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"Hope is a curious word to use in connection with an elaborated spy eye," Seven said.
"If it is," Zero said. "Their actions suggest to me that these bipeds are more than unthinking domesticated
motiles."
"Let be!" Hundred said. "There is scant time to waste. We may not risk the entire community for the
sake of a single member. Zero, go fetch back that biped."
Unmodulated radio buzzed in the night. Finally Zero said, "No." One's undamaged hand reached toward
him, but she was too far away for them to touch each other. Nor could she caress him with radar.
"We will soon have you whole again," he murmured to her. She did not answer, with the community
listening.
Hundred surrendered, having existed long enough to recognize unbendable negation. "Those who are
sufficiently near the monster to reach it before dawn, report," he directed. When they had finished-about
thirty all told-he said, "Very well, proceed there. Wherever feasible, direct your course to intercept the
probable path of the escaped unit. If you capture it, inform us at once. The rest of us will rendezvous as
planned."
One by one the voices died out in the night, until only Hundred, who was responsible, and Seven, who
was a friend, were in contact with Zero. "How are you now, One?" Seven asked gently.
"I function somewhat," she said in a tired, uneven tone. "It is strange to be radar blind. I keep thinking
that heavy objects are about to crash into me. When I turn my optics that way, there isn't anything." She
paused. "The new one stirred a little bit just now. A motor impulse pathway must have been completed.
Be careful. Zero," she begged. "We have already taken an arm tonight."
"I cannot understand your description of the bipeds' interior," Hundred said practically. "Soft, porous
material soaked in sticky red liquid; acrid vapors-How do they work ? Where is the mechanism?"
"They are perhaps not functional at all," Seven proposed. "They may be purely artificial devices,
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powered by chemical action."
"Yet they act intelligently," Zero argued. "If the monster-or the masters-do not have them under direct
control-and certainly there is no radio involved-"
"There may be other means than radio to monitor an auxiliary," Seven said. "We know so little, we
persons."
"In that case," Zero answered, "the monster has known about this cave all the time. It is watching me at
this moment, through the optics of that thing on One's back."
"We must assume otherwise," Hundred said.
"I do," Zero said. "I act in the belief that these bipeds are out of contact with the flier. But if nevertheless
they perform as they have been doing, then they certainly have independent function, including at least a
degree of intelligence." A thought crashed through him, so stunning that he could not declare it at once.
Finally: "They may be the monster's masters! It may be the auxiliary, they the persons!"
"No, no, that is impossible," Hundred groaned. Seven's temporary acceptance was quicker; he had
always been able to leap from side to side of a discussion. He flashed:
"Let us assume that in some unheard-of fashion, these small entities are indeed the domesticators, or
even the builders, of that flying thing. Can we negotiate with them?"
"Not after what has happened," Zero said bleakly. He was thinking less about what he had done to them
than what they had done to One.
Seven continued: "I doubt it myself, on philosophical grounds. They are too alien. Their very functioning
is deadly: the destruction wrought by their flier, the poison under their skins. Eventually, a degree of
mutual comprehension may be achieved. But that will be a slow and painful process. Our first
responsibility is to our own form of existence. Therefore we must unmistakably get the upper hand,
before we even try to talk with them." In quick excitement, he added, "And I think we can."
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Zero and Hundred meshed their intellects with his. The scheme grew like precipitation in a
supersaturated pond. Slow and feeble, the strangers were only formidable by virtue of highly developed
artifacts (or, possibly, domesticated motiles of radically modified type): the flier, the tube which had
blown off Zero's arm, and other hypothetical weapons. But armament unused is no threat. If the flier
could be immobilized-
Of course, presumably there were other dwarf bipeds inside it. Their voices had been heard yesterday.
But Zero's trip here had proven that they lacked adequate nighttime senses. Well, grant them radar when
in an undamaged condition. Radar can be confused, if one knows how.
Hundred's orders sprang forth across miles to the mountaineers now converging on the flier: "Cut the
heaviest accumulator strands you can find in the forest. Twist them into cables. Under cover of darkness,
radar window, and distraction objects, surround the monster. We believe now that it may not be sentient,
only a flier. Weld your cables fast to deeply founded boles. Then, swiftly, loop them around the base of
the flier. Tie it down!"
"No," said Twenty-nine, aghast. "We cannot weld the cables to its skin. It would annihilate us with one
jetblast. We would have to make nooses first and-"
"So make the nooses," Zero said. "The monster is not a perfectly tapered spindle. The jets bulge out at
the base. Slip the nooses around the body just above the jets. I hardly think it can rise then, without
tearing its own tubes out."
"Easy for you to say, Zero, safe in your cave."
"If you knew what I would give to have matters otherwise-"
Abashed, the hunters yielded. Their mission was not really so dangerous. The nooses-two should be
ample if the cable was heavy-could be laid in a broad circle around the area which the jets had flattened [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]