The cones had gone out and watched the survey party and had not let it get close to them, but they had been ready for us when we came. They’d disguised the cones to look like something that we wouldn’t be afraid of, something perhaps that we could even laugh at it. And that was the safest kind of disguise that anyone could assume – something that the victim might think was mildly funny. For no one gets too upset about what a clown might do.
But the Shadows had been loaded and they’d let us have it and apparently, by the time we woke up, they had us pegged and labeled.
And what would they do now? Still stay behind their log, still keep watching us, and suck us dry of everything that we had to offer?
And when they were ready, when they’d gotten all they wanted or all they felt that they could get, they’d come out and finish us.
I was somewhat scared and angry and felt considerably like a fool and it was frustrating just to think about.
Mack might kid himself that he had solved the problem with his flytrap out there, but there was still a job to do. Somehow or other, we had to track down these hiding aliens and break up their little game.
Somewhere along the way, I went to sleep, and suddenly someone was shaking me and yelling for me to get out.
I came half upright and saw that it was Carr who had been shaking me. He was practically gibbering. He kept pointing outside and babbling something about a funny cloud and I couldn’t get much more out of him.
So I shucked into my trousers and my shoes and went out with him and headed for the hilltop at a run. Dawn was just breaking and the Shadows still were clustered around the flytrap and a crowd of men had gathered just beyond the flytrap and were looking toward the east.
We pushed our way through the crowd up to the front and there was the cloud that Carr had been jabbering about, but it was a good deal closer now and was sailing across the plains, slowly and majestically, and flying above it was a little silver sphere that flashed and glittered in the first rays of the sun.
The cloud looked, more than anything, like a mass of junk. I could see what looked like a derrick sticking out of it and here and there what seemed to be a wheel. I tried to figure out what it might be, but I couldn’t, and all the time it was moving closer to us.
Mack was at my left and I spoke to him, but he didn’t answer me. He was just like Benny – he couldn’t answer me. He looked hypnotized.
The closer that cloud came, the more fantastic it was and the more unbelievable. For there was no question now that it was a mass of machinery, just like the equipment we had. There were tractors and earthmovers and shovels and dozers and all the other stuff, and in between these bigger pieces was all sorts of little stuff.
In another five minutes, it was hovering almost over us and then slowly it began to lower. While we watched, it came down to the ground, gently, almost without a bump, even though there were a couple or three acres of it. Besides the big equipment, there were tents and cups and spoons and tables and chairs and benches and a case or two of whisky and some surveying equipment – there was, it seemed to me, almost exactly all the items there were in the camp.
When it had all sat down, the little silver sphere came down, too, and floated slowly toward us. It stopped a little way away from us and Mack walked out toward it and I followed Mack. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw that Carr and Knight were walking forward, too.
We stopped four or five feet from it and now we saw that the sphere was some sort of protective suit. Inside it sat a pale little humanoid. Not human, but at least with two legs and arms and a single head. He had antennae sprouting from his forehead and his ears were long and pointed and he had no hair at all.
He let the sphere set down on the ground and we got a little closer and squatted down so we would be on a level with him.
He jerked a thumb backward over his shoulder, pointing at the mass of equipment he’d brought.
“Is pay.” he announced in a shrill, high, piping voice.
We didn’t answer right away. We did some gulping first.
“Is pay for what?” Knight finally managed to ask him.
“For fun,” the creature said.
“I don’t understand,” said Mack.
“We make one of everything. We not know what you want, so we make one of all. Unfortunate, two lots are missing. Accident, perhaps.”
“The models,” I said to the others. “That’s what he’s talking about. The models were patterns and the models from Greasy’s Shadow and from Benny –”
“Not all,” the creature said. “The rest be right along.”
“Now wait a minute,” said Carr. “Let us get this straight. You are paying us. Paying us for what? Exactly what did we do for you?”
Mack blurted out: “How did you make this stuff?”
“One question at a time,” I pleaded.
“Machines can make,” the creature said. “Knowing how, machines can make anything. Very good machines.”
“But why?” asked Carr again. “Why did you make it for us?”
“For fun,” the creature explained patiently. “For laugh. For watch. Is a big word I cannot –”
“Entertainment?” I offered.
“That is right,” the creature said. “Entertainment is the word. We have lot of time for entertainment. We stay home, watch our entertainment screen. We get tired of it. We seek for something new. You something new. Give us much interesting. We try to pay you for it.”
“Good Lord!” exclaimed Knight. “I begin to get it now. We were a big news event and so they sent out all those cones to cover us. Mack, did you saw into that cone last night?”
“We did,” said Mack. “As near as we could figure, it was a TV sender. Not like ours, of course – there would be differences. But we figured it for a data-sending rig,”
I turned back to the alien in his shiny sphere. “Listen carefully,” I said. “Let’s get down to business. You are willing to keep on paying if we provide you entertainment?”
“Gladly,” said the creature. “You keep us entertained, we give you what you want.”
“Instead of one of everything, you will make us many of one thing?”
“You show it to us,” the creature said. “You let us know how many.”
“Steel?” asked Mack. “You can make us steel?”
“No recognize this steel. Show us. How made, how big, how shaped. We make.”
“If we keep you entertained?”
“That right.” the creature said.
“Deal?” I asked.
“Deal,” the creature said.
“From now on? No stopping?”
“As long as you keep us happy.”
“That may take some doing,” Mack told me.
“No, it won’t,” I said.
“You’re crazy!” Mack yelped. “They’ll never let us have them!”
“Yes, they will,” I answered. “Earth will do anything to cinch this planet. And don’t you see, with this sort of swap, we’ll beat the cost. All Earth has to do is send out one sample of everything we need. One sample will do the trick. One I-beam and they’ll make a million of them. It’s the best deal Earth has ever made.”
“We do our part,” the creature assured us happily. “Long as you do yours.”
“I’ll get that order right off now,” I said to Mack. “I’ll write it up and have Jack send it out.”
I stood up and headed back toward camp.
“Rest of it,” the creature said, motioning over his shoulder.
I swung around and looked.
There was another mass of stuff coming in, keeping fairly low. And this time it was men – a solid press of men.