Brady swallowed and nodded. He watched the lab Director turn and walk away.
I wonder if I did the right thing? Brady thought, giving Nuel the wrong modules for fixing the return mechanism.
Oh, he’ll figure it out eventually and fix them up. All he has to do is swap the right chips around. I made it look like a factory error so they’ll never trace it to me—though he’ll probably suspect.
By the time he’s fixed the modules, I’ll have had time to work on Flaster. And Nuel’s stock won’t be so high when the delay stretches into weeks, whatever his excuse!
Brady felt a little guilty about the stunt, It was kind of a nasty trick to play. But all indications showed that Flasteria was a pretty tame place. The robots hadn’t seen any big animals, and anyway, Nuel was always talking about what a champion Boy Scout he had been. Let him camp out in the wild for a while, then!
Maybe he’d even figure out what had been happening to the robots, too… that strange alteration in their efficiency profiles.
Oh, Nuel would come back in lather, all right. But by then he, Brady, would have had a chance to win his way back into the Director’s good graces. He knew, by now, what buttons to push.
Brady looked at his watch. Gabriella had made a luncheon date with him, and he didn’t want to be late.
He straightened his tie and hurried out of the lab. Soon he was whistling.
5
“Which law? you sonova—” Dennis pounded on the door.
He stopped. It was useless. By now the sending probe had activated. He was already on the anomaly world—already on...
Dennis stared at the blank door. He felt behind himself and sat heavily on one of the crates. Then, as his situation soaked in, he suddenly found himself beginning to laugh! He couldn’t stop. His eyes filled as he gave in to the giddy feeling.
No one had ever been as cut off as he was, cast from Earth to a faraway world.
People might read about adventures in faraway places, but the truth was that most, at the first hint of anything truly dangerous, would dig a hole and cry out for Mother.
As an initial reaction, then, perhaps laughter wasn’t bad. At least he Felt more relaxed afterward.
From a crate nearby, the pixolet watched, apparently fascinated.
I’m going to have to come up with a new name for this place, Dennis thought as he wiped his eyes. Flasteria just won’t do.
The initial crisis of isolation had passed. He was able to look to his left, to the other door, the only one that would now open—onto another world.
Brady’s talk of a “different set of physical laws” continued to bother Dennis. Brady had probably just been trying to get to him. Even if he was telling the truth, it would have to be something pretty subtle, since biological processes were so compatible on both worlds.
Dennis remembered a science-fiction story he had once read in which a minute change in electrical conductivity resulted in a tenfold increase in human intelligence. Could it be something like that?
Dennis sighed. He didn’t feel any smarter. The fact that he couldn’t remember the story’s title sort of refuted that possibility.
The pixolet glided from its perch to land on his lap. It purred, looking up at him with emerald eyes.
“Now I’m the alien,” Dennis said. He picked up the little native. “How about it, Pix? Am I welcome? Want to show me around your place?”
Pix squeaked. It sounded eager to be off.
“Okay,” Dennis said. “Let’s go.”
He strapped on his tool belt, with the needlegun bolstered to one side. Then, taking an appropriate “explorerlike” stance, he pulled the lever to unlock the far door. There was a hiss of equalizing pressure, and his ears popped briefly. Then the hatch swung open to let in the sunshine of another world.
2. Cogito, Ergo Tutti Fruitti
1
The airlock rested on a gentle slope of dry, yellow grass. The meadow fell away toward a green-rimmed watercourse a quarter mile away. Beyond the stream, rows of long, narrow hills rose toward whitecapped mountains. Swards of yellow interspersed unevenly with carpets of varitone green.
Trees.
Yes, they looked like real trees, and the sky was blue. White cirrus clouds laced across the almost cyan vault overhead.
For a long moment it was eerily, unnaturally quiet. He realized he had been holding his breath since opening the door. It made him feel lightheaded.
Inhaling, he tasted the crisp, clean air. The breeze brought sounds of brushing grass and creaking branches. It also brought odors… the unmistakable mustiness of chlorophyll and humus, of dry grass and what smelled like oak.
Dennis stood in the airlock’s combing and looked at the trees. They sure looked like oak. The countryside reminded him of northern California.
Could this place actually be Earth? Dennis wondered. Had the ziev effect played another trick on them all and given them teleportation rather than an interstellar drive?
It would be amusing to hitchhike to a pay phone and call Flaster with the news. Collect, of course.
Dennis felt a sharp stab as tiny claws bit into his shoulder. The pixolet’s wing membranes snapped wide with a sound like a shot, and the creature soared off over the meadow, toward the line of trees.
“Hey… Pix! Where are you…”
Dennis’s voice caught in his throat as he realized this couldn’t be Earth. This was where Pix came from.
He began noticing little things—the shape of the leaves of grass, a huge, fernlike plant by the riverside, a feeling in the air.
Dennis made sure his bolstered sidearm was unencumbered, and his boot cuffs well covered by his gaiters. The dry grass crunched beneath his feet as he stepped out. Tiny, whining insect sounds filled the air.
“Pix!” he called, but the little creature had flown from sight.
Dennis moved cautiously, all senses alert. He guessed the first few moments on an alien world could be the most dangerous of all.
Trying to watch the sky, the forest, and the nearby insects all at once, he didn’t even notice the squat little robot until he tripped over it and fell sprawling to the ground.
Dennis instinctively rolled away into a crouch, the needler suddenly in his hand, his pulse pounding in his ears.
He sighed as he recognized the little Sahara Tech exploration drone.
The ’bot’s cameras tracked him with a barely discernible whir. Its observing turret slowly turned. Dennis lowered the needler. “Come here,” he commanded.
The robot seemed to consider the order for a moment. Then it approached on spinning treads to halt a meter away.
“What have you got there?” Dennis pointed.
The robot held something in one of its manipulator grips. It was a shiny bit of metal, with a clawed pincer at one end.
“Isn’t that a piece of another robot?” Dennis asked, hoping he was wrong.
Compared with some of the sophisticated machines Dennis had worked with, the exploration ’bot wasn’t very bright. But it understood a basic vocabulary. A green light on its turret flashed, indicating assent.
“Where did you get it?”
The little machine paused, then swiveled and pointed with one of its other sampling arms.
Dennis got up and looked, but he saw nothing in that direction. He moved cautiously through the tall grass until, at last, he came to a flat area partly hidden by the weeds. There he stopped and stared.