As Meg had said, the spheres were possessed of eyes that were scattered all about their surfaces, moving from time to time to new positions.
Cushing walked toward them, with Meg close beside him, the others staying in the rear. The spheres, Cushing saw, were about the size that he had estimated. Except for the eyes, they seemed to have no other organs that were visible.
Six feet from them, Cushing and Meg halted, and for a moment nothing happened. Then one of the spheres made a sound that was a cross between a rumble and a hum. Curiously, it sounded as if the sphere had cleared its throat.
The sphere rumbled once again and this time the rumble defined itself into booming speech. The words were the kind that a drum would make had a drum been able to put together words.
"You are humans, are you not?" it asked. "By humans, we mean— "I know what you mean," said Cushing. "Yes, we are human beings."
"You are the intelligent species that is native to this planet?"
"That is right," said Cushing.
"You are the dominant life form?"
"That's correct," said Cushing.
"Then allow me," said the sphere, "to introduce ourselves.
We are a team of investigators who come from many light years distant. I am Number One and this one that stands beside me is termed Number Two. Not that one of us is first or the other second, but simply to give us both identity."
"Well, that is fine," said Cushing, "and we are pleased to meet you. But would you mind telling me what you are investigating."
"Not at all," said #1. "In fact, we'd be most happy to, for we have some hope that you may be able to shed light upon some questions that puzzle us exceedingly. Our field of study is the technological civilizations, none of which seem to be viable for any length of time. They carry within themselves the seeds of their destruction. On other planets we have visited where technology has failed, that seems to have been the end of it. The technology fails and the race that had devised and lived by it then fails as well. It goes down to barbarism and it does not rise again, and on the face of it that has happened here. For more than a thousand years the humans of this planet have lived in barbarism and give all signs that they will so continue, but the A and R assures us that it is not so, that the race has failed time and time again and after a certain period of rest and recuperation has risen to even greater heights. As so, says the A and R, will be the pattern of this failure…."
"You are talking riddles," said Cushing. "Who is this A and R?"
"Why, he is the Ancient and Revered, the A and R for short. He is a robot and a gentleman and—"
"We have with us a robot," Cushing said. "Rollo, please step forward and meet these new friends of ours. Our company also includes a horse."
"We know of horses," said #2 in a deprecatory tone. "They are animals. But we did not know—"
"Andy is no animal," Meg said acidly. "He may be a horse,
but he is a fey horse. He is a searcher-out of water and a battler of bears and many other things besides."
"What I meant to say," said #2, "is that we did not know there were any robots other than the ones that live upon this geographic eminence. We understood that all other robots had been destroyed in your so-called Time of Trouble."
"I am, so far as I am aware," said Rollo, "the only robot left alive. And yet, you say the Ancient and Revered—"
"The Ancient and Revered," said #1, "and a host of others. Surely you have met them. Nasty little creatures that descend upon one and regale one with endless, senseless chatter, all talking at the same time, all insistent that one listen." He sighed. "They are most annoying. For years we have tried to listen to them, in the hope they would provide a clue. But they provide us nothing but a great confusion. I have the theory, not shared by the other member of the Team, they are naught but ancient storytellers who are so programmed that they recite their fictional adventures to anyone they may chance upon, without regard as to whether what they have to tell—"
"Now, wait a minute," said RoIlo. "You're sure these things are robots? We had thought so, but I had a hope-"
"You have met them, then?"
"Indeed we have," said Meg. "So you think the things they tell us are no more than tales designed for entertainment?"
"That's what I think," said #1. "The other member of the Team believes, mistakenly, that they may talk significances which we, in our alien stupidness, are not able to understand. Let me ask you, in all honesty, how did they sound to you? As humans you may have been able to see in them something we have missed."
"We listened to them for too short a time," said Cushing, "to arrive at any judgment."
"They were with us for only a short while," said Meg, "then someone called them off."
"The A and R, most likely," said #1. "He keeps a sharp eye on them."
"The A and R—" asked Cushing, "how do we go about meeting him?"
"He is somewhat hard to meet," said #2. "He keeps strictly to himself. On occasion he has granted us audiences."
"Audiences," said #1. "For all the good it did."
"Then he tells you little?"
"He tells us much," said #1, "but of such things as his faith in the human race. He pretends to take an extremely long-range view, and, to be fair about it, he does not seem perturbed."
"You say he is a robot?"
"A robot, undoubtedly," said #2, "but something more than that. As if the robotic part of him is no more than a surface indication of another factor that is much greater."
"That is what you think," said #1. "He is clever, that is all. A very clever robot."
"We should have told you sooner," said #2, "but we tell you now. We are very glad to meet you. No other humans come. We understand the Trees will not let them through. How did you manage to get through the Trees?"
"It was no sweat," said Cushing. "We just asked them and they let us through."
"Then you must be very special persons.
"Not at all," said Meg. "We simply seek the Place of Going to the Stars."
"The going to the what? Did we hear you rightly?"
"The stars," said Meg. "The Place of Going to the Stars."
"But this is not," said #1, "a Place of Going to the Stars. In all the time we ye been here, there has been no mention of
going to the stars. We know, of course, that one time men went into space, but whether to the stars—"
"You are sure," asked Cushing, "that this is not the Place of Going to the Stars?"
"We have heard no mention of it," said #2. "There is no evidence it was ever used as such. We have the impression that this is the last place of refuge for those elite intellectuals who may have foreseen the Time of Trouble and sought to save themselves. But if this is so, there is no record of it. We do not know; we simply have surmised. The last stronghold of reason on this planet. Although, if that is true, the refuge failed, for there is no indication there have been any humans here for many centuries."
Cushing said, "Not the Place of Going to the Stars?"
"I fear not," said #1.