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the realizations he’d had while waiting for the supply convoy. If they had time later, they could talk, and if not, that was fine too. Actions would do far more to win Derek’s confidence than words. Derek had obviously heard far too many meaningless words in his life.
     
     
    T HE moment Derek laid eyes on Tucker, he understood Sambit’s antipathy. Everything about the man was officious, from his suit to the supercilious expression on his face. That would have been bad enough. The way Tucker dismissed him completely, speaking only to Sambit, was the nail in the other man’s coffin as far as Derek was concerned.
    “Mr. Patel, what is that?”
    “It’s Dr. Patel,” Derek replied before Sambit could reply, “and ‘that’ is my robot. The robot that is going to save our collective asses, so get out of the way and let Dr. Patel tell me where to send him and what to do with him.”
    Tucker sputtered and fumed, but Derek pushed past him, gesturing for Sambit to take a seat at the computer.
    Sambit moved past the NRC representative with more grace and less aggression, but Derek could see the approval in his smirk as he sat down and began to study the display of readings on the monitor.
    “We need to go back to where we had the big blockage,” Sambit told Derek. “I’m getting inconsistent temperature readings from the core. We need to see what the situation really is, and that’s where we had the highest temperature readings before.”
    “On it,” Derek said, sending Number Five rolling out of the room and back toward the blocked corridor. Behind him, Tucker demanded explanations, but Derek ignored him. He couldn’t give them anyway—that was Sambit’s area of expertise—and he had more important things to focus on, like making sure Number Five went where he was supposed to as smoothly and efficiently as possible.
    Sambit apparently had somewhat more patience with Tucker than Derek did, because he heard the softly accented voice begin a detailed explanation that went right over Derek’s head. It didn’t matter. He didn’t need to understand the physics of nuclear reactions to guide his robot where it needed to go.
    “Dr. Patel,” he interrupted when Number Five was in place, “I have new readings for you.”
    Sambit joined him at his laptop immediately, breaking off the conversation with Tucker. His hand rested on Derek’s shoulder as he bent over to look at the temperature indicator on the laptop screen. Derek suppressed a totally inappropriate shiver as his body reacted.
    “It’s cooler than it was,” Sambit said, “but still elevated. I wish we knew what was behind that mess.”
    “The Standby Gas Treatment system.”
    Derek and Sambit both turned to see who had spoken. A tall black woman joined them at the computer. “Lyrica Johnson,” she added by way of introduction. “I’m the night shift manager. I was evacuated, but when I heard about the problems, I got in touch with the NRC and they flew me in.”
    “Should it be this hot back there?” Sambit asked, showing her the readings.
    “No, that’s not normal. Can you get a camera up there so we can see what’s going on?”
    “It’s a nearly vertical climb,” Derek said for the second time that day. “Number Five can climb steps, but it can’t defy the laws of gravity. Is there another way in?”
    “Not usually, but all that concrete came from somewhere. If it left an exterior hole, we could maybe go in that way,” Lyrica said.
    “We need a second robot,” Sambit said. “One to go outside and look for that while Number Five works inside. Derek, let’s check the gauges on the HPCI pumps. We can’t do anything about this right now so we need to see what’s going on in the core as much as we can.”
    Derek nodded and sent Number Five to the area where they had found the pumps earlier. They were all still working, although the pressure gauges continued to show high levels of pressure inside the core. “It’s not cooling down