Chapter 6. A Meeting Of Minds

Ariel hated robotics labs. They were always full of bizarre hardware, too much of which looked like torture instruments. They were all, without exception, cold and impersonal and utilitarian in design. Something about them seemed to suck the humanity right out of anyone who entered. Even Derec became just like the robots he worked on when he entered a robotics lab: single-mindedly intent on the task before him. Ariel stayed away from him then, and she tried to stay away from labs all the time.

So, of course, in their search for Dr. Avery, the robots led her directly to the laboratory where he had taken them. The door was still open, and the concave stumps of three examination tables still rose from the floor in the middle of the room. Glittering grains of what looked like coarse sand covered the floor around the remains of the tables, and it took Ariel a moment to realize that they were robot cells. Something was evidently keeping them from rejoining the rest of the city.

She looked around the lab for clues to Avery’s whereabouts, but saw nothing immediately obvious. She didn’t know what she was looking for anyway. He was hardly going to leave a note or a map leading her to wherever he’d gone, now was he? Still, she supposed the robots were right; if they couldn’t find him through Central, then this, the last place where he’d been seen, was the logical place to start looking for him.

She walked over to the workbench at the end of the lab. A light on an arm stuck out from the wall above it, the pool of illumination coinciding with the cleared area amid a clutter of machinery. All the machinery faced the light. It seemed pretty obvious that someone had been working here, then, but whether it had been Avery or Derec, she couldn’t tell.

She should have insisted that Derec come along with her. He’d have been able to make more sense of this jumble of equipment, but no, he was too busy for that. While he sat there in his study playing with some idiotic formula for God only knew what, Avery could be escaping the planet with the seeds for galactic destruction.

A noise in the corridor outside made her turn around. The four robots paused in their examination of the room as well. Lucius stepped silently toward the wall beside the doorway, and the other three moved just as silently to flank him, staying out of view from whomever or whatever was beyond the door. They’d coordinated their motion via comlink, Ariel supposed.

Mandelbrot turned toward her for a moment and raised his finger to his speaker grille, motioning with his other hand for her to move out of sight as well. She nodded and backed over to stand against the wall. She felt silly hiding from a noise, but she felt very much out of her element here; she would humor the robots until she learned who was out there.

She didn’t have to wait long. Avery’s voice was instantly recognizable, even with the false note of enthusiasm in it.

“Well, my dear, fancy meeting you here. What a surprise.”

Ariel supposed he was talking to her, that he somehow knew she was in the lab. She could see no reason to hide, then, but before she could respond, another voice, this one female and less familiar, answered him. “Wendell Avery. The pleasure’s yours, I’m sure.”

She hadn’t expected to find him quite so soon, so Janet hadn’t prepared what she was going to say to him yet. After their initial surprised volley, there was a long silence while they each sized up the other. Janet noted that Wendell’s hair had finally made the transition from gray to white, and that his taste in clothing hadn’t changed a bit since the day she’d left him. He still wore a white ruffled shirt and baggy trousers. Knowing him, they could be the very ones he’d worn on their wedding day.

She considered taking the initiative and lambasting him immediately for his stupidity in disturbing two alien civilizations with his robot cities, but curiosity made her reconsider. If he’d orchestrated this encounter, he must have done it for a reason, and she wanted to know why. She thought she knew, but she wanted to hear him say it. There would be plenty of time to lecture him later, and possibly more ammunition to do it with if she let him have his say first.

“So,” she said. “Now that you’ve lured me here, what do you intend to do?”

Avery manufactured an incredulous expression. “Me? You’re the one who arranged this whole business, disturbing my project with your silly robots at every turn. Well, you’ve got my attention. What do you want?”

The conceited arrogance of the man brought genuine incredulity to Janet’s face. Of course he wouldn’t admit to anything himself; he was a master at shifting the blame. But to imply that Janet had orchestrated what he had so obviously set up himself was too much to believe. “Me arrange to meet you? Don’t make me laugh.”

Avery shook his head. “Come on, Janet, there’s no sense denying it. You set this whole thing up just to smoke me out and you know it, though how you could imagine there could still be anything between us is beyond me.”

“Anything between us? You’re the one fooling yourself, if you think that. I came to get my robots, and to shut down this whole stupid project of yours before you destroy any more civilizations with it. That ’ s why I’m here.”

Avery could hardly believe his ears. The woman had gone to enormous trouble just to arrange this meeting, and now when she had her chance to speak her mind she stood there vilifying him instead. He supposed he shouldn’t be surprised-she had always backed away at the last minute, always taken the easiest route no matter what the situation-but he had naively assumed that over a decade of independence would have made her a little more-what? Adventurous? Assertive? Competent?

Evidently he’d been wrong about that. She hadn’t changed. She was still the same old Janet: a genius at design but an absolute moron when it came to implementation.

She hadn’t changed a whole lot physically, either. Avery would have been surprised if she had; spacers generally counted their age in centuries. Janet’s hair was still its original blond tint, and her eyes were the same sometimes-green, sometimes-gray he remembered, and she had managed to keep her figure as well. Her style of dress hadn’t changed appreciably either, but her shape-flattering clothing had never been a problem for him.

Looking at her now, he remembered what had brought them together.

But listening to her reminded him of what drove them apart. He began to pay attention to what she was saying.

“I managed to look the other way when you stole my cellular robot idea, but when you used it to build these ugly monstrosities you call cities, and then scattered them around the galaxy without a thought of caution, I decided it was time to put a stop to it. I-”

“ Developed,”Avery said sternly. “I developed the cellular robot and the robot city, from a concept I freely admit was your idea. You were content to experiment forever with it in the laboratory, but I was not. The concept needed to be tested on a larger scale, and I did so. But I did not steal your idea.”

“Semantics, Wendy. Call it development; call it what you want, but a rose by any other name…” She left the phrase unfinished, but went on before he could interrupt. “ And now you’ve gathered all three of my new robots. Are you planning to develop them, too? Ah, you’re blushing. Struck a nerve there, didn’t I? Well, this time I’m not going to let you. This time I’m keeping my idea to myself.”

Avery felt his hands clenching into fists. Unclenching them, he stuffed them into his jacket pockets, but his right hand encountered the welding laser. He withdrew his hand, empty, deeply troubled by the thought that had entered his mind.

He had once been insane. That insanity had nearly led him to kill his own son. He had since been cured, but no one had promised him it would be permanent. Apparently it wasn’t; this momentary urge to burn a neat hole through Janet’s left breast was very probably a symptom of the same insanity creeping back on him again.

Much as he had enjoyed the megalomania, he still preferred having a clear mind. And he didn’t particularly want to harm Janet, either. He just wanted to shut her up so he didn’t have to listen to her accusations anymore. That was probably what had driven him over the edge in the first place.

There were better ways to do that, though; non-violent ways. Ways such as simply leaving. He didn’t need the frosted memory cubes anyway; he didn’t know why he had fooled himself into thinking he did. Nor did he need to stick around on Robot City, either. He could solve the new cells, programming problem quickly enough on his own once he got back to Aurora.

Yes, that’s what he would do. He would walk away from her just as she had done from him so many years ago, order the city to make him a starship, and leave this whole bizarre episode of his life behind.

She was still waiting for a response to her latest ultimatum. Avery held his arms at his sides, looked her straight in the eye, and said, “Madam, you may keep your idea. You may keep your robots as well-what’s left of them. You may even have this entire planet to do with as you wish. I give it to you. The only thing you may not have is me to yell at any longer. I am leaving.” With that he turned and strode away, stepping on the slidewalk to speed his departure.

Lucius, watching with an eye he had extended through the wall and modified to match the blank surface, felt as if his brain were about to burst. Here before him stood his creator! At last, he could ask her the questions that had haunted him since his first awakening. At last he could find out why he existed and who he must serve and who he could safely ignore.

And beside her stood something almost as wonderful: a new robot. This one was neither a normal Avery robot nor another such as Lucius nor even one such as Mandelbrot, but yet another design. This robot was constructed of simple, large-scale metal and plastic members, as was Mandelbrot, but at the same time it had been given the features of a biological human. Lucius could only suppose that was to allow it to interact with humans on an equal level, and it was that concept that most intrigued him. Even if his creator deigned not to answer his questions, this robot might be able to do so.

Lucius sent a cautious inquiry over the comlink. Unknown friend, can you hear me?

The robot shifted its gaze from Avery to the wall behind which Lucius’s signal originated. I can, it replied. Who are you?

I am called Lucius. I am one of the robots your mistress created.

One of the learning machines?

Learning machines. Yes, that is a good description of what I am.Lucius felt a surge of joy. He was right; this robot was a treasure trove of information. Already he had learned something of his creator’s intentions in building him. Who are you? he asked.

I am Basalom.

And what is our creator ’ s name?

Her name is Janet.

Janet.Lucius had hoped the word would be a code of some sort which would trigger a hidden store of instructions or memories, but nothing happened. He would have to do the remainder of his learning the hard way, too. I seek knowledge about humans, he said. I wish to know more about my place in the universe.

Don ’ t we all?

The question was obviously rhetorical. While Lucius thought of a reply, he downloaded his hearing buffer and processed the words in it. His creator was calling Avery a thief. That was hardly new information to Lucius.

We must find the time to discuss this at length,he sent.

I agree. Unfortunately, this opportunity seems to be drawing to a close.

Lucius noticed Avery’s right hand enter his pocket, clutch something there, and emerge again, empty. Could he have a weapon? Lucius prepared to draw in his eye, tensed himself for quick action, though without a specific threat he didn’t know what he could do.

He felt immense relief when Avery stated his intention to leave and turned to go. Wonderful! That would leave Janet here to answer his questions uninhibited.

But his relief turned to alarm again when Janet shouted, “Oh no you don’t! Basalom, stop him.”

Beware, friend Basalom! I believe Avery is armed.

Basalom had begun to move the moment he heard Janet’s command, but Avery was already a few strides away. At Lucius’s warning, Basalom leaped onto the slidewalk to close the gap before Avery could pull his weapon, but the distance was too great. Avery lunged for his pocket, there was a sound of tearing cloth, and he held a laser in his hand.

Pointed straight at Basalom.

“Basalom, is it?” he said. “I always wondered what you would name your mechanical lover. “

Lucius heard the icy tone in Avery’s voice, knew what would happen next. He withdrew his eye from the wall, at the same time asking, Friend Basalom, is your memory backed up?

Not recently, I ’ m afraid,Basalom replied. Pity. I ’ ve had some interesting insights in the past few days.

Quickly; download your memory into me!

No time,Basalomreplied, and Lucius, sticking his whole head out through the doorway, saw that he was correct. Avery’s thumb was beginning to depress the laser’s trigger button. Lucius could see the skin deforming. The button was beginning to slide…

“No!”

Avery jerked at the sudden, overly amplified sound, and the beam went wide, slicing off Basalom’s left arm. The arm landed with a thud on non-moving pavement; Basalom and Avery continued to slide away. The laser beam winked out as Avery looked to see who had shouted. Lucius stepped out into the corridor and said, “Do not harm Basalom. He is a thinking being, with just as much right to live as you.”

Basalom made a move toward Avery, but Avery brought the laser around to bear on him again. “Wrong,” Avery said. “He’s a robot. Nothing more.” Once again, his thumb began to depress the firing button.

Lucius’s mind was awhirl in conflict. Yes, Basalom was certainly a robot, but couldn’t he also be more? Couldn’t he also be human, just as Lucius suspected he and his brethren were? Could he stand by and watch one human kill another simply because one was biological and the other was not?

The First Law said he couldn’t. Zeroth Law implications further dictated that he must protect the more valuable of the two humans, if only one could be saved. Clearly, Basalom was the more valuable of the two, but how could Lucius save him?

Avery himself provided the answer. In the only similar instance of Zeroth-Law application Lucius had witnessed to date, Avery had demonstrated that it was right even to inflict injury to one human to avoid injury to the more valuable one. Lucius saw the possibility, saw that he could save Basalom’s life, and he could even do so without killing Avery. It would still mean a First Law violation, but not a fatal one.

Not for Avery, at any rate, but Lucius didn’t know what the conflict would eventually do to himself. If he and Basalom weren ’ t human, he would be in direct violation of the First Law. Without justification, that would probably be enough to overload his brain with conflicting potentials,

Lucius hesitated a microsecond, but the other side of the argument was just as deadly. If Basalom were human, then not saving him would be an even worse violation of the law.

He felt a strange potential coursing through his circuits, the same potential he had noted earlier in connection with Avery. He cursed the biological fool before him for forcing him into this dilemma. He, Lucius, could very likely die in the attempt to save someone else.

There was no time to think it through any further. Avery, s finger was dangerously close to triggering the laser again. In desperation, Lucius did the only thing he could think of to do: he drew back his arm to throw, formed his hand into a thin blade that would cause the least amount of pain possible, and flung it at Avery’s outstretched arm.

In the moment it took the projectile to reach its target, Lucius wondered if he could have simply knocked the laser from Avery’s hand, but it was easy to convince himself that he couldn’t. It presented a much smaller target, most of which Avery’s fingers covered anyway, and fingers would be even more difficult to reattach than would a forearm.

Besides, there was a certain amount of poetic justice in taking an entire limb.

Avery stared at the stump of his wrist in astonished disbelief. One moment a hand had been there, and the next moment it hadn’t. He had hardly felt the pain when-whatever it was-cut it off; shock kept him from feeling it now.

Intelligence made him grasp the wrist in his left hand and squeeze until he’d closed off the arteries. He carefully avoided looking down at the slidewalk.

Slidewalkhe thought dizzily. Yes, he’d best watch his footing, hadn’t he? Blood could be slippery.

Dimly, through the tight focus his injury demanded of his attention, he was aware of shouting voices and the sound of footsteps. Someone shoved a hand under his arm and drew him erect; he hadn’t been aware he was slumping to his knees. He looked up to see Janet’s humaniform robot supporting him, heard it say, “Master Avery, we must get you to a hospital.”

“No kidding,” he managed to say through clenched teeth. It was beginning to hurt now.

Someone else shouted, “Lucius, come back here! Mandelbrot, stop him!” Metallic feet pounded away down the corridor.

Another pair of hands reached out to hold him, these ones warm and human, and he found himself looking into Janet’s whitened face. She looked worse than he felt. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “Oh Wendell, I’m sorry.”

“I am too,” he said automatically, and was surprised to realize the words were true, but about what he had no idea.

The computer’s voice woke Derec out of a sound sleep. “Master Derec, wake up. Master Derec.”

“Mmmm?” was all he could manage at first. After the elation of figuring out his mother’s name had faded, he’d realized how long he’d been without sleep and he had ordered a bed made for him right there in the study. He’d hoped that his new discovery would trigger memories of his past, and he’d supposed that sleeping on it would be the best way to integrate that knowledge into whatever subconscious switching network controlled memory, but now, even in his groggy state, he knew it hadn’t worked. He suspected he’d slept too soundly for that. He’d been out before his head hit the pillow, exhausted, and he didn’t feel any different now.

“Wake up,” the computer said again. “Your father has been located.”

That sped the waking process a bit. He sat up and shook his head, stood, and staggered over to the terminal. “Caffeine,” he said as he sat down, and a moment later the desk delivered a cup of steaming black coffee. “Show me where he is,” he said between gulps.

The screen lit to show Avery standing between two unfamiliar people. No, one should be familiar, Derec realized. That had to be his mother. Janet. Again he reached for the cascade of memories that should have been there, but nothing responded to the new stimulus.

That was her, though. It had to be. Then that other person wasn’t a person at all, but her humaniform robot, the one Wolruf had chased northward from the lab. Evidently they had come back together this time. And brought Avery with them? That certainly seemed to be the case. Now that he looked, Derec could see that they were holding onto him, evidently making sure he didn’t get away. Or was that-? No. Avery clutched his right wrist, and he had no hand below it. They were supporting him; that was it. But none of the three was doing anything about his injury! They were instead watching something out of the monitor’s view to the right.

“Pan right,” Derec ordered, and the view slid left in the screen. As it panned he saw Ariel standing in the doorway of what Derec could now see was indeed the lab where he’d revived the robots, and she was also looking intently down the corridor.

The objects of their attention slid into view: four robots-Mandelbrot, Adam, Eve, and Lucius-locked in battle.

They were a blur of motion. It was hard to tell who was on which side-hard even to tell who was who amid the constantly shifting shapes. Only Mandelbrot remained the same from moment to moment. At first it seemed that he fought against the other three, struggling to hold them all captive while they twisted and flowed out of his grasp, but it gradually became apparent that he and two of the others were all three trying to contain only one robot.

“Give me sound,” Derec said, and suddenly his study echoed with screeches and thuds and a peculiar ripping noise that Derec realized was the sound of robot cells being tom free like Velcro fasteners. The robots had changed tactics now; instead of trying to contain their captive-a task as impossible as stopping a flood with their hands-they began tearing him apart. Mandelbrot was doing the most damage. His rigid left arm moved like a piston, his hand pulling free chunks of silvery robot and flinging them away to splash against the walls and ceiling. The other two robots took over the job of flailing at the constantly shifting amoeba their captive had become, pulling off its arms when it tried to grow around them and forcing it back toward Mandelbrot and destruction.

At last Mandelbrot exposed his target: the robot’s egg-shaped microfusion power pack. When he wrenched that free, the struggle instantly ceased. He backed away with the power pack in his hand, and the other two robots flowed back into their normal shapes: Adam the werewolf and Eve the silvery copy of Ariel. The third robot remained a much-diminished, ragged-edged tangle of appendages on the floor. It had undoubtedly been Lucius they’d destroyed. Somehow that didn’t surprise Derec.

Then the implications of what he had seen soaked in, and he spilled coffee all over his desk. Swearing, but not at the spill, he leaped to his feet, knocking over his chair in his haste, and ran from the apartment. His father was hurt. His mother had come out of hiding. And there could only be one reason for the battle he had just witnessed: Lucius had injured a human being. He had directly violated the First Law of Robotics.

Wolruf was talking with the wolf when she felt the forest shudder beneath her feet.

“What I want to know,” she’d been in the process of saying, “is whether or not your desire to serve ‘umans is stronger in the immediate case, or over the long term. Do you think ahead to w’at your ‘elp might do to your masters’ civilization, or do you just follow your laws case by-what was that?”

The wolf had flinched, too, just as the forest had seemed to do. Now it said, “Involuntary response. A robot has just injured a human.”

“ W ’ at?”Wolruf felt her hackles rise. That was supposed to be impossible.

The wolf looked into the forest and spoke as if echoing a news broadcast, as it probably was. “The robot Lucius has inflicted non-fatal damage to the human Wendell Avery. Lucius has been deactivated, but all units are alerted to watch for aberrant behavior among other robots. All units must run a diagnostic self-check immediately.” The wolf turned its head to look up at Wolruf. “I must comply,” it said, and it froze like a statue.

Wolruf glanced around at the forest, wondering if she should use the opportunity to make her escape. Of all the times to be out in the forest with a robotic wolf, this was probably the worst. If some rogue idea were circulating around, some new thought that could actually allow a robot to override the Three Laws, then Wolruf couldn’t think of a much worse place to run afoul of it than here with a robot who had already convinced itself that injuring animals was all right.

She forced herself to stay put. It had been Lucius and Avery involved, not this robot before her. Wolruf had lived around robots long enough to know that they seldom-if ever-did anything without a reason, and if ever a robot had a reason to harm a human, Lucius was the one. Scary as the precedent might be, the wolf didn’t have a motive. No matter how much she worried about the long-term damage robots could do to a civilization, Wolruf didn’t think she was in any danger now.

She waited impatiently for the wolf robot’s consciousness to come back on line, in the meantime listening to the occasional chirps and cries of the forest’s real occupants. Quite a few of them were genuine, by the sound of it. Quite a few of the plants were, too. The fresh, clean aroma of growing things was a constant delight to a nose too often idle in the city.

That was a good argument in favor of robots right there, Wolruf realized. They had repaired a planet-wide ecosystem in only a few months, with much more careful attention to detail than she or her entire society could achieve. Wolruf’s home world needed such attention, and soon. Most of the forests there were already gone, as were the wide open spaces and the clean lakes. Centuries of industrialization had left scars that would probably never heal on their own. Even accounting for the difficulties inherent in working around an existing population, robots would probably be able to repair it all in a few years, or decades at the longest.

There was no denying that robots would be useful if she took them home with her. But that still didn’t tell her whether or not they would also be harmful.

She was no closer to an answer than before. And now she had to worry about the possibility of immediate danger as well as long-term effects of using robots.

The wolf returned to life as quickly as it had frozen. “My functions check out marginal,” it said. “I am not a direct threat to humans, but under the current conditions my ability to kill animals has caused some alarm. I have been instructed to return to the city for deeper evaluation.”

“Oh,” Wolruf said. “If you wish to accompany me, we can continue our discussion on the way. “

“All right.”

“You were asking about the city’s consideration for long-range effects of its actions.” The robot led off through the ferns toward a large boulder, which obligingly grew a door for them when they were still a few paces away. “I have accessed the pertinent operation guidelines from Central, and find that very little long-term planning exists. However, since this was an experimental city built primarily to test the physical function of the cellular robot concept, that lack of guidelines may not be pertinent to the question. It seems likely that under actual implementation conditions, whatever long-range goals the city’s inhabitants had for themselves would be included in the city programming.”

They stepped into the elevator and turned around to watch the door slide closed, cutting off the sights and sounds and smells of forest once again. They began to descend, and Wolruf turned her attention to what the robot had said. She had to wade through the unfamiliar terms in its speech to get its meaning, but she was getting good at gathering sense from context. The robot had just said that long-term goals were the responsibility of the humans being served. Which, to answer her question, meant no, the robots wouldn’t concern themselves with it because they believed it was already being covered.

Wolruf laughed aloud. When the robot asked her to explain, she said, “You’ve ‘eard the cliche about the blind leading the blind?”

“No, but I have accessed the appropriate files. I fail to see the application here.”

Wolruf laughed again. “ ‘umans, at least my particular breed of them-and to all appearances Derec ‘ s breed as well-don’t pay much more attention to long-term problems than you do.”

“Oh,” the wolf said. “We will have to take this under consideration. “

The elevator came to a stop and the doors opened onto the underground city. Wolruf stepped out ahead of the robot. “Good,” she said. “I was ‘oping you’d say that.”

The city built the hospital in the suite of rooms just down the corridor from the lab. Medical robots arrived while it was still differentiating, took Avery inside, and made quick work of preparing his wound for surgery. The operating room grew around them while they cleaned the wound, and within minutes they had him anesthetized and were hard at work grafting his hand back on.

Ariel watched in morbid fascination from behind the sterile room’s transparent wall. To her left stood Derec ‘ s mother and her companion robot, to her right Adam and Eve and Mandelbrot. The robots were watching the operation with the same fascination as Ariel, but Derec’s mother was watching Ariel as much as anything else.

“You’re David’s lover, aren’t you?” she finally asked, her tone less than approving. It was the first thing either of them had said to the other.

“That’s right,” Ariel said without looking away from the window. Where did this woman get off? she wondered. No introduction, no apology, just “You’re David’s lover.” She didn’t know a thing about the situation, yet she still acted as if she were in control. Ariel turned her head enough to address the reflection beside her own in the window and said, “His name is Derec now.”

“I heard. I’ve never liked it. It sounds like a spacesuit manufacturer.”

“Exactly,” Ariel said around a smile.

“Why did he change it?”

“Long story.”

“I see.”

The medical robots were using some sort of glue on hold the ends of bone together. Lucius’s weapon had been sharp and moving fast; the severed edges were smooth and easily repaired. He had probably done that on purpose, Ariel realized. She wondered why he had bothered. She watched the robots spread the glue on either end, press the two together, and hold them rigid until the glue set. She hoped they’d checked to make sure it was aligned properly; something about the glue looked permanent.

“You’re not worth the effort he’s put in on finding you,” Ariel said suddenly.

“What?”

“You heard me. As soon as he hears about this, Derec is going to come running in here all ready for a big reconciliation. He wants his family back, and he’ll take what he gets, but you’re no prize. Neither of you. You two are living proof that scientists shouldn’t have children. “

“I suppose you’re an expert on the subject.”

“I know how to treat one.”

“How could you? You don’t-Do you?” The woman was clearly horrified at the thought.

“What’s the matter, don’t like the idea of being a grandmother?” Ariel snorted. “Relax, you’re safe. He took care of it for you.” She tilted her head toward the window. “One of his wonderful experiments ran amok and killed the fetus while it was still only a few weeks old. “

“You sound as if you hold me responsible.”

“You ran off and left your son in the hands of a lunatic. What am I supposed to think?”

“I couldn’t take him with me. I-I needed to be alone.”

“You should have thought about that before you had him.” Ariel looked directly at Derec’s mother for the first time since they had begun speaking to one another. If she had looked earlier she might have held her tongue; the woman’s skin was gray, and she looked as if she had aged twenty years in the last few minutes.

Her robot was growing concerned, too. It said, “Mistress Janet, Mistress Ariel, I don’t believe this conversation should continue.”

Janet. That was her name. Ariel had been struggling for it since she’d first seen her.

Janet said, “It’s all right, Basalom. Ariel isn’t telling me anything I didn’t already know.” She smiled a fleeting smile. “I’ve had plenty of time to dwell on my mistakes.”

Looking back through the window at Avery and the medical robots, she said, “We thought having a child might save our marriage. Can you imagine anything sillier? People who don’t get along in the first place certainly aren’t going to get along any better under the stress of having a child, but we didn’t see that then. We just knew we were falling out of love, and we tried the only thing we could think of to stop it from happening.”

Ariel felt herself blush guiltily at Janet’s admission. She’d been thinking along similar lines herself just yesterday, hadn’t she? She hadn’t actually come out and said that a baby would bring her and Derec closer together again, but she’d been working toward that concept. Was it so surprising, then, to find that Derec’s parents had done the same thing?

“Treating the symptoms doesn’t often cure the disease,” Ariel said, her tone considerably softer than before. “I guess you should have looked for the reason why you were falling out of love in the first place. “

“I know that now.”

More softly still, Ariel asked, “Why do you think you did fall out of love?”

Janet’s laugh was a derisive “Ha!” She nodded at Avery as Ariel had done earlier. “He was out to transform the galaxy; I wanted to study it first. He wanted a castle for everyone and a hundred robots in every castle, but I wanted to preserve a little diversity in the universe. I was more interested in the nature of intelligence and the effect of environment on its development, while he was more interested in using intelligence to modify the environment to suit it. We argued about it all the time. Small wonder we started to hate each other. “

Derec spared Ariel from having to reply to that. He burst into the room at a dead run, skidded to a stop just in time to avoid crashing into the windowed wall, and demanded of anyone who would answer, “What did you do with Lucius’s body?”