Dr. Morris Fitzhugh’s wrinkled face looked as though he were on the verge of crying. Which—perhaps—he was.
He looked at the others at the wardroom table—Quill, Jeffers, von Liegnitz, Keku, Leda Crannon, and Mike the Angel. But he didn’t really seem to be seeing them.
“Ruined,” he said. “Eighteen billion dollars’ worth of work, destroyed completely. The brain has become completely randomized.” He sighed softly. “It was all Vaneski’s fault, of course. Theology.” He said the last as though it were an obscene word. As far as robots were concerned, it was.
Captain Quill cleared his throat. “Are you sure it wasn’t mechanical damage? Are you sure the vibration of the ship didn’t shake a—something loose?”
Mike held back a grin. He was morally certain that the captain had been going to say “screw loose.”
“No,” said Fitzhugh wearily. “I’ve checked out the major circuits, and they’re in good physical condition. But Miss Crannon gave him a rather exhaustive test just before the end, and it shows definite incipient aberration.” He wagged his head slowly back and forth. “Eight years of work.”
“Have you notified Treadmore yet?” asked Quill.
Fitzhugh nodded. “He said he’d be here as soon as possible.”
Treadmore, like the others who had landed first on Eisberg, was quartered in the prefab buildings that were to form the nucleus of the new base. To get to the ship, he’d have to walk across two hundred yards of ammonia snow in a heavy spacesuit.