"Creating rogue life is everyone's business," cried Quamodian.
"But that was not my doing," the big man declared. His scarred face was angry. "Miss Zaldivar is a lovely child. I meant no harm for her. But she had no business trespassing."
"What about Cliff Hawk?"
Under the ragged beard, his mouth set hard. "I brought his mother back from the reefs. He was almost a son to me—but I take no blame for what he has done. Except that I let him go to school, but that wasn't my intention. I wanted him to be another hunter, like me. When he was grown, I planned to take him back to the reefs, find a cub sleeth for him, let him do as I did. But he had to cross the creek. He went to Star-day school. He got queer ideas from the robots and the Visitants. Finally he had to go away to space to learn to be what you call a transcience engineer . . ."
"There was nothing wrong with that," declared Quamodian. "I was at the same school. He was a decent human being then."
The Reefer shrugged; then, flinching, touched his arm where it was bandaged. "No matter," he rumbled moodily. "He's paid for it now. He's dead. Or so I think."
"What do you mean, you think?" demanded Quamodian. "Is he dead or isn't he?"
The Reefer's deep-set eyes peered at him from under the bushy yellow brows. "He wasn't breathing," he said shortly. "Does that answer your question?"
"Doesn't it?"
The Reefer said helplessly, "I don't know, Monitor, and that's the truth. Oh, Cliff was in bad shape, all right. I didn't give him much chance of lasting more than an hour—less, because we couldn't move him and the fire was coming close. But. . ."
He hesitated. "Boy," he growled, "have you got anything to drink in this place?"
"Just milk. Or water. Or maybe I could make a cup of tea. . ."
The Reefer pursed his lips, shook his head gloomily.
"Go on!" ordered Quamodian.
The Reefer half closed his eyes. "Cliff had been at work in his transcience lab," he droned, apparently bored with the subject. "I knew what he was doing was dangerous, but he's a man grown now. Was. I didn't want to interfere. Then something happened."
The Reefer shifted position, thoughtfully scratched his bushy yellow head. The thick fingers raked through the blond tangles like gangplows through soil, methodically, deeply, mechanically. He said, "It was an explosion. Down below, in the old cryomagnetic and radiation galleries that used to be part of the Plan of Man's military installations. Things the Visitants had failed to destroy. That was the part that I knew was dangerous. Then, while we were putting ourselves together, Molly Zaldivar showed up, crying and threatening Cliff; she'd been scared by my sleeth, so I guess she wasn't accountable. But that was just the beginning. There was a real blowup then. Don't know where. Something winged me—a stray piece of metal, I guess, and I was knocked out for a while."
"I was watching from Wisdom Creek," said Quamodian. "I saw a bolt of plasma strike from the sun, then two more. Is that what it was?"
"I guess." The Reefer scratched again stolidly. "Then I heard Cliff and the girl inside. I went to them. Tried to call my sleeth, but the creature was spooked, acted funny, didn't respond. It never did that before.
But there it was, inside the tunnel, trying to get Cliff uncovered. Only it was too late. He was dying. Then . .
The Reefer stood up straighter and stopped scratching. A look of real humanity came into his eyes as he said bleakly, "Cliff looked up at me. He said something—couldn't hear what, exactly. It didn't make sense. And he just stopped breathing."
The Reefer turned away, began roaming around the little room. "I don't mean he just died then, Monitor. I've seen men die; they make a little more fuss about it than that. But he just stopped. Like he was turned off. And I made sure he was dead, and then I grabbed Molly Zaldivar and got out of there. 'Bout an hour later, you showed up. That's it."
"Not quite," said Andy Quam sharply. "What was it that Cliff said before he died?"
The Reefer stopped, stared angrily at him. "Doesn't matter! It didn't make sense, anyway."
"What was it?"
The Reefer growled wordlessly. The thick fingers plowed into the scalp again, raked it furiously. Then he dropped his hand and said, "Oh, if you must know—it was something like, T made it—now it wants me.'"
Quam abruptly shivered, as though a cold blast had found the back of his neck. "What does it mean?" he demanded.
"Nothing! Nothing at all, Monitor! Or anyway—" the Reefer looked away, "nothing that I understand. T made it—now it wants me.' Does it mean anything to you?"
Quamodian paused before answering. "I—hope not," he whispered.
The rogue was no longer an infant. Neither was it full grown—call it a youth, becoming steadily larger, each moment finding itself stronger and more skilled than the moment before, feeding upon everything around it that offered energy or mass or patterns to be assimilated.
It had now assimilated a very large number of patterns, sipping at the assorted radiances that surrounded it, and in the process discovering that some were far—"tastier"?—than others. Engorging the identity that had once been Cliff Hawk had been a transcendentally new experience for it, and now it found itself equipped with a thousand new habit patterns, constructs of thought, programmatic drives. They no longer had any relationship to the hundred kilograms of carbon compounds that had been Cliff Hawk's physical body, for that was now an irrelevant blob of spoiled reactions. Hawk's "personality," even, was gone—nothing now remained in the universe that thought his thoughts, remembered his experiences, could recite his opinions. But something of his motives and desires remained as a moment of thrust inside the behavior of the young rogue, shaping the vector result that was its behavior. It was no longer entirely random. In some degree it had become polarized.
What were the other moments of force that played a part in the behavior of the infant rogue? Its own growing knowledge and skills. Its discoveries about the world it lived in. Its innate drive toward growth and mastery. Move. Grow. Eat, it had thought, as soon as it could think at all; but now, with the powerful discipline of Cliff Hawk's trained mind permeating its being, it thought more clearly and articulately; it had discovered the convenience of formulating its objectives in language.
I am small but I am growing, thought the maturing rogue star that had been born on-earth. There are other beings which are large but do not grow. I can be more powerful than they.
And already it had implemented its strength with a dozen organized masses of matter. The sleeth was now its mind-linked tool; it watched with the rogue's eyes, would act under the rogue's wishes. Tiny crawling and flying things, in the mountain, under the mountain and in the air above it, had all become a part of its extended being. And it had recruited something else.
For the robot inspector had challenged the curiosity of the rogue. It had not been difficult at all for the rogue to swallow it whole, to incorporate the mind analogue of the machine into its own consciousness. The robot still looked as it had, torpedo-shaped metal body and glowing plasma panel; but it was no longer its links with the supercomputers on the planets of the stars of Almalik that gave it its categorical imperatives, but the needs and intentions of the stripped electron plasma that had exploded under the hill.
The rogue toyed with and puzzled over, but did not yet understand that complex linkage of transflection fields which united this new part of its self with distant and more powerful beings. They did not matter at the moment. The distant entities were not powerful enough to resume control against the near and mighty presence of the rogue. And it had other considerations to occupy it.