"What difference will that make? He's been dead too long to mind it himself, and anyway his brain and sensor connections were decently burned."
"But they wouldn't have had to dig much deeper to get someone who's not dead, would they, Ninety-Five, my young friend? I suppose when they cut one or two of your sensors you decided it was time to do something. Don't interrupt! I'm talking! This planet is supposed to be a quiet place where people can expect to spend a decent number of centuries at a time thinking, without being disturbed. If you're too young or too lazy or just too stupid to do any real thinking yourself, at least you can devote a little time from your casual amusements to making sure that other people can. Shut up! You'll do some thinking now or find yourself in real trouble! Here's a problem for you to solve, and see that you solve it!
"You will get my sensors repaired, making sure not only that you're not caught at the job by these space travelers but also that they don't realize it's been done. In other words, don't just neatly fill in the hole they made after you've finished, so they can't help knowing they're not the only intelligences on this world. I don't know when they'll be back any better than you do, so you'll have to guess at your own time limit. You can booby-trap your canyon with landslides or anything else to keep yourself from being dug out, but if you fail in either problem and either of us looks likely to be found I personally guarantee you'll be found in the same shape as Sixteen. Now get to work, and let me think. If you think you can get help or sympathy from anyone else on the planet, good luck to you."
A wave of agreement spread along the countless miles of sensor wiring that extended through Viridis' crust, but Twenty-Five didn't feel or hear it. He had already taken the myriad of tendrils that terminated his arms away from the mosaic console that formed the end of the vast bundles of greenish threads coming through the walls of his cave, and had settled back in his lounging chair. That report—only fifty years to have it thought out—his full attention went back to it.