The message is garbled. Strange storms of space and time blow in the Eater, tumbling words, muting all but a few. Still, I am enjoined by great and sufficient powers to relay what I can. The first portion of the message is this: Ask for theArgo. Remember.Ask for the Argo.

Killeen frowned. Again the meaningless word. “Argo…”

I know no more than ever what this word means. The second portion… portion…

“It fades,” Shibo whispered.

But wait. This machine near you—I sense it struggling. It resists my presence.

Killeen shouted. “The second part! Tell me—”

No. I weaken momentarily… but I shall force this… this irritating machine… to speak… truthfully….

Killeen looked far up into the shadowy sky. The intricate tapestry of magnetic field lines dimmed. Its constrictions loosened. “Wait!” he cried. “The message’s second part!”

From the flexing field lines came only silence. Killeen frowned and amped his sensors to max. Did he hear faint words?

Into his sensorium coiled a dark presence. It was the Mantis returning, made bold again.

I have never witnessed such an order of being before. They visit these realms seldom, preferring the energetic storms at the Eater’s margin.

Even through the filter of Arthur’s cool tones, Killeen could sense the Mantis’s awe.

“What is it?” someone of the party asked. Killeen searched the twisting folds of magnetic force that slid like ivory muscles through the sky.

A magnetic mind. A personality of dimensions unknown in material beings. It lives in the complex warpage of magnetic stresses, with its information content stored in waves which suffer no damping. In this way it is another facet of immortality… a higher one than we achieve here. Such spirits are anchored in the disk of bluehot matter which orbits the Eater. (Unintelligible.) The accreting disk provides a base for many such minds, while their true selves extend out into the gaseous clouds and stars circling the center. I am honored to have seen one. It is a high aim of our culture to entertain such a presence. Some say these minds were once embodied in such as we.

Killeen still watched the dark movements above, but something made him say sarcastically, “So you mechs’ve got a God?”

Magnetic minds are not the highest phase. There is something greater.

Shibo asked, “This Argo—you understand what the manmech means?”

I… the magnetic being… forces me to tell you. I can sense it, feel its pressure. It compels… In the last few seconds I have interrogated history compilations from all around Snowglade. There are vague traces of such a thing, something named Argo, perhaps several.

Killeen said, “I remember something about Argo being like some other city, Sparta. Help us find it.”

This is impossible. The magnetic mind compels me to speak truly, but do not think it can dictate actions contrary to my interest. It is weak this moment… I can feel it….

“Speak, damn you!” Killeen shouted angrily.

At best I can hope that no other mech intercepted this transmission from the magnetic mind. If so, perhaps I can conceal the information for a time. You must understand that I am your ally. (Unintelligible.) I wish to preserve the best of humanity, down into the eras to come when you will be extinct. Still, I cannot allow humanity to escape into the realm beyond Snowglade.

“Why not?” Shibo demanded.

You could upset workings which we have had in motion for millennia.

“How?” someone asked.

Killeen could feel the constricted agony of the Mantis. The magnetic mind, unseen, was still making the Mantis speak truly. There was a quality to it of a higher authority forcing a distant underling to kowtow.

There are other… organic beings. Some have… invaded… the zone near the Eater. We do not wish to provoke……… alliances… among the lower lifeforms.

This stirred the party

Killeen frowned. So there was some way the mechs felt threatened by the very existence of humans. He had guessed that before. Unbidden, the Mantis answered his thoughts:

The drive to exterminate you comes from higher up in our society. Though we have diverse, competing parts to our civilization on Snowglade, some directives unite us. One is to never allow the organic beings to link up. They are unimpressive overall, but together can be a nuisance.

Killeen smiled but kept his thoughts to himself.

Around him people spoke excitedly. Other life! Intelligent, alien, but at least living. Maybe even other humans, around other stars. It was an intoxicating notion.

And it had all been triggered by the whispering intelligence that steepled filmy fields in the air, warping vast energies as casually as a man brushes aside a curtain.

He gathered himself, amped his systems, and bellowed, “I’m still here! Killeen! Give me my message!”

A drifting radiance stretched across the silent sky.

Shibo touched his arm. He shook her off.

The mighty will not come to such demands. You show arrogance unseemly in one so low. Get—

“Quiet!”

To Killeen’s surprise, the Mantis presence shrank away, as if afraid.

Murmurings.

Vague shimmering fluxes tightened. Ruby fingers poked toward them.

Then the voice boomed forth again.

I hear. A passing comet perturbed my raiments. I have evaporated it and can reach up to you again with my full presence. I did enjoy forcing that presumptuous machine to treat you fairly. Seldom do I have such innocent amusement. I hope a breath of truth will be useful to you. Alas, when I depart, it will return to its habits. Beware of it.

“The second part!” he demanded.

Oh, yes. It is ambiguous. I do not understand how this can be true. The message comes from a solid craft voyaging somehow through the strange seas of time within the Eater. Yet it is addressed to you, the lowest form I have ever witnessed. I must not have fathomed its true import.

“Let me have it!”

Very well. I go now in haste. Your message says:

Do not rebuild a Citadel. They will crush you there. Believe you this of me, for I still live, and I am your father.

ELEVEN

They came straggling into Metropolis. The last distance they had covered on foot through a brisk warm wind, and that was when the fatigue came on. Killeen had managed to doze a bit on the Crafter’s hull after the magnetic being had gone away. Then he had fallen asleep, like everybody else, in the Duster that brought them all back to the original landing plain.

The Mantis had come with them. It had necked itself down to a tight assembly of rods and oval compartments in order to fit inside the Duster. Now it wanted to stay beyond the range of hills ringing Metropolis until the right time to appear.

The magnetic being had said no more after delivering its strange last message. Killeen did not think about that or anything else. He was tired. He carried Toby piggyback for the last part because the boy had finally given out. The aftereffects of Toby’s injury and the mech treatment came home and he could barely stay awake.

The Kings had gotten everybody fancied up for their arrival. Evidently Hatchet had always made an event out of his return from a raid. So as soon as people in Metropolis picked up the party’s scent in their sensoria, Kings and Rooks and Bishops flocked to greet them.