They worked through a time that was for both of them wearying labor threaded by quicksilver instants of fear. The dulling rhythm of hauling without any mechanical aid numbed them. There were no metal carts around to help, and in any case Hatchet ruled out using any. No one knew precisely what triggered the portal alarm, so anything beyond the minimum was a risk. It took several hours to produce the mound of replacement parts they gradually built up near the grate-door. The Crafter would reappear only when the job was done. That minimized its exposure.

Luckily, Toby had fallen asleep again. Killeen checked him on each circuit between the tunnels and the exit bay. He and Shibo at last took a quick break in the depths of the tunnels to eat some dried concentrate bars. Killeen’s throat was raw from breathing the acrid fumes of the factory.

“You do this much?” Killeen wheezed as Hatchet passed them.

“Whenever the Renny wants.” Hatchet’s eyes narrowed. “Listen, we’ll do it much as we can. Without the Renny’s help, we’d be busting ass runnin’ from Marauders.”

Killeen nodded mutely, saving his breath, and that was when he saw the approaching mech. It was no robo or navvy. He could make out a carapace as long as a man, with a set of tools bunched in front like a tangle of briars. It was coming toward them down a distant lane between storage racks, either oblivious or not expecting anything unusual. “Hatchet!” Shibo whispered.

They all pulled weapons. Hatchet blinked, as though he had never seen anything like it. “Fan out,” he whispered.

The mech came on. Killeen heard in his sensorium an abrupt series like quick, strangled coughs. A voice, but not a human one. It spoke again. Cut-short exclamations, rapid but unforced, natural but eerie. Not words, not more than quick bursts of air expelled through a narrow, hoarse throat—

Hatchet said wonderingly, “What the hell… ?”

Killeen’s Arthur Aspect broke in:

Barking! That is the sound of a terrestrial dog barking. I haven’t heard that call-code for so long….

Into Killeen’s eye leaped a picture of a furry, four-legged animal yelping and scampering over a green field, chasing a blue ball that hopped away downhill. Something in the sound that flooded his ears carried a meaning of salute, of an element he had always missed.

“That mech,” he said. “It’s calling us.”

Their talk had attracted it. Shibo was already braced, tracking the quick form as it raced down the network of racked supplies, leading it slightly so she could fire instantly if needed. Killeen put his hand on her shoulder. “No. I think it’s all right. There’s something…”

The barking rose to a crescendo, then abruptly cut off.

A warm, mellow woman’s voice said clearly, “Humankind! I picked up your scent. It is the longlost!”

Hatchet called out, “Don’t move.”

“To hear the voice of man is to obey it,” the mech called from somewhere in the racks. “I used the correct call, did I not?”

“You did,” Killeen answered, peering through the twilight glow of distant lamps. Its steel hide was pocked, seamed, pitted. The worn jacket was crisscrossed with melted lines, rivets, weldings long since ripped away, tap-in spots, and rough scars. At a prompting from Arthur, Killeen added, “Good dog.”

“Ruff! Ruff!… I… well, I am not actually a dog, you know.”

Shibo said wryly, “We guessed.”

The womanly mech voice came from an aged acoustic speaker mounted directly between two optical sensors.

These glittered, tracking Killeen intently as he approached. Shibo and Hatchet edged in at the flanks, still ready. Shibo looked distant for a moment, consulting her own Aspects. Killeen saw Cermo-the-Slow easing around behind the mech, grinning in anticipation of blowing it away. He raised a cautionary hand.

“Barking is simply an attention-getting device.” The mech had a full-bodied, resonant voice now. Killeen wondered if dogs spoke.

Of course not! The dog was an animal which long ago came to think of humans as, well, as sort of gods. They herded other animals, guarded things— Ah! Now I see it! This is an original, humanmade machine. Or at least it contains elements of some device humans must have made.

Humans made mechs? Killeen wondered. The idea was as odd as the assertion that humans had made the Taj Mahal building they had seen.

Shibo said, “That you did.”

“I was told to use that call-approach method. To differentiate myself from hostile mechs.” The machine scuffed its treads enthusiastically against the rough cement floor. Its throaty alto vibrated with emotion. Unable to restrain itself any longer, it rumbled up to within arm’s length of Killeen, crying, “It has been so long!”

Killeen was startled. “How… how long?”

“I don’t know. My inboard time sequencing was reordered long ago by the mechmind in these factories. I hope you realize I never would have labored for these beings if I had been able to escape them. I was wholly loyal to human direction.”

Hatchet approached and the machine caught sight of him. “Oh, another human! So many still alive. Ruff!” The voice attained a timbre of awe.

This machine is remarkably doglike. Listen to that devotion. There must have been dog memory passed down from the original expedition vaults themselves. That ancient trove…

Hatchet asked, “What you want?”

“I… I was only meaning to serve you, sir.” A whimper filled each word with remorse.

“How?”

“I… You must understand, I have been a good servant. All this while. I kept my instructions buried, where the mechmind could not find them.”

Hatchet’s forehead wrinkled. “You work here?”

“Yessir! I am valued for my ability to haul and to repair and to find lost items of the general inventory.” It scuffed around anxiously, as though it wanted to lick Hatchet’s hand. “Also I—”

“Shut up,” Hatchet said with evident satisfaction. “What can you do for us?”

“Well, I can do all the tasks I am routinely assigned, sir. But there is—there is—there is—”

It is hung up in a command loop. There must be some information it cannot reveal unless we give it the right association or code word.

“Shut up,” Hatchet said firmly.

The mech’s stuttering stopped. It began, “I am most sorry for that. Ruff! I seem to have—”

“Look,” Killeen said, “you know this factory, right? Are there any mechs around that are dangerous for us?”

“I… Not in this part of my workworld, no.”

“How near?”

“Five prantanouf.”

“What?”

“A distance the mechs use. I… do not remember how to say it in this speak.” The mech’s womanly voice became distressed, whimpering, almost tear-filled. “I… I am sorry… I…”

“Never mind. Do they know we’re here?”

The mech paused as though listening. “No. Sir.”

“How’d you find us?”

“I have sensors which pick up the human effusions. Wondrous manscents. They are long buried by the sludge the mechmind has carbuncled onto me. Still, they alerted me to your presence.”

Killeen wondered how such a humanmade machine could have survived so long among the alien mechs. Arthur put in sardonically:

Precisely because of its unthinking obedience. Uncomfortably, that is exactly what humans required of animals if they were to survive domestication. We were not morally superior ourselves, when we had the power…

Aspect Nialdi’s stem voice immediately broke in:

That was the proper role of animals. Partners and servants of humankind! You cannot compare—

Killeen cut off a rising babble of Aspect voices within himself.

The mech paused, its opticals registering others of the party who approached as they heard the talk. “Many humans. You have lived after all!”

“You worked in Citadel?” Shibo asked.

“Yes yes, madam.” The mech lowered its front section in a stiff parody of a bow. “I functioned first in the Chandelier.”