"The day of, sai," said Andy. " 'Seminon comin, warm days go runnin.' So they say." He bent toward Eddie. Clickings came from inside his gleaming head. His blue eyes flashed on and off. "Eddie, I have cast a great horoscope, very long and complex, and it shows victory against the Wolves! A great victory, indeed! You will vanquish your enemies and then meet a beautiful lady!"
"I already have a beautiful lady," Eddie said, trying to keep his voice pleasant. He knew perfectly well what those rapidly flashing blue lights meant; the son of a bitch was laughing at him. Well , he thought, maybe you'll be laughing on the other side of your face a couple of days from now, Andy. I certainly hope so .
"So you do, but many a married man has had his jilly, as I told sai tian jaffords not so long ago."
"Not those who love their wives," Tian said. "I told you so then and I tell you now."
"Andy, old buddy," Eddie said earnestly, "we came out here in hopes that you'd do us a solid on the night before the Wolves come. Help us a little, you know."
There were several clicking sounds deep in Andy's chest, and this time when his eyes flashed, they almost seemed alarmed. "I would if I could, sai," Andy said, "oh yes, there's nothing I like more than helping my friends, but there are a great many things I can't do, much as I might like to."
"Because of your programming."
"Aye." The smug so-happy-to-see-you tone had gone out of Andy's voice. He sounded more like a machine now. Yeah, that's his fallback position , Eddie thought. That's Andy being careful. You've seen em come and go, haven't you, Andy ? Sometimes they call you a useless bag of bolts and mostly they ignore you, but either way you end up walking over their bones and singing your songs, don't you ? But not this time, pal. No, I don't think so .
"When were you built, Andy? I'm curious. When did you roll off the old LaMerk assembly line?"
"Long ago, sai." The blue eyes flashing very slowly now. Not laughing anymore.
"Two thousand years?"
"Longer, I believe. Sai, I know a song about drinking that you might like, it's very amusing - "
"Maybe another time. Listen, good buddy, if you're thousands of years old, how is it that you're programmed concerning the Wolves?"
From inside Andy there came a deep, reverberant clunk, as though something had broken. When he spoke again, it was in the dead, emotionless voice Eddie had first heard on the edge of Mid-Forest. The voice of Bosco Bob when ole Bosco was getting ready to cloud up and rain all over you.
"What's your password, sai Eddie?"
"Think we've been down this road before, haven't we?"
"Password. You have ten seconds. Nine... eight... seven..."
"That password shit's very convenient for you, isn't it?"
"Incorrect password, sai Eddie."
"Kinda like taking the Fifth."
"Two... one... zero. You may retry once. Would you retry, Eddie?"
Eddie gave him a sunny smile. "Does the seminon blow in the summertime, old buddy?"
More clicks and clacks. Andy's head, which had been tilted one way, now tilted the other. "I do not follow you, Eddie of NewYork."
"Sorry. I'm just being a silly old human bean, aren't I? No, I don't want to retry. At least not right now. Let me tell you what we'd like you to help us with, and you can tell us if your programming will allow you to do it. Does that sound fair?"
"Fair as fresh air, Eddie."
"Okay." Eddie reached up and took hold of Andy's thin metal arm. The surface was smooth and somehow unpleasant to the touch. Greasy. Oily. Eddie held on nonetheless, and lowered his voice to a confidential level. "I'm only telling you this because you're clearly good at keeping secrets."
"Oh, yes, sai Eddie! No one keeps a secret like Andy!" The robot was back on solid ground and back to his old self, smug and complacent.
"Well..." Eddie went up on tiptoe. "Bend down here."
Servomotors hummed inside Andy's casing - inside what would have been his heartbox, had he not been a high-tech tinman. He bent down. Eddie, meanwhile, stretched up even further, feeling absurdly like a small boy telling a secret.
"The Pere's got some guns from our level of the Tower," he murmured. "Good ones."
Andy's head swiveled around. His eyes glared out with a brilliance that could only have been astonishment. Eddie kept a poker face, but inside he was grinning.
"Say true, Eddie?"
"Say thankya."
"Pere says they're powerful," Tian said. "If they work, we can use em to blow the living bugger out of the Wolves. But we have to get em out north of town... and they're heavy. Can you help us load em in a bucka on Wolfs Eve, Andy?"
Silence. Clicks and clacks.
"Programming won't let him, I bet," Eddie said sadly. "Well, if we get enough strong backs - "
"I can help you," Andy said. "Where are these guns, sais?"
"Better not say just now," Eddie replied. "You meet us at the Pere's rectory early on Wolf's Eve, all right?"
"What hour would you have me?"
"How does six sound?"
"Six o' the clock. And how many guns will there be? Tell me that much, at least, so I may calculate the required energy levels."