Avery, meanwhile, calmly continued to point the device at the robot. "Don't come any closer-I can make it worse. I can even induce positronic drift."

"What are you doing to him?" Derec repeated.

"This is an electronic disrupter, a device of my own invention," Avery replied with some pride. "It emits an ion stream that interferes with the circuits of any sufficiently advanced machine."

"You're hurting him!" said Ariel. "Don't you care?"

"Of course not, my dear. This is a robot, and hence has only the rights I prefer to bestow upon him."

"Think not!" growled Wolruf.

"I can press a button faster than any of you can move," said Avery, warningly.

"Why are you doing this?" Derec asked.

"Because I do not wish this robot to interfere. You see, I have stationed some Hunter robots outside this theatre. They await my signal, even as we speak. When I alert them, they will capture you and take you to my laboratory, where I shall drug you with an advanced truth serum and learn everything your mind has to tell me."

"Will this serum help me remember who I am?”

“Derec!" exclaimed Ariel, shocked.

"I seriously doubt it. Unfortunately, the serum isn't quite perfected yet-it's another invention of mine-and I confess there is the possibility that it may actually jumble things up a little more for you. For a time, anyway. You may take comfort in the fact that the damage won't be permanent."

Derec nodded. He looked at Mandelbrot on the floor. "Sorry, old buddy," he said.

"What?" said Avery, a nanosecond before Derec hefted a chair at him.

As the scientist ducked, Derec ran to the door, shouting, "Follow me! We'll come back for Mandelbrot later!"

The trio ran down the hall toward the stage, toward members of the cast and crew. Wolruf was clearly holding herself back to remain with Derec and Ariel.

"Out of the way!" Derec shouted as they moved past the robots; he hoped that he could create enough confusion to slow down the robots in case Avery invoked his precedential authority and ordered them to capture him and his friends.

"Where are we going?" Ariel asked.

"You'll see!"

They soon heard Avery angrily shouting something in the background, but by then they had reached the stage. Derec stopped at the center trapdoor and opened it. "Quick! Down here!"

"But that leads backstage!" protested Ariel.

"That's not all," said Derec. "Hurry!"

Wolruf leapt inside, and Derec and Ariel were quickly with her. As Derec closed the door, they were enveloped in blackness. "We'll have to feel our way around for a few minutes," said Derec as they made their way down the narrow corridor. "Ah! Here! This door leads to the underground conduits of the city! Even Avery's Hunters will have a hard time searching for us down here!"

"Not for long!" said Ariel. "Can't they trace us with infrared?"

"It'll still give us time!" said Derec between his teeth. "And we can use that time to figure out our next move! Let's go!"

"All right," said Ariel resignedly, "but I hope somebody turns on the lights."

As it happened, the lights were the one thing they didn't have to worry about. The lining of the underground conduits automatically glowed in the presence of visitors, illuminating the narrow spaces several meters behind and ahead of them. Things were not so elegant here. At first they saw only what they had expected: wires and cables, pipes, circuit banks, transistorized power generators, oscillators, stress and strain gauges, capacitors, fusion pods, and various other devices that Derec, for all his knowledge in electronics and positronics, could not even name. He stared at the construction in fascination, momentarily forgetting the reason why he and his friends had come here.

Derec couldn't help but admire Avery. Surely the man was a genius unparalleled in human history; it was too bad he appeared to have lost his humanity in the process of making his dreams real.

"How much further do we have to go?" Ariel finally asked. "I'm getting tired, and it's not too easy to get around in this silly dress."

"I don't know," said Derec, breathing heavily. He hadn't realized how tired he was. He had given all his energy to the performance, and probably didn't have too much reserve left at the moment. "We could keep going, I suppose, but I don't see what difference it'd make."

"More be'ween 'u an' 'ur purrsuerrs, the bedder," said Wolruf. "Firss less-on pup learrns."

"Derec-what's that?" Ariel asked, pointing to the illuminated regions ahead.

"What's what? Everything looks the same."

Wolruf sniffed the air. "Smell not the same."

Derec moved up the corridor. As he did so, the illumination moved upward with him. And in the distance, just before the corridor was enveloped in total darkness, wires and generators began to blend into an amorphous form. Derec waved the others on. "Let's go-I want to see what's going on."

"Derec, we're in trouble-we can't go exploring just because we feel like it."

"I don't know why not. Besides, this corridor only goes in two directions-this way and that way."

The further they went, the more amorphous the materials in the conduit became, merging into one another until only the vaguest outlines of generators, cables, fusion pods, and all the other parts were visible. It was as if every aspect of the conduit had been welded into inseparable parts. Derec had the feeling that if he could open one of the generators, for example, what he would find inside would be amorphous, fused circuits and wires.

"Deeper," he said, "we've got to go deeper."

"Derec, things are definitely getting cramped here," protested Ariel.

"She's rite," said Wolruf. "Furr'her down we go, the narrower the tunnel. If Hunterrs come-"

"We won't be able to do anything anyway," said Derec. "Look at what's happening here! Don't you realize what's going on?"

"Looks like the city's beginning to dissolve," said Ariel.

"Ah! In actuality, the effect is precisely the opposite. The further up we go, the more the city begins to coalesce. understand?"

"Are you serious? No!"

"The ultimate foundation of Robot City is still further down this conduit. The meta-cells must be manufactured below, and they're propelled upward in much the same way that water's propelled through a pipe. Only more slowly."

"Then why are all these phony machines here?"

"They're not phony, they just haven't been fully formed yet. The cells probably have to make it through a certain portion of the foundation before they can really begin to get with their program. You see, the atoms of metal form a lattice in three dimensions, which is why metals occur in polycrystalline form-that is, large numbers of small crystals. The cells in this part of the underground haven't crystallized yet. Ariel?"

She had looked away. She was nodding as if she understood his explanation, but her face was perspiring, and she had grown noticeably paler, even in the dim light. Derec reached for her as if to steady her, but she pulled away from him.

"Don't-" she said, waving him away. "I-I'm getting claustrophobic. It's too narrow in here. I-I'm feeling all this weight on top of me. "

"Don't worry about it," said Derec. "The foundation is secure. Nothing's going to happen."

"What are we going to do if the Hunters come?"

"They may not be able to find us here. Even with infrared sensors. If the program ' s not complete in this sector, then it' s possible that they won't be able to detect us. "

"Only possibly," said Wolruf. "Even if they don' come, we'll hav' to leave sooner orr la'err. Then they find us."

Now Derec waved them both away. "All right, all right. I know all this. I'm sorry."

"U could no' help ur-self."

Derec snorted, which was about as close to a self-mocking laugh as he could muster at the moment. Itwas bad enough that they had come to a literal dead end-they had arrived at the end of the road in more ways than one.