Hawkins jerked at the sound of her voice and squinted up at her. “Too much UV. Besides, I like it here.”

Gelmann made a face. “You’ll get a chill, Wallace.”

“You’ll turn into a mushroom someday, old boy.” Follingston-Heath grinned down at him.

Hawkins chucked a chunk of gravel into a nearby bush. “Maybe I’d like that.”

“We’re taking a walk. Wouldn’t you like to join us?”

“No thanks.”

Exasperation showed in her expression. “Everything will be covered with snow soon. Then you won’t be able to walk. All the birds and little animals will be denned up for the winter. Then you’ll think, ‘Why didn’t I listen to Mina when I had the chance?’”

He made a low, growling noise. “I’ve spent my whole life looking at birds and little animals and masticating ungulates. I still enjoy it … after they’ve been broiled, barbecued, or fried. Waste of time. That’s why I took early retirement. Couldn’t stand the sight of ’em anymore.” He spat into the grass.

“So where did they stick me? Downtown old Paris? Greater Angeles? No. Up here.” He spread his hands wide. “Smack in the middle of the kind of country I’d spent my whole life restoring and just wanted to get away from. Nothin’ I could do about it. People who run the Service retirement plan ain’t real flexible.”

“Probably thought this is what you’d like,” Follingston-Heath commented.

Hawkins hugged his knees to his chest. “Well, it wasn’t. With a few changes this wouldn’t be such a bad place to stay. Cut down all these damn trees, put in a nice loud amusement park. Maybe a paper mill, for atmosphere. Pave over the rest.”

Gelmann pursed her lips reprovingly. “Now, Wallace. You know you don’t mean that.”

“Loan me a large construction company or a small thermonuclear device and see if I don’t.”

Follingston-Heath and Gelmann exchanged a glance, then strolled over to stand next to Shimoda’s lounge. Utterly unselfconscious, he wore only a pair of dark sunshades and a strategically draped towel.

“Shalom, Kahei.” Gelmann squinted at the several empty lounges nearby. “Where’s Victor?”

The shade lenses darkened responsively as the statistician opened his eyes. “I don’t know. He may have mentioned something about looking for you. No, wait; I remember now. There was some trouble in the kitchen. Vic volunteered his help.”

Typical Victor, she thought. Of them all, he was having the hardest time with retirement. A widower bereft of responsibility, he had too much energy for his own good. He was forever trying to scrounge work around the complex. Sometimes his assistance was welcomed by the maintenance staff, other times not. They tended to patronize the little old man, which in his quiet fashion quite naturally infuriated him. Gelmann had suggested on more than one occasion that the Village technicians might be more receptive to his ideas if he shed the air of a longtime supervisor and quit trying to take over every project he sought to assist on.

Follingston-Heath looked toward Wing C. “No sign of the old boy.” He turned back to Gelmann. “If you don’t mind, luv, I think I’ll retire to my apartment. There’s a new documentary on the Second Mossman rebellion coming on that I’ve been looking forward to all month. I was fortunate to have commanded a small squadron during the second half of that conflict, don’t you know.”

“We know.” Shimoda smiled beatifically. “You have so informed us on innumerable occasions.”

Follingston-Heath harrumphed. “I always like to see how accurate these things are. Sometimes they succeed in inverting the facts dreadfully. Of course, no one asks my advice.” He fiddled with the settings of his monocle, though there was no reason to do so. It was entirely self-adjusting. “If there’s one thing that gets my dander up, it’s historical inaccuracy.”

“Didn’t know anything could still get your dander up,” Hawkins commented snidely from the base of his tree. Follingston-Heath’s expression narrowed as he turned.

Gelmann patted the Colonel’s arm. “We know about your concerns, dear. You go and watch your documentary and you can tell us all about it in the morning. Meanwhile I have to talk to some of the other ladies about the craft show we’re organizing for next week. I was asked to design the necessary software, and I’m afraid I’ve been neglecting my responsibilities.”

Follingston-Heath glared down at Hawkins as he strode past, but the other man ignored him. He was concentrating on grinding a beetle into the dirt.

Victor Iranaputra gave up on the balky valve system in Wing A. It refused to respond to his ministrations, and the two young techs who’d been fighting with it all morning weren’t sad to see him go. Some of the old man’s advice was useful, but he talked nonstop and it was impossible for them to simultaneously attend to their own work while separating out his verbal wheat from the chaff.

They suggested he offer his services to the folks in charge of the central kitchen, who were having problems of their own.

“Most of the time he does know what he’s talking about,” one of the techs observed charitably.

“Yeah.” His partner checked a readout on his laser spanner. “Trouble is he’s so damn helpful it gets on your nerves. Pass me that apportioner, will you?”

The other tech complied, looking on while his partner made adjustments. “Guess you can’t blame him. Most of these seniors do fine here, but he’s one of those who can’t sit still. Must be rough on him.”

“Hey, he chose to come here.” She sat back and wiped her forehead. “Now, me, I could handle this. Trees, fishing, wildlife. No kids to hassle you. Somebody else to do the cooking and cleaning. I’m looking forward to it.”

“Then we’d better fix this damn thing.” Her partner dropped to his stomach and started to crawl into the open service duct.

She leaned over to watch. “Wonder if this old guy can help out the kitchen staff?”

“Nobody else’s had any luck,” came the reply from within the duct. “He sure as hell can’t make it any worse.”

“It’s over there,” said Ibrahim. The food-preparation supervisor at Lake Woneapenigong Village sported a pencil-thin mustache, curly black hair, hooked nose, cream-white service attire, and imitation black onyx earrings. He was much taller than Iranaputra. Though a qualified cook, he was not a chef, exactly. More of a comestibulatory engineer.

“Where?” Iranaputra looked toward the kitchen service bay, past a gaggle of busy food techs wrestling with ranks of spotlessly clean food-prep machinery.

The supervisor waved his hand vaguely. “There, in the back. Number six. Designation Ksaru, Kitchen Service and Retrieval Unit.”

“I will find it. What exactly is the problem?”

Ibrahim regarded his questioner distastefully. “If we knew exactly what was the problem, senior Iranaputra, we’d have got it fixed by now, wouldn’t we?”

Iranaputra considered. “Is it similar to the other problems the Village has been experiencing?”

“I don’t know, why you ask me? You want to try fixing it, get down to it. I am a chef, not a greasy-fingered mechanic.”

“Self-motive robots are controlled by pretty basic AI units. You would think they would make things like that foolproof. Number six is the only one giving you trouble?”

“No. Were two others, but the regular maintenance people fixed them with reprogramming. That doesn’t seem to work on this one. They told me to put in with Finance for a replacement. Ten of these things we have, and they are expensive. They also supposed to last. If I have to keep this one down, it will slow service to Wings C and D both, and stress my employees, and …”

“Plenty of time to panic later.” Iranaputra smiled determinedly. “Let me see what I can do. Sometimes experience is better at these things than the latest training.”

“Sure, go ahead, why not?” The supervisor had his meal planner out and was morosely examining lunch prospects. He had to prepare three meals a day for over a thousand people, many of whom had specific dietary requirements. For this work he was well paid, and short of actually poisoning someone (which he had been tempted, on certain occasions, to do), impossible to fire.

Leaving Ibrahim surrounded by swirling staff and muttering unceasingly to himself, Iranaputra let himself into the service bay.

Near the back, squeezed in among replacement parts for steamers and broilers and wavers, he found two older Ksarus which had been partly cannibalized for parts, and one gleaming current model. On its dual tracks it stood slightly over a meter in height. Its four work arms hung from the top of the squarish torso, slack against the pale green plastic housing. The roughly spherical head, capable of swiveling 360 degrees, was mounted on a simple, short, tubular neck. Yellow plastic lenses protected sophisticated optics capable of full-color and stereoscopic vision. Its vaguely humanoid appearance was an esthetic concession to the more delicate sensibilities of some of Lake Woneapenigong’s inhabitants.

A Ksaru was capable of working round the clock, climbing stairs, identifying and responding to individuals, and self-motivation. An expensive tool with a long and useful mechanical lineage, presently on the fritz.

“Activate and respond, Ksarusix.”

The plastic lenses brightened and the machine rolled forward off its charging pad. It pivoted left, then right, as if executing some kind of cybernetic calisthenics. Stopping to face him, the head tilted slightly to examine his entire length. It didn’t take long.

“Well, whadda you want?”

Clearly whatever was wrong with the serving robot had also affected its standard courtesy programming. The greeting had been less than unfailingly polite.