“I would like to meet with you and the leader of that task force tomorrow at this time,” Synapo said.

“For what purpose?” the small alien asked. “I doubt that he will be able to contribute anything of significance to our negotiations.”

“For the purpose of planning our mutual interaction in implementing your proposal and establishing a timetable for its completion. My Cerebrons are a nomadic tribe, anxious to be on the wing again. We have already stayed far longer at this Myostrian compensator than we find comfortable.

“If you can assure me that you are familiar with the details of reprogramming the Avery robots, then of course, the presence of the other leader would not be required. But you led me to believe otherwise.”

“Very well,” the small alien said. “We shall meet with you tomorrow morning.”

Good,Synapo thought. That meeting should show who is dominant - the he leader or the she leader-and should also resolve once and for all which species is superior, the Ceremyons or the aliens. He would like to think that it would make little difference in how the Ceremyons treated the aliens, but he knew otherwise; he knew that it would make a big difference, even to him, a statesman.

Chapter 15. Reunion

Wolruf brought her hyperspace jumper Xerborodezees down a half kilometer from the forest and a full kilometer from the line of robots and their vehicles streaming across the plain toward Oyster World's robot city.

They had hardly touched down before a lorry started from the city across the deep, golden grass, laying a trail on the prairie that pointed toward the Xerborodezees like an elongating arrow.

Wolruf traveled light. She had stowed everything she needed in one small bag slung around SilverSide's neck. The two of them were sitting at the top of the access ramp, from which they could look out over the tall, waving grass and watch the approaching lorry.

Stepping carefully between them, Mandelbrot had unloaded Derec's gear from the ship by the time the lorry arrived. But SilverSide could clearly see and distinguish the two occupants of the open lorry long before it reached the ship, since both occupants were standing up.

“The one Derec calls Ariel, which is she?” SilverSide asked.

“The small one on 'urn left,” Wolruf replied.

“Then the tall one must be the robot Jacob Winterson.”

“I've neverrr met 'im, but I pressume so,” Wolruf said. “Jacob iss Ariel's personal robot, and that body in the lorry certainly matches Derec's description. 'e looks 'uman, but Derec said Ariel wass the only 'uman on the planet, so that's got to be Jacob.”

“Are the females always smaller and more delicate?”

“Generally. And that's true of most animal species in the galaxy. I'm certainly smallerrr than my consort.”

“Yes, your library file told of you as a female,” SilverSide said. “And I've considered you so without fully understanding the deeper significance, which seems to exist beyond the functional reproductive purpose. Derec seems driven by many other emotions when he talks of Ariel.”

“Just as Beores wass driven by otherrr emotions when 'e talked of Latiel. “

“I don't understand. Who were they?”

“The first beingss that werrr created, according to ancient myths.”

“Not the first humans. That would be Adam and Eve, according to the library history files.”

“Okay, put it in 'uman terms. The first man and the first woman.”

“And do all males have this strong affinity for females?”

“Mostly. Some don't, but they'rn a small minority.”

“I can understand that such a feeling is necessary to promote the reproduction of the species. But Derec's emotions seem involved with feelings far beyond simple procreation. And that is confusing beyond even the confusion-my lack of understanding-of the nature of biological emotions in general.”

“Emotions can be just as confusing to those experiencing them,” Wolruf said, “so 'urn confusion iss understandable and nothing to worry about.”

“Worry?” SilverSide said as though she were considering the idea for the first time. “Is that an emotion?”

“'es. All this concern 'u seem to 'ave over the sexes doess seem to amount to worry, wouldn't 'u say?”

“A perturbation of some sort from a mean of some sort is the only way I can express it-something which I would rather didn't continue, but which I don't seem able to prevent.”

“A good description of worry,” Wolruf said.

“Then I shall so tabulate it in a catalog of emotions which I shall now begin to prepare, hoping that by defining them I can come to know and recognize them as the first step in learning to control them. “

“A worthy project which could quite likely drive 'u nuts,” Wolruf said.

“Nuts?”

“Forget it. It iss not an emotion. But I'll tell 'u an emotion I am feeling: joy. It's been a year or more since I've seen Ariel and felt the simple joy of being with 'errr.”

With that Wolruf dashed down the ramp, for the lorry had pulled up beside the pile of Derec's luggage and equipment.

Ariel stepped down from the near side of the lorry as Wolruf extended herself to her full height and wrapped her arms around Ariel.

Neither said anything, but both had tears in their eyes as they separated and stood looking at one another.

SilverSide put tears down as a possible external sign of emotion, unintentionally beginning a catalog of associated symptoms that later-as her knowledge increased-she would identify by the term body language.

“'u're a blessed experience after a dreary period,” Wolruf said.

“And you're a sight for sore eyes,” said Ariel. “Where's Derec?”

“We had to leave 'im behind on the wolf planet,” Wolruf said.

The look of consternation that immediately came to Ariel's face also went into SilverSide's catalog, but she could only tag it with the word lie that she knew to be not an emotion, but rather a lack of truth-telling by Wolruf. Still, she had nothing else to tag it with for the time being.

And then Ariel's look changed to joy as Derec appeared on the ramp beside SilverSide.

“You scamp,” Ariel said, grinning at Wolruf.

Wolruf gargled phlegm, a sound symptom SilverSide had long since associated with Wolruf and her strange affinity for what Derec called humor.

Ariel and Derec met in the middle of the ramp and hugged one another and pressed lips.

The look of joy had to be catalogued adjacent to the emotion of joy, for Wolruf had already defined what it was they were feeling when they met once again after so long a time. The same must be true of Ariel. But joy still had no personal connection with SilverSide, and so was only a word and a symptom in a file, and incomplete without SilverSide's own positronic potential pattern.

Worry she now understood. Joy she did not.

And yet-it suddenly came to her-she, too, had met beings she was very close to after a period of separation, as she had when Derec, Wolruf, Mandelbrot, and she had gone on the outing in the forest, and she had gone looking for LifeCrier and the rest of the pack and had brought them back to meet Wolruf.

Seeing LifeCrier after all that time had disturbed her, and it was a disturbance that she welcomed and would seek to experience again. Her memory brought forth that old positronic potential pattern, and she knew then that she could put it in her catalog alongside the word and the body language for the emotion joy.

But those were minor things in the confusion of her thinking. It was the inexplicable nature of the biological sexes-and not in their function of reproduction-that was disturbing her most acutely that afternoon. And to a lesser extent, she was still disturbed by a lingering doubt as to who was the more intelligent, and so, the more human-Derec or Wolruf.