When she went to bed, she posted Jacob on the balcony with instructions to call her immediately if he saw any change in the size of the dome opening.

In the middle of the night, she dreamt that she was trying to escape from that black void inside the dome, piloting her hyperspace jumper with the monster Synapo sitting beside her in the cockpit, heading on a course that would take them down Main Street with the Compass Tower far in the distance. But she was still out in the void, hanging motionless at least a kilometer from where Main Street began, with her throttle pushed to its limit; and stretching away from her toward Main Street were long, long rows of waving green corn; and standing at the end of Main Street, far away down those rows of corn, was Derec waving and beckoning for her to come to him. She turned to look at Synapo in the midst of a feeling of disoriented horror, and a crimson flame shot out of the blackness beneath his luminous green eyes and bummed her hand.

She awoke drenched in perspiration, her hand resting painfully on the sharp corner of the nightstand beside her bed. She finally drifted back to sleep, yearning for Derec to be there in bed beside her, but back on Aurora, not there on Oyster World.

By ten o'clock the next morning, the materiel transfer dwindled to a halt, and with their limited possessions piled in the runabout beside them, Ariel and Jacob stood outside the dome at the meeting site, keeping vigil with Wohler-9 and his lorry, waiting to witness the final closure of the dome.

Five minutes passed-10:05 AM-and no blackbodies had shown up to send their shimmering additions down the edge of the dome, then a half hour, and then an hour, and still no construction activity.

There weren't even any signs of preconstruction activity like the long line of blackbodies that had formed on other mornings heading toward the apex of the dome opening, like an outspiraling thread unwinding from a black hole, from a spherical black mass that from far away could not be resolved into individual blackbodies basking on the wing in the light of the sun.

There was no dull black ball in the sky this morning. The blackbodies were up there like every other morning, but unlike construction days, they were loosely dispersed from horizon to horizon, languidly circling, soaking up the sun's radiation.

Ariel and the two robots sat there all day waiting for something to happen and nothing did: no construction activity and no visit from the aliens to explain the lack of activity.

Ariel ate lunch and dinner from supplies Wohler-9 had stashed in the lorry for her, supplies that were to last a month to give them time to get the Oyster World dilemma resolved.

Derec was due to arrive in three days: one day to get far enough away from that other planet to allow the jump through hyperspace, and two days to travel in from the jump arrival point, the nearest clearsafe in the Oyster World zone.

They spent the night in the open. Ariel slept on the long back seat of the open lorry under the stars of a cloudless sky. She refused to spend another night under the dome with the threat of its imminent closure literally hanging over her. One night like that was enough.

Chapter 12. Wolruf Stands Inspection

They arrived at the clearing well before noon, following a large animal trail Derec had discovered and explored with Mandelbrot a few days before. Although the forest cover discouraged the growth of dense underbrush, there were scattered patches that occasionally blocked the trail for homo sapiens, low branches that the animals who had made the trail-possibly SilverSide's erstwhile associates-simply walked under.

The trail was clear now, of course. When they had first explored it, Mandelbrot had simply fashioned his arm into a machete-the arm that was made of Robot City material-and cleared the way with a motion that bore some resemblance to a buzz saw.

This morning Derec led the way, with Mandelbrot next, then Wolruf, and finally SilverSide bringing up the rear. SilverSide kept up a steady conversation with Wolruf during the hour that it took to reach the clearing.

Derec could hear the buzz of conversation but was too far in front to make out what they were saying. When he reached the clearing, and as they approached, he could hear them clearly but still couldn't understand them. They were no longer speaking Standard.

Mandelbrot was already erecting the tent as Wolruf walked into the clearing.

“I don't believe this,” she said. “ 'ees already speaking my language. Not fluently 'et. But give 'im another decad and 'e'll be speaking it like a native.”

“Yes. He has a marvelous affinity for new knowledge,” Derec said. It made him uneasy, that affinity.

Derec gathered some stones from the brook and built a fireplace. Wolruf put the inside of the tent in order. Mandelbrot gathered firewood.

SilverSide disappeared. It wasn't until Derec finished construction of the fireplace that he noticed SilverSide was gone. Wolruf was fast asleep in the tent on one of the cots she had erected. She really wasn't much of an outdoors person, not at all like Derec in that respect.

There was no point in looking for SilverSide. This was his habitat far more than theirs. They might never see him again.

The thought of that filled Derec with dismay. He had become vitally interested in the strange robot-a fascinating study in alien robotics. He had learned a great deal merely by association, but he needed to learn much more, including its origin and the purpose of its original programming.

And he had sucked Wolruf into the problem as well. He had brought her “half across the galaxy” as she had so emphatically pointed out. How was he going to explain that he would not need her services any longer? That she had come all this way for nothing!

When Wolruf awoke, she took the news of SilverSide's disappearance quite calmly.

“Good,” she said. “Can I go 'ome now, back to civilissation? Can we at least go back to the city?”

“He'll come back,” Derec said more confidently than he felt. “We'll at least stay overnight. He might not come back to the city, but he'll come back here.”

They spent a quiet afternoon. Derec read. Wolruf slept. Mandelbrot stood guard, just outside the clearing, facing away from the campsite, with his back against a tree on the other side of the brook. SilverSide would have a hard time getting at his switch panel that way.

After dinner, after it got dark, hoping to attract SilverSide, Derec built up the fire so that it lighted the entire clearing.

Mandelbrot stayed at his guard post. Wolruf dozed in the warmth of the fire. Derec thought about Ariel, and that brought him to Jacob Winterson and, putting Jacob out of his mind, brought him back full circle to worrying about SilverSide.

The fire died down. Derec was talking when Wolruf quietly laid a hand on his arm and pointed across the fire to the other side of the clearing, the side away from Mandelbrot's guard post.

There-just inside the clearing, in the faint light of the dying fire-were two gray wolf-like shapes, sitting on their haunches. When he looked at them, the firelight caught the backsides of their eyes and came back at him as a ghostly green glow. That must have been how Wolruf had seen them in the first place; they were otherwise almost invisible.

“Master Derec,” Mandelbrot called softly from behind them, “we are surrounded by animals circling around the campsite. Should I take any action?”

“Can you suggest anything suitable?” Derec asked.

“Not at the moment,” Mandelbrot replied.

“Stay at your post then,” Derec said.

“I 'ate stuff like this,” Wolruf said. “Why do you alwayss 'ave to bring me along?”