Maverick

“How long?”

Beta swiveled his head to consider Avery. “I would expect that the length of the time delay-”

“No, no. I mean, how long to put a ten-second timer on one of your existing keys?”

Beta’s eyes dimmed as he conferred with the other supervisors. “We have never manufactured such a device before. Assuming no unforeseen difficulties, we estimate approximately twelve minutes. ”

“Good, get started. ” Avery turned to Wolruf. “You say the release controls are probably on the bridge?”

Wolruf looked up at Avery through her furry eyebrows. “‘U don’ know Aranimas. Th’ frosted Personal controls were on th’ bridge. ”

Avery nodded. “Perfect. Beta?” He turned to the robot. “I want two keys: a normal key programmed for this room, and a ten-second time-delay key programmed for the bridge of the Erani ship. Also, I need a timed analog heater that will reach 300 degrees Celsius in fifteen seconds. ”

“May I ask what for?”

“To protect the native humans from certain harm. This is a critical First Law priority; I need these items within fifteen minutes. Do you understand?”

The robot bowed slightly. “Absolutely, Creator Avery. ’, His eyes dimmed as he relayed the commands. “The work has already begun. ”

“Excellent. ” Avery turned to Derec and smiled gently. “And now, son, as long as we have a few minutes, what say we go find an automat and grab a bite to eat?”

Derec’s jaw dropped. “What?”

“Trust me, Derec,” Avery said, as he smiled through clenched teeth and winked like a groundcar’s turn signal, “we want to find an automat. ”

Slowly Derec caught on. “Oh, yeah, right. ” Arm in arm, whistling benignly, Derec and Avery strolled out of Central Hall.

A little later Derec and Avery were out in a darkened side street, standing before an open-air automat. As per Avery’s instructions, Derec was keeping watch for robots, while Avery kneeled before the manual control panel and frantically punched in a new set of instructions.

“Why the cloak and dagger bit?” Derec whispered between sidelong glances. “Why couldn’t we just send a robot to fetch this?”

“For the same reason that I told Beta to build a timed analog heater instead of a fuse,” Avery whispered back. “I don’t trust the city robots’ definition of human. They might decide that this violates the First Law. ” The automat barked gently, and the serving door slid open to reveal Avery’s creation.

“Five pounds of caramel?” Derec asked, his nose wrinkling.

Gently, delicately, Avery slid the sticky block out of the automat and flipped it lightly from hand to hand, trying to avoid burning his fingers. “Ah, it may look like candy,” he whispered, a smile playing on his face, “but it’s actually a sixty-forty mix of white sugar and common saltpeter! “

“So?”

“Derec, Derec. ” Avery stood up and shook his head. “Son, let me give you another little clue about your past. It’s a good thing that you’re a robotics genius, because you flunked Basic Chem twice. This little brick here,” the block had cooled enough for him to hold it in one hand, “is about the worst caramel you’ll ever taste, but it’s also a pretty effective substitute for black gunpowder. ”

Derec looked more closely at the brick and sniffed again. “Then why the hazelnuts?”

“Shrapnel. ” Avery took one last look at the brick and then slipped it into his jacket pocket. “How are the keys coming along?”

Closing his eyes, Derec activated his commlink. “They’re programming the final set of coordinates now. The keys will be ready by the time we get back to Central Hall. ”

“Did they remember the baling wire?”

“Yes. ”

“Good. ” Avery took one last look up and down the street, then started back toward the Compass Tower. “Come on, son. We’re almost out of time. ”

Chapter 25. Detonation

Adam took a step forward and raised his voice. “Friend Avery, I must protest. The First Law demands that I prevent you from placing yourself in such great danger!”

Avery checked again to make sure that the bomb was wired tightly to the time-delayed key and turned to the robot. “You know the situation. In a few minutes this building is going to be ground zero of a hundred-kilometer dead zone. There’s no other option. ”

“But the risk to yourself-”

“Who else could go?” Avery slipped the second key into his jacket pocket, then turned his attention to the fuse. “Derec is human. Wolruf is-” Avery grimaced and spat it out, “-human. And we can’t send a robot; too much risk of a First Law lockup at the crucial moment. ”

Adam’s eyes dimmed, and he swallowed hard. “I will go. ”

Avery shuddered, and his eyes went wide. “Adam, this is a bomb. ” He shook the lump of caramel in Adam’s face. “ All I’m hoping for is that it will distract Aranimas long enough for him to miss the drop window, but it may very well injure someone on his ship. Are you telling me that the Zeroth Law allows a robot to kill one human to save many?”

Adam froze, and his eyes dimmed as he diverted all internal power to resolving this First Law dilemma. Avery co

“If the answer he comes up with is yes,” Avery said, jerking his head at Adam, “melt his brain. ” In quick succession, he pressed the corners of the time-delay key. The teleport button popped up. With a firm, decisive move of his thumb, he pressed it down. “Wish me luck, son. ”

No sooner had he said this than Beta recovered from the First Law shock he’d gone into on hearing the word kill. “Creator Avery? That device is a weapon?” Beta lunged for the bomb.

Avery vanished into thin air.

Perihelion:the point in the universe nearest all other points in the universe. A cold, drifting, formless void; a space outside of space.

“But not outside of time,” Avery said to himself. He looked at his watch. “Ninety seconds to drop. I wonder how things are going back in the universe?” He checked the detonator wiring again. It seemed to have survived the first jump in working order.

Eighty seconds. Trusting the bomb to take care of itself for a minute, he let himself float back and take in the view of Perihelion.

Not that it was much to look at. The gray lacked even the substance of fog. Nothing shifted, nothing moved, nothing changed. Ever. There was light, but no shadow; light, only because dark would have been a change.

Avery drifted through Perihelion, and he smiled. There was a secret that he knew, and no one else did. Perihelion wasn’t just some nuisance, or by-product of the keys. It was the one critical thing that made teleportation possible.

Perihelion was an infinite buffer.

Sixty seconds. Avery touched the four corners of the time-delay key again, and watched as the teleport button slowly rose from the smooth, flawless surface.

Consider the question of teleportation,Avery said to himself. In all the universe, there is no such thing as a body at rest. Planets rolled through their diurnal cycles and careened around their suns. Galaxies spun like dancers, trailing solar systems like glitter from their spiral arms, and even the universe was expanding, Cyclopean shrapnel flying out from the ancient epicenter of the Big Bang.

Teleporting directly from one planet to another would be like leaping from a moving groundcar onto a moving elevator. You’d arrive at your destination with kinetic energy enough to flatten you into a wet, greasy smear or propel you straight into orbit.

Unless, of course, you had the buffer of Perihelion.

He looked at his watch again. Thirty seconds. “Time to go. ” With two quick jabs, he armed the detonator and pressed the teleport button. Pushing the bomb away from himself, he watched it float slowly away. The firing circuit began to glow a dull red.