V
He got up stiffly and reached for the locker handles, squeezed the metal, felt the latches withdraw, swung the doors open. Mechanically he took down the reels of film and wire from their pegs and laid them in squat pillars on the table top. Another locker yielded two black rectangular carrying cases with handles. Herl loaded the reels carefully into one case, checked the power pack in the base of the other case with leads to a test-board in one drawer of the table. Lifting both heavy cases, he started for the door.
The slightest clue of remembrance ting-tinged in his mind, and he returned to his chair and phoned the control tower.
"Class M ship Krylla on the field calling control tower," he bit off the words tensely.
"Control tower to Krylla; come in Krylla." The voice was high-pitched and boyish, obviously not Saem Berry.
"Did you see what became of the cabter that landed me here," Herl referred to the chronometer on his instrument panel, "ten minutes ago?"
"Cabter KZ-351 returned to Delight City."
"Can you call me another cabter to take me to the city?" At any rate, Herl thought, she really was powerful to be able to return an empty cabter. He had an amusing mental image of Abigail stretching an extra shining arm through the miles of air between the Krylla and where a shining hand supported the waiting and unconscious Bill Haulwell. He might learn some tricks from her yet.
All he had to do was find out why she had rescued him and Bill. After all, if she had no knowledge of valid selection of purposes, she must be controlled by some command, some exterior compulsion, like the familiar robots of earth, so carefully constructed with arbitrary functions and prohibitions built in. Time to compute on that later. The thought was rapid, finished before the answer came from the tower.