So long-range aircraft on Nandu and Oahu were loaded with parachute soldiers and launched for Moorea. They were brave men and women in those aircraft-a lot braver than I would have been, since their status as “soldiers” had been purely honorary for at least as long as most of them had been alive. But they flew over the island and dropped in in the darkness-onto the slopes of that great central mountain, some of them, others into the waters of the lagoon, a few lucky ones onto taro patches or beaches. Their mission was to arrest everybody they could find and, when that was done, to signal by mirror to the watch satellites overhead so that Moorea could be put back into the power grid and the serious investigators could land there.
Can you imagine how much time all that took?
Can you imagine how much trouble it was? Two hundred soldiers dropped on Moorea, and nearly seventy of them broke arms, legs, or heads when they came down. It was a miracle that none of them died of it, and all for nothing.
Because while that was going on, the faster ones among us, like Al-bert and me, were doing the homework that would have saved all the effort. It took a lot longer than it should have, beciuse we couldn’t go to the records on the island of Moorea itself, due to the blackout. We had to reconstitute the information from other sources. So we did. We accessed every datum we could find about traffic to and from the island of Moorea. We studied the census reports on everyone who lived there. We looked for some clue, some linkage to something somehow related to the Foe . . .
And the names of Oniko, Sneezy, and Harold popped out of the files. As soon as we saw who they were and where they’d been, we knew it was the answer. Who else had been on the Watch Wheel during the latest “false alarm”?
When we had explained all that to the meatheads, they agreed it was important. It was also pretty useless, because they had no good way of communicating with the paratroops that were even then flopping down all over the island, to tell them where to concentrate their efforts. But they did the next best thing. They made the satellite watch records available to us, and when we played these tapes we saw the little glass-bottomed boat slipping out of the lagoon on its way across the strait.
Unfortunately, by the time we saw it, it was history. But there they were. The three children, scrambling up onto the floating dock of the beach house belonging to a Mr. and Mrs. Henri Becquerel, now visiting grandchildren on Peggys Planet. And when we took the next step, monitoring all communications that had gone in or out of the beach house, we had no trouble identifying the two old loonies who had been with the children on the boat.
Then we stored the images and thought it over. “Ah-ha,” said Albert wisely, puffing on his pipe. “Look at the children.”
“Two of them are wearing pods,” Julio Cassata announced, a moment before I would have.
“Exactly.” Albert beamed. “And what better place for an energy being like the Foe to hide away than in a pod?”
I said, “But could they? I mean, how could they?”
Puff, puff. “It might be difficult for them, yes, Robin,” said Albert thoughtfully, “because surely the storage systems are not anything they would be used to. But neither were Heechee Ancestor-storage and our own gigabit net compatible at first. We simply had to devise ways of transcribing one to the other. Do you think the Foe are stupider than we, Robin?” And, before I could answer, “In any case, there is no better hypothesis. We dare not assume anything else. The Foe are in the pods.”
“And pods are on children,” said Essie, “and children are captives of two known murderers. Robin! Whatever do, must be absolutely sure children are not harmed!”
“Of course, my dear,” I said, wondering just how to do that. The data file on Basingstoke and Heimat had not been comforting, even if we overlooked Heimat’s known obsession with young and helpless girls. I made an effort. “The first thing to do,” I said, “is to persuade JAWS to isolate the house. We don’t want Foe getting into gigabit space and wandering around.”
“They’ve had plenty of time to do that already,” Albert pointed out. “But perhaps they haven’t. Maybe they can’t leave the pods-or didn’t think they needed to?” I shook my head. “Your trouble, Albert, is that you’re a machine construct. You don’t know how natural beings behave. If I were one of the Foe, in what is surely a strange and bewildering place, I would find a nice hole to hide in and stay there until I was sure I knew what was safe.”
Albert sighed and rolled his eyes upward. “You have never been a natural energy creature, so you know nothing about their behavior,” he reminded me.
“But if I’m wrong, nothing’s lost, is it? So let’s cut them out.”
“Oh,” he said, “I have already suggested this to the organic leaders of JAWS. The house will be totally isolated in a few thousand milliseconds. Then what?”
“Oh,” I said easily, “then I pay them a call.
It took a lot of milliseconds, actually. I not only had to persuade the JAWS meatheads that I was the best person to negotiate, I had to satisfythem, and Albert, that I could negotiate in some way that wouldn’t give either the old men or the Foe any chance to escape.
“Fine,” Cassata’s doppel said forcefully. “I agree.” I braced myself for the next part. It came. “Somebody must do that, but not you, Broadhead. You’re a civilian.”
I yelled, “Now, listen, stupid—” But Albert raised a hand.
“General Cassata,” he said patiently, “the situation in that house is unstable. We can’t wait for some meat person to get there and negotiate.”
“Of course not,” he said tightly, “but that doesn’t mean it has to be Broadhead!”
“Oh?” said Albert. “Then who? It must be someone like ourselves, must it not? Someone who is familiar with what is going on? Really, one of us here, wouldn’t you say?”
“Not necessarily,” said Cassata, stalling, but Albert wouldn’t let him. “I think it must be,” he said gently, “because time is of the essence, and the only question is which. I don’t think I should be the one; I’m only a rude mechanical, after all.”
Essie cut in, “Certainly not me!”
“And you yourself, General,” said Albert politely, “are simply not good enough for the job. Which leaves only Robinette, I’m afraid.”
He was afraid!
Cassata gave in. “But not in his own person,” he ordered. “Something expendable, and that’s final.”
So it was not precisely “I” who was grinning out of the commset at the two old monsters and their captive kids. It was only a doppel of me, because that was all Albert and the JAWS people would allow, but they also had to allow me one tightly constrained channel of contact with my doppel. They had no choice about that, because otherwise none of us could either know or affect what happened in that little house by the beach on the island of Tahiti.
So I peered out of the PV at the old monsters. I said at once-or my duplicate did-“General Heimat, Mr. Basingstoke, you’re caught again. Don’t do anything ridiculous. We’ll let you go free-under certain conditions-provided you cooperate. Start by untying the children.” And at the same time the other I, safe a hundred thousand kilometers away on the True Love, was complaining bitterly, “But it takes so long~.”
Essie said, “Can’t be helped, dear Robin,” and Albert cleared his throat and offered:
“Do be careful. General Heimat will try some violent act, no doubt, but Basingstoke is more subtle. Watch him closely, please.”
“Do I have a choice?” I grumbled. I did not. They were meat people, and I was I. While my doppel was delivering that interminably long first speech-six thousand milliseconds it took!—I was observing and displaying every person, item of furniture, wall hanging, window, particle of sand, and fluff of dust in that pleasant little room. It took an eternity for me to activate my image and say my words of greeting, and then for Heimat to respond took forever.