After Avery slammed the door behind him, Ariel commented, “The man needs help.”

“So do we,” Derec said. His fingers flew across the keyboard again. Some data came up on the terminal’s screen. “Look at this, Ariel.”

All she saw was a bunch of figures. “What does it mean?”

“This is a report of construction activity in Robot City. The earlier figures represent the city’s normal rate of new building. But lately the figures have gradually fallen off, with fewer and fewer buildings being created. Since before we arrived, there have, in fact, been no new buildings created. All construction in Robot City has stopped.”

“Funny,” Ariel commented.

“What’s funny about it?”

“This tends to support your father’s story.”

“How does it do that?”

“Well, remember what he said about robots being the supreme whatever and all that, plus the city being the safest haven for them? So why would he stop that? Why would he allow the robots themselves to become, as he said, decadent? This man isn’t going to be happy with listless Supervisors and robots who are tap dancers or movie buffs. After Lucius, he programmed creativity right out of his robots. No, for once Dr. Avery isn’t the chief troublemaker. It’s somebody else, it’s got to be.”

“Okay, granted. But what do we do now? I can’t get anything out of the computer, the robots are uncooperative, and the city’s becoming a play-village for someone whose identity we don’t know. What next, my pretty?”

“Well, I’ve got a swell idea if you don’t mind a little break in the action.”

“You’ve got-”

“This room comes furnished with a couch-bed, and there’s even a blanket on the end table there if you want privacy.”

“You flip off the lights, I’ll switch off the computer.”

“Why the computer?”

“I don’t know. I’ve a feeling it could spy on us.”

As they embraced in darkness, the real spy outside the door, still indoctrinated with the Laws of Robotics, knew they applied in some way to this situation, and so he discreetly retreated. After all, he thought, in the best movies he had seen, the camera always discreetly retreated from this sort of scene. As he rejoined Timestep outside the Compass Tower, Bogie decided that the shadowing assignment was a fortunate one. Keeping watch on the two young humans was a bit like watching a movie-in a way, better, since it took place in three dimensions.

Each time Wolruf stumbled or bumped into something, she cursed in her own language. Eve asked her what words she was speaking, but she replied that it was merely her own private nonsense.

The Silversides and Mandelbrot had no difficulty with the darkness of the streets. Equipped with precise sensory circuitry, they could proceed easily through such darkness. Wolruf, even with the keen senses she had developed in the wilds of her homeland, couldn’t detect every obstacle in her way.

“Is the lack of proper lighting bothersome to you?” Mandelbrot asked her.

“So true. I rememberr lightss coming on when walking these strreetss.”

“They do not seem to be functioning now.”

“Like so many other thingss here. What iss wrrong, Mandelbrrot?”

“I do not know.”

“What we have seen,” Eve asked, “is not necessarily like this place as you know it?”

“Verry different,” Wolruf answered. “Strreetlampss alwayss lit one’ss way.”

They walked a few more steps, turned a corner (with Wolruf’s shoulder painfully bumping into the side of a building), and saw flickering light up ahead.

“What is that?” Eve asked.

“Not sure,” Wolruf said, “but my nose tellss me apprroach cautiously.”

“Your nose speaks to you?”

“No, that iss rrendening of saying from my worrld into ‘uman wordss. We sense dangerr, we say we sniff it out with our nosess, even when there iss no actual scent there.”

Eve did not quite understand, but she chose to keep quiet, especially since Wolruf, assuming the role of scout, now sprinted ahead of the group.

“Adam?” Eve said.

“Yes?”

“Is this a strange place, this Robot City?”

“In my limited experience, where every place I have seen is strange to me, this one is, too.”

The glimmering light shone from an open area in between two tall buildings. Gesturing the three robots to stay put, Wolruf edged along the front of the building until she came to its comer. Looking around it, she saw that the light came from a bonfire in the middle of a vacant lot. Gathered around the flames doing an odd, jerky dance was a crowd of small creatures. Because the fire cast distorting shadows, she could not easily focus on the figures. Yet she was sure they were shaped like humans, but much more diminutive.

At first she thought they might be a group of children. Then a few danced into a clear patch of light. Wolruf saw that not only were they even smaller than she had thought, they were also not children. One male had a beard, a female had quite fully developed (in miniature) breasts, another had an aged, deeply lined face. Definitely not children. They were adults. Tiny, tiny adults.

The Watchful Eye no longer knew what to think about the new arrivals. Such contradictory behavior, it thought. The one called Ariel seemed all right, except when she decided to be affectionate with Derec. Derec cried and nearly murdered the new individual, Avery. Avery stomped around like a caged animal. Who were these creatures?

It knew from its earlier research that Avery might be the creator of Robot City, but the doctor’s behavior was so erratic that the Watchful Eye did not want to make contact with him. If Avery discovered it here in its safe haven, there was no telling what he might do.

Now, to further complicate matters, the second group had come upon one of the Watchful Eye’s Master Experiments. Series C, Batch 4, one of its better efforts. A failure like the rest, yes, but an interesting failure at least. Like some of the other humanic substitutes, they had developed a rudimentary society. Although none of these batches had contributed the insights about the Laws of Humanics that the Watchful Eye sought, they had, by banding together and rapidly evolving a few customs, provided an abundance of useful data about cultural tendencies.

Because there was so much for it to consider, the Watchful Eye now chose to retreat into its stasis state. In stasis, it shut off its senses so that it could concentrate exclusively on problems, this time the new and altered situations brought into its hermetic world by the intruders. It wanted to analyze how they would affect its overall existence and whether it would have to take any action against them. Before settling itself back into its safe haven, it sent out messages to its spies, Bogie and Timestep, instructing them to signal it if a new crisis developed. When that was done, it snuggled down into the haven, curled up into an embryonic state, and disconnected all sensory networks. Immediately it was welcomed into the calm comfort of nothingness, a place where it sometimes yearned to be forever.

“Well, we’re on our own for a while, kid,” Bogie commented after acknowledging the Watchful Eye’s message. “The Big Muddy’s spoke.”

“Big Muddy?” Timestep said. “Is that a proper name for-”

“Let me put it this way, pal. I wouldn’t speak it if the Big Muddy was looking over my shoulder.”

Timestep did a little clog routine from one of the dance tapes he’d studied.

“Nice moves, Tip-tap!”

“It’s Timestep.”

“You say so, Tip-tap.”

“What are we supposed to do now?”

“Keep tabs on Dick and Jane up there, send the Big Muddy signals if they get up to somethin’ it should know about.”

“What are they doing now?”

“Friend Tip-tap, we’ll just draw the curtain across that little scene.”