"Asimov, Isaac - Robot City 05 - Refuge - Robert Chilson 1.1" - читать интересную книгу автора (Asimov Isaac)

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. 'On 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 ho me."

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--megalomania-cal. 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 hy-peratomics. 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 I . urn. 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 sun--more accurately, the sun, the Sun of old Earth. But now the term was synonymous with pefiastron. 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.

"The hyperatomic motors."

"The what?"

"The Jump motors. This Key couldn't have brought us here by itself, not if the robots could duplicate it. It has to be tuned to motors elsewhere; I think it's just a tiny hyperwave radio. I don't know if we're in hyperspace or if this is a place in normal space--a big balloon, the size of a planet, perhaps."

"You mean, somebody made it?" Ariel asked, aghast. "It's obviously an alien transport station--maybe for moving really heavy freight," said Derec. "It may be one of many. I wonder if it's abandoned, or if it's actually in use but is so big we don't see the others and they don't see us."