Louis’s shout rang out before she could make her way back to him. “Margaret, here they come!”

Her instincts were torn between confronting the treacherous black robots and just taking her husband and fleeing deeper into the catacombs. Perhaps they could find some escape, some protection inside the empty Klikiss city.

But it was not, after all, a difficult choice. She went to stand beside Louis.

At the edge of the overhang, he looked down into the dark canyon, his seamed face fearful but his eyes flashing. The scaffolding lay smashed on the ravine floor. Far below, the three beetlelike shapes crunched along the dry riverbed. Their optical sensors glowed like malevolent fireflies in the shadows.

“I don’t see how they can get up here,” Louis said, but Margaret had her doubts about how impregnable this empty city would be. “Did you learn anything, dear?”

“I found the answer to all of our questions,” she said.

Louis Colicos, the lifelong xeno-archaeologist, managed to summon enough enthusiasm for his passion in life that he actually looked up with interest. “Well, a lot of good it’ll do us if we can’t tell anybody.”

“You and I will know, old man,” Margaret said, patting him on the arm.

Down below, Sirix and the other two robots stopped, swiveling their geometric heads upward. “Margaret and Louis Colicos, we know you are up there.”

“And we know you’re down there,” Louis said. “Now leave us alone.”

“We wish to discuss our creators with you. We want to learn everything you have discovered.”

“And then kill us afterward?” Margaret called down, challenging.

The three black robots fell silent for a long moment, then they buzzed and chattered with each other in their strange electronic language. Sirix finally looked back upward. “Yes, and then kill you.”

Margaret was surprised the robot would be so blunt. “Well, at least they’re honest,” Louis said.

Margaret called, her words clear and sharp in the silent canyon. “We know all about the first hydrogue war. I read hidden descriptions of the ancient battle between the Klikiss and the hydrogues, and even the Ildirans.” Louis looked at her, astonished, while the three black robots pondered the information.

“Then you know that we robots fought in that war,” Sirix said.

“I know that you turned against your creators.” She looked at Louis. “Their own robots are what destroyed the Klikiss race. That’s why we see no living remnants of an entire species.”

Louis looked down, hoping the revelation would shock some sense into Sirix, Ilkot, and Dekyk. The trio of black robots paused, waiting at the base of the sheer cliff. “Well, what do you have to say about that? Why did you do it?” he shouted, taunting. “Does it jar any memories loose?”

“We already know,” Sirix answered in a chillingly flat tone.