Avery smiled sinisterly. “You can’t get me out of it. I am everywhere. Inthe city, in your dreams, in your hat.”

“My hat? I don’t even wear a-”

“Just an old Earth expression. I am an expert in old Earth expressions. Can it, flip out, you’re the bee’s knees, life is hard and then you die. I know Earth expressions from all parts of its history.”

“But I wouldn’t know any, and this is my dream, and you come out of my mind.”

“Are you sure?”

“I know you’re nowhere near. I am on a ship heading for Robot City. You may be in the city, muddling things up as usual, but you’re not on this ship.”

“Maybe I am. I am, after all, omniscient and omnipotent.”

“I know, I know. Always a god in your own mind.”

“Yes.”

If this was a lucid dream, Derec thought, then he should be able to flee from the old bastard. He whirled around and started running down the street. On both sides of him buildings seemed to slip into the ground while new ones popped out.

Many buildings were oddly shaped, not at all like any existing Robot City ones. Some were tilted at odd angles, with several leaning into others while others leaned away. Inthe distance a tall edifice swayed from side to side as if caught in a violent wind. But there was a rhythm to its swaying, reminding him of a dance. What dance? Something intruding from his past, a vague memory that would not get focused. His past had a way of doing that, with some memory fragment flashing into his mind and going right out again before he could make any connection with it. There were so many parts of his past life that were still blocked from his mind by the amnesia that had once been total.

Ariel suddenly found herself in an underground corridor on Earth, but it looked nothing like any of the tunnels she had seen during her actual visit there. For one thing, it was deserted. You never saw an empty passageway on Earth. Human bodies were visible everywhere, except in private quarters.

Her steps echoed hollowly through the corridor, with a hundred echoes of echoes. She felt as if she were being hounded by a mob of people all walking at her exact pace. Each time she turned around to confront her trackers, there was no one in sight.

She came to a Section Kitchen, the kind of public eating area she’d come to despise. Plenty of food steamed on cafeteria-style trays, but no people sat at the many numbered tables or worked behind the counters. The room looked as if there had been a sudden alarm and everyone had scurried out.

She felt hungry, and, taking a spoon and wiping it thoroughly on a paper napkin (she was an Auroran, after all, who was repelled by Earth’s poor hygienic habits), she scooped out a biteful of something soft and white. However, when she put it in her mouth, it seemed to flame up and singe her tongue and the roof of her mouth. She spit it out.

“Are you poisoned, Mistress Ariel?” It was Jacob again, appearing at her side as if by magic.

“No. But it is good of you to ask.”

“I must. First Law.”

“Oh, of course. If you decide to become human, Jacob, you won’t have to obey the Laws of Robotics any more. I’ll miss the advantage of having you protect me.”

“I would protect you, mistress, whether I were human or robot.”

There was something so touching, something so sad and vulnerable about this dream version of her dead robot companion, that Ariel began to cry. She cried in her dream, and she was still crying when she woke up.

Derec looked back. Avery and his strange vehicle had vanished from the center of the street. Good, at least something in this lucid dream had worked out right.

Ahead of him there was a park. Derec could see tall trees, thick with branches, heavy with green leaves. Brightly colored flowers lined cobblestone paths. Metal umbrellas shaded soft lights that were spaced evenly along the pathways. At the top of a slight rise, he could see swings, slides, see-saws, monkey bars, all the equipment of a playground.

He raced toward the park, picking up his pace. The street seemed to speed beneath him as if he were powering a treadmill. Before he reached the park, the buildings lining the street grew larger, towering over the thoroughfare, bending toward it, shading the light and making everything darker.

His last step from the city street onto the park’s cobbled path was an impressive leap, one longer than he could normally accomplish. Landing, he stumbled forward for several steps.

He started walking toward the playground. The pathway was soft, resilient. He decided to trot, and the bounciness of the path added a spring to his steps. He attained such a speed that he nearly skidded past the playground entrance.

A closed gate blocked the way into the playground. Above the gate was a gilded sign that read, A VERY PARK. The old reprobate, he’d named a park after himself. What gall! playgrounds were supposed to represent happiness and joy. In no way did they suggest the doctor’s monstrous cynicism.

Underneath the large sign was a smaller one that read, STAND ON SOAP, ALL GEEKS WHO MENTOR HERE. What did Avery mean by that? And how could he, after all, mean anything? He was merely a figure in Derec’s dream. The real question was how could Derec’s mind have formed this unusual scene, these strange words. He would have to discuss all this with Ariel, the expert on such matters.

When he opened the gate, there was a sonorous beep as the gate-latch separated from its fastening. A deep voice that seemed to come from above said, “Welcome. Enjoy.”

“Enjoy what?” Derec asked. There was no reply, no doubt because the voice was a recording cued by the opening of the gate.

Tentatively he took a couple of steps into the playground. To his immediate right was a high slide. Even though he didn’t remember his childhood, he knew it was a slide. It even looked like a familiar one. Walking up to it, he discovered it was incomplete. No ladder led up to the platform from which a child would start his downward plunge. The slide appeared to stand without any support.

An overwhelming urge to try out the slide came over him. Although he could have climbed from the bottom edge of the slide up to the platform at its top, he knew he had to start from the platform itself. This was his lucid dream and he could do anything he wanted to, including jump higher than was physically possible. Crouching down as close to the ground as he could get, he jumped up. He reached for the edge of the platform, but just missed. Back on the ground, he scrunched down again and made a second, magnificent leap that took him higher than the level of the platform. Reaching out, he grabbed its rim. Struggling and grunting, he pulled himself onto the small platform. It bounced up and down like a diving board, nearly flinging him back to the ground.

The slide seemed even taller than it had from ground level, or else he had become very small, a child again. Looking down at his hands, he saw they’d shrunk. They were child’s hands. Not only that, his clothing had been magically transformed. He was now dressed in one of those silver jumpers that were once all the rage for toddlers. (How did he know about silver jumpers?) Before he could even speculate on this mystery, a voice from down below called to him: “C’mon down the slide, honey. I’ll catch you.”

There was a woman standing at the foot of the slide. She seemed tall and thin, but he could not make out the details of her face, even though it was turned upward at him. Her voice was soft and wonderfully friendly. He felt ready to slide down to her. But, even as he stared at her, her shape changed. Now she was a short, rather plump lady in odd, out-of-date clothes, but the face was still not discernible. Was this some trick of one of the Silversides? Were they experimenting with human shapes, using pictures they extracted from the ship computer?