15)

The rest of the afternoon and into the evening Zeta spent in discussion with Jas, Alistair and Warren, about everything from the shaky democracy to what kind of college would be best for Jas in the future. Jas supposed he would be better off going out east, where the most specialized and extensive robotic research and development centers were located. On this point Zeta disagreed, and Ro, who listened near the doorway, was glad. If he hadn't attempted to dissuade Jas, she would have happily interceded her own opinion.
"Don't do that, Jas," Zeta offered, in his less-than-intimidating fashion.
"Why not? Don't you think that if I want to do the most I can in robotic development, I should go to the best places?"
"Yes," agreed the synthoid, but only to a small degree. "Don't go until you're finished with school. Stay out here, close to your family, for as long as you can. When you're older you'll be glad you did. Stay out here forever, if you'd wish, and start your own West Country research center."
Ro spoke up, adding her own little cherry to Zeta's maunder sundae. "Yeah, Jas. Let me tell you that not everything that's gold in this world is located within two-hundred miles of Gotham City. In fact, it's kinda the opposite. Gotham City is fool's gold. It's not a paradise. It's a soulless pit." Ro couldn't let one humorous comment slip without being said. "Why do you think Batman has such a hard time?"
A muted chuckling rose to fill the room. Ro's sense of humor surprised people. But it had been enough to convince Jas that perhaps East Country was not as grand as he'd been told or had imagined. And, perhaps, with strategic planning, saving, investing, he would be able to start his own research center later in life. He reiterated to his family what he'd told Zeta earlier, how he wished there was a way for androids and synthoids to live independently. It tumbled the conversation into politics, and Warren's ironic statement that synthoids didn't even exist. Ro groaned, annoyed with anything political, governmental, since it too often reminded her of the situation she was stuck in. Though she knew things could've been worse, she didn't know how little worse it could get. Government work was the sort of topic, however, where Zeta shined. His intelligence and understanding of internal government was put to extremely good use. Warren and Alistair found Zee Smith's textured insights interesting, though some of his ideas were fanciful drivel. And Alistair even said Zee should consider going into government work.
"I was in government work for a brief period of time," replied Zeta, then shook his head negatively. "It didn't work out for the government or for me. Now we try to keep as far apart as possible."
Not long after, Ro found herself out-of-doors again, in order to help Julie with barn chores while Jas, more involved in the conversation than either of the girls, stayed inside to chat. Julie showed Ro how to brush down the horses, to rid their coats of the tan desert dust and make it shine. Julie prepared hay in the stalls, to keep the horses fed for the night. As the sun was getting lower in the west, its light changing from yellow to dark gold and finally to crisp orange, the air temperature dropped considerably. The girls folded their arms to ward off a chill as they roamed their way back to the house. Lights were burning in a welcoming way through the kitchen and family room windows. The smell of food permeated the air, and Ro enjoyed the thought of another grand Dumes family feast, filled with old-fashioned food prepared the old-fashioned way. And there was the joyful, homespun sound of an old piano as someone played a ragtime tune, pounding the ivories while voices of the men sang.
"That's my uncle for ya," Julie said, unable to hold back the grin that the music brought to her curved lips. "He's the one who gave us that old piano in the first place. His new home on the coast is too modern for such an antique thing. So we got it for our antique house. Every time he visits he plays and we sing. It's sort of like tradition."
"I like your traditions," Ro told her in honesty. "I like your life, Julie. You have a good life."
They headed through the laundry room and into the oven-warmed kitchen, but stopped under the door frame. Julie set her fingers to Ro's bony wrist. "It's not always so fun. It's lonely out here. But I do love my family. Maybe someday you can have this, too."
Tess Dumes busied herself with chopping potatoes, but overheard the girls talking. It was Ro who spoke next.
"It's a nice life. Really, it is. And however envious I think I am, I don't know if it's really something I would enjoy. In my blood now is wanderlust, and I could never be satisfied if I stayed somewhere too long. I've tried. The only thing I can hope for now is that the running never stops."
The look that Julie gave Ro was indecipherable, but the smile was genuine, holding both sympathy and friendliness.

"'In days when wits were fresh and clear . . .
Before this strange disease of modern life,
With its sick hurry, its divided aims. . . .'"

Julie, pleased with herself, stepped to the kitchen. "Matthew Arnold wrote that."
Tess addressed her daughter, a momentary halt in the dicing. "Julie, go fetch Mr. Smith for a moment, would you? Ro can help me chop a potato."
Julie did as she was told, but silently hoped her mother wouldn't say anything to hurt Ro or Zee. Ro went to the counter and took up paring knife and damp, washed potato. She sliced it wrong, and Tess laughed at her ignorance of proper vegetable preparation, and even Ro found she was hopeless when it came to cooking. When Zee appeared, Tess and Ro observed him, and he stood there calmly, expecting nothing.
"Your brother-in-law is a very interesting man, Mrs. Tess," he said. "You must have a lot of fun when he visits."
"Yes, we do. Alistair is very gregarious, and pays us a lot of attention, though he is so important up north, and we're nothing but ranchers. Anyway," she said, and wiped the potato starch from her hands with a dishtowel, "I wanted to talk to both of you for a moment." But, before she did, she stepped to the obligatory junk stand, where they plopped useless things to be out of the way, and fished out from her handbag a small article, but Ro could not tell what it was. Tess handed it over to Zeta, and he accepted it gingerly, now wanting an explanation. Tess provided one promptly. "Take it, please? A fifty dollar credcard will do you a lot of good. It'll get you where you need to go."
Ro looked at Zeta, and Zeta returned the same confused look. Ro tried to change Tess's mind, but she wouldn't hear of it.
"You have to take it. I insist," Tess declared in a tone that would not be argued. "Besides, it's mostly for you, isn't it, Ro? Zee has no use for it, since he has so few needs. It must be cheap to travel when you're a robot."
Alarmed, Ro stared at Tess.
"I figured it out," Tess said. "But Warren doesn't know, and I promise I won't tell him. I assume the kids know, otherwise they wouldn't stare at you with this--this dreamy light in their eyes." Tess gave her brightness to Zee. "You do put a lot of wonderment in people, myself included."
"We thank you, Mrs. Tess," a grateful Zeta said. He pocketed the credcard in a brief, completely inhuman movement, so stiffly it was made, as if Zeta stepped back in time, to his birth as a synthoid. But he changed abruptly, his movements again fluid as he gave a chivalrous bow and left the kitchen.
"No doubt," Ro started as she watched the tail of Zeta's coat flutter while he disappeared down the hall, "you see why it is we can't stay with people for very long. They always find out, if they search hard enough."
Tess had nothing to say to that, but she felt it was true. Her remark was of a different nature. "Your dedication to each other is obvious. The extraordinary manner of it is what makes you stand out."
Ro took this in stride, though it was something if said by a different person, perhaps, she would've found offensive. "We fight for the same things, that's all. There's fellowship between those who do. Some things can't be broken. Most things can."
The old piano in the family room melodically started up again, and the gleeful voices accompanying it were blessed with Julie's sing-song soprano. She sang sweetly, like a deep-sea lorelei. Tess returned to her vegetable dicing, and Ro wandered into the family room, to watch the family gathered around the piano, where Zee was welcomed, and he sang the best he could. Julie brought Ro to her side, instructing her to sing along. Ro's voice was made more sweet by the mix with Julie Dumes's.
It was during supper when Alistair declared he'd be happy to take the Smiths as far as Seapoint, if they wished. "You could take the train from there. I'll even see to it that you get on the next available departure to wherever you need to be." The offer came after his niece's suggestion. Not a true suggestion, perhaps it was more like a plea. Julie was old enough to know how to get what she wanted from her family but young enough to be exceedingly cosseted. Alistair was eager to grant her wish, as well as that of Zee and Ro. Along with them he planned the hour of their departure, and it arrived swiftly, almost before they were aware of it. The time was upon them when they gathered in the lovely foyer of the grand home, preparing their farewells. Boom-Boom, who always had an angry growl ready for Zeta, refrained from the expected, choosing instead to ignore the synthoid's metal presence, and only Ro was allowed to wish the lazy fat dog a goodbye. Tess Dumes's expression held something mysterious, as though she was full of profound pride. Jas was wounded by the departure of his saviors, but he also felt an inkling of gratification, as though someday he would not fail to help Zeta as Zeta had helped him. He would do it for all the Zetas of the world who longed for a bit of freedom. The enigmatic goodbye Julie spoke puzzled her guests, and left them to muse over the quoted words for a while.
"'Eloquent, the smiles that win, the tints that glow, but tell of days in goodness spent, and a mind at peace.'" She took Zeta's human hand, the hologram of it, perfectly shaped and almost delicate, and squeezed his fingers as he pressed hers in return. "Byron wrote that," she said, looking him in the eye. An implication was there, a vast one, full of many complexities, which Zeta hadn't the notion to delineate.
Zeta petted Julie along the side of her head, where her brown hair fell past her elfin ears. He was amused by the quote, by the bringing up of Bryon. "Goodbye, Julie. And thank you." He permitted her to kiss his cheek, and felt the gentle, childlike pressure of the teen's lips.
Ro's farewell to Julie was subdued. Although it had been Jas they saved, Jas that had brought her and Zeta to the Dumes farm, it was Julie that Ro wound up feeling closest to. This realization was not an immediate one, nor a sentimental one that just happened at the end of their life together. But it had been something Ro had gradually pondered, and had ever since she knew who Julie reminded her of. Ro had felt jealousy and anger toward Julie Dumes, mostly unfounded, but Ro knew her feelings were not easily disregarded. And there had been the more frequent moments of sisterly comfort, an unspeakable bond Ro fancied didn't exist between a man and a woman, only between two women. Instead of saying something heartfelt and mushy, Ro just hugged Julie tightly, afraid to let the sincere attachment snap. "I'll miss you, Jule," Ro said, then finally let go. She looked at each Dumes face in eagerness, her air and expression fully betraying her sadness. She huffed and stepped out of the foyer, no longer allowing the humans to see how much their lives had affected her. The briefness of their time together released and further solidified Ro's old adage that nothing good goes on forever, that something which made life so perfect would only turn imperfect, like glittering diamonds transformed to dull glass.
Despite having four seats on Alistair's cruiser to choose from, Zeta chose instead to sit beside Ro. She had set her forehead to the window, and in distant longing, she looked to the desert ranch land. The horses were in the paddock beside the barn, grazing, their tails twitching at flies and dust. She glanced at Zee when he sat down.
"What was the stuff about Byron?" she asked him, keeping her upper lip stiff against the waterfall of emotions inside her.
"She likes Byron," he replied. "Well, I like Byron."
Alistair gathered himself comfortably behind the controls, locked himself in and fiddled with buttons and switches. The jets started in a sonorous droning, like a thousand bees with muted wings, and the ship lifted a foot off the ground immediately. The landing gear was disengaged. Alistair gave his riders an observance just behind his seat. "You two ready? Last chance to change your mind."
"Go ahead, Mr. Alistair," Zeta said, giving the pilot the okay to take off and leave behind Glenview and the Dumes ranch, located in the northern tip of Oregon's ghostly High Desert.
The further the cruiser lifted from the earth, first straight up then northward, the more forlorn Ro became. And she was trying her best to pretend she didn't care. In a couple of weeks, maybe days, she knew she wouldn't as much as she did then. But no matter how hard she tried to hide what discomfort she was feeling, Zeta knew. He slid his arm over her shoulders, and she curled against him, content with his uncanny ability to bring her comfort during rare times of distress.
"You have every right to be upset, Ro," he said to her. "You just go ahead and be as sad as you want. I won't tell anyone."
"Who would you tell? Agent Bennett? Or West?" Ro laughed despite herself. "They wouldn't believe you. I haven't got the reputation with those two as being slightly emotional. They'd probably think you were talking about some other girl."
"Maybe someday you can come back."
"It's not that I want to, or that I think I would want to. That's not why I'm feeling this way."
"Why are you feeling this way?"
"I think I've misjudged some people, when I didn't mean to. It's Julie," Ro stated quietly, almost in a whisper. But Zeta's acute hearing picked her words out clearly, though they were drowned in the noise of the engines.
"What about Julie?"
"She reminds me of someone. Like the Seven Sisters. Do you remember when we first got here, and I said that I liked the story of the Seven Sisters?"
"Yes. You said it was because you liked the idea of being turned into a star."
"And I do like that idea, in a way. But I like hearing about the sisters. It reminds me of--of Julie, and--and---" Ro sighed, closed her eyes tightly, to escape the barb of regret, "Tiff! Stupid, spoiled and annoyingly perfect Tiffany Morgan!"
Zeta rubbed Ro's shoulders to show he understood the inner conflict. For a while, he allowed his thoughts freedom characteristic of a human. It was a minute or so before he spoke again. "Electre was the most famous of the Seven Sisters. She, like five of her sisters, married a god. She married the god of all gods; she married Zeus. They had a son named Dardanus. When he was older, Dardanus gained much power, and he formed a city that he named Troy. But Electre, so saddened by her son's loss of his city, left her place in the heavens. She chose to become a comet, so she would not be forced to see what Troy had become after the fall. Some dubbed her the lost Pleiad. The one who wanders, who is afraid to look again at something she knows will hurt her."
If Zeta meant to implicate a deep-seeded fear inside Ro by telling that particular story at that particular time, he succeeded. Ro knew what he implied so stealthily. But days ago she'd already made up her own mind, regardless of his help or his telling of myths.
"We're going back," she said then, her voice throaty from strain.
"Where?"
"To Hillsburg, Zee. The first train we can get to the East Country, we're going to be on it. I'd already decided, but I hadn't told you yet."
"It could be dangerous, Ro."
"It's what I have to do. I really want to see her again. Just to see how she is. It might be better if I went alone, less danger for you."
The idea repulsed Zee. "You're not going anywhere alone."
Ro knew he'd say something similar to that, and was relieved he'd saved her from disappointment. "Have it your way. But don't say I didn't warn you."
"I won't have to," Zeta said, "because if something happens to us it'll be my fault."
"I think it's safe to say how ridiculous that statement is." Ro kept her eyes closed, her brain tired mush. Moving vehicles always made her sleepy, as long as she wasn't being followed by an angry NSA militia. "We're a unit, Zee. If one of us fails it's because the other forgot to do something."
Zee liked this idea better than his of complete dilapidation in the precise things he'd been built for. Still, he knew what a risk it was to return to Hillsburg, where the Morgans, Ro's foster family, lived. It was the entire idea of going to Hillsburg that he disliked. Not only were there bad memories lodged there for him, but for Ro as well. But he understood why she felt the inclination to return to the past. Sometimes the past was a necessary ally to feed hope to a reluctant future.
"Tell me about one of the other sisters. That one with the pretty name. What is it?" Ro yawned sleepily. "Merope, I think. What was her life like? Did she beat the crap out of any of her sisters?"
"Nothing like that," he assured, probably to Ro's displeasure. Zeta, however, was not in the mood to discuss the life of Merope, the dimmed Pleiad. "I'll tell you about her another time. You sleep now. It'll be another forty minutes before we reach Seapoint."

--

Notes

"'In days when wits were fresh and clear . . . '"
Matthew Arnold, The Scholar-Gypsy

'Eloquent, the smiles that win, the tints that glow, but tell of days in goodness spent, and a mind at peace.'
Lord Byron, She Walks In Beauty