She picked up the discarded piece of driftwood and handed it to him for inspection.
"Algae, yes," he said.
"Algy?"
"Algae. The technical term for seaweed."
"Oh. Algy." Little Miss laughed and put the bit of driftwood down near the beginning of the trail, so she would remember to take it with her when they went up to the house again. Then she rampaged off down the beach again, following her older sister through the foamy fringes of the surf.
Andrew kept pace with them without difficulty. He did not intend to let them get very far from him at any time.
He had needed no special orders from Sir to protect the girls while they were actually on the beach: the First Law took care of that. The ocean here was not only wild-looking but exceedingly dangerous: the currents were strong and unpredictable, the water was intolerably cold at almost any time of the year, and the great rocky fangs of a deadly reef rose from the swirling breakers less than fifty meters offshore. If Miss or Little Miss should make the slightest move to enter the sea, Andrew would be beside them in an instant.
But they had more sense than to want to go swimming in this impossible ocean. The shore along this part of the Pacific coast was a beautiful thing to behold in its harsh, bleak way, but the sea itself, forever angry and turbulent, was the enemy of those who were not bred for it, and even a small child could see that at a glance.
Miss and Little Miss were wading in the tide pools now, peering at the dark periwinkles and gray-green limpets and pink-and-purple anemones and the myriad little scuttling hermit crabs, and searching-as they always did, rarely with much luck-for a starfish. Andrew stood nearby, poised and ready in the event that a sudden wave should rise without warning nearby and sweep toward shore. The sea was quiet today, as quiet as that savage body of water ever got, but perilous waves were apt to come out of nowhere at any time.
Miss said suddenly, "Andrew, do you know how to swim?"
"I could do it if it were necessary, Miss."
"It wouldn't short-circuit your brain, or anything? If water got in, I mean?"
"I am very well insulated," Andrew told her.
"Good. Swim out to that gray rock and back, then. The ones where the cormorants are nesting. I want to see how fast you can do it."
"Melissa-" said Little Miss uneasily.
"Shh, Amanda. I want Andrew to go out there. Maybe he can find some cormorant eggs and bring them back to show us."
"It would not be good to disturb the nest, Miss, " said Andrew gently.
"I said I wanted you to go out there."
"Melissa-" Little Miss said again, more sharply.
But Miss was insistent. It was an order. Andrew felt the preliminary signs of contradictory potentials building up: a faint trembling in his fingertips, a barely perceptible sense of vertigo. Orders were to be obeyed: that was the Second Law. Miss could order him to swim to China this minute, and Andrew would do it without hesitation if no other considerations were involved. But he was here to protect the girls. What would happen if something unexpected befell them while he was out by the cormorant rock? A sudden menacing wave, a rockslide, even an earthquake-earthquakes weren't everyday occurrences here, but they certainly could happen at any time
It was a pure First Law issue.
"I am sorry, Miss. With no adults here to guard you, I am unable to leave you unattended long enough to swim to that rock and back. If Sir or Ma'am were present, that would be a different matter, but as it is-"
"Don't you recognize an order when you hear one? I want you to swim out there, Andrew."
"As I have explained, Miss-"
"You don't have to worry about us. It's not as though I'm a child, Andrew. What do you think, that some sort of terrible ogre is going to come down the beach and gobble us up while you're in the water? I can look after myself, thank you, and I'll take care of Amanda too if I have to."
Little Miss said, "You aren't being fair to him, Melissa. He's got his orders from Daddy."
"And now he has his orders from me." Miss gestured peremptorily. "Swim out to the cormorant rock, Andrew. Go ahead. Now, Andrew."
Andrew felt himself growing a little warm, and ordered his circuitry to make the necessary homeostatic correction.
"The First Law-" he began.
"What a bore you are! You and your First Law both!" cried Melissa. "Can't you forget the First Law once in a while? But no, no, you can't do that, can you? You've got those silly laws wired into you and there's no getting around them. You're nothing but a dumb machine."
"Melissa!" Little Miss said indignantly.
"Yes, that is true," said Andrew. "As you correctly state, I am nothing but a dumb machine. And therefore I have no ability to countermand your father's order concerning your safety on the beach." He bowed slightly in Melissa's direction. "I deeply regret this, Miss."
Little Miss said, "If you want to see Andrew swim so much, Melissa, why don't you just have him wade into the surf and do some swimming right close to shore? There wouldn't be any harm in that, would there?"
"It wouldn't be the same thing," Miss said, pouting. "Not at all."
But, Andrew reflected, perhaps that would satisfy her. He disliked being the focus of so much disharmony.
"Let me show you," he said.
He waded in. The heavy foam-flecked surf thundered up violently around his knees, but Andrew was able easily to adjust his gyroscopic stabilizers as the force of the breaking waves assailed him. The rough, sharp rocks that were scattered allover the sea floor meant nothing to his metallic treads. His sensors told him that the temperature of the water was well below human comfort tolerance, but that, too, was irrelevant to him.