize him.

No, she was very forthrightly the take-charge type. "You call that a kiss? Here, let me show you how…"

"Oh, come on! I get so tired of lessons!"

"You ought to consider a change of curriculum." Bridget let her eyelids droop, producing the effect of an amorous dugong.

"Yeah, but what if my prof caught me studying from someone else's notes? You wouldn't want me to get expelled, would you?"

The reference to Lona, oblique though it was, reminded Bridget of her manners. She edged away, still smiling—but idling down from flirt to friend. "Of course not; she's got a mean left hook. How about a bite? A snack, I mean," Bridget actually blushed. "My lord! Once you start this kind of thing, it's hard to stop, isn't it?"

"So I'm told. Just think clean, Bridget."

"Yeah, but what happens if I hear dirty?" They sailed into the restaurant area, and she sat as Dar tucked her chair in, then took the one next to her—better a wolf who'd been muzzled, then one who'd just been let out of her cage. "May I order for you?"

"No, thanks—I can enter a code for myself." Bridget pressed in the sequence for coffee and local Danish, then sat back to sip. "How is your factory running?"

And they were off into shoptalk, safe and chummy—which was just as well because, regardless of how Bridget didn't look, Dar's hormones had given him a rush when she had. Weeks of celibate living had their effect—though the sight of the ladies of the community helped quell it. They ranged in appearance from plain to ugly, with only the occasional woman who was mildly pretty. Dar wondered why Maxima attracted so few beauties. Maybe the stunning ones preferred to stay on Terra, where the standard of living was higher, and the morals were lower? Of course, Lona hadn't—but she had spent half her life in space, hopping from planet to planet with her grandfather, before she'd ever heard of Maxima; and even she took off for Terra every chance she could get, leaving him at the mercy of his neighbors' wives and daughters.

Nothing but wives and daughters, of course—the young men who had come to Maxima to build robots and fortunes still outnumbered the women 2.36 to 1. Any single woman who showed up to join the colony was married within a year, plain or not, usually after a hectic courtship that resembled a bidding war. Of course, there were one or two who chose to stay single, like Myrtle—but they were very few. Looks or no looks, Maxima was a marriage mart.

Of course, Dar had to admit he was biased. To him, any woman would look plain, compared to Lona.

He found himself wondering if the other husbands could possibly feel the same way about their wives.

"Two therms!"

"Two and five kwahers!"

"Two and ten!" Msimangu turned to glare at Dar. "Blast you, d'Armand! You're running the price up!"

"No, I'm buying it! Two and twelve!"

"Two and twelve?" the miner cried. "Do I hear two and fifteen?" He glanced at Msimangu.

"Not from me." The white-haired black man turned away in disgust. "I'm not that low. I'll wait for the next shipment."

"Two and fourteen?" the miner called. "Two and thirteen. I have two and twelve; who'll give me two and thirteen?"

There were several mutters, but no one called out.

"Going once! Going twice! Sold!" The miner whacked the gavel on the board. "Three kilograms of silicon to the young man in the pin-striped coverall, at two therms, twelve kwahers per!"

Msimangu shouldered through the crowd to shake a finger under Dar's nose. "Do not bid against me again, young d'Armand! I can ruin you!"

Dar lifted his chin—he had to; the old black man was six inches taller than he—and gave back glare for glare. "Would you dock us a fair chance to get started, Omar? We're not thick in the wallet; we have to pick up small lots when we can."

"Perhaps, but the gold is not small!"

"No, but it's vital."

"Then deal in retail! If a beginner like you seeks to buy gold wholesale, he will break himself!"

"One hundred fifteen kilograms of fine gold!" the miner called. "What am I bid?"

A storm of calls answered him. He sorted them out, the price leapfrogging. "Five thousand therms… six thousand… eight thousand… ten…"

"Twelve thousand therms!" Msimangu called out. "Twelve thousand therms per kilo!"

"Thirteen!" Laurentian answered, and "Fourteen!" Mulhearn called from across the room. "Fifteen!" Ngoya called. "Sixteen!" Bolwheel shouted.

"Seventeen!" Msimangu bellowed. "Seventeen therms per kilo!"

The small bidders had dropped out; now the plutocrats were getting down to serious competition. It was exciting in its way, but watching his neighbors fight made Dar nervous. He edged away toward the rim of the crowd, pulling out Lona's list and checking through it. All the items were crossed off, except for the silicon; he drew a line through that and turned away, tucking the list back for future reference. He patted the pocket where the trio of rubies lay. He really shouldn't have spent the money, but Lona would love them, if he could cut, polish, and mount them properly. Besides, they'd be worth ten times the amount he'd paid, back on Terra.

"Twenty-two and nine going once—twenty-two and nine going twice—SOLD! To the tall black gent with the white hair!"

Msimangu whooped victory, and his fellow millionaires turned away, reviling his ancestry and personal habits. Msimangu ignored them, laughing as he turned away, shouldering through his congratulating fellows. "I won the big one, at least! Come, come drink with me!"

A few accepted, though most withdrew to take their turns at the retail booth. Still laughing, Msimangu caught up with Dar at the door to the restaurant. "Come drink with us, young d'Armand! Let us rejoice, let us make a celebration!"

Dar looked up with a slow smile. "Don't mind if I do, Omar."

"Fine, fine! Then come with us!" And Msimangu plunged into the public bar.

Dar sat down at table with a half-dozen solid citizens. He noticed that Mulhearn and Bolwheel had joined the crew, and was amazed once again that people who could rage and revile one another in the bidding, could relax and talk together without the slightest rancor only five minutes later. Everyone seemed to understand that business might be business, but friendship was more important.

Much more important, out here where the shrunken sun blazed in eternal night, and your own survival depended on your neighbors'. They couldn't afford feuds on Maxima; they all had a constant, common enemy—the ever-present void. Sitting down for a drink wasn't just a celebration—it was a declaration of apology and forgiveness, a healing of wounds, and an unspoken pledge of mutual support.

He felt honored to be included, though it had become part of the pattern. From the first, he'd been invited to join in every gathering that happened. If they needed each other here, it made them all the more willing to accept the newcomer into the fold. Dar wondered if they would be so open in a hundred years, when (if!) the colony was firmly established and thriving.

"We will grow," Bolwheel maintained. He was a red-haired, jowly man of middle age, who looked fat but wasn't. "We grow already."

Neils Woltham nodded. "We all tend to have large families, somehow."

"That is half the reason we are here." Msimangu punched up another tankard. "For the room to have families."

David Mulhearn, pale and red-haired but graying, nodded. "All is rationed, on Terra—food, land, houses, what you will. Rationed, or so dear that it might as well be."

"I wouldn't call the prices low here," Jory Kimish said. He was almost as young as Dar, and newly come from Earth. "You blokes seem to have put in a good deal of time and labor. Can't rate that too low, you know."

"We do not," Msimangu assured him. "But even if you compute the cost of our houses so, young man, you will find them much less expensive than their equivalents on Terra."

"True," Bolwheel said, "but this isn't exactly the choicest location, you know."

"And what is wrong with it?" Msimangu rounded on him. "You can have as much land as you can fence, here!"

"Aye, but naught will grow on't," Mulhearn pointed out. "Yet I cannot fault the neighborhood—for nowhere else have I found neighbors of my own mindset and code."

"Nor I," Msimangu agreed, "nor I. I could not ask for more congenial company."

"When we get it," Dar pointed out. "Of course, it's worth waiting for."

"Surely there's no dearth of folk who wish to join us," Mulhearn pointed out.

Bolwheel answered with a knowing smile. "Where else can they find a reputation for their product, David? Only fifty years, and already our computers and robots are known as the best in Terran space!"

"Of course, it helps that Terran space has been reduced a bit by the DDT," Dar pointed out. .

"Only officially, young d'Armand. None seek to bar us from trading with other PEST planets—and the outermost of those, trade with the frontier. No, our robots are known wherever men use automatons."

"Well, surely it's your reputation that I came to join," Jory Kimish said, "though I'd stay for the company alone. But why is the Maximan product so much the best? You'd think Terra would have it all!"

"All but the brains," Bolwheel answered. "For don't you see, the brightest of the computerfolk saw the collapse of the DDT coming, and came out here early. The second brightest stayed till the civil war, then escaped to avoid being shot by the storm troopers, or by the loyalists; and the third brightest waited till PEST had taken all the planet, then escaped just before PEST banned emigration."

Msimangu nodded. "First, second, third—most of the best came to us."

"Nay, not all, though," Mulhearn cautioned. "There are brains on Terra still, and not all of them were made on Maxima."

"True," Msimangu agreed, "though they lose steadily of what's left, by deportation. And some of those come here."

Dar stared. "You mean PEST is deliberately trying to get rid of its bright ones?"

"Only those who show some sign of making trouble, young d'Armand—which means only half of the brightest."

"And the other half?"

"They work their way into government, join the LORDS party, and start the long, savage climb," Bolwheel assured him.

Dar frowned. "So they can't design a decent robot?"

"Decent, yes. But if it's more than 'decent,' they are marked as dangerous; they might take their bosses' jobs. No, a smart young man on Terra will be sure to hide his mind."

Dar shuddered. "No wonder they come to Maxima! Who would want to work in that kind of environment?"

"Not me," Kimish assured him, "so I made just enough trouble to be deported, but not enough for them to care where." He leaned back with a sigh. "Can you know how intoxicating the spirit of freedom is, here? Where your neighbors challenge you to dream up some idea nobody ever thought of before? Where they make you feel ashamed, if you don't come up with anything new?"

"Yes." Dar had a few memories of PEST's Terra, himself. "It makes all the toil and loneliness worthwhile."

He caught looks of sympathy, quickly veiled; their wives stayed home to keep them company.

Quick change of topic needed, and Bolwheel supplied it. "I think perhaps that is why PEST leaves us alone, and does not seek to impose its rules here."

Kimish frowned. "I was wondering about that. One squadron of destroyers, and we'd be slaves."

"But they need us, they need us," Msimangu assured him. "They need someone, away from Terra, to invent better computers for them, for they must have machines to do the work, if they are to give the people the leisure they have promised. And they dare not have such innovation being developed on any of their planets—it could set people to thinking, and questioning their orders."

A rumbling chorus of agreement went around the table, men nodding their heads in concurrence, and Dar nodded along with the rest of them, even though, privately, he thought it might also have something to do with PEST thinking Maxima was too small to be worth swatting. Realistically, he knew that the asteroid would die if its customers stopped buying, which meant the Terran government could destroy them any time it wanted to. And if PEST's bureaucrats could destroy the Maximans, surely they could also control them, easily and totally, as much as they wished—or so they thought, so they reasoned.

They were wrong, of course. They could kill Maxima, they could conquer it—but if they didn't conquer, they couldn't control. As long as they left the asteroid free, Maximans could do whatever they wished.

But Maxima wasn't about to let PEST know that. Sure, it might be fun to send the Terran bureaucrats a list of all the things Maximans did, that were forbidden on Terra—but it would also be very foolish. A bureaucrat defines himself by the amount of power he has; PEST's logical response would be conquest.

Which in itself was pretty silly, when all they would have to do would be to send back a list of all the things Terrans could do, that Maximans couldn't—mostly hedonistic pastimes. The younger Maximans would start eating their hearts out.

Or maybe not. Dar's neighbors were a pretty unworldly bunch, if you excluded making money and building grandiose houses.

Houses they were definitely big on, though. "I passed your estate on the way in, young d'Armand," Msimangu was saying, "I saw your home. I confess I thought it the height of ugliness last year, but now I begin to see its form emerge. It will be beautiful, when it is done."

"Why, thank you," Dar said, frankly floored by the compliment. In fact, he was so pleased that he forgot to mention who had designed it.

The factory was running just fine. Dar wandered up one aisle and down the other, feeling increasingly useless as he went along. He couldn't even dump the waste bins any more—since Lona had started leaving Fess home, Dar had assigned him that little chore. After all, he couldn't have the poor robot sitting around with nothing to do.

It was hard to believe these machines were of the same genus as Fess. Technically, they were robots, though with nowhere near the capacity of a general purpose model such as Fess. They were operated by much smaller computers, specialized for a very limited number of tasks. Dar hesitated to call them "robots" at all—they were really just automated machine tools. Robots were originally supposed to be artificial people, but these machines couldn't mimic human thought patterns in the slightest way.

And they certainly didn't look human. The first was only a set of rollers that rotated a synthetic crystal a millimeter at a time, then lowered onto it a hemispherical cover that was filled with golden contacts. The central computer tested each circuit within the crystal through those contacts, checking continuity, resistance, power input versus output, and a host of other electronic characteristics. After fifteen minutes, the rollers tilted the crystal out onto the padded belt that carried it to the next robot—or into the garbage can, if it had failed any of its tests.

The next robot was very similar, except that it connected microscopic filaments to each contact point.

Then came a robot that looked like an octopus, with fifteen arms sprouting from a central globe that held its computer. Its job was assembling fifteen crystals into one globular cluster joined by filaments, then immersing it in a chemical bath. After two hours, enough silicon had adhered to the filaments so that the robot could withdraw its arms and start assembling another cluster, while the first rested in its bath for a week, slowly growing together into a single giant crystal.

Meanwhile, another robot—a single bench that grabbed, folded, and held metal and plastic while a steel arm welded joints—was casting and assembling the housings for the completed machines. Then came the assembly line—a final robot which took the finished giant crystals out of their baths and fastened them inside the housings, then connected the contacts to the terminals for the mechanical attachments that actually did the work.

All of it faster than he could do. All of it better than he could do. And most of it much, much smaller than he could see.

Dar surveyed the area, feeling totally useless.

"You really should take a finished robot out for testing, Dar."

"Yeah, I know—but I've done two already today, and there's plenty of time to check the other three."

"Still, it must be done, or you will have a dozen untested robots at week's end."

"I know, I know—but there doesn't seem to be much point to it. You know they'll work perfectly."

"I do not, Dar. True, if the individual crystal circuits are sound, the finished computer will be fine…"

"Of course, because the central computer tests each stage of the work as it's being done." There were contacts embedded in the "holder" on each bench, and in each arm, allowing testing while production was in process.

"But you may find a mechanical flaw, Dar."

"Yeah, sure. Last week I found a pinhole in a suction funnel, and the week before that, there was a hum in a lifting fan. Never in the computers, of course."

He watched the process, shaking his head with dissatisfaction.

"What displeases you, Dar?"

"Huh? Oh. I keep forgetting you're programmed for gestures, too. Nothing, Fess—or nothing that should, anyway. We make dam good household robots—but blast it, all we make is household robots!"

"True, Dar, but, as you say, you make them very well—and you always manage to offer an automaton that will do more than your competition's product."

"Well, that's true. We started out with a little canister that could dust, and speak a few simple responses such as 'Yes, ma'am,' 'No, sir,' 'Good morning,' and 'Please move…' "

"Which every other company's could also do, of course."

"Yeah, but we figured out a way for ours to scrub floors and polish furniture, too."

"Then you added the abilities to pick up, clear a table, load a dishwasher, one by one—and always a year or two before the other companies."

"Yeah, because they wait till we come out with it, then buy one of ours and copy the new feature—but that always takes six months at least, while we make another hundred thousand in sales. Which reminds me, we'd better finish debugging that breakfast-delivery program, or we'll lose our edge."

"I would not be terribly concerned, Dar. You can still add many features before you will have perfected the ideal household helper."

"What do you mean?" Dar frowned.

"Why, your robots cannot yet replace a closure seam in a garment, or light a fire—or fight one, for that matter."

"Oh. Right. And they don't do windows." But Dar was gazing off into space. "Let's see, now…"

"You will find ways to accomplish them all," Fess assured him.

"True, true. And there are other improvements I'm itchy to get to."

"Such as?"

"Well, they could be a lot smaller, for one thing.""

"I do not know, Dar—there is a lower limit on size, for accomplishing mechanical tasks."

"Oh, not the robots themselves, Fess—we've got those as low as they can go, and still be practical. Anything less, and the householder will be tripping over them every time he turns around. No, I meant the computers. They're still bigger than my fist."

"I fail to see how they could be smaller, Dar. You are already working with the smallest crystal lattice that can carry an adequate number of differences in electrical potentials."

"Are we?" Dar's tone sharpened. "A crystal has a regular shape because its molecule has, Fess. Why can't the differences in electrical potential that made a crystal lattice function as a circuit, be made to operate with only a single molecule?"

Fess was slow in answering, which meant his computer, which worked in nanoseconds, had analyzed the problem thoroughly, and made a preliminary try at resolving it. "In theory, there would be no reason for it not to, Dar—but the complexity of the circuitry would be limited by the number of electrons available."

"All right, so it might take a dozen molecules, or maybe even a single giant molecule—but you're still talking about something microscopic, or just barely visible."

"Are you seriously intending to research the possibility?"

"Not without telling Lona—and I don't know enough physics yet, to know if it's worth investigating. I mean, okay, it might turn out to be possible, but not marketable, especially if it wound up using giant molecules. After all, who wants a computer made of U-235 in his living room?"

"The mass would not be critical, Dar."

"No, but the customer would. Call it atavism, call it superstition, but the stuff has a bad reputation."

"Even if it were, why would you wish to do it? The current generation of computers is certainly small enough for all practical purposes."

"Not all—I can think of a few applications where microbrains would come in handy. Especially in the line I want to get into."

"Which is?"

"Industrial robots." Dar rubbed his knuckles against his palm. "We need to branch out, Fess. There's just so far we can go with household robots, and right now, the real money is in industry. If we could offer smaller, more compact computers, that would cut down on size and give flexibility a big boost. Factory managers are always complaining about having to replace all their robots with new models, every time they retool. If we could figure out how to grow a single molecule circuit, we could sell them new brains for more generalized robots."

"An excellent idea," Fess said slowly. "You must tell Lona."

Dar felt a surge of irritation, but reminded himself that Fess was, after all, Lona's robot. "No. I just don't know enough yet."

Which made him feel even more useless.

He turned away, closing the factory hatch behind him, and went into his den. "I'm going to brood—uh, study, for a while, Fess."

"I shall not disturb you, Dar." But he would wait for Dar's call. That went without saying.

The lights came on, and Dar sat down at his computer with a sigh of relief. Here, at least, he had something to do, and the illusion that it might actually be of some use, even though that was highly unlikely. Of course, he was only experimenting with computer simulations of radio sound waves and FTL drives, not with the real thing—but he might hit on a workable idea.

It didn't make sense, after all—if ships could travel faster than light, why couldn't radio? If you could make a whole spaceship isomorphic with a seven-dimensional surface, why couldn't you do the same with an electromagnetic wave?

Because it wasn't an object, of course. In fact, it wasn't matter; it was an energy pattern. But patterns were patterns, and three-dimensional patterns could be made isomorphic with seven-dimensional equivalents.

Except that energy didn't seem to exist in seven dimensions. Which was nonsense, of course—the mathematicians just hadn't started thinking about it, so Dar couldn't read their conclusions.

But at least he'd found the right question to ask. That, he felt, was real progress. Of course, he didn't know enough math to look for the answer—but that could be rectified. He stared at the simulation, rotating it to gain the illusion of movement, and, from it, inspiration and motivation.

It worked; he was motivated. He cleared the screen and loaded the first chapter of the text on topology. He'd already made it through Page 2…

He was halfway through Page 3 when the sensor chimed.

Dar was out of his seat and over to the screen before the sound had died. The call signal could only ring if it was triggered by a coded radio signal—and only Lona knew the code. She was coming home! Dar located her blip, referred it to the center of the screen, then punched into viewphone mode and entered her code—and there she was, or at least her face, in beautiful living color, complexion flawless, every feature perfect, saying, "Roger, ground control. Will burn for entry at 24:32:16."

"Roger," said a tinny (male) voice. "Over and out."

Dar felt a stab of jealousy. Had she perfected her makeup for him—or for Louie at Ground Control?

But she was reaching out to punch him up on her screencall signal. Her face lit up, and his heartburn quenched as he realized she'd seen him.

"Welcome, wanderer!"

"Hi, handsome." Her eyelids drooped. "Slay the fatted calf and warm the sheets."

"Both are roasting, and so am I. When should I pour the martinis?"

"An hour, sweetling." She winced. "Don't groan so loudly—my amp can't take it."

"Neither can I. Tell me something to be happy about."

"That it's only an hour. Just think how long it would be if we were civilized enough to have a spaceport and customs."

"I'd nuke 'em both! If our neighbors couldn't trust us…"

"Who could they trust? So I'm landing on our own pad, dear, and docking in…" she glanced aside, at her chronometer, "… sixty-four minutes and 20."

A chime sounded, out of range. Lona glanced at it, then back at Dar. "Entry burn in two. Love, darling." Her screen blanked.

Dar could have screamed at it. Instead, he took her parting line as a promise and headed for the shower.

Of course, he had just showered, shaved, and changed a few hours before, for his trip into town—but what the hell, he could do it again. Anything to pass the time!

He did, and he still had half an hour left to chew his nails. He manfully refrained—she only liked controlled scratching. Instead, he drew two martinis from the autobar and set them next to the big quartz port, then sat down to watch her land. Thirty seconds later, he got up and started pacing—but still kept his eyes locked on the sky.

She had certainly timed her entrance right. (She always did, of course.) The sky was filled with stars, but Sol was about to rise, and its glare dimmed the lesser suns, leaving a field strewn with glory, but not backed by powder. Nearby asteroids arced across the field, making his heart lurch—but finally, one of them started growing more than it slid, and he knew Lona was coming in.

The meteor waxed brighter and brighter until it showed as a little disc that grew and grew until it assumed the shape of a small rocket ship, fifty meters long, arching lower as it brightened, then blossoming into roseate fire that swelled up about it, hiding it, consuming it, a fireball that swung lower more and more slowly—and touched the ground. The fire died, and the little rocket ship emerged, balanced on landing grapples.

Dar hit pressure patches and turned a wheel, and the house's boarding ramp snaked out across the graded rockfield to nudge, very gently, against the side of the ship. Then it rose up on jacks of its own, like a blind, questing cobra, found the electromagnetic ring around the airlock, and clung.

It was a convenience, for people. Expensive—too expensive, just for the privilege of coming in without a faceplate, so Dar didn't pressurize it. But cargo needed atmosphere, sometimes, and for trade, they could afford it.

He couldn't see her coming, though. That was the disadvantage.

Then the red light died over the airlock, and he knew she was in. The yellow light started pulsing, and kept on, for what seemed an eternity—but finally, the green lit.

Dar stepped up five feet from the hatch, a martini clutched in each hand, breath held in his lungs.

Then the hatch swung open, and she was there, lumpy as porridge in her space suit, but her helmet under her arm, face glowing, lips parted…

They never did get to those martinis. What good is the gin when the ice has melted?

Two hours later, Lona sat across from him in one of the latest Terran fashions, which didn't manage to obscure her splendor, especially when she was lit by candles (right under the air-exchange vent). She was finishing her bouillabaisse and a fascinating account of her odyssey through the best shops on Terra ("Well, I have to look my best when I'm talking to purchasing agents, don't I?"). Dar smiled at her out of a pleasant haze, compounded of one part gin to five parts Lona. She didn't miss a syllable as X-HB-9 cleared their bowls, but she did stop to stare as the little robot set places of almost-genuine steak in front of them. "Dar! What have you done!"

Well, Dar, would have preferred to have the accusation refer to less licit activities, but he'd take praise where he could get it. He gave back a foolish grin. "Aw. You noticed."

"Noticed! You wonderful man! You figured out how to cram that whole program into such a limited brain!"

"Only applying what you taught me, dear."

"Well! Such excellent application deserves reward." Her eye gleamed as she turned back to him.

"If you're going to deliver on that promise, you'd better keep your strength up."

Lona took a bite. "Done to a turn!" She didn't say which one. "Is X-HB-9 ready to manufacture?"

"Needs a little more field-testing to be certain—but, yes, I'm pretty sure it is. It'll bring you breakfast in bed tomorrow."

"Oh, goody! Just what we need for the triple contract I've lined up!"

Dar dropped his fork. "Triple… contract?"

"Uh-huh." Lona nodded, hair swaying. "I talked Amalgamated into renewing our contract without the exclusivity clause."

"How did you manage… NO! Cancel that! I don't want to know!''

"Poor dear." Lona reached past the candles to pat his hand. "But there's nothing to be jealous about. I didn't do anything unethical, let alone immoral."

Yes, but that didn't say what she had implied. Also, Dar kind of wondered about her ranking.

"Simple threats," Lona explained. "I told them we were thinking about opening our own dirtside sales office."

Dar's jaw dropped. Lona merrily took another bite, and he shoved his mandible back up to his maxillary. "Boy; you really don't lack for chutzpah, do you?"

"Why not? We probably will open a dealership on Terra, in twenty years or so."

"Actually, I was thinking about all the Maximan families getting together and opening a cooperative distributing corporation—but I think we need more leverage first. You know, get Terra totally dependent on our product, so they can't threaten to take us over. Otherwise, we might suffer a sudden horrible decline in creativity… Uh… What's the matter?"

"And you tell me I've got nerve," she gasped. "Good thing you don't live on Terra, Dar—you'd wind up running PEST."

Dar felt a surge of irritation. "I only want to run them out of town."

"I know," she sighed. "You never did have much respect for good old healthy self-interest. Maybe I do have a function around here, after all."

"Maybe!" Dar squawked. "I'm just the errand boy!"

Lona stared into his eyes for a long moment, then reached out to pat his hand again. "Please keep thinking that way, dear. It works wonderfully for me."

Dar was pretty sure he was supposed to feel complimented. Anyway, he glowed inside, just on general principles. "So how much is this triple deal going to bring?"

"Well, over the next three years, and with a guarantee to each company to bring out a new model, on a four-month rotation plan… just about five hundred thousand each."

Dar could feel his eyes bulge. "A million and a half?"

Lona nodded, looking immensely pleased with herself.

Dar sat back, sucking in a long breath. "Yes. Well, I can see that might make a little research and development desirable, yes."

"But that's the good part about it." Lona winked. "You've already done the tough part. With a robot who serves breakfast in bed, it's just a short step to one who can load the dishwasher."

Dar developed a sudden faraway look in his eyes. "With extendable arms, that shouldn't be too tough—and once you've got the telescoping arms, it could vacuum the cobwebs in the corners, and wash the walls."

"And if it can wash the walls, it can paint them!"

"Yeah." Dar grinned. "No more having to rent a painter-robot from the homecare store. I see the point. We have half the improvements figured out already. No wonder you wanted me to add another workroom before we finished mining out another ice cavity."

"Well, yes." Lona looked down, toying with her wineglass. "Actually, Dar, I was going to ask you if you could add on the northwest circular room. It isn't very large…"

"The one right next to our bedrooms on the plans?" Dar frowned. "Sure. What kind of product are you planning to develop in it?"

Lona actually blushed and lowered her eyes. "A product that would be very small at first. But it would grow. Fifteen years or so, but it would grow."

Dar stared.

Then he stood up and came around to take her hand. "Darling—are you telling me we can finally start a baby?"

She nodded, smiling up at him—and he was amazed to see her eyes fill with tears. "Yes," she whispered, just before her mouth was pre-empted.

An hour later, their breathing slowed down enough for Lona to heave a satisfied sigh, and for Dar to breathe into her ear, "Will you marry me now?"

"Uh-huh." Lona turned to him, nodding brightly. "I do think children should have that much security, at least."

"Security?" Dar pursed his lips and asked, carefully, "Does this mean you might be planning to stay home for a couple of years?"

Lona nodded, eyes huge and face solemn. "At least two years before I go kiting off to Terra again, Dar. I promise."

Cordelia sighed, misty-eyed. "I do so love happy endings."

"Yet was it truly?" Geoffrey said, frowning up at Fess. "Did she keep her promise, Fess?"

"Regrettably, she did not," the robot answered. "In practice, she could not—there was need for her to attend business meetings and speak with prospective clients."

Magnus asked, "Wherefore could her husband not have done so for her?"

"He was quite willing," Fess sighed, "but he lacked the gift for it, perhaps due to his earlier career as a teacher—he was obsessed with the need to tell the precise truth. He just was not as good at business as she was."

"Nor as good at aught else, from what thou sayest." Magnus added.

"Thus it seemed to himself, too. He died feeling that his life had been full and enjoyable, but insignificant."

"Papa hath said that all folk must find and know their limitations," Gregory said, "then seek to transcend them."

"It was Dar Mandra who first enunciated that aphorism, Gregory; it has been passed down from generation to generation of your family. But the operative word is seek. The attempt will surely result in better work than you would otherwise do, and may result in greater accomplishments—but may still fall short of your goal."

Gregory's eyes lost focus as he tried to digest that statement, but Geoffrey was still frowning. "Did the founder of our house, then, accomplish nothing with his life?"

"That depends on your definition of the term 'accomplish.' With his wife, he built a major company within the Maxima conglomerate, raised three children to become excellent citizens, and formed an enduring marriage that gained substance as it aged."

"Yet he did not create anything in his own right, nor invent or discover it."

"Only in that he had not found the answer to the question he had formulated, and did not realize that no answer may be an indicator of the correct answer. His son Limner, though, took that question and likewise tried to answer it: 'Why can physical objects be mapped into seven-dimensional space, when electromagnetic waves cannot?' He, too, failed to discover its solution, just as Dar had—but took the lack of an answer as an indicator."

Gregory asked, "What did Limner think it did indicate?"

"That perhaps electromagnetic waves could be mapped into seven dimensions; they only needed a different technique. Just as electromagnetic radiation was its own medium, the transmitter had to be its own isomorpher.''

Magnus looked up. "Yet 'twas Dar's thoughts, and the question they led to, that enabled Limner to discover that principle."

"That is so, yes."

"Then," Magnus demanded, "how can he be said to have failed?"

"He had not, of course—yet he felt that he had."

Geoffrey squeezed his eyes shut and gave his head a shake. "A moment, I prithee—thou dost say he succeeded in some measure, but knew it not?"

"Precisely. Dar's feelings of failure were due to a fundamental misunderstanding of his own nature—he was not an engineer, like Lona, but a research scientist.''

"Oh, the poor ancestor!" Tears brimmed Cordelia's eyes. "To die feeling so, when 'twas not true!"

"Oh, do not pity him, Cordelia. He recognized his true success as a husband, a father, and a stalwart member of the community. In his old age, he counted accomplishments in scholarship and commerce to be relatively inconsequential, as indeed they were."

Gregory stared, scandalized. "Why! How canst thou say the discovery of new knowledge is of no consequence!"

"Only relatively, Gregory, only relatively. For Dar's measure of worth was in adding to the happiness of other people—and in that, he had succeeded enormously. Now hush, children. It is time to sleep. Tomorrow, we will begin to solve the mystery of the castle."