Ridley nodded. He watched impassively as Phoebe turned off all inputs to the sealed nitrogen balloon that held the brain of the Morgan Construct, closed her suit, and followed him back to the main Dump control area. She was oddly gratified when she entered and saw the image of Luther Brachis on the communication display.
“Thank you, Captain Ridley.” And to Brachis, smugly, as he stared at the other man, “My assistant, Blaine Ridley. Are you all right?” She noticed that Brachis was not wearing his uniform, and one arm was bare and bandaged.
“Sure, I’m fine. Little incident in a restaurant.”
“In a restaurant! I’ve heard of bad service, Commander, but this is ridiculous.”
Apparently it was again not a day for joking, for Brachis went on as though he had not heard her, “I’ve been downed for a few days, and I finally had time to do some thinking. I know what’s been going on with M-26A.”
“You’re ahead of me. I’ve been getting nothing sensible. Either the Construct’s brain wasn’t working right before its body was destroyed on Cobweb Station, or the blow-up there was too much for it. It’s certainly crazy now.”
“It may seem crazy, but it’s quite logical. Do you have the complete record of your interactions with M-26A?”
“Not right here in front of me. But I have them all.”
“Then I want you to check them, every one, and see if the pattern that I noticed always holds. It’s quite simple. If you ask a question, you always get the same use-less response: More information must be provided before that question can be answered. But if you give a piece of information, and then ask a question, you get a real answer — it can be what you just fed in, or something different. But it’s just one answer. If you want information — even if it’s no more than a repeat of an answer that you just received — you have to provide a piece of information. One question, one answer. No exceptions.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“Neither did I. But it works for every case. You can go back and try it, feed in anything you like, then ask any question you like. I don’t know if you’ll get the answers you want, but I’ll bet you get something. Hold on now!”
Phoebe was moving away from the camera, obviously itching to get back to test the idea that Brachis had been proposing.
“What else?”
“Assume that I’m right, and we have a way of genuine communication with M-26A. I want to know if it will let us build up a credit account. If we give it a hundred pieces of information one after another, will it then answer a hundred of our questions? If so, I want to feed it general background data about all the other members of the Stellar Group. Home worlds, history, physiology, psychology.”
“That will be a huge job.”
“I know. But M-26A is our only access point to Morgan Construct thinking processes and possible actions, and all the other Stellar Group species are going to be involved in the search. If the answers to my questions are to be useful, M-26A needs an adequate data base.”
“I’ll do my best. But I’m busy as hell. If you’re looking for quick results — ”
Phoebe Willard paused. Ridley had moved forward, to stand by her side. He was clutching at her arm. He stared at Luther Brachis, and the lop-sided jaw began moving.
“Brargas. Comder Brargas. Data. Data in to M-M — . I will — I want to — ” His eye rolled, and he made a supreme effort. “I want to help.”
Chapter 20
Mondrian awoke in a fetid, red-lit gloom to the sound of a low and ominous humming. He tensed as a tall figure loomed high overhead. As he recognized it, he slowly relaxed.
He knew where he was. He had been dreaming again; ghastly, terrifying dreams, but just what he had come to expect. The figure hovering over him was Skrynol, and the nightmare visions had been carefully designed and planted under Fropper supervision. Even the noise had a simple explanation. Skrynol was singing.
The Pipe-Rilla bent over Mondrian’s sweat-soaked body, peered at him with huge compound eyes, and hummed a three-toned phrase. The lights in the chamber promptly increased.
“For your benefit,” said Skrynol. She chittered strangely in Pipe-Rilla speech. “I did it so that you can admire my rare beauty.”
Mondrian took a handkerchief from his trouser pocket and wiped sweat from his forehead and bare chest. He had stripped to the waist at the beginning of the session, not for Skrynol’s benefit but his own. She was not fully comfortable at a temperature below human blood heat, and in the last few meetings the chamber had been made hotter and hotter.
“You seem in exuberant mood,” he said. “Can I assume that we have made progress?”
“Oh, yes, indeed.” The Pipe-Rilla bobbed her head back and forward in the gesture of assent she had learned from Mondrian. “Excellent progress. Excellent-excellent progress.”
“Enough to sing about?”
“Ahhh.” Skrynol raised her forelimbs and placed them on top of her head. “You embarrass me. A word is in order on my singing. Because we were doing so well, I extended the length of our session somewhat to pinpoint one result. As a result I took more of your blood than usual.”
“How much more?”
“Some more. Rather a lot, actually. But do not worry, I gave you replacement fluids. Mm-mm …” She bent over him, an enormous and deformed praying mantis inspecting its victim. There was a flutter of olfactory cilia, and a whistling sigh. “Mm-mm. Esro Mondrian, it is well that we Pipe-Rillas can so control our emotions and our actions. I had been warned before I came to Earth that human blood was a powerful stimulant and intoxicant to our metabolism — but no one could ever describe this feeling of exhilaration!”
She reached down with one soft flipper and drew it lovingly along Mondrian’s neck and naked chest. As she did so, long flexible needles peeped involuntarily out of their sheaths on each side of her third tarsal segment. They glistened orange in the bright white light. Fully extended, they would reach their hollow length more than nine feet in any direction. The official propaganda on the Pipe-Rillas described the aliens as “peaceable sap-sucking beings despite their formidable mandibles.”
Esro Mondrian stared uneasily at the needles. Sap-sucking? Perhaps — but only if the word could apply to the body juices of plants and animals.
The urge to flinch away from her touch was strong. He resisted it and sat upright on the velvet couch. “I know how you must feel. Some humans also experience exhilaration from blood. Myself, I draw excitement from other sources. Can we talk about the session now? Are you controlled enough to tell me what you have found?”
“Of course.” Skrynol, swaying like a sailing rig in a high sea, somehow reared her jointed body up another six feet. “We do not yet have a solution for your difficulties, but I think I can fairly say that at last we have defined the problem. I will begin with a question. You are Chief of Boundary Survey Security. Tell me, if you will, how you came to that position.”
“Through the usual route.” Mondrian was puzzled. “After I first left Earth I studied the other civilizations in the Stellar Group, and then took a job in commercial liaison with them. After that it was just a matter of hard work and steady promotion.”
“That is the way it may appear to you. But your physical response when certain subjects are mentioned makes one fact obvious: the rise to your present position was less circumstantial than you believe. You were driven to seek it. As I told you in our first meeting, your nightmares are no more than analogies. But we are past that level. Now we must ask, analogies for what?”