Interference, thought Sheridan. There had been someone here between the time the second expedition left and the third one had arrived.
“Gideon,” he said.
“What is it, Steve?”
“Go back to base and bring the transmog chest. Tell Hezekiah to get my tent and all the other stuff over here as soon as he is able. Call some of the boys off reconnaissance. We have work to do.”
There had been someone here, he thought—and most certainly there had. A very urbane creature who sat beneath a tree beside a spread-out picnic cloth, swigging at his jug and talking for three solid hours without saying anything at all!
The messenger from Central Trading brought his small ship down to one side of the village square, not far from where Sheridan’s tent was pitched. He slid back the visi-dome and climbed out of his seat.
He stood for a moment, shining in the sun, during which be straightened his SPECIAL COURIER badge, which had become askew upon his metal chest. Then he walked deliberately toward the barn, heading for Sheridan, who sat upon the ramp.
“You are Sheridan?” he asked.
Sheridan nodded, looking him over. He was a splendid thing.
“I had trouble finding you. Your base seems to be deserted.”
“We ran into some difficulty,” Sheridan said quietly.
“Not too serious, I trust. I see your cargo is untouched.”
“Let me put it this way—we haven’t been bored.”
“I see,” the robot said, disappointed that an explanation was not immediately forthcoming. “My name is Tobias and I have a message for you.”
“I’m listening.”
Sometimes, Sheridan told himself, these headquarters robots needed taking down a peg or two.
“It is a verbal message. I can assure you that I am thoroughly briefed. I can answer any questions you may wish to ask.”
“Please,” said Sheridan. “The message first.”
“Central Trading wishes to inform you that they have been offered the drug calenthropodensia in virtually unlimited supply by a firm which describes itself as Galactic Enterprises. We would like to know if you can shed any light upon the matter.”
“Galactic Enterprises,” said Sheridan. “I’ve never heard of them.”
“Neither has Central Trading. I don’t mind telling you that we’re considerably upset.”
“I should imagine you would be.”
Tobias squared his shoulders. “I have been instructed to point out to you that you were sent to Garson IV to obtain a cargo of podars, from which this drug is made, and that the assignment, in view of the preliminary work already done upon the planet, should not have been so difficult that—”
“Now, now,” cautioned Sheridan. “Let us keep our shirts on. If it will quiet your conscience any, you may consider for the record that I have accepted the bawling out you’re supposed to give me.”
“But you—”
“I assume,” said Sheridan, “that Galactic Enterprises is quoting a good stiff price on this drug of theirs.”
“It’s highway robbery. What Central Trading has sent me to find out—”
“Is whether I am going to bring in a cargo of podars. At the moment, I can’t tell you.”
“But I must take back my report!”
“Not right now, you aren’t. I won’t be able to make a report to you for several days at least. You’ll have to wait.”
“But my instructions are—”
“Suit yourself,” Sheridan said sharply. “Wait for it or go back without it. I don’t give a damn which you do.”
He got up from the ramp and walked into the barn.
The robots, he saw, had finally pried or otherwise dislodged the cap from the big machine and had it on the side on the driveway floor, tilted to reveal the innards of it.
“Steve,” said Abraham bitterly, “take a look at it.”
Sheridan took a look. The inside of the cap was a mass of fused metal.
“There were some working parts in there,” said Gideon, “but they have been destroyed.”
Sheridan scratched his head. “Deliberately? A self-destruction relay?”
Abraham nodded. “They apparently were all finished with it. If we hadn’t been here, I suppose they would have carted this machine and the rest of them back home, wherever that may be. But they couldn’t take a chance of one of them falling in our hands. So they pressed the button or whatever they had to do and the entire works went pouf.”
“But there are other machines. Apparently one in every barn.”
“Probably just the same as this,” said Lemuel, rising from his knees beside the cap.
“What’s your guess?” asked Sheridan.
“A matter transference machine, a teleporter, whatever you want to call it,” Abraham told him. “Not deduced, of course, from anything in the machine itself, but from the circumstances. Look at this barn. There’s not a podar in it. Those podars went somewhere. This picnicking friend of yours—”
“They call themselves,” said Sheridan, “Galactic Enterprises. A messenger just arrived. He says they offered Central Trading a deal on the podar drug.”
“And now Central Trading,” Abraham supplied, “enormously embarrassed and financially outraged, will pin the blame on us because we’ve delivered not a podar.”
“I have no doubt of it,” said Sheridan. “It all depends upon whether or not we can locate these native friends of ours.”
“I would think that most unlikely,” Gideon said. “Our reconnaissance showed all the villages empty throughout the entire planet. Do you suppose they might have left in these machines? If they’d transport podars, they’d probably transport people.”
“Perhaps,” said Lemuel, making a feeble joke, “everything that begins with the letter p.”
“What are the chances of finding how they work?” asked Sheridan. “This is something that Central could make a lot of use of.”
Abraham shook his head. “I can’t tell you, Steve. Out of all these machines on the planet, which amounts to one in every barn, there is a certain mathematical chance that we might find one that was not destroyed.”
“But even if we did,” said Gideon, “there is an excellent chance that it would immediately destroy itself if we tried to tamper with it.”
“And if we don’t find one that is not destroyed?”
“There is a chance,” Lemuel admitted. “All of them would not destroy themselves to the same degree, of course. Nor would the pattern of destruction always be the same. From, say, a thousand of them, you might be able to work out a good idea of what kind of machinery there was in the cone.”
“And say we could find out what kind of machinery was there?”
“That’s a hard one to answer, Steve,” Abraham said. “Even if we had one complete and functioning, I honestly don’t know if we could ferret out the principle to the point where we could duplicate it. You must remember that at no time has the human race come even close to something of this nature.”
It made a withering sort of sense to Sheridan. Seeing a totally unfamiliar device work, even having it blueprinted in exact detail, would convey nothing whatever if the theoretical basis was missing. It was, completely, and there was a great deal less available here than a blueprint or even working model.
“They used those machines to transport the podars,” he said, “and possibly to transport the people. And if that is true, it must be the people went voluntarily—we’d have known if there was force involved. Abe, can you tell me: Why would the people go?”