“I’m ready to help.”

“I don’t think we can ask you to do that.” She lowered her voice. “You haven’t heard what Dr. Avery has done to Derec.”

“I’m staying,” Jeff said firmly. “I came here to repay a debt. Since you don’t need help getting off the planet anymore, I’ll repay it with help you do need.”

“Maybe you should know what you’re getting involved in before you decide.”

“Go ahead,” said Jeff. “But I’m staying, period.”

Derec drifted off to sleep to the sound of Ariel’s voice recounting their story.

Chapter 10. The Minneapolis

He awoke again, much later, as strong arms slid under him and lifted him. “What’s happening?” His throat was rough and dry. He cleared it, opening his eyes.

Mandelbrot was carrying him to the back of the truck.

“Time to go, huh?” Derec smiled weakly as he settled onto the truck bed.

“We’re all here,” said Ariel, next to him. “Mandelbrot’s in charge so far. Ready?”

“Sure. Where are we going?”

“We’re going after my supplies,” said Jeff.

“What?” Derec struggled to sit up, looking at them in surprise. “That’s a perfect trap. What’s the plan?”

“We don’t have one yet,” said Ariel. “Mandelbrot couldn’t get any information about the ship through the central computer without giving himself away, so we don’t know what kind of security it has around it or anything.”

“I don’t like this at all,” said Derec. He turned to Mandelbrot, who was pushing the button on the wall to open the door. “Mandelbrot, this sounds like walking into a trap to me. Have you considered that?”

“Yes.” Mandelbrot hurried back to the cab of the truck as the door began to open into a Robot City twilight.

“You have? Then why are we doing this?”

“The plan is flexible. All I intend to do now is take an evasive route back to the landing site for observation. We will not take unnecessary risks.”

“Well…okay.” Derec sat back against the wall of the truck. If he could just feel better, he could be more persuasive. Or help make plans. It was just so hard to concentrate.

The truck rolled out onto the empty street. The robot population seemed to be getting thinner all the time. That was good for his purposes, Derec thought, but the mysteries remained. What was the purpose of the robot assembly points…and where was Dr. Avery?

Robot City had street lights, but they were not as bright or as frequent as in other cities. The robots’ superior vision made more light unnecessary. The entire planet was a city of technological marvels and striking robotic capabilities.

“What did Avery get from your father?” Derec asked suddenly. “He’s called Professor Leong? What have we seen in this city that Professor Leong provided?”

“I haven’t seen anything like that,” said Jeff. “He was talking about culture. I’ve seen science, technology, and architecture taken to new heights, but that’s all.”

“The play,” said Ariel. “We had the robots do Hamlet here after you left. That is, Derec chose it but the robots were ready for it. Some of them were involved with robot creativity.”

“The arts,” said Derec. “Of course. And maybe a system of ethics beyond the Laws of Robotics-”

“The Laws of Humanics they used to talk about,” Ariel said excitedly. “Some of this crazy stuff is starting to make sense now.”

“Instead of being just oddities.” Derec nodded. “Robots are too logical to leave a lot of loose ends.”

“Rrobot creativity,” said Wolruf. “Came at ssame time Dr. Averry returrned to Robot City.”

“That’s right,” said Ariel. “And now, after he’s apparently reprogrammed all the robots, there’s no sign of it.”

“The creative impulse caused too much trouble,” said Derec. “But originally, he programmed some artistic abilities into his robots. Jeff, does this fit what you remember?”

“That’s along the right line, yeah. And I remember now that he had one interest in particular.”

“Really? What was it?”

“Cultures that could endure.”

“Endure,” said Derec. “You mean like republics and empires and so on? Dynasties and stuff like that?”

Jeff shook his head in the darkening light as the truck slowed for an intersection, then speeded up again. “Cultures. They generally outlast politics. They evolve in response to politics and economics and technology, but they have lives of their own. My father called them the sum of all the disciplines.”

The truck came to a halt, drawing their attention. Derec looked out and saw that they had stopped on an overpass. The bright twinkling lights of Robot City stretched in all directions, implying the shapes of buildings and streets by their patterns in swooping curves and mighty blocks and spiraling towers and a fully reliable grid on the ground.

“Down there,” said Jeff. “That’s the boulevard I landed on, running parallel with this one. See between those buildings there?”

“I see it,” said Ariel. “Just barely.”

“I dare not take the truck any closer,” said Mandelbrot, standing in the open cab to face them. “I can approach it on foot and survey the security measures.”

“Hold it,” said Derec. “If they left it just sitting there, it has to be a trap. Mandelbrot, that means they’re ready for you, too, in some way. They wouldn’t leave bait like that just waiting to be flown away.”

“Too bad we can’t move it,” said Jeff.

“Wait a minute,” said Ariel. “Maybe Mandelbrot can communicate with its computer.”

“I doubt they left the ship operational,” said Derec. “That doesn’t make sense, either.”

“Unless they’re overconfident of their security measures,” said Jeff. “Mandelbrot, if you want to try, it’s a ten-passenger Hayashi-Smith named Minneapolis. It’s non-positronic but it’s smart enough to handle the flight instructions I give it, which are pretty general. That’s about all I know about it.”

“I am currently trying standard frequencies,” said Mandelbrot. “The customary range is small. No response.”

“Good,” said Derec.

“What?”Ariel demanded.

“Maybe we have a chance after all.”

“What do you mean?” Jeff asked.

“If we’re lucky, the only way they disabled the ship was to disconnect the computer. Mandelbrot, your comlink can send out the same impulses it did.”

“I might be able to start the ship,” said Mandelbrot, “but I can’t fly it from here. The boulevard is too narrow and I’m not familiar with the ship itself. “

“I can’t ‘elp ‘u, eitherr,” said Wolruf apologetically. “Can navigate, but giving orrders to Mandelbrot takess too long for shuttle takeoff. And ‘ave no line of sight from herr, eitherr.”

“We don’t have to fly it,” said Derec. “The boulevard goes straight. All we have to do is get it away from their security long enough to get inside and grab the supplies.”

“The robots would know that,” said Jeff. “Don’t you think they must have accounted for that somehow?”

“Maybe,” said Derec. “But remember how logical this place is. The Hunters don’t have much experience with devious thinking.”

“They were programmed by a paranoid,” Ariel pointed out.

“It’s worth a shot,” said Derec.

“I believe I can make it go straight,” said Mandelbrot. “I suggest, however, that we first take the truck to the rendezvous site so that we are waiting when it arrives. It will not take the Hunters long to catch up with it.”

Derec’s heart was pounding with excitement, and the adrenaline seemed to be loosening up his muscles. He grinned. “Let’s go!”

Mandelbrot drove the truck a much longer time than Derec had expected, but the distance he covered made sense. The fifteen kilometers the ship would travel down the boulevard to reach them was virtually nothing to it, even in its shuttle mode. Mandelbrot pulled the truck into a side street and brought it close to the intersection with the boulevard. Then he stopped the truck and sat motionless.