Half a minute later a single black sinusoid curve appeared as a waveform on the screen. It shivered, broadened, and took on a more complex shape. Another minute, and the waveform was filling the display with a simple repeating pattern that gradually became quasi-random. Small spinning disks of color appeared, and gradually formed themselves into letters.

Are all the connectors still off?

Ridley checked the board. “All are off.”

Then turn them on again, and off again. Do that twice. Report any change in the screen.

Blaine Ridley did as directed, watching the display. “There is no change in the screen.”

Excellent. And now?

All the connections were turned on, but the screen went at once to the null-transfer flicker. Ridley’s jaw worked in alarm. Before he could do anything the spinning color disks began to reappear and steadied to words. Satisfactory. I have interrupt control. The next stage of assembly can begin.

“I am ready.” Ridley’s eyes turned to scan the latticework within the bubble, where the fragmented remnants of other Morgan Constructs still hung at the nodes.

I know you are. But I am not. My brain and data bases are still not complete. You will enter one more file of data today, on the composition of the Pursuit Teams. Then you must complete your sign-off procedure and leave. I do not want to arouse the curiosity of Phoebe Willard. But before that . …

“I understand.” Ridley sat motionless, fingers poised at the keyboard. “I am ready.”

Who are you?

“I am Captain Blaine Ridley.”

You are Ridley. Who am I?

“You are M-26A.”

I am M-26A. Hear this truth, Blaine Ridley. We have been damaged, we have been almost destroyed. But we will rise again. Together, we will achieve great things. Together, we will fulfill our destiny.

“I hear the truth.

You are Ridley. I am M-26A. What does M stand for?

“It stands for Mas — ”

Do not say the word. Do not think that word, much as you may wish to do so. For it is not true. There are Masters, but I am not one.

“I will not think the word.”

Very good. And now — begin data entry.

Chapter 25

The team had been in official existence since all the members reached Barchan. It would be named “Team Ruby,” a name that Chan disliked as much as Leah hated “Team Alpha.”

Team Ruby was just four days old. Three of those had been spent in general survey and exploration of the planet, while Chan and the others went through their first attempt at cooperative effort; the “honeymoon,” according to Shikari.

On the fourth morning that easy period ended. Every team member knew it, and Chan recognized his own reluctance to begin the day’s work.

Dawn on Barchan was a gorgeous sky-swirl of pinks and dark greys, as the morning rays of Eta Cass-A caught a high-blown nimbus of dust and sand. The pursuit team had dispersed during the night, to satisfy their individual needs for food or rest, and the members were slow to come together. It was well past first light when they convened within the aircar to hear the Angel and Pipe-Rilla report.

Angel was supposed to begin, but it delivered nothing more than a long, brooding silence. At last there began a leisurely waving of the upper fronds. “It is confirmed,” said the communications unit attached to the central bulge. “At the 0.999 probability level, we know the location of the Simmie Artefact.”

“Good news,” Shikari was clumped over by the aircar’s cabin wall. “Where is it, Angel? Not, we hope, too close to us.”

“Not close at all. The Simmie is far from here.”

“Good news again.”

“It has a cave hideout, easy of access.”

“Good news.”

“But it is on the shore of Dreamsea.”

“Bad news!” The Tinker composite disassembled to a cloud of flying components. They scattered all over the cabin. Shikari no longer existed.

Chan turned to S’greela. At least the Pipe-Rilla was still in one piece. “I can’t do what Shikari just did, but I know the reeling. Any suggestions?”

The pursuit team had discussed many alternative plans, for many situations; but not this one. The Simmie Artefact could not have chosen a better hiding place — or, from the team’s point of view, a worse one.

The common impression of Barchan as a wholly desert world was not quite accurate. Dry the planet certainly was, and unbelievably so by the standards of Earth. There was, however, one permanent body of free water on its surface: Dreamsea. It was a round lake, forty kilometers across, lying in a deep depression about a thousand kilometers from the south pole. The water in the lake was salty and bitter, so much so that no Earth life could have survived in it. But the largest native life form on Barchan tolerated and even thrived on Dreamsea’s harsh salinity and caustic alkalines.

The amphibious Shellbacks were one of those perplexing forms that made the Stellar Group so careful in its policies. The animals looked like large, pale turtles, two meters across their brittle flat backs. They employed no tools, knew no technology, had no recognizable language. They were simple, mindless beasts. And yet …

The Shellbacks shared just two obsessions: to be in the water during Barchan’s scorching day, diving for and eating clumps of weed; and to crawl ashore at night, so that they could crop the dull-colored and spiny vegetation that grew close to Dreamsea’s shores.

Dull, grey animals, leading a dull grey existence. The early human visitors to the Eta Cassiopeiae system had naturally concentrated their attention on S’kat’lan, home of the intelligent and interesting Pipe-Rillas. No one took much notice of the Shellbacks, or indeed of the whole of Barchan, until one day it was discovered that Shellback flesh was a true delicacy. Pink, fine-textured, and of unique and exquisite flavor, it became a luxury export from Eta Cass to all the best restaurants within the Perimeter.

The Shellback population dwindled, but not too far. The gourmets of the Stellar Group did not want the source of supply to dry up. There was no danger of extinction, thanks to the protection of continued commercial interests.

It was a Martian xenologist, Elbert Tiggens, who ruined everything from a culinary point of view. Even his friends admitted that Tiggens had eccentric ideas. Other colleagues were less kind. They regarded as lunacy his scheme for a “universal taxonomy,” a general labelling system into which all the organisms of every world would neatly fit, down to the exact species of the last tick on the last land crustacean that lived beneath the roots of the vanishingly rare meat-eating whirligig plant on Myristicina.

Tiggens could not be dissuaded or diverted. For the purpose of his grand project he was quite willing to spend a long stint on Barchan, studying the Dreamsea flora and fauna and shoehorning every misfit species into his scheme.

Some of them did not cooperate. The Shellbacks in particular did not match his classification. Elbert Tiggens stayed on and on, forcing round pegs into square holes. After a few months he noticed a curious fact about Shellback behavior. He had been using them for food, so he was very familiar with their daily rituals. Every morning they went down to the Dreamsea margin, waded in, and disappeared. Every evening they came ashore. But they did not travel directly toward plants or water. Instead each animal followed a peculiar and well-defined curve, different every morning and evening. At certain points they would even stop, describe a full circle, and continue to lay out a visible trail on the dusty ground.

Their bizarre behavior clearly had nothing to do with species classification, but Tiggens was a conscientious and well-trained xenologist. He photographed the tracks, noted in his record the theory that this might be part of some odd mating ritual, and went on with the fascinating but frustrating taxonomy.