But she seemed uncomfortable with his concern. “Not ‘ur trouble.”

“Wolruf-you said you were my friend. Let me be yours.”

“What do ‘u mean?”

“Aranimas is working you like a slave and abusing you like an animal. It doesn’t have to be that way. We can put a stop to it, together.”

“How?”

“I have a tool,” he said, nodding toward the robot. “And I have some ideas. But I need you to tell me some things-about Aranimas, and about how this ship is controlled.”

Wolruf looked uncomfortable, and Derec was afraid that he had gone too fast and frightened her. “You want the jewel back,” she said.

Honesty was an imperative. “I do.”

“ ’U will take it and leave me to face Aranimas.”

Derec shook his head emphatically. “I do have to get away. I can’t let Aranimas take me back to Mrassdf. But if I can’t leave you in a better situation than you’re in now, I’ll take you with me. Wolruf-we’re the only ones who can help each other. If we don’t try, then we deserve what happens to us.”

The caninoid met Derec’s questioning gaze unblinkingly. “That iss true. Okay-friend. Less try.”

There seemed to be something in the biology of Wolruf’s kind which sharpened the imperative for sleep and rejuvenation. It was almost as though there was within them a metabolic switch which, once tripped, told them in no uncertain terms that the primary energy fund had been exhausted and it was time to withdraw.

A half-hour after they began talking, with only some of Derec’s questions answered and their plan barely sketched out, Wolruf’s alarm went off. Her eyes narrowed to slits, her breath took on a sour tang, and her fur lay flat and seemed to lose luster.

Though he still had many urgent questions, Derec did not even get a chance to try to coax her to stay. With no more explanation than a muttered “must sleep,” she rose and was gone.

Wolruf’s departure made Derec suddenly aware of his own weary limbs. But there was one further task he had to see to before he could think about curling up on the thin mattress.

The robot was waiting where it had settled after completing Derec’s last order several hours ago, but that was no surprise. There had been an unnatural passiveness to the robot’s behavior ever since Derec had activated it, a passiveness above and beyond the wait-states he had prescribed. A normal robot had a variety of duties it attended to without external direction, following the default orders built into it for its primary function: domestic, laborer, engineer, and the like.

The robot’s initiative had apparently fallen victim to the burned-out memory cubes and the cold powerdown. But it still had the Second Law, and so it sat and waited patiently for the words from Derec that would give it something to do.

Derec’s first act was to pull the Mathematics cube and replace it with the Personal Defense cube. The additional pathways in the PD cube would enhance the robot’s sense of impending harm and its anxiety to act to prevent it. But they would also suppress the robot’s normal inclination to protect him from immediate, concrete risks without regard to the consequences of doing so. The First Law did not have any exceptions built into it for taking well-intentioned gambles; the PD cube provided them.

“Alpha,” Derec said when he was done. “My previous instructions for you to go into a wait-state when one of the aliens approaches are now cancelled. But where possible, you are still to avoid revealing the unique capabilities of your right arm.”

“I understand, Derec.”

“I am now going to give you a block of instructions which will not become operative until you hear the initiate code. The initiate code, which must come from me, is the question, ‘Who is your master?’ The disable code is the word ‘Aurora.’ ”

“I understand, Derec.”

“Begin instruction block. You will answer the initiate code with the reply ‘Aranimas.’ You’ll go with Aranimas wherever he wishes you to go. You are to follow his orders except where they conflict with the First, Second, or Third Laws or this instruction block. You will not follow orders given by Wolruf or any other nonhuman member of the crew. You will not accept any additional orders from me unless preceded by the disable code. You will respond to informational inquiries from Wolruf or myself. However, you will not relate, replay, or in any way communicate to Aranimas this conversation or any other conversation with me which he did not witness.”

“Clarification. You wish for Aranimas to believe that I am completely in his service?”

“Suspend. I do,” Derec said. “If he’s going to get any use out of you, he’s going to have to teach you about the ship. Anything you learn will help us escape.”

“I understand the necessity for intelligence, sir,” the robot said. “But if I am to protect you I must remain at your side.”

Derec had expected the objection-PD circuits made robots more argumentative. “Since Aranimas is in command of this ship, he is the real threat to me. Only his actions or his orders can harm me. By remaining close to him, you will be best able to protect me.”

“I understand, sir.”

“All right. Resume. There are two things that we particularly need to know. A valuable object came aboard with me, a metallic rectangle, silver color, about five by ten centimeters. I think it’s the same object Aranimas called the key, and Wolruf the jewel. It’s apparently valuable and powerful. We need to know where it is.”

“Yes, Derec. I will be particularly alert for clues to this object’s whereabouts.”

“The other thing we need to know is what Spacer facility we’re heading for and when we’re going to get there. If we wait too long to move, Aranimas will have us locked up somewhere to keep us out of his hair while he’s stealing robots.”

“That would be a prudent precaution.”

“Which means that Aranimas will probably think of it,” Derec said. “If you learn where the key is located, you are to wait one decad and then simulate a Code 804 malfunction. If you learn where we are headed or when we are to arrive, you are to wait fifteen centads and then simulate a Code 3033 malfunction. End instruction block.”

Though he knew what he hoped would happen from that point onward, Derec stopped there. Verbal instruction-in-advance was a tricky enough matter, requiring the skills of a semanticist with the foresight of a seer. He did not wish to saddle the robot with excessively specific and possibly useless orders.

Much work and intelligence had gone into designing the PD library cube. Derec would have to trust that, when the time came, Alpha would grasp the situation and do what was required.

Chapter 12. Mutiny

Despite how little of the night was left when Derec was done, he slept well and awoke rested, with his head clear and his spirits up. He began clearing one end of the room as though to make a stage, determined to put on a good show. Presently, Aranimas arrived with Wolruf in tow.

Derec did not have a Handbook of Robotics with its extensive diagnostic interrogatory, but he knew the main lines of questioning used to test the various positronic functions.

“If the daughter of a woman with red hair owns two dogs and the father of a boy with a broken leg is unemployed, what day does the barber give shaves?”

Wolruf hooted at that one, and Aranimas looked puzzled. But the robot calmly answered, “It is not possible to determine the answer from the information given.”

“What is the value of hex 144C times 16F2?”

“Hex 1D1B7D8.”

“Touch your right index finger to the middle of your forehead.”

The robot complied.

“State the Rayleigh law of magnetic permeability-”

For fifteen minutes, Derec peppered the robot with commands and questions, less to impress Aranimas with the robot’s abilities than to underscore his own competence. He did not want Aranimas thinking that with the robot operational, he, Derec, was now expendable.