«It talks of being limited. I have the idea that it's limited to this galaxy,
that it can't get out. Now we know that light goes in and out of the galaxy, but when the dark ship was driven at the barrier, the ship just crunched.» «Something out there more powerful than that thing?» Hara asked. «Yes.» «Or a natural phenomenon,» Heath said. «I might have been able to believe that once,» Plank said. «Back when I wouldn't have believed that a being could push a star into the nova stage and move planets, I might have believed that such a force, capable of closing in a galaxy, would have had to be natural and unexplained. Now I'm not so sure.» Plank was looking around the room. He discovered an opening, pushed at the panel. It was unmovable. He used his weapon to cut a hole large enough for exit. The way led upward. They were far underground, but their artificial bodies did not tire as they ran up stairs designed not for human feet, but for the four feet of the creature. They emerged on the surface in the devastated area around the communications structure. All was quiet. Knowing the directions well, Plank led the way toward the accelerator. Once before he had attacked the creature there and had aroused response. He knew of no other course of action. He had no plan. They ran swiftly through the ruins, and when Plank reached the undestroyed area around the accelerator building, he slowed, moved with caution. If the creature were using his ability, then it knew their exact location; but they had no choice but to proceed. The huge accelerator was empty. The surrounding buildings, more practical than the random construction, were obviously laboratories, very functional laboratories. They, too, were empty. «When it finally gave in and decided to try to convince me by reason rather than by power, it took me into that underground room where I was when you joined me,» Plank said. «I know from experience that it values only the area surrounding the accelerator, not even the building that housed the communications bank. It seemed to be willing to let me destroy everything else on this crazy planet. Most of the constructions are nonfunctional, mere exercises in building. We know that it's busy now checking the tapes from the dark ship's communicator, and we know that those tapes were in the communications bank. But the creature isn't there now. That leaves two possibilities. Either it has another communications facility somewhere or it's picked out the information and has already left the planet.» «Or it's merely being undetectable,» Hara said. «I know a way to test that,» Plank said. «But first let's check around. If it has another underground communications facility, the entrance should be here in the area it was willing to protect.» Plank had a feeling that time was running out. He led a desperate search concentrated in the area of the atomic installations. The construction of the area was more logical, from the human viewpoint, but still was the work of an alien mind. «I know how a laboratory rat must feel trying to find its way through a maze,» Hara sighed, after an hour of fruitless search. «It said finding the coordinates would be a time-consuming process,» Plank said, «but enough time has passed. I could have gone through the tapes myself by now. I'm sure it's had time.» One by one, aboard the small scout, they made the trip up to the orbiting Pride. When they were together in the lounge, Plank said, «There's still one very important thing we have to know.» «I've been thinking about that,» Heath said. «Your first question, where are we?» «Yes. My home base is right here, on the ship. Where's yours?» «I feel complete,» Hara said. «It's difficult for me to believe that my brain might be down on the planet somewhere.» «We have to find them,» Plank said. «I know that I can be in more than one place at once, but I do it through mechanical extensions. My brain
stays here on the Pride. I just use the mobile form as an eye. I have no idea of the range of this thing. If your brains are down there on the planet we might lose contact as we put stellar distances between these forms and the actual brain tissue.» Plank busied himself scanning the planet below with life-detector gear. For long minutes, the surface was silent. Then, acting on a sudden hunch, he directed the gear toward the two artificial bodies. «Ah,» he said. «He took the direct method and put them right with your bodies.» «That's both good and bad,» Heath said. «It makes things neat, but we'll have to be careful. You can send your mobile form into a dangerous situation and know that if it is destroyed, you're still alive.»
«We'll be careful,» Plank said. «Now let's see if that thing is still on the planet.» He set coordinates into a weapons bank and fired a single beam downward toward the accelerator, which the creature had been so anxious to defend. A portion of the accelerator disintegrated. Carefully Plank played the beam, making rubble of the entire installation. He got a great
deal of satisfaction out of the job, lingering over it, reducing the rubble to fine grains of sand. «That's enough, John,» Hara said, finally.
«Yes,» he said, «but I'd like to hear its roar when it returns and finds its favorite toy gone.» He began to set up the series of blinks that would carry them home, back to Earth. When all was ready, the sequence programed into the computer so that the trip would be automatic, he paused. «This is its home base,» he said. «Down there somewhere we could discover a lot about the thing if we had the time. It's obvious that it's gone. There's probably enough scientific information down there to make man its equal, over a period of time, but on the other hand, how much of its power does it draw from its home base?» «I think I follow you,» Hara said. «You're wondering if we should look to the future and try to preserve valuable information, or destroy the planet now on the small chance that the monster would be handicapped if cut off from its home base.» «We're not sure there'll be a future,» Heath said. Plank aimed a dozen killer missiles downward, each missile capable of driving into the planet's molten core. The explosions shattered a world, spewed magma into empty space, cooling even as the planet shattered. «It valued some of the installations enough to become very angry when I attacked them,» Plank said, in wonder. «And yet it went off and left them unguarded. Doesn't make sense.» As he directed the movement of the Pride he realized that many things didn't make sense. True, they were dealing with an alien mind, a mind of vast power, but the inconsistencies bothered him. The monster's chief form of enjoyment seemed to be eating, and according to its own words, it
did not need to eat. It had, apparently, used up the supply of the little food creatures, or at least thought it had, until Plank stumbled onto a world, previously untouched. A rational being, loving the «game» as much as the monster, would have used the creatures of Plank's World for seed stock. The monster leaped immediately into an orgy of gluttony and would have extinguished the life of the planet if Plank had not surprised him in the southern islands. That shortsighted orgy of eating was the act of an irresponsible mind. The act of a child. The act of a madman. And the great battle of the tinker-toy planet, in retrospect, was almost farcical. The monster had drawn on the childhood horrors in Plank's mind; it had taken Plank only a brief time to realize that none of the dangers he faced were real. Plank had been given a visual demonstration of the ability of the creature to move through space. At such speeds, with those powers of observation, the entire galaxy could have been given a minute search in what was to the creature a relatively short period of time, perhaps about 250,000 years. At any time during that period, there would have been enough men on Earth to provide a meal. But the creature had not made the diligent search necessary to locate one small planet far out toward the fringe of the galaxy. During the conflict on the tinker-toy planet, when Plank persisted in his stubborn efforts to destroy something the monster valued, there resulted what could only be described as a temper tantrum. The creature had joined Plank's efforts to destroy, doing much more damage in a few minutes than Plank had done in hours. And Plank remembered that petulant tone of voice when he was asked, «Why can't you be nice?» The enemy had vast power. The enemy could blaze a sun and move planets and shift men around with the power of its mind, but the enemy had a short attention span. The enemy, in a hurry to enjoy its favorite game, had left his home base unprotected, and that base was now drifting rubble in space. If a hope existed, the hope was in the creature's arrogance.