I resisted an impulse to laugh. 'Oh, yes. All the time,' I said.
Still to the Horch: 'That eliminates some. Then how many moons does this planet have?'
'One big one.'
'Then, Kofeeshtetch,' the robot said, shooting out a sprig of needles to touch the controls of the screen, 'it is likely that this is the planet you seek.'
And when the picture had formed in the bowl, it was.
I could see the dagger of India stabbing down into the Indian Ocean, with the little island of Sri Lanka dripping off its tip. As the planet slowly spun I could see Africa emerge, and the beginnings of Europe. There was something strange about the image, though. Tiny dots of reddish light that I had never seen before were sprinkled around the globe. But there was no doubt what I was looking at. I swallowed. 'That's the Earth,' I said, suddenly homesick.
Kofeeshtetch was not sentimental. 'Not the planet!' he snapped at the robot. 'Isn't there a survey vessel of the Others nearby?'
'We have identified one, yes. Here is a plot of its transit machines-'
Three or four of those reddish lights appeared, close together, against a background of stars. It was the stars, more than those little lights, that made me catch my breath. This was none of that awful intergalactic black, nor all those multicolored headlights of the globular cluster. These were my own stars, the very constellations you can see from Earth. I recognized at least one of them, the seven stars in a cup-and-handle pattern that every child knows as the Big Dipper.
Kofeeshtetch wasn't interested in stargazing. 'So many transit machines,' he muttered. 'Can we see the ship itself?'
At once stars and ruddy lights vanished and we were looking at another set of children's Tinkertoys. 'We have no view of the specific craft, but it is probable that it is this model,' the robot said.
It looked to be smaller than the nexus itself, or at least a little less complicated, but it impressed Kofeeshtetch. 'But this is no mere robot scout! It must be in fact a major vessel of the Others.' He swung his head to face mine. 'You could not possibly succeed in attacking it single-handed! It will be staffed with many, many warriors of the Others, all better armed than you. Such a venture would require a full-scale assault, almost as large as the one with which our nest stormed this place.'
That was not at all what I wanted to hear. I think I'm more or less brave, but I'm not stupid. A one-man suicide venture against impossible odds didn't sound attractive-at least, unless there was nothing better on offer. I took a chance. 'I don't suppose you could interest your Greatmother in, well, in launching such an attack?'
Kofeeshtetch laughed in my face, little raucous puffs of bad breath. He didn't say anything. He didn't have to. His laughter made it quite clear that the Horch were not going to launch a major battle to please a lower organism like me, especially over a pissant little planet like Earth.
What he did say was, 'Your plan is not worth pursuing. Perhaps you should return to the Eight Plus Threes. I will leave you now to prepare for the feast the Greatmother is providing for Djabeertapritch.'
He looked like he was getting ready to do it, too. I could feel my dreams collapsing around me, but one faint hope of an idea was percolating through my mind.
'Wait a minute,' I begged. 'Can I see the planet Earth again?'
I had nearly lost him. He was just a child, after all. If I wasn't about to pursue the feats of derring-do that fired up his kid imagination, he had no further use for me. He hung indecisively from his cable for a moment, then said petulantly, 'Oh, very well, but do it quickly.'
Quickly was how the robot did it. The planet had revolved a little more. Now we were looking at the Atlantic Ocean, South America bulging out into it and the East Coast of the United States just visible on the periphery. I peered at that unfamiliar scattering of red spots, clustered mostly along the shorelines. I pointed. 'What are those?'
Kofeeshtetch gestured, and then the robot answered me. 'We have no definite identification. They appear to be satellite installations, but we do not know their purpose.'
'But they're smaller, and they're right on the surface of the Earth.'
'That is not precisely accurate,' the machine corrected me. 'If you will observe, they are all in the water regions of the planet, close to the land masses but not on them.'
'But still-' I began to argue.
I didn't finish. Kofeeshtetch waved me to silence. He was beginning to catch the spirit. 'That might be a workable plan,' he said thoughtfully. 'A smaller installation. Only one transit machine each. Perhaps only operated by machines, certainly with a much smaller complement than the ship in space-yes! This may be worth considering. I will think on this, and perhaps seek advice from the Greatmother.'
When I got back to my room, as jubilant as I dared be, Pirraghiz was waiting for me. She listened, but didn't comment, as I told her what had happened. 'Where's Beert?' I asked. 'I must tell him!'
'Djabeertapritch is sleeping, Dannerman. This has been exhausting for him.'
She didn't sound excited at all, and she was bringing me down with her. 'But he will want to hear all this!' I insisted.
She gave me one of those six-limbed shrugs. 'You can speak to him when he wakes, Dannerman,' she said firmly. 'He has some important decisions to make, and he has ordered me to let him rest. It is better if you rest, also. Would you like to eat first?'
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
I didn't get a chance to talk to Been after his sleep. I didn't get much sleep for myself, either, because Pirraghiz woke me up to tell me that the Greatmother's banquet was just about to happen and we'd better get a move on.
I could have wished for a little more warning. I really needed to talk to Beert, but when I tried to grab him he simply waggled his neck at me. 'Later, Dan,' he said, sounding distracted and not really all that interested. 'We can't keep this Greatmother waiting.' I was also conscious of really beginning to need a bath, and there wasn't anything of that sort in the chambers they'd given us. So, unwashed, I followed Beert and the Christmas tree along the roped passages, hoping that the Horch sense of smell was not acute. Because I was sure I was a lot less than fragrant just then.
I could hear the noise from the feast long before the banquet hall was in sight.
The hall was shaped like a pyramid-well, like a tetrahedron, with four triangular sides, none of which was either a floor or a ceiling-and it was big. It had to be. There were at least forty Horch present. They weren't sitting. They weren't even doing what Horch do instead of sitting down like a human being. They just hung there, clipped to one or another of the brightly glowing cords that were stretched across the volume of space, like strands of a 3-D spiderweb. And they were very loudly singing.
It is hard to say what a Horch group sing sounded like. It was a little like the howling of a pack of constipated wolves, a little like hogs grunting ferociously as they battled for tidbits in a pen. The big difference was that the Horch were doing all that in unison, and that there were lyrics to the tune they sang. They sang of the Greatest of Greatmothers, and of the undying delights-or of the later-on undying delights, that is, after they'd finished whatever other dying they had to get there-of living forever, cherished in the Greatest of Greatmother's love. Does that sound awful? Sure it does. It was.
They hadn't waited for us to arrive. They were eating as they sang. A squad of the glassy robots were busily slithering along the cords, hand over hand-well, branch over twig-to serve the diners with great gobs of something that looked like pink mashed potatoes, only gluey enough to hold together in a ball; clusters of figlike fruits that probably weren't fruits at all, because they were squirming; hinged food dishes containing stuff that I couldn't see, but could smell when the nearest Horch opened theirs; mesh bags of what might have been nuts or vegetables or- well, anything at all. All I could see through the mesh was varicolored lumps of God knew what. The other thing the
