Part 7 (2/2)
”I could shed a tear for you, you big dope, but I won't,” Sandra retorted. ”What do you want to be, besides the brain and the kingpin and the balance-wheel and the spark-plug of the outfit? Do you want to do _everything_ yourself?”
”Well, I _don't_ want to go completely nuts, and that's all I'm doing at the moment!” The argument might have become acrimonious, but it was interrupted by a call from Karns.
”Can you come out here, Jarve? We've struck a knot.”
”'Smatter? Trouble with the Omans?” Hilton snapped.
”Not exactly. Just non-cooperation--squared. We can't even get started.
I'd like to have you two come out here and see if you can do anything.
I'm not trying rough stuff, because I know it wouldn't work.”
”Coming up, Bill,” and Hilton and Sandra, followed by Laro and Sora, dashed out to their cars.
The Hall of Records was a long, wide, low, windowless, very ma.s.sive structure, built of a metal that looked like stainless steel. Kept highly polished, the vast expanse of seamless and jointless metal was mirror-bright. The one great door was open, and just inside it were the scientists and their Omans.
”Brief me, Bill,” Hilton said.
”No lights. They won't turn 'em on and we can't. Can't find either lights or any possible kind of switches.”
”Turn on the lights, Laro,” Hilton said.
”You know that I cannot do that, Master. It is forbidden for any Oman to have anything to do with the illumination of this solemn and revered place.”
”Then show me how to do it.”
”That would be just as bad, Master,” the Oman said proudly. ”I will not fail any test you can devise!”
”Okay. All you Omans go back to the s.h.i.+p and bring over fifteen or twenty lights--the tripod jobs. Scat!”
They ”scatted” and Hilton went on, ”No use asking questions if you don't know what questions to ask. Let's see if we can cook up something.
Lane--Kathy--what has Biology got to say?”
Dr. Lane Saunders and Dr. Kathryn Cook--the latter a willowy brown-eyed blonde--conferred briefly. Then Saunders spoke, running both hands through his unruly shock of fiery red hair. ”So far, the best we can do is a more-or-less educated guess. They're atomic-powered, total-conversion androids. Their pseudo-flesh is composed mainly of silicon and fluorine. We don't know the formula yet, but it is as much more stable than our teflon as teflon is than corn-meal mush. As to the brains, no data. Bones are super-stainless steel. Teeth, harder than diamond, but won't break. Food, uranexite or its concentrated derivative, interchangeably. Storage reserve, indefinite. Laro and Sora won't _have_ to eat again for at least twenty-five years....”
The group gasped as one, but Saunders went on: ”They can eat and drink and breathe and so on, but only because the original Masters wanted them to. Non-functional. Skins and subcutaneous layers are soft, for the same reason. That's about it, up to now.”
”Thanks, Lane. Hark, is it reasonable to believe that any culture whatever could run for a quarter of a million years without changing one word of its language or one iota of its behavior?”
”Reasonable or not, it seems to have happened.”
”Now for Psychology. Alex?”
”It seems starkly incredible, but it seems to be true. If it is, their minds were subjected to a conditioning no Terran has ever imagined--an unyielding fixation.”
”They can't be swayed, then, by reason or logic?” Hilton paused invitingly.
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