Rob Chilson: Refuge

Stars beyond stars, with their waiting worlds, which now only the Earth Settlers were opening up. And beyond, other intelligent races, other adventures…A member of one of those races waited now in the ship. Derec had again a moment of intense wonder that he of all people should be among the first to meet aliens. Most of those who had met the pirate Aranimas hadn’t survived…

Who knew what other beings awaited them among all those bright stars? He wondered why the Spacers had sat for so many centuries on their fifty worlds, too satisfied to go looking for adventure. The way he felt now, it was impossible to believe.

Derec had an impulse to jump and go tumbling head under heels across the sky, but he knew Ariel would think it silly with his safety line and dangerous without. Right on both counts, he thought ruefully. Frost, why can’t I be a little kid for once? J can’t remember ever having been one; it’s like I’ve been cheated out of all that kiddish fun… …

There was a warm, pleasant smell in the air of the ship when they reentered. “I made toast,” said Ariel emptily.

She had toasted the last of the crusty bread, but hadn’t buttered it. It was now nearly cold. Derec pretended not to notice, merely nodded and thanked her, trying to sound pleased. Popping the slices into the oven, he reheated them, and punched up his sequence for bread on the synthesizer-three loaves. When the toast was warmed, he buttered it and shared it with Wolruf. The caninoid, like a true dog, was always ready to eat, if only a bite or two.

Ariel wasn’t hungry.

“I think Doctorr Avery hass retuned the hyperwave antenna by changing the densities of the force-fieldss in the core elementss,” Wolruf said, exhaling crumbs. “Dense force-fieldss arre the only things that can stop hyperatomos. But why change it, if not to detect something?”

Derec nodded uncertainly. A dense force-field was one that permeated some object; a magnet with a keeper across its poles was the classic example. Altering the density of the atomic-level fields in the core elements of the antenna would change the “acceptance” of the core.

“If not to detect something, like, say, Aranimas’s ship or transmissions?” he asked. “It’s a consideration. It’s not unlikely that they have crossed paths, as Dr. Avery has Keys to Perihelion and Aranimas wants them.”

It might well be reassuring, then, that the hyperwave wasn’t detecting anything. It might mean that Aranimas wasn’t operating anywhere around here.

“Ariel, you seem sleepy,” said Mandelbrot. “It approaches your usual bedtime. Perhaps you should go to bed.”

“Yes, good idea,” said Ariel vaguely. She continued to sit and stare vacantly for another fifteen minutes before sighing deeply and getting slowly “up”.

When she had gone to the one private cabin the little ship boasted, Wolruf turned fiercely on Derec.

“She iss sick! ‘Ou must do something, Derec! The robot iss worried. I am worried.”

Mandelbrot had accompanied Ariel into the cabin. Derec lowered his voice, nevertheless. “You’re right. Don’t let Mandelbrot know how far advanced her condition is; it might destroy his brain.”

Wolruf caught his breath. “She will die? Iss that what you mean?”

Derec nodded, haggard. “She told me her disease is usually fatal. I-I’d been hoping that it wouldn’t be. But since we’ve been sitting here, doing nothing…”

“I think some iss boredom. But mosst is sickness!”

Derec nodded. The cabin door opened and Mandelbrot emerged, closed it gently, and moved purposefully toward them, fingers against the overhead, toes against the deck.

“Ariel must have medical attention,” he said bluntly when he was close, speaking as circumspectly as Derec and Wolruf had done. “The First Law demands it. I fear for her life if this trend continues, Derec.”

They looked at him and he saw it coming.

“You must use the Key to Perihelion.”

Wolruf nodded her agreement.

Derec felt sick at the thought of returning to Robot City, even aside from the thought of Dr. Avery. “That would leave you here with no spacesuit and only Mandelbrot able to go outside-”

“Iss no matter. ‘Ou musst not rissk Ariel’ss life.”

“It is a First Law imperative.” Mandelbrot could not conceive that a human could resist that imperative, any more than he himself could.

“Very well. As soon as she has awakened and eaten. Tomorrow, in other words. And I hope Dr. Avery isn’t at home.”

The thing that alarmed Derec most next morning was that Ariel didn’t resist. A tart-tongued young woman, had she been in her normal condition she’d have frosted them well. As it was, there was a spark of eagerness in her eye, not so much, Derec thought, hope that the robotic Human Medical Team on Robot City might have found a cure, as relief from boredom.

It was no small risk they were taking. Dr. Avery was brilliant, a genius, but undoubtedly insane-megalomaniacal. Humans were but robots to him, to be used as he wished.

Derec looked at Ariel.

Frost, he thought, I hope we make it. She had come to mean a lot to him. How much, he hadn’t been free to say. She did, after all, have this disease. It was not readily contagious, and in fact Derec had learned that it was sexually transmitted. Additionally, she remembered him from before his memory began.

Apparently there had once been some kind of strong emotion between them, and she was torn two ways by the memory, or by the contrast between his present innocent state and what had once been between them. She had told him frustratingly little about himself, though he thought she knew much.

None of her secretiveness mattered. She was Ariel, and he would rather be sick himself than see her suffer so.

Nevertheless, going back to Robot City was a wrench when they’d come so near to escaping.

“We might as well get it over with,” said Ariel. He thought she sounded better than she had for days. Possibly being chased halfway across Robot City would be good for her.

Mandelbrot handed Derec the Key. It was rectangular and flat, small enough to hold in a hand, but larger than any mechanical key. It glittered in the light, looking more like silver than aluminum. It was in fact a highly conductive alloy permeated with a force-field. That made it more reflective than any unenergized metal, and was suggestive of hyperatomics.

Derec put an arm around Ariel for stability and pressed the Key into her palm, gripping her hand from below. As both of them gripped the Key, he pressed each corner in turn. Derec considered that the Keys had a nonhuman source, though the robots on Robot City had learned to make them. Humans wouldn’t design a control system like that.

When the fourth corner was pressed, a button rose from the smooth, seamless surface. Derec took a final glance around, nodded farewell to the caninoid and the robot, and to the ship itself. There wasn’t time for lengthy speeches; the button would soon recede.

He pressed the button.

The ship disappeared from around them, and fog took its place.

Perihelion.

The word meant the point in an orbit closest to a sunmore accurately, the sun, the Sun of old Earth. But now the term was synonymous with periastron. Perihelion had been described to them as the place closest to every place else in the universe.

They retained their floating attitudes, still in free fall, and looked around. Perihelion hadn’t changed. All around them was a soft gray light, and air, air that smelled fuggy and dusty. No purifiers here, thought Derec, twisting to look around. It seemed that Perihelion went on forever, but he suspected that it had sharp limits to its size.

“What are you looking for?” Ariel asked, sounding as if she cared again.