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"Because your caution-circuit has been bridged out."
"Vicious circle. The cold of space has fractured that bridge, and in a moment my tooth "
More static. Dillingham realized that fate had given him yet another chance. The Jann would be
immobilized again, this time in deep space.
"Farewell, mor " but static cut off the rest. The cold had completed its work, and the intermittent
failure had become permanent.
Dillingham sat for half an hour in silence, listening to the continuing static. He knew that every minute
of it meant a minute of terrible suffering for the Jann. Unless something were done, the robot would drift
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through space forever, in an agony it hardly deserved.
Yet his own life was sweet, and he had a promising future. Should he throw it all away... again?
"Clam chowder!" he said at last. Then he put through a call to the spaceport at Hazard. "A derelict is
moving in your direction, and should pass within the range of your landing net in the next few hours.
Intercept it and perform the following repair." He went on to describe the tooth-bridging operation.
"And locate an appropriate replacement for the affected tooth, if you can, because there is an important
circuit involved."
"It shall be done, Director," the official said. "Where do you want the ship delivered after it has been
repaired?"
"It isn't a ship, exactly. It's a self-propelled robot. Let it go when you're through and charge the service
to my University account."
"Very well, Director." The official signed off.
Once a fool, always a fool, he thought. He simply could not preserve his own life at the cost of eternal
torture for another creature, even an inanimate one. He wanted to live, certainly but the end did not
justify the means. That was hardly an attitude, he thought ruefully, that a creature like Anteater would
comprehend. Dillingham hardly comprehended it himself. Probably Anteater would outlive him...
At any rate, he had a reprieve of a few hours, unless they repaired the Jann before Dillingham reached
Hazard himself. He would have to gamble on getting in and out before the pursuit resumed. He still
could not use the translator, because he knew the Jann was listening in even though it could not reply or
act. Better to swear off such devices entirely, so that at least he would be hidden.
But he was still bottled in. He could not get off the ship before it landed, and once it did land...
Then he remembered the lifeboats. How could he call the Jann an unoriginal thinker, when that escape
had almost bypassed his own mental circuitry!
Dillingham drew out some thin paperlike dental illustrations and began to draw on their blank backs. He
took some pains, erasing frequently and redrawing. He wound up with several complex configurations.
He left the compartment silently, using the emergency manual door control. He searched out the
Captain's cabin. He used his knuckles to knock on the door, avoiding the electronic signaller. Then he
stepped back so as to be out of range of the viewscreen pick-up. He could, however, still see the screen's
projected image.
The screen came on and the Captain's whiskery proboscis showed. There were sounds indicating a
question. Since the hall translator had no object to fix on, it had to feed through the Captain's native
speech. Translators could perform moderate linguistic miracles, but were not equipped to play guessing
games among the several million discreet galactic languages.
Dillingham did not answer. Any word he said would be relayed straight to the Jann as well as to the
Captain.
After a moment the screen snapped off. False alarm, the Captain had evidently decided. Such things
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happened on old ships. Then Dillingham went up to tap on the door again.
After several repeats, the frustrated Captain opened the door personally to investigate the nature of the
malfunction. Dillingham poked one of his ornate symbol-signs around the corner.
The officer paused, making no sound. Here was the test: would he understand? He commanded a
broken-down vessel and was largely over the hill himself but that should mean the Captain had had
over a century of experience. He must have knocked about the galaxy considerably. Such a creature
should know the galactic graphics shorthand.
The GG shorthand was a system of symbols based on meaning, not phonics. Just as the Chinese written
language of Earth could be used by those speaking a number of dissimilar dialects and languages,
because each figure stood for a specific concept and not a spoken word in just this way the galactic
shorthand was a universal written language. Any creature of the galaxy who could see at all and most
could was able to learn to read the symbols. The basic vocabulary was designed to apply even to
languages that did not employ verbs, nouns and other familiar parts of speech. (In fact, the majority did
not; Dillingham's own family of languages represented an archaic fluke, as far as the galaxy was
concerned.)
But not every individual bothered to master the shorthand. In fact, few other than travelling scholars
retained proficiency in it, though every University had a mandatory freshman course in it. Translators
and transcoders were ubiquitous, so the written art languished particularly since there were also
translators for written material that were just as efficient as the verbal ones.
Dillingham was gambling that the Captain had had to poke into so many backward planets that the
shorthand would have been a useful and necessary tool. Dillingham was also gambling that his own just-
completed freshman course had made him proficient enough to be intelligible. He had been instructed by
drugs and suggestion, and really could not be certain how much or how well he knew.
The Captain angled one eye-stalk around the comer. Below this floating eyeball was a tentacle looped
around an old-fashioned short-range blaster the type of weapon useful for wiping out opposition
without puncturing any vital pipes. The charge could burn off Dillingham's clothing and hair and
epidermis quickly, and kill him slowly. He stood absolutely still.
The Captain came around the corner and gestured down the hall. Dillingham marched as directed. No
other communication occurred. Had the creature understood?
They entered a blank cold cubicle. A single neon cast an eerie light on the single locked file-cabinet.
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