"The thing's been plugged with foam anyway!" Flattery was unable to hide the angry irritation in his voice.
Prudence suddenly said, "John, I'm getting a demand drain on the computer. Is it something you're doing?"
"Nothing," Bickel said.
Flattery turned his head in the helmet. Bickel's voice had come in faintly as a pickup through Com-central. Action in the computer! Flattery forced himself to act calmly, removed a replacement sensor from his robox unit's parts compartment, checked it. The thing was about three inches in diameter, containing a warp-type thermal detector, standard vid-eye pickups like tiny jewels on its face, and three gridded ducts leading into the membrane of the audio unit.
Out of the corner of one eye, Flattery detected movement up the tube. He jerked upright, banged his head against the helmet liner, stared up toward Station Six.
A robox-R with its tool extensors clamped tightly to its sides was moving along the tape track toward him. The thing acted sick - speeding and slowing.
His first thought was that Prudence had traced the robox remote controls for a unit in this area and was maneuvering the thing from her board. The crudity of Com-central's controls over the robox series would account for the unit's erratic behavior.
"You bringing another robox in here, Prue?" Flattery asked.
"No, why?"
"There's another robox-R coming down on this station," he said.
As he watched, the thing lost the tape track, relocated it.
"There can't be! Nothing at all shows on my board."
The thing stopped across the sensor ring from Flattery. An auger extension jerked away from its side, reached toward the foam-plugged hole, withdrew.
"Who's controlling that thing?" Flattery demanded.
"Not from here," Prudence said. "And I can see both Tim and John. They're not controlling it."
"You still getting drain on the computer?" Flattery whispered.
"Yes."
"Is the... Ox active?" Flattery asked.
"Only the original circuits," Bickel said. "Through the AAT bypass. The new doubled units haven't been connected."
"There can't be another robox in that area," Prudence insisted. "We haven't put any of the damn things on automatic. There's nothing showing on my board. The remotes would take a day and a half at least to -"
"It's right in front of me," Flattery said.
He watched it, fascinated. A tool arm extended with an empty sensor socket, reached toward the foam-plugged hole, retreated. A claw arm came up next. It probed the foam, drew back with a swiftness that startled Flattery.
"What's it doing?" Prudence asked.
"I'm not sure. It seems to be looking over the damage. Its vid-eyes are turned toward the hole. It acts like it can't decide which tool to use."
"What can't decide?" That was Timberlake, his voice faint over the Com-central relay from the shop.
"Try fixing the sensor yourself," Bickel said.
Flattery swallowed in a dry throat. He lifted a feeler with a guide eye from the tool pouch on his own robox, probed into the foam plug looking for the leads from the conduit.
Instantly, a whiplike extension shot out of the other robox, trapped his arm, jerked it away. The pain in his arm where the thing had clamped on it was sharp and shocking. He dropped the tool, yelled.
"What's wrong?" Prudence demanded.
The whiplike extension slowly unwound, released his arm.
"The thing grabbed me," Flattery said. His voice was shaky with pain and surprise. "It used its circuit probe... grabbed my arm."
"It won't let you make the repair?" That was Bickel, his voice coming in loud over the helmet system, indicating he'd plugged into the command circuit from the shop.
"Doesn't look like it," Flattery said. And he wondered: Why doesn't one of us say what this thing has to be? Why're we avoiding the obvious?
With an abrupt sense of purpose, the other robox reached out a claw arm, lifted the replacement sensor from Flattery's left hand, matched sensor and socket. Another claw arm recovered the feeler guide, fitted it to the connections of its own circuit probe.
"What's it doing now?" Bickel asked.
"Making the repair itself," Flattery said.
The feeler came out of the hole pulling the leads.
"John, what's showing on your meters?" Prudence asked.
"A slight pulse from the servo banks," Bickel answered. "Very faint. It's like the cycling echo of a test pulse. Are you still showing current drain in there? I don't have it here."
"Drain from the mains into the computer. You should be registering it."
"Negative," Bickel said.
"It just fitted the new socket and sensor into the hole," Flattery said.
"It brought the correct spare parts?" Bickel asked.
"It took the sensor I brought," Flattery said.
"It just took it from you?" Prudence asked.
"That's right."
"Prue, that test pulse is stronger," Bickel said. "Are you sure nothing on your board is doing it?"
She scanned her console. "Nothing."
"Job's finished," Flattery said. "What's the big board show, Prue?"
"Sensor in service," she said. "I can see you... and it."
"Try touching that new sensor, Raj," Bickel said.
"The thing damn near took my arm out the last time I tried that," Flattery objected.
"Use a tool," Bickel said. "Something long. You've got a telescoping radiation probe there."
Flattery looked into his robox unit, removed the telescoping probe. He extended it to its limit, reached toward the sensor, touched it.
The whip-arm flashed out of the other robox. There came a jolting shock and Flattery stared wide-eyed at the stump of the probe in his hand. The severed end drifted upward along the tube, tumbling from the force of the blow.
"Keee-rist!" That was Timberlake, proving they had the shop's screen switched to this circuit and were watching.
Flattery swallowed, spoke in a muffled voice: "If that'd been my arm..."
He stared at the other robox. It sat there, quiescent, its vid-eyes pointed toward him.
We're playing with fire, Flattery thought. We don't know what's guiding that robox. It could be a repair program we've accidentally activated. It could be something the Tin Egg's designers built into the ship.
"You'd better get out of there, Raj," Prudence said.
"No, wait!" Bickel said. "Raj, don't move. You hear me?"
"I hear you," Flattery said. He stared at the robox, realizing the thing could cut him in half with one blow from that whipping circuit probe.
The sound of distant activity came through the helmet phones to Flattery.
"I should have the full computer showing here," Bickel said, "but I can't find that damn robox anywhere on my board. There's not even pulse resonance in any of the loops to hint at the source of control."
"I can't stay out here forever," Flattery whispered.
"What's showing on the meters, Prue?" Bickel asked.
"Still getting computer drain... and that pulse."
"Raj has been outside the shields for sixteen minutes," Timberlake said. "Prue, what's the radiation tolerance level for his area?"
She crossed the comparison lines against the time gauge on her main board scope, read the difference. "He should be back inside the shield lock within thirty-eight minutes."
Movement up the tube caught Flattery's attention. The end of the radiation probe. It had reached the top of its energy curve, was beginning to fall back down toward the grav-center in the core of the ship. As the severed end of the tool neared the other robox, the tip of one of its sensor arms - just the tip - turned to track the passage.