"So this is your new toy," he said. The creature, which had been slumped listlessly in the chair, seemed to look at Doc with distaste. It hummed something. Doc looked inquiringly at Ernest. "Have you two established communication?"
"It's a robot," Ernest said defensively. "The question is, could we learn more by leaving it intact and pumping it for whatever information is stored up inside it, or by taking it apart? For instance, it just said:
"Uninterred beyond the hills
Lie never weres and never wills."
Doc became excited. "It really said that?"
"Well, not in so many words. It said—"
"I know, I know. Your poetic license hasn't expired. I mean, that is the gist of it? That somewhere back of the hills there's a charnel heap—a dump of corpses, of miscarriages—something of the sort?"
"You could put that interpretation on it," Ernest said. "I got the impression of something abortive."
"That's the best lead yet," Doc said. "If we could find anything other than dust piles, no matter how embryonic—Lieutenant, your boys must have been looking in the wrong places. How soon can you get a detail out over the hills?"
The lieutenant looked at his watch. "If I've got this screwy rotation figured out, dawn's about half an hour off. That soon enough?"