"I suppose so." Lescure nodded. "Though such thinking goes a little beyond our function."
"But why would the Machine want to explore them?" Ryeland frowned at him. "Is there something in the reefs which could threaten the security of the Plan?"
"Better not exceed our function," Lescure warned him. "I imagine the planets are pretty well protected from the life of space, by their atmospheres and their Van Allen belts. But of course there was the pyro-pod that rammed us—"
"Pyropod?"
For a second Ryeland was lying on his couch in the therapy room again, with the cold electrodes clamped on his body and Thrale's apologetic voice lisping out the words that had been senseless to him then, jetless drive . . . jusorian . . . pyropod.
Lescure's eyes had narrowed.
"Ryeland, you appear unduly agitated. I don't quite understand your reactions—unless you have heard this story before."
"I have not." That, at least, was true. The therapists had always been careful to tell him nothing at all about pyropods or fusorians or the reefs of space.
For another uncomfortable moment, Lescure stared.
"Relax, then." At last he smiled. "Forgive my question. I asked it because there was an unfortunate breach of security. One member of my crew jumped ship after our return. He had managed to steal unauthorized specimens and descriptions of the life of space. Of course he went to the Body Bank."
His eyes brushed Ryeland again, casually.
"I forget the fellow's name. Herrick? Horlick? Horrocks?"
Ryeland sat still, feeling numb.
Colonel Lescure waved carelessly, and the screen retracted, shutting itself off. "Drink?" he demanded. Ryeland shook his head, waiting.
Lescure sighed and poked through his plastic toys. "Here," he said suddenly.
Ryeland took the tiny thing from him, a two-inch figurine in black and silver with a wicked, knife-edged snout. Lescure's glazed eyes remained on it in fascination. "That's the one that attacked us," he said.
"This little thing?"
The colonel laughed. "It was ninety feet long," he said. He took it back from Steve and patted it. "Vicious little creature," he said, half fondly. "Evolution has made them vicious, Ryeland. They are living war rockets. They've been hammered into a horrible perfection, by eternities of evolution."
He swept the whole menagerie back into its box. "But they are only rockets," he said thoughtfully. "They need mass, too. We've cut up a dozen of them, and the squid is as much a rocket as they .... Perhaps that accounts for their voracity. They'll attack anything, with a hungry fury you can't imagine. Mass is not plentiful in space, and they need what they can find.
"At any rate, this one rammed us, and—well, we had another dozen casualties." The colonel shrugged. "It was touch and go, because the thing was faster than we. But ultimately the survivors manned a torpedo station, and then the contest was over.
"Even the pyropods have not achieved a jetless drive."
"If there is such a thing," said Ryeland.
Colonel Lescure chuckled. He looked thoughtfully at Ryeland, as though choosing which of several to make. Finally he said: "You don't think the Team Attack will succeed?"
Ryeland said stiffly: "I will do my best, Colonel. But Newton's Third Law-"
Colonel Lescure laughed aloud. "Ah, well," he said, "who knows? Perhaps it won't succeed. Perhaps there is no jetless drive." Hilariously amused, though Ryeland could not tell why, he tossed the box of plastic figurines back in a cupboard.
"Ugly little things, good night," he said affectionately.
Ryeland commented: "You sound as though you like them."
"Why not? They don't bother us. If they haven't attacked the earth in the past billion years or so, they aren't likely to start very soon. They aren't adapted for atmosphere, or for direct, strong sunlight. Only a few of the strongest ventured in beyond Orbit Pluto to be sighted, before our expedition. None was ever seen in closer than Orbit Saturn—and that one, I think, was dying."
Ryeland was puzzled. "But—you spoke of danger."
"The danger that lurks in the Reefs of Space, yes!"
"But, if it isn't the pyropods, then what is it?"
"Freedom!" snapped Colonel Lescure, and clamped his lips shut.
5
Faith carried Ryeland off to his next interview. "You liked Colonel Lescure, didn't you?" she chattered. "He's such a nice man. If it were up to him, the reefrat wouldn't be suffering—" She stopped, the very picture of embarrassed confusion.
Ryeland looked at her thoughtfully. "What's a reefrat?"
"Here's Major Chatterji's office," said Faith nervously, and almost pushed him through the door.
Machine Major Chatterji got up, smiling blankly through his gleaming glasses, waving a copy of Ryeland's orders from the Machine. "Ready, Ryeland," he called. "We're all set for you now."
Ryeland advanced into the room, thinking. "I'll need my computer," he said. "And someone to look up all the work that's been done on the Hoyle Effect, boil it down, give me the essential information."
"Right! You can have three assistants from Colonel Lescure's section. And I've already requisitioned a binary computer."
"No," said Ryeland impatiently, "not a binary computer. My computer. Oddball Oporto."
Major Chatterji's gold-rimmed glasses twinkled with alarm. "The Risk? But Ryeland, really!"
"I need him," said Ryeland obstinately. The Machine's orders had been perfectly clear.
Chatterji surrendered. "We'll have to get General Fleemer's okay," he said. "Come along." He led Ryeland out through a short corridor to an elevator; Faith tagged after inconspicuously. The three of them went up, out, down another hall. Chatterji tapped on a door.
"All right," grumbled a voice from a speaker over the door, and it swung open. They walked into a silver room, with silver walls and furnishings plated in silver. General Fleemer, in a silver robe that he was knotting about him, stumped in from a bedroom. "Well?"
Machine Major Chatterji cleared his throat. "Sir, Ryeland wants the other Risk, Oporto, assigned to him."
"For calculation purposes, General," Ryeland cut in. "He's a natural calculator. What they used to call an idiot-savant, or the next thing to it."
The general looked at him through his deepset eyes. "Will that help you solve the jetless drive?"
"Why," Ryeland began, "I haven't started on that yet. This is the Hoyle Effect. The Machine ordered—"
"I know what the Machine ordered," the general grumbled. He scratched his nose reflectively. "All right, give him his man. But Ryeland. The important part of your work is the jetless drive."
Ryeland was startled. "General, the Machine's orders didn't give priority to either section."
"I give priority," said the general sharply. "Get along with it, man! And get out."
In the corridor, Chatterji vanished toward his office and the Togetherness Girl took over again. "A very fine man, the general, don't you agree?" she chatted, leading him back to the elevator.
Ryeland took a deep breath. "Faith," he said, "there's something funny here. General Fleemer lives awfully well! And he seems to take it upon himself to, at least, interpret the Machine's orders. Is that customary, in Team Attack?"
The Togetherness Girl hesitated. She glanced at Ryeland, then led him down the corridor without speaking for a moment. She stopped before another door. "General Fleemer," she said, "is a fine man. I knew you'd like him. And you'll like Colonel Gottling too, don't think you won't!" And without any more of an answer than that, she opened the door to Gottling's office for him and left him there.