On the sunny eastern patio, Anthora yos'Galan looked up suddenly from her breakfast, and frowned as she scanned the empty lawns.
"Jeeves. . ." she murmured and the hulking robot standing near her chair replied, its voice proclaiming it a male of Terra's educated class:
"Working, Miss Anthora."
"I . . . believe . . . we may have company. Four individuals?"
"One to each compass point," yos'Galan's butler said smoothly. "Shall I deal with it?"
She was silent a moment, biting her lip and considering the patterns of the intruders. Coldness, imbalance, disharmony and ugliness—each so like the other that one nearly became persuaded they thought with one brain. But, no. She had seen the like of these before. The work of the Department of Interior was impossible to mistake, once seen.
"How did they get in?" she asked the robot.
"Accessing perimeter files. I have an anomaly, sixty-three seconds in duration, one-half hour ago. My apologies, Miss Anthora. They came through a particularly resistant section of perimeter. I see that stronger measures are called for, though one dislikes employing coercion."
She turned her head and blinked up at the featureless ball of its "head," momentarily diverted from the threat of potential assassins.
"Coercion? Jeeves, my brothers told me you were a war robot before they reclaimed you to be our butler. Surely you've practiced coercion in the past."
"One may be practiced in an art of survival without necessarily enjoying it," Jeeves commented, moving a pincher arm toward the teapot. "May I warm your cup?"
"Thank you," she said and held it out, silent until the tea was poured and the pot replaced.
"Tell me the truth, Jeeves. Were you a war robot?"
"I was many things, Miss Anthora. As befits the motivating force of an Independent Armed Military Module. Shall I deal with the interlopers on our lawn? It won't take but a moment."
Anthora sipped her tea, and extended her thought to the eastern pattern. Idly, experimentally, almost playfully, she exerted her will against the chill ugliness. And felt something move, deep within the construct imposed by the Department of Interior.
Anthora sipped again, shook her head, Terran style, and lazily set the teacup aside.
"No," she told the robot, "leave them. They won't be staying long."