He crossed over to the external view console and threw a switch. One
of the screens flickered, then steadied with a wide-angle image of
the sky, framed in the sweeping curvature of the horizon. Aldebaran,
setting, was bisected by a serrate mountain range, while its fourth
planet was rising in all its brilliant immensity.
More interested in their surface surroundings, however, Stewart brought
another screen into play and aimed it at the ground. The lens swept
across, then came back to focus on a silvery form that reared skyward
beyond a nearby hill.
"At least McAllister put us down in the right place," he conceded.
"There's the telepuppet barge--right where I left it."
He swung the lens on around and picked up movement on the ground
almost in the shadow of the _Photon_.
"And there are our puppets!" Carol announced.
The Operations Co-ordinator, its laser intensifier evidently locked
in the ready position, was leading a march toward the ship. Some of
the team were not in evidence, as was to be expected after a year of
managing on their own. But there was the Seismometer, the Astronomical
Data Collector and the Solar Plasma Detector.
Trailing behind were the Atmosphere Analyzer and the Radiometer
Complex. Stewart could make out even the lesser forms of the
Micro-organism Collector and Analyzer, the Flora C&A and the
Subordinate Mineral Specimen Collector. In the distance, the Roving
Magnetometer was homing in on the rest of the team.
He opened the locker and selected a hostile-atmosphere sheath. "This
shouldn't take long. Just a matter of replacing the OC's malfunctioning
unit. It's either a thermal increment problem or a component that's
been ionized by particle radiation."
Reluctantly, Randall turned from the zenith screen. "How are you going
to go about it?"
"Try a few oral commands on the OC." He slipped into the rubberized
suit. "Trouble's probably in its CXB-1624 digital system."
"You picking up anything, Carol?" Randall asked.
She tilted her head alertly. "Just the subordinate stuff. I can't tell
if the CXB's functioning 'til big boy starts transmitting to the relay
station. However--"
She paused to stare curiously at Randall, who was still scrutinizing
the sky. Stewart wondered momentarily whether the director might not be
wrestling with a morbid fear of the astronomical distance separating
him from home. It was possible, with Sol and Centauri far less
prominent than Aldebaran's minor companions in the field of brilliant
stars.
"However," Carol resumed, "I'll put on a sheath and go with you. Out
there I might tap the predigital spill-off and find out whether it's
correlating and sequencing properly."
"You'd better stay aboard for a while," Randall advised. "Those puppets
haven't responded to human direction for over a year."
"You mean there might be danger?"
"Let's just say their behavior may not be entirely predictable." He
gestured toward the screen. "Like now."
* * * * *
The vanguard of robot explorers, led by the towering Operations
Co-ordinator, had reached the ship. The Magnetometer began darting
around one of the hydraulic fins, charting lines of isomagnetic
intensity. The Mineral Analyzer had already sunk its drill into the
broad, flat surface of the stabilizer. And the Flora Collector and
Analyzer was being boosted by the OC to the lowest spiral of the ship's
subspace drive intensifier. Deposited upon the ceramics-insulated coil,
the crablike puppet was doing its best to flake off some of the outer
substance for testing.
McAllister laughed. "Look at those mixed-up machines! They're trying to
_analyze_ the ship!"
"That's what I mean," Randall pointed out soberly. "One of their
inhibitions is to ignore refined metal. That's how we keep their barges
from being pecked to pieces."
"You don't think we can run into trouble out there, do you?" Mortimer
asked, concerned.
Randall hesitated. "No, but we won't take any chances, although it's
doubtful that loss of contact has obscured their _basic_ inhibition."
"Of course it hasn't. Nothing like that's ever happened."
"In that case, you won't mind accompanying us outside."