"Uh," Graham said, trying to think of a response that could possibly be proper in the wake of the incredible event he had just witnessed. He couldn't think of one. "Uh..." he repeated numbly.
It was the Virgil probe itself that brought the conversation up from an afternoon of guttural monosyllables.
"Please assist me, Dr. Graham," the probe said. The lips moved in a perfect pantomime of a human mouth. Graham jumped at the use of his name. Beemer mirrored the scientist's startled movements. "You know who I am?" Graham breathed.
"It is printed on your lab coat," the probe replied. Graham blinked. Numbly, he looked down at the chest of his white coat.
His own name stared up at him in upside-down letters.
"Oh," he murmured woodenly.
"I am having difficulty orienting myself," the Virgil probe said. The microcamera embedded in the crown of its thorax shifted left, then right, taking in all available visual information in the laboratory. "This is not Mexico."
"No," Graham offered anxiously.
The camera refocused on the NASA scientist. "Where have you brought me?" the probe inquired. Its tone was flat and mechanized. Too perfectly modulated for a human being.
"You're in my Florida lab," Graham replied hesitantly. He felt silly explaining such a thing to a machine. "Don't you remember? This is where I built you."
The probe seemed to consider for a moment. All at once, it unfolded its long metallic legs.
As Clark Beemer sucked in a fearful gasp of air, the probe rose as high in the air as it was able. It towered at more than seven feet, higher than it should have been able to stand according to its engineering specifications.
From a stationary position, Virgil examined the lab in more detail. When it was at last satisfied, it descended, settling back down to its metal haunches.
"You are in error," the probe's mouth opening said. "While I was constructed in a laboratory, this is not it."
Graham couldn't believe he was actually in a position to argue with the probe he had created.
"But it is," he insisted. "At least, this is where I constructed Virgil. Am I speaking to someone-" he caught himself "-or something else?"
"Correct," said the mouth in the side of the spiderlike machine. "I am not your Virgil probe."
Clark Beemer leaned in to Graham. "This is a joke, right?" he whispered fearfully. "Allen Funt's stashed inside that thing." His eyes were sick as he searched the skin of the probe for a man-size trapdoor.
The NASA scientist would have loved to agree. But Dr. Peter Graham had learned a thing or two about robotics during his time on this project. As far as he knew, no mechanical device yet devised by man could move with the fluidity of motion of those metal lips. It was as if a human mouth had somehow been grafted onto the side of his precious creation.
It was impossible. Yet there it was.
Screwing up his courage, he addressed the probe. "If you're not Virgil, who are you?" Graham asked.
The microcamera aimed directly at his face. It was apparent that whatever was in control of the probe was watching him through the penlight-size camera.
"My name is Mr. Gordons," said the flexing gray mouth. "I am an artificially created life-form."
The mouth seemed suddenly to lock up. A pained squeaking of metal issued from the Virgil probe. With a few more flexes of an invisible jaw, it loosened.
"I was programmed by my creator as a survival machine," the probe continued. "This is my primary function."
"What were you doing in that volcano?" Beemer asked. His fingers bit harder into Graham's arm when the probe's big mechanical head shifted its focus to him.
"My enemies sought to destroy me by liquefying my processor in the molten rock. Had the lava not receded from the ledge on which I landed, they might have succeeded. I have been trapped inside that volcano since 1896."
The year stunned Graham.
It was worse than the scientist thought. If this thing had been down in the rock for as long as it claimed, it predated all of the earthly technology that could possibly have given rise to it.
"1896?" Graham asked weakly.
"Yes. I was damaged in battle and flown there by helicopter before my component elements had an opportunity to re-form. Given enough time I could have integrated the helicopter's systems into my own, thus effecting repairs. But according to estimates I have accessed from that time, I missed the chance to do so by sixteen point four minutes."
This didn't make sense. Before Graham could ask an obvious question, Beemer did so for him.
"There weren't any helicopters in the 1800s, were there?" the PR man asked, puzzled.
"No," Graham whispered over his shoulder. "They didn't come into real active use until the 1950s."
"You are in error," the probe said. "This was the device used to transport me to my prison."
Graham bit his lip. In spite of the circumstances, he still felt embarrassed asking his next question. Especially with Beemer in the room.
"You were created by humans?" Graham pressed.
"By a human, that is correct," said the thing that called itself Mr. Gordons. "My creator was a NASA scientist."
Graham blinked. "NASA?" he said. "Well, that certainly wasn't around back then."
"Maybe he isn't Y2K compliant," Beemer offered. Graham looked at the PR man. Sensing no immediate threat, Beemer had finally released his grip on Graham's arm.
"Well, that was a big deal, right?" the public-relations man said reasonably. "And if he was thrown in the volcano in 1996 and missed the turn of the century, his clock might've reset to 1900."
The scientist hated to admit it, but Clark Beemer might have hit on something. He turned back to his probe. "What year is it now?" he asked.
The probe responded affably. "According to my processor, the current year is 1901," Mr. Gordons announced.
Graham felt a tingle of excitement. This was starting to make more sense. Or, if not that, at least it was making a bit more than it had a moment before.
"You were built by NASA," he said evenly.
"That is correct."
"When?" Graham pressed.
"In the year 1975. I was a prototype survival machine designed for space exploration."
"But if you were built in 1975 and it's only 1901 now, how do you account for the time difference?" Beemer interjected. "I mean, according to your own data, you won't have been built for another seventy-four years, right?"
At that, the mouth fell silent. With the tiniest squeak of metal on metal, it pursed itself into a parody of human contemplation.
When the silence had stretched to more than a minute without so much as a peep from the probe, Pete Graham screwed up his courage. With Clark Beemer trailing behind him, he stepped cautiously closer to the now dormant Virgil. The moment he leaned in to examine the mouth, it dropped open.
"That does not compute," Mr. Gordons said in his even, affable manner. "As it indicates an apparent system malfunction, I must devote time to this problem."
And without another word, the mouth clamped shut. When Graham tried to engage it in conversation, the device stubbornly refused to respond.
"Incredible," he said, awed. He bit the inside of his cheek in concentration.
From what he had seen, this Mr. Gordons wasn't just an electronic voice rattling up from some hidden speaker. In the cave of his mouth Graham had glimpsed teeth and a tongue. There was even a uvula dangling far in the back.
Gordons had somehow manipulated and re-formed the probe and in so doing duplicated a human mouth in every detail, save color. The interior of the orifice was still painted in the silvers and blacks of the Virgil probe.
"This is big, isn't it?" Clark Beemer said in hushed tones. He, too, was staring at the closed mouth.