"And that computer, did it not give them orders? Is the computer the most powerful brain on this planet?"

"No." Holbrook joined her on the floor. Oxygen lack slowed his thoughts, but he plowed doggedly toward an idea. "No, I don't believe in robots with creative minds. That's what intelligence itself is for. You wouldn't build a machine to eat for you, or ... or make love ... or any truly human function. Machines are to help, to amplify, to supplement. That thing is a gigantic memory bank, a symbolic logic manipulator, what you like; but it is not a personality."

"But then why did they obey it?" she cried.

Grushenko smiled wearily. "I suppose a clever dog might wonder why a man obeys his slide rule," he said.

"A good enough analogy," said Holbrook. "Here's my guess. It's obvious the Zolotoyans have been civilized for a very long time. So I imagine they visited all the nearer stars ... ages ago, maybe. They took data home with them. That computer is, as Ekaterina said a few hundred years back, the commissar of interstellar relations. It has all the data. It identifies us, our home planet—"

"Yes, of course!" exclaimed Grushenko. "At this moment, the rulers of Zolotoy—whatever they have, perhaps the entire population—they are studying the report on us!"

Ekaterina closed her eyes. "And what will they decide?" she asked in a dead voice.

"They will send someone to learn our language, or teach us theirs," said Grushenko. A lift of excitement came to him, he paced up and down, his boots clacked on the floor and his face became a harsh mask of will. "Yes. The attack on us at the mine was a mistake of some kind. We must assume that, comrades, because if it was not we are certainly doomed. Now we have a chance to reason with them. And they can restore the rightful captaincy to the Rurik!"

Holbrook looked up, startled. After a moment: "What makes you so sure they will?"

"There is much we can offer them—it may be necessary to conceal certain elements, in the interests of the larger truth, but—"

"Do you expect to fool a superman?"

"I can try," said Grushenko simply. "Assuming that there is any need to. Actually, I think they are sure to favor the Red side. Marxist principles would seem to predict that much. However...."

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