A third chain, longer than the first two, was produced. He felt the cool metal of it encircle his neck and heard the lock snap shut. The other end of it was locked around Virginia's neck.
The cell door was opened and the guard leader commanded, "Step forward. The robots will guide you."
They stepped forward, the robots beside them, gripping their arms with steel fingers. The chain around their necks rattled from the movement of walking, linking them together like a pair of captive wild animals. Bob wondered if the chain had been solely as another precaution to prevent their escape or if it had been a deliberate act of contempt. The Tharnarians feared them and, because they feared them, they hated them. Did it bolster the morale of the Tharnarians to deliberately treat them as though they were animals?
They stepped out into the cool dawn, into a small courtyard with a black stone wall at its farther side. The sky was bleakly gray and the rain was falling as a cold mist, dampening Virginia's face as she looked up at him.
"The last mile, Bob."
"Walk it straight and steady, Ginny. They're watching."
"How else would we walk it?" she asked calmly.
They came to the wall, where a metal ring had been set in the stone. There was a chain fastened to the ring and when the robots had swung them around with their backs to the wall, the free end of the chain was locked to the center of the chain around their necks.
Again, it could be an added precaution. Or it could be the final attempt to let their execution be like the killing of a pair of dangerous animals. It did not really matter, of course....
Two of the armed robots who had walked with the guards took up a position twenty feet in front of them, blasters in their metal hands. The robots who had chained them stepped to one side, away from the line of fire. The leader of the guards lifted his arm to look at his watch and said something to the robots. The robots lifted their blasters at the words and leveled them, one aimed at Virginia's heart and one at Bob's.