Michael Kube-McDowell - Odyssey

“I-will try-to integrate-”

“Alpha-analyze the situation. This is Aranimas’s ship. He had all the advantages. He could have done a hundred things to stop us and we’d never have known until it was too late. He had to be neutralized.”

“I understand-and accept.”

“Are you all right?”

“I detect a moderate disturbance-in my brain potentials which I attribute-to witnessing violence against an intelligent-being-not-a-human,” the robot said, its speech gradually returning to normal. “The disturbance is abating and I do not believe that it will affect my functioning.”

“Good,” Derec said, dropping the spent aerosol on top of the tools. “What did you find out?”

“We are approaching an independent free-flying space station.”

“Frost,” Derec said emphatically. “I was hoping he’d take us right in to one of the Spacer worlds. How much time do we have?”

“I am unable to accurately estimate our arrival time. However, I did determine that the ship’s crew is presently at the lowest level of alert.”

“So we probably have more than a few hours,” Derec said. “Has Aranimas been in contact with the station?”

“Not that I am aware of, sir. This vessel does not appear to have hyperwave communications-only simple carrier-wave radio.”

That agreed with Derec’s experience on the asteroid, but it raised a puzzle. How had the aliens found the asteroid? Derec had assumed along with Monitor 5 that they had intercepted the distress message sent on his behalf. But without a hyperwave viewer, that was clearly impossible.

Perhaps Wolruf could shed some light-but it would have to wait. “Okay. What about the key? Do you know where it is?”

“Within limits. I believe it is concealed beneath one of the deck tiles of the command center.”

The last time he had been in the command center, Derec had been in too much pain to pay attention to his surroundings. “Let’s go see,” Derec said, starting off. “How did you find it?” he called back over his shoulder.

“Aranimas showed the key to me and questioned me about it,” the robot said. “When he left with it, I was not able to see precisely what disposition he made of it. However, the time he was gone limited the radius of concealment to this deck, and the sounds I heard were consistent with the removal and replacement of a floor tile.”

They reached the command center then, and Derec saw that the deck was a mosaic of several hundred hexagonal metal tiles the size of a dinner plate. The surface of each tile had a pattern of small holes, but there was no obvious fingerlift-in fact, no obvious way to lift an individual tile. All six edges were flush with the adjoining tiles.

“Any idea where I should start?”

“The strategy of concealment would argue against obvious positions such as the center and corners. Beyond that, I cannot say.”

“You can’t detect it under the deck? It’s not giving off some kind of radio signal, or generating a magnetic field?”

“Not that I am able to detect.”

That, too, was consistent with what had happened on the asteroid. If the key had declared its presence in any measurable way, the robots’ scans would have turned it up long before the raider ship arrived.

“All right,” Derec said slowly. He turned to Wolruf, who had been a silent spectator since joining them. “We need a place to lock up Aranimas.”

Wolruf glanced nervously back toward where they had left the Erani. “Therr arr some lockers outside, on the side passage, which would be large enough-”

Derec nodded. “Alpha-pick up Aranimas and go with Wolruf. She will show you where to put him. Wolruf, make sure it’s something Aranimas can’t open from the inside. Then both of you come back here.” He caught the look of apprehension in Wolruf’s eyes and added. “I know-you don’t like the robot.”

“Maybe ‘u surprise Wolruf like ‘u surprise Aranimas.”

“I promise you, it’ll be all right,” Derec said, patting the caninoid’s arm. “No surprises. I’ll be waiting for you here.”

When the robot was gone, Derec lowered himself to his hands and knees to examine the holes in the tiles. They proved to be tapered pits barely a half-centimeter deep. There seemed to be no way of hooking anything into one to lift the tile. Derec wondered if he would have to build some sort of vacuum clamp before he could locate the key.

Then he realized that the openings were about the diameter of the tip of Aranimas’s stylus. Of course, Derec thought as he fumbled for the instrument. Let’s hope this feature doesn’t work only for Aranimas, too-

He touched the conical tip to one of the openings, and the tile seemed to seize hold of the stylus and stand it straight up. Gripping the stylus with one and then both hands, Derec tried to lift the tile straight up. The tile did not budge. But when he used the stylus as a lever, he was easily able to tip the tile back, like peeling the lid off a can. Underneath was a small hexagonal compartment-empty.

No beginner’s luck, eh? he thought. When he replaced the tile, the stylus came free. Very nice, he thought, touching the stylus to the adjacent tile. The trick wasn’t done with magnetics; the stylus seemed to actually bond to the tile. Perhaps a metallic affinity, followed by a little shot of current to jostle the atoms and break the bonds. Cute trick-

There was a humming sound behind him, and Derec whirled. Half a dozen meters down the central corridor, a circular platform was descending from the ceiling, suspended on four slender wires. And standing on the platform was a woman-a young human female, no more than a year or two older than Derec but a good eight centimeters taller. The broad-shouldered sash blazer she was wearing was cut in an aristocratic style, but showed many days of wear.

Her expression was one of surprise, even shock. Her mouth worked as though trying to form a word. “You?” she said disbelievingly as the platform reached floor level. “Here?”

Wild thoughts filled Derec’s head, and reason had to fight for control. That would sure help explain Aranimas’s success-if he had had a human consort all along to guide him-

“You’d better tell me real fast who you are and what you’re doing here,” he said, slowly coming to his feet. “I don’t have a lot of time to decide what to do about you.”

“What to do about me?” she echoed angrily. “I don’t know why I owe you any answers, not after what you did.”

The meaning of the condition of the girl’s clothes finally impressed itself on Derec. She was a prisoner, just as he. But Derec realized that to her, he might be the one who seemed to have thrown in with the raiders.

“I only helped Aranimas to buy time and save my neck. The robot’s mine now, and Aranimas can’t hurt you,” Derec said. “We’re going to get of here.”

The hostility faded from her face, leaving behind bewilderment. “But what are you doing here? How long have you been on board?”

Derec took a step toward her. “It doesn’t take long to tell. Five days ago I woke up in a survival pod on the surface of an asteroid. I was found by a colony of robots mining the asteroid. Aranimas raided the colony and took me prisoner.” That’s enough. No sense muddying the waters with details even I don’t understand yet, he thought.

She was looking at him curiously. “So you weren’t looking for me.”

“I didn’t know anyone else was on the ship,” he said, throwing his hands in the air. “Wolruf told me that they had captured a couple of human ships, but she left the impression the crews were all-gone.”

“I think Aranimas kept me alive because he was interested in my robots,” she said. “Are you the one that repaired Capek?”