He inspected it thoroughly. He could see where the robot had begun to add parts. Methodically he unhooked the surplus components. If Nona had thought they should be on there she would have attached them. They didn't belong.
When he was down to the original mechanism he looked at it perplexedly. It was designed to be worn as a belt. He fastened it around his waist and touched the stud.
By now he had some idea of what it was intended for. It was not surprising that it worked perfectly.
He expected that it would. Nona seldom failed. What Jordan didn't notice and would never discover—no one would—was that there were three minute parts that the robot had added, almost too small for the human eye to see. And those three parts were indispensable. Without them the belt would not function at all. For the lack of them Nona had discarded the idea as unworkable.
[10]
Jed Webber came in noisily. His left foot was heavy and his left arm swung more than it should. Otherwise there wasn't much that remained of the timid awkward man of weeks ago.
Docchi looked up. "Did my calculations check?"
Webber grinned. "I thought they would but I wanted to be sure. It's one of the Centauris."
"Is that as close as you can come?"