"That's a beautiful question," McKie said.
"Abnethe's Caleban," Furuneo said. "It have anything to say by way of explanation?"
"Haven't been able to interview it," McKie said. "We don't know where she's hidden herself - or it."
"Don't know. . . ." Furuneo blinked. "Cordiality's pretty much of a backwater."
"That's what I've been thinking. You said this Beachball was a little the worse for wear?"
"That's odd, isn't it?"
"Another oddity among many."
"They say a Caleban doesn't get very far from its Ball," Furuneo said. "And they like to park 'em near water."
"How much of an attempt did you make to communicate with it?"
"The usual. How'd you find out about Abnethe hiring a Caleban?"
"She bragged to a friend who bragged to a friend who . . . And one of the other Calebans dropped a hint before disappearing."
"Any doubt the disappearances and the rest of it are tied together?"
"Let's go knock on this thing's door and find out," McKie said.
***
Language is a kind of code dependent upon the life rhythms of the species which originated the language. Unless you learn those rhythms, the code remains mostly unintelligible.
McKie's immediate ex-wife had adopted an early attitude of resentment toward BuSab. "They use you!" she had protested.
He had thought about that for a few minutes, wondering if it might be the reason he found it so easy to use others. She was right, of course.
McKie thought about her words now as he and Furuneo sped by groundcar toward the Cordiality coast. The question in McKie's mind was, How are they using me this time? Setting aside the possibility that he had been offered up as a sacrifice, there were still many possibilities in reserve. Was it his legal training they needed? Or had they been prompted by his unorthodox approach to interspecies relationships? Obviously they entertained some hope for a special sort of official sabotage - but what sort? Why had his instructions been so incomplete?
"You will seek out and contact the Caleban which has been hired by Madame Mliss Abnethe, or find any other Caleban available for sentient contact, and you will take appropriate action."
Appropriate action?
McKie shook his head.
"Why'd they choose you for this gig?" Furuneo asked.
"They know how to use me," McKie said.
The groundcar, driven by an enforcer, negotiated a sharp turn, and a vista of rocky shore opened before them. Something glittered in the distance among black lava palisades, and McKie noted two aircraft hovering above the rocks.
"That it?" he asked.
"Yes."
"What's the local time?"
"About two and a half hours to sunset," Furuneo said, correctly interpreting McKie's concern. "Will the angeret protect us if there's a Caleban in that thing and it decides to . . . disappear?"
"I sincerely hope so," McKie said. "Why didn't you bring us by aircar?"
"People here on Cordiality are used to seeing me in a groundcar unless I'm on official business and require speed."
"You mean nobody knows about this thing yet?"
"Just the coastwatchers for this stretch, and they're on my payroll."
"You run a pretty tight operation here," McKie said. "Aren't you afraid of getting too efficient?"
"I do my best," Furuneo said. He tapped the driver's shoulder.
The groundcar pulled to a stop at a turnaround which looked down onto a reach of rocky islands and a low lava shelf where the Caleban Beachball had come to rest. "You know, I keep wondering if we really know what those Beachballs are."
"They're homes," McKie grunted.
"So everybody says."
Furuneo got out. A cold wind set his hip aching. "We walk from here," he said.
There were times during the climb down the narrow path to the lava shelf when McKie felt thankful he had been fitted with a gravity web beneath his skin. If he fell, it would limit his rate of descent to a non-injurious speed. But there was nothing it could do about any beating he might receive in the surf at the base of the palisades, and if offered no protection at all against the chill wind and the driving spray.
He wished he'd worn a heatsuit.
"It's colder than I expected," Furuneo said, limping out onto the lava shelf. He waved to the aircars. One dipped its wings, maintaining its place in a slow, circling track above the Beachball.
Furuneo struck out across the shelf and McKie followed, jumped across a tidal pool, blinked and bent his head against a gust of windborne spray. The pounding of the surf on the rocks was loud here. They had to raise their voices to make themselves understood.
"You see?" Furuneo shouted. "Looks like it's been banged around a bit."
"Those things are supposed to be indestructible," McKie said.
The Beachball was some six meters in diameter. It sat solidly on the shelf, about half a meter of its bottom surface hidden by a depression in the rock, as though it had melted out a resting place.
McKie led the way up to the lee of the Ball, passing Furuneo in the last few meters. He stood there, hands in pockets, shivering. The round surface of the Ball failed to cut off the cold wind.
"It's bigger than I expected," he said as Furuneo stopped beside him.
"First one you've ever seen close up?"
"Yeah."
McKie passed his gaze across the thing. Knobs and indentations marked the opaque metallic surface. It seemed to him the surface variations carried some pattern. Sensors, perhaps? Controls of some kind? Directly in front of him there was what appeared to be a crackled mark, perhaps from a collision. It lay just below the surface, presenting no roughness to McKie's exploring hand.
What if they're wrong about these things?" Furuneo asked.
"Mmmm?"
"What if they aren't Caleban homes?"
"Don't know. Do you recall the drill?"
"You find a 'nippled extrusion' and you knock on it. We tried that. There's one just around to your left."
McKie worked his way around in that direction, getting drenched by a wind-driven spray in the process. He reached up, still shivering from the cold, knocked at the indicated extrusion.
Nothing happened.
Every briefing I ever attended says there's a door in these things somewhere," McKie grumbled.
"But they don't say the door opens every time you knock," Furuneo said.
McKie continued working his way around the Ball, found another nippled extrusion, knocked.
Nothing.
"We tried that one, too," Furuneo said.
"I feel like a damn fool," McKie said.
"Maybe there's nobody home."
"Remote control?" McKie asked.
"Or abandoned - a derelict."
McKie pointed to a thin green line about a meter long on the Ball's windward surface. "What's that?"
Furuneo hunched his shoulders against spray and wind, stared at the line. "Don't recall seeing it."
"I wish we knew a lot more about these damn things," McKie grumbled.
"Maybe we aren't knocking loud enough," Furuneo said.
McKie pursed his lips in thought. Presently he took out his toolkit, extracted a lump of low-grade explosive. "Go back on the other side," he said.
"You sure you ought to try that?" Furuneo asked.
"No."
"Well -" Furuneo shrugged, retreated around the Ball.
McKie applied a strip of the explosive along the green line, attached a time-thread, joined Furuneo.
Presently, there came a dull thump that was almost drowned by the surf.
McKie felt an abrupt inner silence, found himself wondering, What if the Caleban gets angry and springs a weapon we've never heard of? He darted around to the windward side.
An oval hole had appeared above the green line as though a plug had been sucked into the Ball.