Ironsmith smiled, with a cheery, calm assurance. "Really, for those who fail to find their happiness in any other way, euphoride may be the best solution."
Forester shook his head, speechless.
"But you can easily avoid it, if you wish," the other promised lightly.
"All you have to do is accept the humanoids, and find yourself a way of life that fits the Prime Directive.
The physical frontiers are closed, I know, but you can find a wider field of scientific research still open, in the mind."
"How's that?" Forester whispered blankly.
"We can talk about it later." Ironsmith absently adjusted the chessmen.
"Someone's waiting on me now, but I do want to help you get adjusted to the humanoids.
Really, Forester, they're opening a new epoch of civilization.
Splendid, when you get to understand it. I want to help you like them."
Forester snorted indignantly.
"You will," Ironsmith insisted mildly. "When you get acquainted with them.
It's really too bad you persist in imputing malice to them, because they're not malicious.
No machine could be.
They're only doing the magnificent work for which old Warren Mansfield designed them, quite successfully."
"Huh?" Forgetful of the machines beside him, Forester had caught his breath to protest.
The other man was already frowning at the chessmen, however, and, as Forester hesitated, awareness of his dark guardians fell upon him crushingly.
He swallowed hard, trying not to shudder.
"Suppose we meet again, later?" Ironsmith was asking cordially.
"For dinner tonight?"
"Thanks," Forester muttered stiffly. "Glad to."
But Ironsmith would never be an ally - that was starkly clear.
He had always liked the humanoids too well, and he seemed far too clever now at rationalizing and excusing that strange perversity.
Whatever the secret of his special freedom and the origin of his twisted loyalty to these benign enemies of men, he had become something far more sinister than any mere disguised machine.
"Till dinner, then," he was murmuring affably.
"We'll go down to the coast. The humanoids have built a new place for me there, but I'm too contented here to move."
Nodding happily at the shabby old room behind him, the mathematician went graciously to open the door. Forester propelled himself reluctantly out, pausing to glance uneasily back at the waiting chessmen. Clammy-fingered dread touched the spine, as he wondered who was Ironsmith's chess opponent. Forester felt oddly sorry to leave Ironsmith's sunburned grin and the comfortable little island of familiar things somehow preserved from the machines, for ahead was a sea of strangeness.
Panic caught his throat when he saw once more how all of Starmont had been transformed, and he looked anxiously toward the north rim of the little mesa for the squat old concrete building which concealed Project Thunderbolt.
He couldn't find the search building. Perhaps it was only hidden behind the long amber walls of the villa, but he had to fight a suffocating dread that the machines had already torn it down, and so stumbled upon the vault beneath.
He shuffled forlornly on between his keepers, afraid to turn aside or look again, but he must have somehow betrayed his sharp unease, because the humanoid at his right elbow asked suddenly:
"Clay Forester, why are you unhappy?"
"But I am happy.
Quite!" He gulped at the dusty roughness in his throat.
"It's just that things are different, now, and a man needs time to think."
"Thinking doesn't make men happy, sir," the machine protested blandly.
"But we can solve any necessary problem-"
Forester tried not to listen to that cheery purr.
His necessary problem was to reach that buried vault alone, to launch one missile against Wing IV, but the humanoids would be no help at that.
His plodding steps halted suddenly.
"Service, sir," whined the machine.
"Has something disturbed you?"
"No, I'm quite all right." He made himself move on, kicking at a pebble to show his unconcern.
"But a man needs to talk to his friends, and I just remembered an old acquaintance I'd like to see.
I wonder if you can find him for me."
"What is his name, sir?"
"Mark White." Forester's voice went too high, and he paused to frown as if with effort.
"I don't remember any address, but he was living somewhere on the West Coast.
A big, blue-eyed man, red-bearded. A professional philosopher.
Perhaps he could help me get adjusted."
The machine stood frozen beside him.