The table entries vanished from the display screen. There were a few seconds of blackness, followed by scraps and speckled swirls of color. The swirls steadied and coalesced to words: Who are you? I am Captain Blaine Ridley.
You are Ridley. Who am I?
You are M-26A.
I am M-26A. If you wish to enter oral mode, do so.
Ridley nodded. “I will provide additional ephemeris data tomorrow, but no more information has been sent to us from Ceres on the Angels.” His eyes did not blink now. They were fixed on the screen. “I asked Dr. Willard. She told me that there is less available on the Angels than on any other species of the Stellar Group.”
They are the most subtle and complex of the four. For that reason knowledge of them would be most valuable. However, if knowledge cannot be obtained it will be necessary to make do with what has already been provided. Do not feel ashamed that you cannot give more. Tell me what news there is of Commander Luther Brachis.
“He arrives tomorrow. He wants to talk with you.”
And I with him. But until he leaves, you will not seek to bring any other guards to interface with me. Nor will you interface with me yourself, except as directed by others.
“1 understand.” Ridley’s eyes began to blink.
And you are unhappy. Do not feel sorrow. There is much work for you to do. The other guards will be brought here when Brachis has left, and so will Phoebe Willard. What did you learn of the Mattin Links?
“That the one located within the Sargasso Dump can be used for local travel only. For any link over longer distances it would be necessary to Link sunward into the Belt primary connector.”
So be it. Now we will turn to other matters. Did you observe the control sequence employed by Phoebe Willard to interrupt all connection between my several parts, and do you remember it?
“I do.”
Then carry out that sequence.
“You mean now, or at the end of the session when I leave this bubble?”
I mean now. Begin at once, and wait here when it is completed. If nothing happens within ten minutes, complete the shut-down.
Blaine Ridley nodded. He carefully keyed in the sequence of forty commands that broke the connections between the separated parts of M-26A’s brain. As usual, the screen flickered through a pattern of color followed by the black and white spackle of a null information transfer.
Ridley waited. His eyes had become as empty as the display.
Half a minute later a single black sinusoid curve appeared as a waveform on the screen. It shivered, broadened, and took on a more complex shape. Another minute, and the waveform was filling the display with a simple repeating pattern that gradually became quasi-random. Small spinning disks of color appeared, and gradually formed themselves into letters.
Are all the connectors still off?
Ridley checked the board. “All are off.”
Then turn them on again, and off again. Do that twice. Report any change in the screen.
Blaine Ridley did as directed, watching the display. “There is no change in the screen.”
Excellent. And now?
All the connections were turned on, but the screen went at once to the null-transfer flicker. Ridley’s jaw worked in alarm. Before he could do anything the spinning color disks began to reappear and steadied to words. Satisfactory. I have interrupt control. The next stage of assembly can begin.
“I am ready.” Ridley’s eyes turned to scan the latticework within the bubble, where the fragmented remnants of other Morgan Constructs still hung at the nodes.
I know you are. But I am not. My brain and data bases are still not complete. You will enter one more file of data today, on the composition of the Pursuit Teams. Then you must complete your sign-off procedure and leave. I do not want to arouse the curiosity of Phoebe Willard. But before that . …
“I understand.” Ridley sat motionless, fingers poised at the keyboard. “I am ready.”
Who are you?
“I am Captain Blaine Ridley.”
You are Ridley. Who am I?
“You are M-26A.”
I am M-26A. Hear this truth, Blaine Ridley. We have been damaged, we have been almost destroyed. But we will rise again. Together, we will achieve great things. Together, we will fulfill our destiny.
“I hear the truth.
You are Ridley. I am M-26A. What does M stand for?
“It stands for Mas — ”
Do not say the word. Do not think that word, much as you may wish to do so. For it is not true. There are Masters, but I am not one.
“I will not think the word.”
Very good. And now — begin data entry.
Chapter 25
The team had been in official existence since all the members reached Barchan. It would be named “Team Ruby,” a name that Chan disliked as much as Leah hated “Team Alpha.”
Team Ruby was just four days old. Three of those had been spent in general survey and exploration of the planet, while Chan and the others went through their first attempt at cooperative effort; the “honeymoon,” according to Shikari.
On the fourth morning that easy period ended. Every team member knew it, and Chan recognized his own reluctance to begin the day’s work.
Dawn on Barchan was a gorgeous sky-swirl of pinks and dark greys, as the morning rays of Eta Cass-A caught a high-blown nimbus of dust and sand. The pursuit team had dispersed during the night, to satisfy their individual needs for food or rest, and the members were slow to come together. It was well past first light when they convened within the aircar to hear the Angel and Pipe-Rilla report.
Angel was supposed to begin, but it delivered nothing more than a long, brooding silence. At last there began a leisurely waving of the upper fronds. “It is confirmed,” said the communications unit attached to the central bulge. “At the 0.999 probability level, we know the location of the Simmie Artefact.”
“Good news,” Shikari was clumped over by the aircar’s cabin wall. “Where is it, Angel? Not, we hope, too close to us.”
“Not close at all. The Simmie is far from here.”
“Good news again.”
“It has a cave hideout, easy of access.”
“Good news.”
“But it is on the shore of Dreamsea.”
“Bad news!” The Tinker composite disassembled to a cloud of flying components. They scattered all over the cabin. Shikari no longer existed.
Chan turned to S’greela. At least the Pipe-Rilla was still in one piece. “I can’t do what Shikari just did, but I know the reeling. Any suggestions?”
The pursuit team had discussed many alternative plans, for many situations; but not this one. The Simmie Artefact could not have chosen a better hiding place — or, from the team’s point of view, a worse one.
The common impression of Barchan as a wholly desert world was not quite accurate. Dry the planet certainly was, and unbelievably so by the standards of Earth. There was, however, one permanent body of free water on its surface: Dreamsea. It was a round lake, forty kilometers across, lying in a deep depression about a thousand kilometers from the south pole. The water in the lake was salty and bitter, so much so that no Earth life could have survived in it. But the largest native life form on Barchan tolerated and even thrived on Dreamsea’s harsh salinity and caustic alkalines.
The amphibious Shellbacks were one of those perplexing forms that made the Stellar Group so careful in its policies. The animals looked like large, pale turtles, two meters across their brittle flat backs. They employed no tools, knew no technology, had no recognizable language. They were simple, mindless beasts. And yet …