“As you see fit, sir. If you think it a wise idea to go immediately.”

Damned busybody nursemaid of a robot. Kresh indulged himself with a brief flash of temper. If he waited around until the weather was just right, would Oberon then hint that he should wait until he had had a full meal and a nice long nap before setting out on the arduous thirty-second journey across the parking lot? They were on the clock here, and he had already been worrying that he had wasted too much time.

“I think it’s a wise idea, all right,” Kresh growled. “In fact I find it downright brilliant. “ He undid his seat restraint, got up, and grabbed his rain poncho from the seat opposite, where he had tossed it down after coming aboard. The thing was still a trifle damp, but no matter. He pulled it on over himself, adjusted the hood, and glared at Oberon. “I’d suggest you stay here for the time being,” he said, “unless you think it a wise idea to get in my way.”

Plainly, Oberon did not think it a wise idea to reply to that. Kresh turned his back on the robot, grabbed the hatch handle, and yanked up on it. The hatch unlatched, and Kresh gave it a good hard shove. It swung open and he stepped out into the roaring weather.

The driving rain caught him full in the face, coming down cold and hard. Kresh held up his hand to shield his face, and squinted through the downpour. He walked around to the opposite side of the ship, and then straight ahead, toward the entrance to the Terraforming Center. The wind grabbed at his poncho, blowing it flat against his body and sending its hem flapping and slapping wildly behind him. He leaned into the wind, struggling to hold the poncho hood on top of his head as the wind did its best to pull it off, and the rain blew in regardless.

A pair of big double glass doors, the sort that opened at the center, formed the main entrance of the Terraforming Center. Kresh got to them and almost grabbed at the handles before he realized that wouldn’t work. He wasn’t going to get in unless he followed the rules-rules he had approved himself. “VOICEPRINT!” he shouted above the noise of the storm.

“Auto-voiceprint system ready,” an utterly depersonalized voice replied from nowhere in particular. Even though Kresh had been expecting a reply, it still startled him. The voice was clearly artificial-calm, emotionless, bloodless.

Kresh answered back in a somewhat lower tone of voice. If he could hear the voiceprint, probably it could hear him. “Name-Governor Alvar Kresh,” he said. “Password-Terra Grande.”

“Identity confirmed, clearance to enter confirmed,” the voice replied. The doors unlatched. Kresh, impatient and eager to get out of the rain, grabbed the handles of both doors and pulled them a bit too hard. The wind caught at the left side door and yanked it out of his hand, bouncing it against the left-side wall before it swung back. There was a second, inner pair of doors that swung inward, and Kresh shoved them out of his way without breaking stride.

He had not been here in a long time, but he still knew his way around. He turned left and marched down the main hallway toward the third set of doors. The first two doorways in the hallway were perfectly ordinary affairs, but not the entrance to Room 103. It was a huge, armored steel hatch that more closely resembled the doors of a vault than anything else. The door was locked down and secured, as it should have been, but there was a palmprint button by the side of the door. Kresh slapped his hand down on it. After a moment, there was a bump, a clunk, and a thud and the massive door swung outward.

Kresh ducked inside the moment the door was open wide enough to do so. A startled-looking middle-aged woman in a lab coat was working at a desk just inside the door. She stared open-mouthed at the intruder, then got to her feet. She seemed about to protest, and two or three of the robots took a step or two closer, as if they feared that the intruder might intend harm to the woman. But then Kresh threw back the hood of his poncho. It was clear that the woman and the robots recognized him instantly-but knowing who he was only seemed to increase their sense of bewilderment.

But Alvar Kresh was not much interested in the emotional state of the swing-shift technical staff. He barely looked at them. He looked around until he spotted two huge and gleaming hemispherical enclosures, each about five meters across, each sitting on a plinth or thick pillar, about the diameter of the hemisphere on top of it. The pillars raised the bases of the hemispheres up to just about eye level. One of the hemispheres was a smooth and perfectly rounded dome, the other a geodesic form, made up of flat panels, with all manner of complicated devices and cables and conduits hanging off it at every angle. Kresh nodded at the two machines, and spoke.

“I want to talk to the twins,” he said.

10

DR. LESCHAR SOGGDON opened her mouth and shut it, then opened it again and left it that way for a moment before she found her voice. “You’re-you’re Governor Kresh,” she said at last.

“Yes,” her visitor replied testily. “I know I am. And I need to talk to the twins concerning some climate projections. Now.”

Soggdon was now at even more of a loss. “Sir, it doesn’t work that way. You can’t just come in and-”

“I can,” Kresh said. “I should know. I wrote the regulations.”

“Oh, yes, yes, sir, of course. I wasn’t suggesting that you were not allowed to come here. It is merely a question of having the training and the understanding of our procedures here. It would probably be wiser for you to submit your questions in writing to the General Terraforming Committee and then-”

“Who are you?” Kresh asked, interrupting her. “What is your position here?”

Soggdon flushed and drew herself up to her full height, bringing her eyes roughly level With the base of Kresh’s neck. “I am Dr. Leschar Soggdon,” she said with as much dignity as she could muster. “I’m the night shift supervisor here.”

“Very well, Dr. Soggdon. Please listen carefully. I have come here precisely for the reason that I want-I need-to avoid that sort of delay and caution. I am here on a matter of the greatest urgency and importance, and I must be certain I am getting my information direct from the source. I cannot take the chance of some expert misinterpreting my questions or the answers from the twins. I cannot wait for the General Committee to have a conference and debate the merits and the meaning of my questions. I have to ask my questions now, and get an answer now. Is that clear? Because if it is not, you’re fired.”

“I ah-ah-ah, sir, I ah-”

“Yes? Do you have other job prospects?”

She swallowed hard and started again. “Very well,” Soggdon said at last. “But, sir, with all due respect, I would ask that you sign a statement that you proceeded against my advice and specifically ordered me to cooperate.”

“I’ll sign whatever you like,” Kresh said. “But right now let me talk to the twins.” The governor peeled off his poncho and handed it to the nearest robot. He walked to the far side of the huge room, where the two massive hemispherical enclosures sat. Inside were the two Terraforming Control Centers, one a Spacer-made sessile robotic unit, and the other a Settler-made computational system.

A sort of combination desk and communications console sat facing the two machines. Governor Kresh pulled out the chair and sat down at it. “All right, then,” he said. “What do I do?”

Soggdon was severely tempted simply to show the man the proper controls to operate and let him charge ahead as directly as he liked. But she knew just how much damage even a minor slip of the tongue could produce. The idea of having Unit Dee caught in a major First Law conflict just because Kresh wanted to have his own way was too much for her. She had to speak up. “Sir,” she said, “I’m sorry, but you have to understand a few things before you start, and I’m going to make sure you understand them, even if it means I lose my job. Otherwise you could cause any amount of damage to Unit Dee.”