Stephen Leigh - Changeling

The thoughts drove away his good humor. He looked out at the Auroran dawn and suddenly saw nothing. The dawn might as well have been a computerized image projected on a wall. He sighed.

“I know that look,” Ariel said from the open door of the personal. “You’re brooding again.”

“No, I’m not.”

“You are too. I’ve been with you too long not to know. You’re thinking about Robot City again.”

There was an edge to her voice that made Derec grimace. Theirs had been a roller-coaster ride of a relationship: they never seemed to be able to settle into any semblance of normalcy. When things were good, they were very good indeed. And when they were bad…

That was Avery’s legacy as well-many of the memories Derec and Ariel shared were not pleasant. For the months they’d been trapped in Robot City, Ariel’s personality had been in a steady, disintegrating spiral, fluctuating between vivacious and darkly sullen.

At least she’d escaped. At least she’d escaped from that planet and been cured.

Derec could never leave Robot City. It would always be there within him. It was his, his responsibility, whether he wanted it or not.

“Derec, stop it,” Ariel said warningly.

“Stop what?”

“I’m not going to answer something that obvious. Figure it out yourself.”

He knew he should have apologized then. He knew he should have smiled deprecatingly and shrugged, should have risen himself and kissed her until she forgot the argument and the dawn was again something beautiful to see.

But he didn’t.

“Sorry I’m so stupid,” he said bitterly.

Ariel’s face was red with irritation, her eyes narrowed and her hands clenched into angry fists. “Derec, don’t spoil the morning, please.”

“I ’ m not the one who knows what everyone else is thinking. It seems to me that you claimed that ability. I thought everything was going fine.”

“You’re being childish.”

“And you’re being arrogant.”

“Arrogant? Damn it, Derec…Derec?” She stopped. Derec was no longer listening to her. He was standing in the middle of the room, his gaze inward and blind.

The call had entered Derec’s mind with an urgency that was almost painful. Aurora, the dawn outside the window, Ariel’s voice: they’d all disappeared in the frantic need of the message. The chemfets relayed the message to him.

Under attack, it said. The call was faint, as if coming from a great distance, much farther than the Robot City he knew. Request immediate help.

“What is it, Derec?” Ariel asked again, a look of concern furrowing her brow. Her anger was lost in her worry for him. Slowly, he came back to an awareness of the room around him.

“I’m…I’m not sure.” He was still holding his head with a look of inward concentration, listening to those whispering pleas only he could hear. “It’s the chemfets again. I’m…I’m getting a series of coordinates and a distress signal from a source claiming to be the central computer. It says it’s Robot City, but-Mandlebrot!” he called suddenly.

The robot slipped quickly from a niche on one side of the bedroom. Derec had assembled the robot from assorted parts, a hodgepodge of models including a right arm constructed of what he called Avery material-infinitely malleable and adjustable. The patchwork-quilt effect lent the robot, to say the least, a unique look, and Derec had a vast affection for him.

“Mandelbrot, you’re also linked to Robot City,” he said to the robot. “Did you just receive a distress call?”

“No, Master Derec, I did not.”

“If I give you a set of coordinates, can you tell me whether they’re anywhere near Robot City?”

“I can link with the Auroran Net and access records there.”

“Good.” Derec rattled off the coordinates he’d heard in his head. Mandelbrot stood silently a moment, then spoke.

“Those coordinates are for a region well outside human space and distant from Robot City, though in the same arm of the galaxy. If I have not received the message you received, and if those coordinates represent the actual source of the call, then I can see two possibilities: first, that Or. Avery himself has established a new Robot City somewhere, perhaps by using the Keys of Perihelion to jump to another world. Or, secondly, that the distress call is from a Robot City that is an offshoot of the original. We know that some of the Avery robots were sent out by the central computer to start new sites on other planets. Can you communicate with the computer yourself!”

Derec concentrated, but the wispy tendrils of the repeating call were gone as if they had never been there. “No,” he said. “There’s nothing now.”

“There’s a third, even more likely, possibility you’ve both missed,” Ariel said, hands on hips. “It was your imagination. You’ve done nothing but worry about Robot City since we left. “

“It wasn’t my imagination,” Derec insisted. “It was real. I know the difference, Ariel.”

“You said it was faint.”

“It came through the chemfets. I can guarantee that.”

“All right,” Ariel sighed. “All right. I’m tired of arguing. It’s gone now, so let’s forget it. Mandelbrot, you can go back to the niche.”

As Mandelbrot turned obediently, Derec shook his head. “No. I can’t just forget it, Ariel. It’s not that simple. You don’t seem to realize that, to a large extent, I am Robot City now. I’m part of it; I’m responsible.”

Ariel whirled around at that, her face angry. Her finger dug into his chest, prodding.

“No. No, you’re not, Derec. Your father’s responsible. Avery. Without his poisoning you with the chemfets, without his interference and his insane schemes, none of this would have happened-to any of us. You’re not responsible, Derec, any more than I am or Mandelbrot is or Wolruf is. You can’t blame yourself for any of it, and there’s nothing you can do about it. “

“There’s trouble,” Derec insisted. “I can feel it. I have to go see. Mandelbrot, I want you to see that our ship is provisioned and ready to go by noon.”

Mandelbrot hesitated, caught for a second between the conflicting orders, but Derec was his primary master. His orders took precedence over Ariel’s. The robot nodded and moved to the computer terminal on the wall. Mandelbrot activated the screen and opened a line to the Aurora Port computer.

Ariel shook her head, dark hair swaying with savage motion. She jabbed at Derec’s chest again with the forefinger. “You’re not doing it, Derec. No. If this phantom city in your mind has problems, then let it deal with them on its own. That’s what the central computer is for. And if it’s Avery again, if he’s used his Keys to jump from Robot City to some other place he’s set up, it’ll be a trap just like the other. I’m not at all interested in stepping into his deadly little webs again. “

“I don’t want you to. I wasn’t intending to have you go along. I thought just Mandelbrot and myself…”

The words didn’t come out quite as he’d intended. Because I don ’ t want you to get hurt again. he should have added. Because I care too much about you. But her face was already clouded, and somehow the words wouldn’t come now.

Ariel nodded, muscles bunched as she set her jaw. “Fine,” she said, her words clipped and short. “Just fine. I’m sorry I’m such a burden.”

“Ariel…”

But she was no longer listening. She went to her closet, snatched a loose smock from a hook, and tugged it on. She brushed her fingers through her hair and gave Derec one last smouldering gaze.

Then she stalked from the house.