Staring at the three damaged robots and the two crippled multipeds, Quamodian felt cold breath on the back of his neck.
"You see what happened," she went on. "The inspector was duplicated in transit. The robot assistant was triplicated. What is even more confusing, their identities were switched. All the robots now have the minds and memories of the original inspector. The duplicated original inspector has the logical programs and the memory banks of the robot assistant. Finally, they were all dropped here."
Her brisk voice cracked. "And that—" For a moment, beneath her commanding self-assurance, he heard the quaver of naked terror. She stiffened at once, recovering herself. "Monitor Quamodian, that's the sort of problem we face here."
"What about you?" He couldn't stop that impetuous question. "Did you notice any change in yourself?"
She flushed and trembled. Familiar auburn lights glanced in her short dark hair as she turned to gaze along that endless beach. Abruptly she swung back, her chin lifted in a small gesture of anger that stirred his most painful recollections.
"I resent personal questions." Her voice was strained and quivering. "If you want objective information—I have seen evidence of some slight physical anomalies, which I prefer not to discuss. Let's get on to questions of survival."
"Agreed," Quamodian said. "Can you explain how we got here?"
"We've been collecting facts and putting hypotheses together." Uncertainty seemed to slow her voice. "Of course you understand that any firm conclusions will have to wait for the full analysis of data that I still hope to make when we get back to headquarters—if we do get back."
She shrugged angrily in that grotesque garb, as if to free herself from clutching fear.
"I'll tell what our evidence suggests." She nodded toward the dark-mottled sun. "I think that's a rogue star. I think it is systematically tampering with transflection traffic. The dated documents in the oldest wrecks show that they were highjacked many centuries ago, but the rate of this activity seems to have increased recently—about the same time that Solomon Scott set up his stellar project on Exion Four to investigate rogue stars."
"So the rogues are watching us!" He shivered in spite of himself in the steady wind that blew across the black beach toward that sullen sun. "Has Solo Scott been here?"
"No," she said. "We've checked all the wrecks and made up a register. All except a few very early victims have been identified. There are a few humans on the list. None that could be Scott." She gave him a probing look of Molly's. "Why do you ask?"
As he showed her Molly's transfac tape and told her about his encounter with Scott, the multipeds began chittering at the robots in some language of their own. Clothilde Kwai Kwich paused to listen as the three robots squealed back in unison.
"We've seen a strange machine," she told Quamodian at last. "Half a dozen times. Flying fast and low, just off the beach, as if spying on us. The inspectors inform me that it appears to fit your description of Scott's damaged craft."
"What do you make of that?"
She waited for the robots to squeal and the multipeds to answer.
"Scott was attempting to reach the vicinity of a rogue star," she translated for Quamodian. "The inspectors suggest that this was his rogue, that it somehow captured him when he arrived, that it sent him back to Exion Four as a sort of slave machine."
"That might account for the change in him." Quamodian nodded. "But why did he try to kill me?"
The robots squeaked and the multipeds stridulated.
"They suggest that the rogue has a friendly interest in Cliff Hawk's experiments on Earth," said Clothilde Kwai Kwich. "They suggest that it does not intend to allow you to intervene."
"Molly wants me there," Quamodian muttered stubbornly. "I don't intend to stop."
"You have a nut to crack before you reach the Earth." The girl's hollow eyes held a faint sardonic glint. "Because our isolation here is complete. Nobody answers our signals. If this is really Cliff Hawk's rogue, we're somewhere out between the galactic clusters. Our register lists a good many thousand citizens who have been marooned here. Not one has ever got away."
6
Quamodian frowned inquiringly at Clothilde Kwai Kwich and pointed at the wire web stretched between those four rough towers.
"Somebody meant to get away," he said. "Somebody was setting up a transflection terminal. . ."
"And there it stands." She shrugged disdainfully. "It was standing there when I arrived. The engineers who built it were already dead and forgotten then. Their names are not even on our register."
"I studied transcience engineering once." Quamodian neglected to add that he had muffed his finals. "That tesseract circuit looks like a good copy of the working model we put together in the lab." Eagerness took his breath. "Maybe—maybe I can finish it!"
"It's finished now," she said. "Ready to test."
"What's wrong?"
"We can't try it till we know where we are." She listened briefly to the squealing robots. "The inspector believes this star is Cliff Hawk's rogue. If so, we could estimate the distance to the Exion terminal precisely enough. But a distance setting is no use without direction, and we have no points of reference."
"I know—" Quamodian bit his tongue. "I used to know directions. I've got a sense of place. The trouble is, transflection flight disturbs it. Usually it comes back when I arrive. This time—" Unhappily, he shook his head. "This time it didn't."
A breathless quiet had frozen them all. The robots twanged when he paused, and the multipeds bleated. They closed in around him. The girl's hungry face was white.
"Monitor Quamodian, the inspector recalls a research report on your transcience sense. Some experimenters convinced themselves that you had an unexplained perception of hyperspatial congruities. Others apparently suspected you of fraud, conscious or not. If you do have such a sense, now's the time to use it."
"I'll try," he muttered. "But I still feel lost."
In a groping way, he tried. The effort sharpened his queasy giddiness. Cold sweat broke over him. The beach tipped until the black cliffs hung over his head. The furious sun ballooned and wheeled around him.
"No use!" he gasped weakly. "Actually, I don't know how to try. It's nothing I know how to do. It's either there or not."
The creaking robots crowded closer.
"Better try again!" snapped Clothilde Kwai Kwich. "Or perhaps you like it here!"
"Almalik!" Anger crackled in him. "Don't you think I want to reach Earth and Molly Zaldivar. . ."
Something happened as he spoke. The rocking beach leveled underfoot. The red sun settled into place. And all his giddy confusion was gone. He knew precisely where he was.
"There's Exion." He pointed into the sky. "To the right of the sun. Just extend the equator half a diameter out. The galaxies are lower, just above the sea."
"Monitor, are you sure?"
Doubt began to gnaw at his new certainty.
"I think—" he hesitated miserably, "I think I'm right."
Clothilde Kwai Kwich and her robots withdrew into a huddle near the towers. The two multipeds stood alertly near, as if they expected him to run. The robots squeaked and the girl whispered and presently they all came back.
"Monitor Quamodian, we have discussed this situation. It raises grave new issues. We can't be certain that your claimed transcience sense will enable us to orient the terminal controls. Even if the terminal works, we can't be sure the rogue will let us leave. Under these circumstances, the inspector suggests that we allow you to make the first test transit. Are you willing?"
"Of course I'm willing." But it had not occurred to him that the rogue might intervene again. "What are the chances—?" Staring at that serpent-haired star, he failed to finish the question.