“Not likely,” Ariel said. “And you should stay away from Neuronius. He is exceedingly dangerous.”

“You must come with me now, Ariel. Master Neuronius is waiting in the forest.”

“Don't be silly. I have no intention of going with you, nor of meeting with an insane Ceremyon.”

“Why do you say damaging things like that? Master Neuronius does not deprecate you in that fashion. Instead, he has a great deal of faith in you; otherwise he wouldn't be willing to help you in your struggle with Synapo.”

“I'm not struggling with Synapo. He and I get along fine.”

“But he has deluded you.”

“No. Quite the contrary. Neuronius has deluded you. Just like he confused and tried to take over Adam. Fortunately, Adam had talked to Synapo first. And then Sarco later. Together they were able to straighten him out. It's unfortunate that Adam wouldn't talk to you. We could have avoided all this if he had. It would be better still if I hadn't sent you to Adam in the first place. But now, it seems I had good reason to.”

“It is Adam who is still confused. He knows that Master Neuronius is the only human on the planet.”

“What?” Ariel wasn't sure she had heard that right.

“Adam knows that Master Neuronius is the only human here.”

“Adam told you that?”

“No, but he did not deny it just now.”

“Who did tell you then? Surely not even Neuronius is that irrational.”

“That is the most important thing I learned from Master Neuronius. And Adam confirmed it by his silence. Adam's Laws cannot be my Laws or he, too, would recognize and obey our Master.”

“Surely you don't believe that.”

Ariel wished desperately that Jacob would get back up with the storage cubes. She couldn't stall much longer.

“You must come with me now,” Eve insisted.

“No. We must talk to Adam. He can clear all this up. We'll go talk to Adam just as soon as Jacob returns. In the meantime, go stand in your niche, Eve. I have to get back to work.”

Ariel turned back to the terminal, feigning an Auroran confidence in dealing with robots that she no longer felt.

Eve gathered her up in one quick swoop, handling her like a disobedient child, with none of the gentleness Adam had used when he had taken her to witness Eve's birth. That experience came immediately to mind. Twice now these wild robots had subjected her person to gross indignities.

They were going out the street door as Jacob started up the stairs from the basement to the small lobby. He heard Ariel's scream for help as his foot hit the first step.

“Jaaaacobbbbb,” it came with that trailing Doppler effect.

He took the rest of the steps three at a time, but he was slower than Eve, and though he trailed her all the way down Main Street, he could not overtake her. She gradually pulled away from him.

Wohler-9-a block away and walking down Main Street in the course of his official duties-also witnessed the abduction. The First Law overrode those duties, so he, too, took up the chase. Although he was faster than Jacob, the distance between them was too great and he never caught up.

Jacob put out an alarm on the comlink, but the robots on the street could do little to stop Eve with her burden because that would endanger Ariel. She was completely under the control of a wild thing who quite likely might not recognize their Laws of Robotics. Jacob and Mandelbrot had planted that seed of doubt in the Avery robots, and now it was working against them.

By the time Jacob emerged from the opening in the dome, Eve was disappearing around the curve of the structure with Ariel still cradled in her arms.

Jacob didn't slow; if anything, he speeded up, pounding down the trail of crushed grass left by Eve. When he had them in sight again, they were heading directly for the forest.

He was still a hundred meters away when they reached the cover of the trees and were lost to sight in the shrubbery. Then he was engulfed in a dark shadow as one of Oyster World's dominant species landed in front of him, wings outspread and blocking his path to the forest.

“SilverSide, you must not interfere,” the alien said.

“Out of my way!” Jacob shouted, not slowing or changing course or correcting the alien's mistaken notion of who he was.

The alien quickly withdrew its right wing just before Jacob would have run into it.

It flapped into the air, overtook him, and as it passed over him, he heard it shout again.

“You are making a great mistake, serving the wrong master!”

Again it landed in front of him, this time near the edge of the forest, but in its haste to brake, stall, and touchdown in front of him, the alien misjudged, not allowing enough time to retreat in case he didn't stop.

This time Jacob tried to avoid the wing, but the timing and his momentum didn't allow it. He ran into the wing, spinning the alien around and entangling himself in the thin but tough membrane. He could feel the wing bones cracking, and he heard the grunt of the alien ejecting gases as their bodies came together; then hot flame burned his eyes and his hair and his skin. He was blind when the last stimuli he recorded came to his ears and face: the muffled whoosh and the violent pressure of exploding hydrogen as his flailing arms crushed the alien's high pressure gas storage cells.

Jacob Winterson was essentially demolished except for the lower torso and thighs that remained in one piece, cartwheeling through the air, trailing remnants of burning clothing and synthetic skin, before landing in the grass a half-kilometer away, not far from the forest.

Neuronius was even more finely divided.

Chapter 28. A Sad Ritual

Derec and Ariel met at the apartment after the explosion. Using Derec's internal monitor, Wohler-9 had informed him of the accident immediately after it occurred.

Ariel had witnessed the spectacle from the shelter of the trees and had broken away from Eve and run out to where grass and dirt had been torn away by the explosion to form a shallow, bare depression in the ground, so she didn't see Adam retrieve what little was left of Jacob Winterson. He covered Jacob's remains with coils of rope before he picked up Ariel and Wohler-9 in the cargo robot. Eve had disappeared.

Ariel sat down on the pile of rope and rode that way to the apartment, not knowing she was sitting on what was left of Jacob. She went directly up to the apartment while Wohler-9 stood in the cargo robot explaining to Adam what had happened, as much as he knew. Adam had not seen what led up to the explosion.

Derec and Mandelbrot arrived while Adam was removing Jacob's remains from beneath the large pile of rope. Wohler-9 took the cargo robot to dispose of the remains. Derec and Adam stood on the sidewalk in front of the apartment while Adam took a quarter-hour to explain to Derec in detail what had happened and what had led up to it, including Eve's state of mind before and after she had talked to Neuronius. Then they went up to the apartment, and Derec told Ariel where Wohler-9 had gone.

“I didn't know there was anything left,” Ariel said.

“I'm sorry, Ariel, but there's not much,” Derec said.

“Where did Wohler take him?” Ariel felt a very strong loyalty and determination at that moment.

“The disassembly station,” Derec said.

“The recoverable parts area? At the robot factory?”

“Yes.”

“They're already picking him to pieces? About to stick little bits of him in some other robot!”

“Not likely. I doubt if he's plug-compatible.”

“They'll melt him down?” Her voice rose an octave. “Mandelbrot, get hold of Wohler-9 immediately. Tell him to stop them! Now!!” The last came out stridently, almost incoherent.

“Wohler-9 is probably on his way back,” Derec said. “Notify them at the factory, Mandelbrot.”