Then she turned her attention to the blackbody surface and found that to be more of a problem than the aerodynamics and the optics. She experimented on her arm as she sat in the back seat of the lorry but finally had to give up and settle for a blackish gray with a soft, silvery lustre, just as she had finally given up matching the details of hair and skin coloring of the mammals.

Next, she attacked the source and nature of the green flame that had burst from the alien, Synapo. She had the feeling that it was a tool, if not a weapon, that was required to provide a satisfactory imprint. She designed a small electrolytic cell, compressor, and high-pressure storage containers for hydrogen and oxygen and a release orifice at the rear of her oral cavity, but she kept her conventional speakers for communication. And she added a small factory to fix nitrogen in the form of ammonia to provide the trace of that compound that gave the flame its green color.

All during that period of analyzing the alien, Synapo, she was absorbing the powerful masculinity he radiated, intercepting and recording the red glare of his eyes, sopping up his physical essence, the body language, the subtle mannerisms that escaped that otherwise all-absorbing black silhouette.

Finally she was ready, and she set the organometallic cells of her body and their pseudoribosomes to the task of altering her genetic tapes-her robotic DNA, her equivalents of messenger and transfer and ribosomal RNA-and the myriad other factors contained in her multibillion microbotic cells that would finally effect the alien imprint.

As her form changed, she stepped up to stand on the back seat of the open lorry to give her forelegs room to develop into wings, and then as her long hind legs shortened and thickened, she braced them against the back of the seat to steady herself.

With their attention on the meeting, the two robots in the front of the lorry did not observe the transformation, nor did the mammals in the meeting who faced away from her. She was under observation only by the aliens, and they seemed not to notice or to care.

Finally, the transformation was complete, save for the hook and its tether, that she had programmed last because of its different matrix, a stainless form of shining steel configured in a hollow curved horn and a fine-stranded but sturdy flexible cable. She hoped to fly, but she had abandoned the balloon and the act of ballooning she had witnessed the evening before. The hook, then, was purely for effect.

Comfortably masculine now, SilverSide was standing on the back seat of the lorry, fully erect-three meters high-with his wings folded tightly against his body as though he had just emerged from a cocoon like a newly metamorphosed butterfly. He felt the need to open and exercise them, to get the feel of them, and with that he recalled flying in bird form on the wolf planet.

The mammals and the aliens were still absorbed in their meeting. The aliens apparently thought the growing SilverSide was a natural phenomenon associated with the lorry, for they gave no sign of looking directly in SilverSide's direction.

Slowly he opened his wings. The thin, tough, organometallic membrane rustled faintly as he unfolded the airfoil to its full twenty-five meters. He found then that he could not avoid measuring air currents.

He had not been aware of even a faint breeze as he had stood there on the back seat with his wings folded, but now he felt the gentle pressure acting on his wings, pressing his simulated, feathery cold-junction against the back o(the seat. He resisted the torque that was endeavoring to tumble him out of the back of the lorry only with a distinct effort by digging his toes into the seat cushion.

The effort was more than he cared to maintain, so he folded his wings back against his body, reducing the wind area.

Then he turned, walked across the seat to the side of the lorry, hesitated-looking at Wolruf who was running toward him and shouting his name-and then spread his wings again and hopped over the side. He felt again the glorious sensation of flight, of being airborne, as he gently glided to the ground. When his feet touched, he fell flat on his face, his wings outspread, with a feeling of slow motion that began with his dragging toes digging shallow furrows in the dust next to the roadway.

With difficulty, he got up, using his wings to lever himself erect before folding them into his body, and then Wolruf was on him, hindlegs straddling his back and pinning his wings to his sides, hands grasping his hook to keep her purchase. And Derec was winding a rope around both him and Wolruf, binding them together.

Chapter 18. The Black Visitation

Ariel was about to wrap up the meeting. Wolruf had hit the high spots of the technical effort involved in establishing the robot farms and had given her detailed schedule; and Derec had described the external modifications of the city to provide local and interstellar terminal facilities, the minimal effect those changes would have on the meteorology, and the detailed schedule to effect those changes.

Ariel began her recap.

“I would like to briefly review the farm program again and summarize the schedule, but before I do, are there any other questions on the work that Wolruf and Derec described?”

“No,” Synapo said. “It was all quite clear.”

“Was it acceptable?” she asked.

“Yes.”

Synapo turned to look at his companion.

“Sarco?” he queried, “Any objections?”

“Not for the moment,” Sarco replied. “The farm machinery is highly suspect, but we must take you at your word, at least for now. Time may tell us otherwise. And, too, I am concerned…”

He stopped talking briefly, then:

“By the Great Petero!” he exclaimed. “What is that, Synapo?”

Both aliens had turned slightly to the left to focus those red eyes on something behind her. Ariel turned to look herself and saw a dark gray monstrosity on the back seat of the lorry with gigantic wings hovering over the vehicle like some kind of avenging angel.

Then it slowly folded its wings and started walking across the seat to the side of the lorry, where it spread them once again, and Ariel knew instantly what was going on.

But Wolruf had anticipated her by significant seconds and was already running toward the lorry, shouting, “SilverSide, SilverSide,” over and over again, as though shrill decibels would anchor him to the ground.

As it turned out, Wolruf had nothing to worry about. SilverSide came to rest flat on the ground, spread-eagled. And by the time he picked himself up and retracted his wings, Wolruf was clinging to his back, and then Derec was trussing them both up with a rope he had hastily dug out of a locker on the side of the lorry.

Ariel was torn between getting involved in the fracas herself and preserving some kind of composed demeanor for the benefit of the aliens. She felt her position as official negotiator and ostensible leader of the robot city task force with special keenness ever since she had been able to parlay her visit into that position: leader without portfolio.

As Derec was wrapping SilverSide and Wolruf round and round with rope, Ariel turned back to the aliens in time to hear Sarco say, “Perhaps this gives us a better idea what further menace lies off-world, Miss Ariel Welsh. We resume construction of the node compensator tomorrow morning.”

He had rotated his hook forward as he spoke. Then, as he turned away, a broad green flame a meter long blazed from below his eyes, and he flapped into the air.

The heat from the flame hit her like the breath of a blast furnace.

The alien Synapo stood facing her as his colleague flew off.

When he spoke it was in a fashion that left no doubt as to the temper of his thoughts. The words seemed to modulate the small green flame that flickered below his glaring red eyes, a waxing and waning fluorescence that resonated with the strange buzzing sound it imparted to his words.