“Come on out, Ariel,” Derec said. “You've got no reason to punish Wolruf by pouting in here. Maybe you've got a case against me-and I'm not even sure of that-but you've got no reason at all to make her feel bad, too. She's probably more on your side than mine. After all, she's the one who bailed out your farm project.”

Ariel didn't say anything. She was sitting in the far corner of the room-burrowed into an overstuffed chair that resembled a bean bag more than a piece of furniture-and looking out a corner window, adjacent to the balcony, which overlooked Main Street. She could see Jacob and Mandelbrot standing at the end of the balcony, looking toward the opening in the dome.

“SilverSide may bring the Ceremyons around,” Derec continued, “but if he doesn't, we could be just as well off. We've probably got no business setting up shop on an inhabited planet. I've sort of felt that way ever since I arrived.”

Ariel still didn't see any need to respond and even less to respond to his last remark. He did have a minor point when it came to Wolruf. It was her expertise that would have made the robot farms practical, if SilverSide hadn't screwed up everything

“And anyway, the robot farm project is a dumb idea,” Derec added. “The city robots are just that, city robots. City planners and city builders. Trying to make farmers out of them is like trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.”

Now he was getting personal.

“You're forgetting they've already done it on a planet called Robot City,” Ariel said. “And you're such a great engineer you didn't know your own internal hardware was modulating hyperwave in continuous mode. You even thought your screwy father had invented some altogether new form of communication. Right, genius?!”

“You're likely wrong about that. What are the odds that a woman and a bunch of dumb robots are going to come up with anything the least way innovative?”

“That's it, isn't it? Because the robot farms are a woman's idea, it's a stupid idea. You are a male chauvinist pig, Derec Avery.”

“And you are a libertine tease, Ariel Welsh.”

“I suppose you're referring to Jacob. Getting down to the nitty gritty, getting really personal.”

“You weren't, I suppose.”

“What? Calling you a chauvinist pig?”

“What do you call it?”

“Stating facts.”

“And the hyperwave modulation. I suppose you call those facts, too, those aberrant mental peregrinations.”

She didn't let on that she didn't know what “peregrinations” meant.

“Continuous modulation is a fact, you ninny. And you don't need to take that from a silly woman. Ask any Ceremyon.”

“Darn, Ariel, why are we fighting like this? I just came in here to be nice. “

“Telling me how much I'm hurting Wolruf? That's nice?”

“It's the truth.”

“And you're going to be sure I know it's the truth, right? So you can hurt me a little more.”

“I didn't come in here to hurt you. Just to try to poke some sense into your thick head.”

“Those are nice pleasant words, too. Keep it up, Derec.”

“It's the truth, though. That's why I came in here.”

“How Wolruf feels isn't what's really bothering you, is it, Derec?”

“Oh? What would you suggest?”

“It's really Jacob, isn't it? You're jealous of a robot, aren't you?”

“I don't care if you love that freak machine. It's none of my affair.”

Ariel didn't say anything to rebut that last remark. She was a tease, and she wanted him to dwell on his last thought without being distracted.

“No,” Derec said after the space of a breath or two, “I do care because if it's true, you would be darn sick. And I do love you, Ariel, whether you want me to or not, whether you love a robot or not. So if it's true, I want to help you, and rather desperately.”

He walked into the adjoining personal and closed the door. It went on like that the rest of the night. They didn't get much sleep. Nor did they make up as they usually did when they had finally exhausted one another emotionally.

Derec slept on his side of the room, and Ariel slept on hers, but they didn't sleep much, keeping each other awake by tossing and turning, and generally flouncing around to enhance the other's anger.

Morning finally came. They ate an early breakfast in silence, and they all rode in the lorry to the opening in the dome well before the time when dome construction would normally start if it were going to take place.

It did not take place. Instead the two aliens Synapo and Sarco arrived in their usual dramatic fashion with a great show of black wings. Ariel, Derec, and Wolruf climbed down from the lorry to stand near the right front wheel and talk with the two Ceremyons.

“It is our turn to request an audience, Miss Ariel Welsh,” Synapo said, “for we have discovered that a misunderstanding exists between us. You should not be held responsible for the errant behavior of servant machinery-apparently not yours-trying to pursue its orders in the best way it knows how. I am referring, of course, to the servant you call SilverSide. The question is: Whose machinery is it and whence did it come? It came to our world aboard your vessel, Wolruf. At that time it had your form. Can you explain that?”

“No more than you can explain why it took your form,” Wolruf said. “Derec knows more about it than anyone else.”

“I first encountered it on another planet,” Derec said. “At that time it was the leader of a pack of intelligent lupine beings. They were attacking and interfering with Avery robots during their construction of a city much like the one you have enclosed with your weather node compensator. I made a sort of peace with it in order to study its physical nature and programmed behavior. I recognized at the time that that involved certain risks. I alone am responsible for any inconvenience the robot may have caused you. As you have recognized, its objectives are basically benign even though its behavior may at times seem erratic.”

“As you also recognize, by your own words, benign objectives can sometimes motivate evil doings, particularly when two aberrants interact. I must warn you all that we have an aberrant Cerebron on the wing, more irrational than your SilverSide, and the two have already begun to interact.

“You are familiar with the Cerebron, Neuronius, Miss Ariel Welsh. It was he who impetuously curtailed one of our earlier meetings. The Cerebrons in full caucus have now stripped him of all authority, something I could not do on my own during our meeting because of the rules that regulate our government. We Cerebrons can do little more at this time. Yet he is a danger to all of us, and his interaction with SilverSide, benign though it may seem to the robot, could create a very explosive situation.

“So you see, Derec, you feel responsible for SilverSide, and we feel responsible for Neuronius, but our feelings can do little at this time to correct a nasty situation created by your scientific interest and our governmental restrictions, which prevent both of us from neutralizing the agitators.

“But the primary purpose of this meeting is to inform you that the compensator will not be closed and you may proceed with cultivation of your plants and construction of your transportation terminal. “

“Thank you,” Ariel said. “We are grateful for your foresight and will proceed with those projects.”

“We have not seen SilverSide for almost a full day now,” Derec said. “Do you know where he is or what he's been doing?”

Sarco spoke now.

“He is exceedingly confused about who his master should be. Based on his own programming, Miss Ariel Welsh is his most likely master, and Synapo so instructed him yesterday afternoon at The Cliff of Time. He immediately began a transformation into the form of your robot Jacob Winterson, and was last seen that afternoon climbing down the rock face of the escarpment.