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shrugged also, grimacing ruefully.
Perhaps you don t remember that the Institute wiped our memories
temporarily before we came to Earth, so we wouldn t be able to reveal
their techniques, he said.
Ariel could only stare in amazement. When you are well enough to
travel, we will leave. Of course, since we ve been discovered here, our
purpose of sociological study is negated. And once back on Aurora, we
will have our own recorded memories reimplanted.
She had heard of none of this. The Institute? Institute of what?
Study? Of Earth? But, own recorded memories reimplanted....Ariel
leaned back and for a moment thought tears would leak from her
eyes.
So you ve lost your memory twice over, but it s only temporary.
I d like to know just how that s done, growled a baritone voice. After
a moment Ariel identified it: Dr. Powell. She had heard it often
enough in the past weeks. I know, I know, you haven t the foggiest
only a brief layman s description that doesn t describe.
When she opened her eyes, they were all around her bed, with R.
Jennie at the controls.
Well, young lady, your request for a visit to the outdoors is a
bit...unusual. He visibly repressed a shudder of distaste at the
thought, and Ariel, fascinated, realized that to this man the outside
was more fear-inspiring than the claustrophobic City was to her.
We can t very well add you to the list on a Settler Acclimatization
Group, and the only other people who go... outside are the odd
Farming, Mining, and Pelagic Overseers. They are solitary as well as
agoraphilic, very strange types; they wouldn t welcome an addition.
Certainly not a sick Spacer. And there s nobody else to take care of
you.
Robots? she asked weakly, looking at R. Jennie.
The doctor frowned, shook his head. It s difficult to move a robot
through the City without having it mobbed and destroyed. Robots are
being restricted more and more each year; we have half as many here
now at Towner Laney than when I was an intern. That leaves only
your husband, and frankly, within a couple of days you ll be taking
care of him.
I m all right, said Derec with a flash of irritation that for a moment
brought back the companion of the hospital station Ariel couldn t
remember the name, but she remembered the station and of Robot
City. What s the signal coding of the local office of the TBI?
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The what? Dr. Powell stared at him. The comm number? Why
would you want to call the Terries? From his tone it was obvious he
had guessed, and seethed at the thought.
To get authorization to have robots moved through the motorways,
and for permission to leave the City, if only for a short period.
Hmmph! Medically
Medically it would do her good, Doctor, said the nurse quietly.
True, damn it, but we need to be sure that her mental condition the
implants
We can t keep bringing her back and forth, I admit, said Korolenko.
Ariel, could you...hold off till tomorrow? Derec asked.
Tomorrow...she was so tired, from inaction and drugs, that she d
sleep till then anyway...Ariel could have stood anything for a
tomorrow in the sun.
Oh, yes, yes. She d be good, she d
Ariel had a moment of vivid memory, herself quite young, promising
her mother that she would be very, very good. Was that when she d
been given her first robot? Or was that Boopsie, the pup?
When the first vivid reexperience faded, she looked up and they had
drawn apart. It was no matter; it would be all right tomorrow.
Never saw myself as nursemaid to a couple of Spacers and a robot,
said Donovan. The agent-in-charge had not trusted any of his men to
go outside.
The hospital had an emergency entrance and egress for ambulances,
and was a major junction on the motorways. R. Jennie carried Ariel
down in its arms, Ariel having chosen that over being wheeled,
strapped to a gurney, or in a chair with wheels.
The hospital had supplied an ambulance, but the Terry eyed it with
distaste. We ll use the Bureau car, he said. There s room for four of
us, robot or no.
R. Jennie gently put Ariel into the back seat and got in beside her, the
car creaking and sinking under the weight until the suspension
system analyzed the imbalance and compensated for it. Derec and
Donovan got into the front seat, and the agent took the controls and
sent them surging silently down a ramp and into a lit but dim-seeming
tunnel.
For a moment Ariel fought a scream, tensing; the claustrophobia was
worse in such tight passages. But she fought it off, helped by the speed
of their passage. Signs blurred past soundlessly as the Terry tapped
more and more of the beamed power. Once the ceiling lit up in bloody
light, and winking yellow arrows along the walls gave obscure
warning. Then a blue car whipped by in the other direction, Donovan
having avoided it with the warning.
Like the models we trained on, murmured Derec, glancing back at
her.
For a moment she was blank on that, the she remembered the
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roofless roads and the emergency vehicle monitors, the remote
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