She paused to stare curiously at Randall, who was still scrutinizing the sky. Stewart wondered momentarily whether the director might not be wrestling with a morbid fear of the astronomical distance separating him from home. It was possible, with Sol and Centauri far less prominent than Aldebaran's minor companions in the field of brilliant stars.
"However," Carol resumed, "I'll put on a sheath and go with you. Out there I might tap the predigital spill-off and find out whether it's correlating and sequencing properly."
"You'd better stay aboard for a while," Randall advised. "Those puppets haven't responded to human direction for over a year."
"You mean there might be danger?"
"Let's just say their behavior may not be entirely predictable." He gestured toward the screen. "Like now."
The vanguard of robot explorers, led by the towering Operations Co-ordinator, had reached the ship. The Magnetometer began darting around one of the hydraulic fins, charting lines of isomagnetic intensity. The Mineral Analyzer had already sunk its drill into the broad, flat surface of the stabilizer. And the Flora Collector and Analyzer was being boosted by the OC to the lowest spiral of the ship's subspace drive intensifier. Deposited upon the ceramics-insulated coil, the crablike puppet was doing its best to flake off some of the outer substance for testing.
McAllister laughed. "Look at those mixed-up machines! They're trying to analyze the ship!"
"That's what I mean," Randall pointed out soberly. "One of their inhibitions is to ignore refined metal. That's how we keep their barges from being pecked to pieces."
"You don't think we can run into trouble out there, do you?" Mortimer asked, concerned.