“There was no time to explain, Miss Ariel,” SilverSide shouted about the wind noise. “I need your presence urgently.”

Jacob raced after them down Main Street but was soon left behind as SilverSide accelerated the small runabout to its maximum speed, weaving in and out of the traffic and avoiding an accident by the adeptness of the city central computer.

“Stop, you maniac,” Ariel screamed. “Stop now.”

SilverSide slowed the runabout noticeably and then promptly speeded up again. Consideration of his new knowledge of the Law of Humanics-humans were compelled to please themselves-overrode his own Second Law output-robots must obey human orders. He knew when Ariel had finally considered all the facts-after the fact-she would be pleased and would approve what he was doing.

“You are in no danger, Miss Ariel, but I cannot obey that order because of the overriding nature of the present situation which demands your presence at the birthing of…of…” and he added lamely, still shouting, “Of what I cannot be sure.” And the shout died away as he said, “I can only hope.”

Then Ariel, sobbing and screaming incoherently, beat on him with her hands clenched into small hard fists, beat on his shoulder first, and then finally, in desperation, beat on his head. But he felt nothing in the intensity of his purpose.

“You must stop that, Miss Ariel,” he shouted. “You will hurt yourself. “

And the calm way he shouted that above the sound of the rushing air and the obvious lack of effect her effort was having, must have calmed her, for she finally stopped and slumped down on the seat, seemingly exhausted, her hysteria spent.

They emerged from the opening, and SilverSide skidded the runabout in a sharp left turn to take them down the side of the dome.

“You must understand what is taking place,” he shouted. “It is very important to me, to the new foundling, even to you, Miss Ariel, for I wish her to serve you well.”

Ariel said nothing. She sat beside him like a limp doll.

“Another like me is being born. The egg lies in the forest even now, ready to hatch. She must have a proper model, a human female, so that she does not come into being confused, her imprint misguided as mine was. You must be there to guide her into this strange world. Do you understand what I am saying, Miss Ariel?”

Ariel still said nothing, but she had straightened a little in the seat, perhaps because to slump in the bouncing runabout was more uncomfortable than to sit up straight.

“You will not be harmed, Miss Ariel. After it's allover, when you think back on it, you will be glad you came. I know you will. You will be pleased with me. The Law of Humanics will guide you.”

That seemed to comfort SilverSide. The Law of Humanics was working on the effect of his own Laws, regulating their relative potential to something that was less uncomfortable. He was doing something that he knew was going to please Ariel even though she was, perhaps, not pleased at the moment.

When they arrived at the forest, he braked to a halt, jumped out, and opened the door for Ariel. She got out calmly. She must have thought about what he had been shouting at her, for she didn't object when he gently took her hand to help her from the car.

That gave him confidence that she would follow him without being forced, and he let go of her hand and started into the woods. She stayed close behind him for the short, hurried walk it took to reach the egg.

SilverSide guided Ariel gently until she stood two meters from the egg, directly in front of the hatch, and then he left her there and hid behind the pink-flowered bush behind her.

The hatch began to open with a soft grinding sound.

SilverSide could look through the lower branches of the tall bush, past Ariel's right side, and see the hatch himself.

A silvery-gray, amorphous mass heaved itself above the bottom of the hatch and formed, in that part of its mass that hung over the edge of the opening, a shiny, multifaceted, grayish-green orb that it rotated slowly around-much like an eye rotating in its socket-as though it were surveying the entire landscape. The inspection narrowed then, and starting at Ariel's feet, the orb slowly scanned up until it was gazing at her head.

With that inspection completed, the blob elongated and pulled itself through the hatch as though it were one large muscle, like the foot of a huge snail. It slithered out of the hatch, coming to rest on the ground in front of Ariel like a thick pancake with the orb still intact in the center.

The facets of the orb slowly disappeared, absorbed into a grayish-green ring surrounding a black pupil, while the bulk of the orb turned white. A spherical mass the size of a small bowling ball began to rise from the pancake, lifting the eye-for it was clearly that now-and a second eye took shape, forming the first aspects of a face.

Slowly then, head, shoulders, arms, breast-mounded chest, hips and buttocks and legs, all reared up out of the puddle until there was no puddle left-the last sucked up into a pair of shapely ankles and feet-and a silvery likeness of Ariel stood before Ariel.

SilverSide stepped from behind the bush then and silently inspected the new arrival. Ariel had stood transfixed, mute and motionless, during the whole process.

Now SilverSide spoke up, proudly, christening this delightful new creation.

“You are the female, Eve SilverSide.”

After allowing a moment for that to sink in to both Ariel and Eve, he spoke again, triumphantly, feeling as though he had found his true identity at last.

“And I am the male, Adam SilverSide.”

They stood like that, no one saying anything, and then the sound of Jacob's voice came to them and the sound of feet pounding the ground.

“Miss Ariel, where are you?”

And then the pounding stopped, and they could hear him thrashing through the shrubbery.

“Miss Ariel,” he kept calling, coming closer and closer.

“Here, Jacob,” Ariel called.

Chapter 23. A Final Imprint

After the excitement of Eve's birth and the brief period it took for Eve to become properly functional and subservient to Ariel under Adam's guidance, everything seemed to fall into place except for the uncertainty of how that enigmatic event could have taken place. To discover Adam SilverSide on an alien planet was certainly unexpected, an inexplicable robot on an inexplicable planet. But to personally midwife the birth of another of the creatures was something altogether different; it raised so many questions, with the degree of involvement of the erratic Dr. Avery heading the list.

When they finally put those unanswerable questions behind them and turned instead to the creative work that confronted them, they found that the task, though difficult, was not as difficult as they had supposed it to be. The farm programming that was used on the planet Robot City was intact in Pearl City's computer files, ready for use should the need arise.

What Ariel had merely fantasized and hoped was a capacity for leadership proved in reality to be a genuine ability to lead. And what was even more amazing, Derec readily relinquished his nominal authority and bowed to her decisions in the construction of the farms and their associated terminal facilities.

Initially, one of Ariel's first decisions did not have the wholehearted endorsement of either Derec or Wolruf, although they later conceded that she was right. They all agreed that they needed an eighth supervisor robot to oversee the planetwide farm operation. But neither Derec nor Wolruf agreed initially with the form Ariel specified for the supervisor-adamantly-nor with the name she chose for that robot: Wheeler. To them it made no sense to name a farmer after the twentieth century spacetime physicist John Archibald Wheeler. To her it made perfect sense, for both were as close to nature as a being can get: the farmer in a concrete, practical sense, the physicist in an abstract, symbolic sense. (She had been studying spacetime physics, trying to understand the node compensator. Her mind at that time was much filled with the heroic personalities of physics.)