“Giles is an old, old man.
His eyes are blurred and dun.
But still he can relish the sight of beauty, Jay.
And that girl was too beautiful to be stood before your blaster squad.
Ah, she was a dream!”
“If you were any other man, Giles, you’d stand before a blaster squad yourself.”
The Commander turned decisively back to Gaspar Hannas.
“Remind your police,” he said, “that this female android is worth two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
That makes three quarters of a million, now, for the two.”
“I’ll make it an even million, Commander,” the white giant gasped. “To save the New Moon—”
He stumbled away toward the elevator.
Jay Kalam was rubbing reflectively at his jaw.
“Perhaps Luroa ought to stand beside Derron on our suspect list,” he said slowly.
“We know the Basilisk is clever, utterly ruthless, and superbly trained in science—and that description certainly fits the android.
She must be either the Basilisk or his confederate—or else she came here to snatch his prize away!”
He turned methodically to the rigid thing Chan Derron had slain.
Hal Samdu was already playing his light-tube over it, while Giles Habibula prodded rather fearfully at its armored body with his cane.
“Ah, such a horror!” the old man wheezed.
“And it came out of nothing—”
“It came from somewhere,” Jay Kalam broke in gravely, “and it brings a new complexity into the situation.
It’s no native of the System. And like nothing we found hi the comet.
It means—”
“Jay!” It was an astonished gasp, from Giles Habibula.
“Jay, look here!”
The prodding cane trembled hi his hand.
“This mortal thing was never alive!”
“What’s that?”
“See!” the old man wheezed.
“The scales of it are metal, fastened on with rivets.
The wings are neither flesh nor feathers—they’re blessed cellulite.
It had no muscles to make them beat, but this rotating shaft.
These serpentine tentacles that raped the poor lass away, are all of metal disks and rubber and wire. And the fearsome eyes have lenses of vitrilith.
“Jay, the thing’s a mortal robot!”
“So it is, Giles.”
He bent over it.
“Hal, may I have your light?”
He peered into one of the huge, glassy orbs, felt the frail-seeming elastic stuff of the wings, inspected beak and tentacles and limbs, studied the patch of scorched metal scales, and the fused pit where the central eye had been.
At last he stood up, decisively, and returned the light-tube.
“Ah, Jay,” inquired Giles Habibula, “what do you discover?”
“A good deal,” said the Commander.
“A number of inferences are immediately obvious.
A thorough scientific investigation will doubtless suggest as many others.”
He turned to Hal Samdu.
“Hal, you take charge of this—mechanism.
Send to Rocky Mountain base at once for a crew of research technicians—get as many men as possible who were with us on the cometary expedition—and have them disassemble it.
“Make a thorough microscopic, chemical, bacteriological, and spectrographic study of surface specimens and the material of every part.
Photograph every part, before and after removal, under ultraviolet light.
Make—but your crew will know what to do.
Tell them to neglect no possible source of information—for this thing is our one tangible clue to the methods and the headquarters of the Basilisk.
“Have your men write up a complete report of what you find, and all possible deductions as to where this machine was built, by whom, for what purpose, and how it could have come to the New Moon.