The animat nodded. He turned toward the battered port.
Ina was studying the serial plate on Jay's helmet. "Take the others along, J46," she said. "You are in charge of them."
Jay's heart pounded proudly. The human one had confidence in him. Never, in all the six weeks of his short existence, had men spoken a kindly word to him. To them he had been a stupid machine to be worked out in the radioactive mines of distant worlds.
"Yes ... Ina Haan," he said.
"Onin Tufor," he ordered slowly, "Zee Fivotu, come...."
The animats rose from their mindless squatting and shuffled after him into the Sun Maiden's scrambled interior....
Jay and the tall shambling animat called Onin Tufor were gathering the small, brown-husked fruit of the balloon-like kreth that grew on the slopes above the space ship. The fruit grew at the base of the swollen hollow globe, and on its stubby branches.
In the days since their landing the two girls and the animats had learned to eat, if not like, the edible berries and fruits of the eternally clouded world. And they had made two comparatively unharmed cabins snug and only slightly damp by sealing them with tough sheets of kreth.
"Would you boost me up?" asked Jay.