Quam glanced at Monitor Clothilde Kwai Kwich, who was inspecting the fittings of the flyer with distaste, and apparently whispering to herself. "I don't know if I want to hear," he muttered.
The girl said aloud, without looking at him, "What you want makes little difference, Monitor Quamodian. There will no doubt be times when the other citizens will have inquiries to direct to you, or instructions. I do not wish to be distracted by relaying messages, therefore equip yourself with proper hearing facilities."
Andy Quam grumbled, but accepted the tiny earpiece the flyer offered him on an effector. ". . . flimsy old wreck," a shrill voice was piping in his ear as he put it on. "We will follow, but kindly move as rapidly as you can." The voice had an odd humming, almost echoing quality, as though a well-trained chorus were speaking in almost perfect unison. Quamodian guessed it was the multiple citizen of green spirals.
He disregarded them, quickly inspected his flyer. Its homeostatic devices had repaired the damage, restored the racks of flares. Not that they would be needed, he hoped. Or would be of any use if they were. But they were better than nothing.
"We're all set," he announced. "I guess."
Monitor Kwai Kwich said, with offensive patience, "Then can we not begin?"
Quamodian hunched grimly over the controls and ordered the flyer into the air. The sun was in his eyes as they spun and rose. Nearly doubled in diameter, its red disk was now so dull that his naked eyes could watch it without discomfort. Dark splotches marred it. He thought of saying something to the girl, but decided against it—although she, a stranger here, might not realize there was anything odd about its appearance. Let her find out, he thought. It didn't matter anyway. All that mattered was that he now had help—a kind of help—against the rogue.
They arrowed south across the narrow lake and the first dark foothills, the multiple green citizen and the pinkly glowing cloud following effortlessly behind. The predator citizen with the enormous fangs lolled silently on the padded seats behind Andy Quam and the girl, while Rufe sat on the floor beneath it, looking apprehensively at its teeth. There was a continuing buzz of conversation on the transcience bands coming through his earpiece, but Quamodian disregarded it. He was not interested in their opinions of his flyer, himself, or the planet that had spawned humanity. All he wanted from them was their help.
It was dark as they reached the hill that held the cave; the sun was still some distance above the horizon, but its dulled rays gave only a looming twilight in the sky, very little on the ground about the cave mouth. He circled the dark mouth of the cave, searching for the sleeth or any hostile thing. There was nothing. All the landscape held that ominous tinge of red, but nothing moved on it.
Flying warily, he approached the rubble of the demolished door.
"Deserted," sang the tiny chorus of the grass-green spirals. "We detect nothing. Another entrance exists lower down."
Senior Monitor Clothilde Kwai Kwich glanced hesitantly at Andy Quam. "There is a good deal of destruction here," she admitted.
"I told you!"
"Yes. Perhaps there has been an error."
"Lower down!" chanted the spirals. "Other indications! Worth investigating!" And the soft whisper of the cottony pink cloud citizen sighed:
"Forces have been deployed in the lower area of considerable magnitude. Forces still exist in being of unusual characteristics."
Senior Monitor Kwai Kwich said, almost apologetically, "We should investigate."
"Right," rasped Quamodian, and sent the flyer spinning down around the mountain, searching for the lower entrance. The pink cloud citizen was there before him, hovering like a puff of steam at the spout of a kettle before the tunnel mouth.
"You lead," it sighed. "Dispersed matter like myself may be vulnerable."
But Quamodian had not waited for permission. He thrust the flyer into the tight throat of the tunnel, probing with its searchlights for the sleeth, for Molly Zaldivar, for any trace. All he found was the tightening spiral passage itself, lined with evidences of destruction. "Forces of great magnitude," chanted the spirals, whirling about a burst wall, a ripped stanchion. "Evidence of transflection energies. Evidence of plasma activity."
Rufe, forgetting his fear of the long-toothed citizen behind him, stood leaning over Quamodian's shoulder. "Gee, preacher," he whispered, thrilled. "Look at that! Something really racked this place up!"
There was no doubt about that. Staring about as the flyer slid smoothly forward on its transflection fields, Quamodian saw that what had happened in this tiny enclosed space had involved more than merely chemical energies. For the first time he really understood what was meant by a "rogue star"; tiny though the creature had been, less than a gram in weight at first, it had commanded forces capable of thrusting steel and rock out of its way like tissue.
The long-snouted predator citizen lifted its muzzle and howled a sentence; the translator in Quamodian's ear rendered it as: "Be careful! Monitor Kwai Kwich, should we not report to Almalik before going on?"
The girl bit her lip, was about to speak; but Quamodian overrode her. "No!" he rasped. "You have waited too long already. Molly Zaldivar may be dying—may even be—" he did not finish the sentence.
Then they were at the center of the spiral. Quamodian glanced down, swallowed, looked at the girl—then tipped the flyer down into the central shaft.
Cautiously they dropped down the shaft, Quamodian's flyer first, the multiple grass-green citizen second, the pink cloud hovering timorously behind. Below them a misty, opalescent disk of pale light expanded slowly into a sphere, and they entered the great round chamber below the hill.
"Astonishing," breathed Clothilde Kwai Kwich.
The tardy cloud citizen sighed fearfully: "The energies are considerable! I am reluctant to come closer."
"Stay, then," grunted Quamodian, staring about. "I wonder—what is it? Do you have any information?"
The girl shook her head. "Some ancient military installation, I suppose. Perhaps from the days of the Plan of Man. The records no longer exist for much of that period. But that fusion fire!" She pointed at the cloud of opal mist that hung above the high steel platform. "What a source of energy! I almost believe that you are right, Monitor Quamodian. With power like that one might really attempt to create a star!"
Andy Quam chuckled sourly, but did not answer. Hands sweating on the flare controls, he dived to a foot or less above the water-stained floor of the sphere. The ripped and flattened orange-painted cab, the dismembered motor and tracks of the handling machine gave him an unpleasant start; something had thrown them about in rage, it seemed. And there were other fragments there among the torn and broken metal bits. A primitive white-painted food refrigerator? Quam did not recognize it at first, did not understand its purpose even then—but finally shook with the realization of what it meant: Molly Zaldivar had been here. The food could have been for no one but her.
But it too had been dropped or flung; the door was twisted ajar, small packets of food were sprinkled across the wreckage. And beyond them, what was that crushed black shape that lay athwart the grating that attempted to carry seepage away?
Clothilde Kwai Kwich recognized it first: "A robot inspector!" she gasped. "Then—then it's all true!"
Rufe said complainingly, "True? Gosh, Miss Kwai Kwich, what've we been telling you all along? Of course it's true!"
It was too late for Andy Quam to feel triumph. He hardly heard the exchange. Eyes narrowed, thoughtful, he was darting the flyer's beams into every section of the vast sphere. There was nothing else to be seen. The wreckage on the floor, the spidery steel tower and its ominously glittering mist of fusion energy, the water-stained walls themselves. Nothing more.