“Very well.” Duke Harald decided swiftly. As ruler of the Outer Marches, his was the final authority in these forest villages. “You are clan leader, as of now. Your baron will confirm when he gets back.” The medico, he could see, was torn between an idea of declining, and the glamour of the proffered post. Duke Harald gave him no time to hesitate.
“Now, summon your clan. And find me a recordograph. Mine lies shattered in the wreck of my car, and I need the observations of the people before lime and idle chatter can distort them.”
A poor substitute this, interrogating one’s own people instead of enemy prisoners. But such observations, and the subsequent logical analysis, paid dividends in knowledge of the battle tactics of the enemy.
He had learned nothing new that time, he remembered; just confirmation of previous reports. But—this had been the time when his idea of seeking telepathic skill on Terra had hardened into decision. The reports from Godfrey’s agents had come later, and—
He blanked the thought. He dared not give the sensitive robot even a hint of that plan. Not when it involved what must be the galaxy’s best-kept secret!
All this passed through his consciousness as a single flash of thought, and was as swiftly replaced by innocuous surface images. Not swiftly enough, though. Something—perhaps he had caught his breath, perhaps a momentary tensing of a muscle—had caused a deviant flicker on a recording needle, had sent an impulse to a comparator circuit somewhere in the depths of the great computer bank.
“The sequence is unfinished.” said the robot, in smooth, unhuman tones.
“Possibly not,” Duke Harald admitted, bringing latent feelings of hunger to the fore—and the hour was getting late! “Yet it faded out.”
“Run it again,” said the robot, and backed the suggestion with the hypnagogic pattern. And the sequence was repeated; once and then again, and again until a dozen repetitions had been counted, and both the memory and Duke Harald were exhausted. Then and then only did the machine accept the hunger explanation, and dismiss him.
Dinner at the Arkadian embassy that night.