Barch growled, "You don't seem to worry much about your life expectancy."
Tick made a chattering sound with his teeth. "A Splang Coaster defies death. The exact hour of his passing is chronicled at his birth in the beach sand. No act of God, Klau or man can mar the chart of his life."
"A good comfortable philosophy," said Barch without interest. He looked into the locator again. "I suppose every Klau on Magarak knows where the barge is by now?"
"Possibly, possibly not," said Tick. He pursed his lips thoughtfully. "It depends a great deal on how rapidly the lack of explosive at the quarry will be reported to the coordinator."
"And what's the coordinator?"
Tick said with an air of complete candor, "I don't know."
"What do you think it is?" asked Barch patiently.
"I assume it to be a mechanical brain, that notes and integrates apparently unrelated occurrences, calculates the most likely causes of effects and effects of causes."
"Oh," Barch nodded. "A kind of mechanical super-detective." He turned back to the locator. "Can this thing be detached? I'd like to take it down to the hall."
"Certainly, indeed." Tick sprang to the locator, snapped loose a pair of clips.
"I'll take it," said Barch. He motioned to the cave floor. "After you."
Tick jumped nimbly to the ground, started toward the passage down to the hall.
Barch said in a casual voice, "What's the hurry?"
Tick stopped short, turned Barch a quick smile. "None whatever."
Barch climbed to the floor with the locator under one arm, and ostentatiously hitched at the weapon in his belt. "Now we'll go down."
CHAPTER VIII
In the hall Barch set the locator on the table, went to look out into the night. Arn and Ardl, lounging close together, sprang apart with a guilty start. "Damn it," cried Barch, "if you can't stop love-making or whatever you call it long enough to stand watch, I'll strip you naked and then there'll be an end to this foolishness."
Ardl went smartly on his rounds. Barch turned to Arn. "Don't let that Splang pilot get past you."
"No, Roy."
Barch looked up into the sky. Suppose the position of the barge had been noted. If so, a barge-load of Podruod troops might drop down at any minute. He shrugged. If they came, they came.
Back in the hall, Tick was seated on the table, a hand placed proprietarily on the locator. "Many pilots fly dead; they set the cell, they sleep. Not I. I look at my locator"- he patted the box-"and I fly with my hands." He held up his hands. The fingers ended in knobs, like a tree toad's.
Barch saw Chevrr sitting in a corner scornfully. He crossed the room, squatted beside him. "Are all his race like him?"
Chevrr nodded dourly. "We stay in the mountains to avoid them. They breed twins once a year, they swarm in the trees, they are worthless except as acrobats and prostitutes."
"But how can I control him?"
"Kill him."
Barch grimaced. "I find killing hard to get used to. Besides he is the only one who can fly that barge."
The folds of Chevrr's gloomy face went through an amazing process of opening, smoothing, widening. Chevrr was smiling. "He wears a lucky charm; all coast-folk do. It is his birth sac, with the diagram of his beach sands. You will find it inside a leech which sucks at his belly. Take this charm and you are his master."
"Ah," said Barch.
"Be careful. If he knows what you plan, he becomes a demon, a giant. No one in the room could hold him."
Barch stood up, went to Kerbol, spoke briefly, passed on to Flatface, then to Moranko.
Barch went to the table, moved the locator to the side of the room. Tick weighed no more than a hundred thirty pounds. He looked stringy and agile.
Kerbol and Flatface came up behind. Each seized an arm; Moranko grasped the spidery legs.
Tick looked up in sudden wonder. Barch stepped forward, pulled up the front of his yellow blouse.
Tick's eyes popped forward until more was out than in. He writhed his shoulders; Kerbol and Flatface were dragged half across the table. He tensed his legs; incredibly Moranko was jerked a foot from the floor.
There on the sweating writhing skin was a flat brown spot. Barch pulled it free with his fingernails. Two objects dropped to the stone floor of the cave: a metal locket and the leech which humped sluggishly toward the fire. Tick leaned down at the locket, his eyes protruded as if on stalks. He drew his arms forward; Flatface and Kerbol, panting and gasping, came across the table like pillows. Barch picked up the locket, snapped it open, drew out a wisp of membrane.
"Tick," said Barch, "sit still."
Tick's eyes receded into his head. Kerbol and Flatface gained their feet.
"Tick," said Barch, "will you behave?"
Tick sighed. "My life is no longer my own."
"Not one of us here owns his life. We're in this together; we'll leave Magarak together or we'll die together. Do you understand that?"
Tick made no answer. His eyes sought out Chevrr's, as if seeking sympathy.
Barch said, "Where I go, your charm goes. When we get free of Magarak, you'll have it back."
Tick said nothing.
Barch returned the locator to the table, looked in at the pulsing pastel landscape. "What are those transparent white squares?"
"I don't know," said Tick.
"What are the black lines?"
"Those are the underground belts."
"I see a bright orange spot with things like fish bones waving on top. How would I find out what place that is?"
Tick looked. "That's on the Ptrsfur Peninsula, Zcham District."
"How do you know?"
"The signs are on the strip at the top."
"And the orange block?"
Tick twisted a knob. A black dot moved across the panorama, centered on the orange block. Tick pointed to a line of glowing orange symbols on the cylinder at the side. "There you will read the function of the block."
Barch scrutinized the symbols. "Can you read them?"
"No."
Barch glanced around the room. "Ellen, can you read this?"
Indifferently she came to look. "The manufacture of padisks verktt."
"And what is that?"
" 'Padisks' is number nine in series ten-or eleven-of the artificial elements. Verktt are a kind of radiation valves."
Barch grunted. "Oh." He tentatively turned the dial again. "This thing should be a big help to us." He looked around. No one appeared to be excited. "It's a great piece of luck."
Flatface pressed his agate eyes against -the slit, twisted the dial. "Ah-there is the Purpurat, where I wound bobbins for five years."
Barch turned to Komeitk Lelianr. "Tick told me about a Magarak coordinator-a calculating machine of some kind."
"Yes," said Komeitk Lelianr. "A manufacturing world is coordinated by what is called a 'brain'-a scheduling machine, which keeps the elements of the world running efficiently."
She twisted the locator dial, reading the characters. Barch watched a moment. "Ellen, it looks like you've got yourself a job."
She nodded in agreement. Barch glanced around the table. Eyes were on him; eyes black, blue, white, red, slate-green. He said hesitantly to the hall at large, "We might as well talk this project over."