"Hardly," the new robot replied, with as much of an ironic inflection as a robot voice could muster. "The Duke waits for you within. Come."
Fingering the keen knife at his side, Kesley entered the Ducal chambers.
XV
The Antarctican Duke lived well, Kesley thought. His private apartments were sprawling, luxurious, with more than one strange echo of Miguel's room. For one, a wall of paintings looked down—but they were not oil works such as Miguel had, but paintings done in some curiously realistic technique that hardly seemed to involve brushwork at all. They were more frozen images of life than paintings, he thought.
In the distance he could see television screens, reminding him of the closed-circuit battery taking up one wall of Miguel's study. The robot led him on, gliding him from room to room.
"This is the Duke's room," the robot said finally. "You may go in."
Kesley approached the dark, paneled-wood door. It swung open without his touching it.
A man stood there, dressed in the customary Antarctican costume, smiling, his arms folded. Kesley's eyes flickered in surprise; then he crossed the threshold.
"Van Alen," he said.