a concept dealing with his physical construction. It’s incredible! His body is composed almost entirely of water … there’s enough water in him alone to prolong the life of the Rell many ages. Further, the air in his ‘ship’ is heavily impregnated with moisture and he even has reserve supplies of water for his needs.”
At this, not only Raeillo/ee13, but all except perhaps the most responsible units felt a shiver of primitive longing and perhaps even greed. Not for millennia
had there been such a plentitude of water so close!
“Then can’t we appropriate at least part of it?” asked the speculative bank.
“Unfortunately both the ‘man’, as he calls himself, and his ‘ship’ are sealed so tightly that we could not penetrate either. Worse yet, almost half his time here is already gone. We don’t quite understand his purpose here. His thoughts seem to say he is searching for Rell for some unfathomable reason yet he seems to know nothing of the Rell and cannot even detect us.”
It was the next day when the time was almost all gone that the two big discoveries were made. During a routine check, the mesh came across a thought of the man’s return and a visualization of his home world. It was so startling that the interpretive bank was recalled from its effort to try to devise a means through the spacesuit and set at the new problem.
A hasty check of the man’s subconscious thoughts revealed the big news. “Do you know,” the interpretive bank announced, “not only does this being’s home world have a moist atmosphere like that in his ship but two thirds of the surface of his world is liquid water!”
Even the speculative bank was silent for a full two seconds after this news. Then a hasty impulse was sent to the disciplinary corps and the entire mind called into action. An extreme emergency upon which the fate of the race hinged called for the utmost effort by even the humblest members of the group.
The Rell worked diligently and many blind alleys were explored, but it was not for some time that anyone thought of enquiring of the not-too-bright feeding bank how they were managing to keep the mind operating at considerably more than normal power with no frost within feeding distance.
“We’re taking moisture from the air