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Cirl was not familiar with the concept. Rondl started to clarify it-and lost it himself. "But it covers
what is happening to the Monsters," he said.
Finally space-suited Monsters emerged from the command ships and crossed clumsily to the shuttles
that had been misbehaving. Rondl felt humor; he knew the Monsters would find few genuine
malfunctions. The Bands would remain quiescent as long as any Monster was paying attention. So at
last some shuttles were properly docked and their cargoes unloaded.
The troublemaker Bands were now inside the command ships, undiscovered. The arrogant ignorance
of the Monsters, who took no note of Bands in their cargo, was about to cause them grief.
"Situation normal," Rondl said.
The flow of shuttles resumed-until more accidents happened. One misjudgment was worse than most;
the shuttle accelerated instead of decelerating as it entered the docking port. As a result, it collided
violently with the interior mechanism of the larger ship.
"All fouled up," Rondl continued.
There was the flash of an explosion. Smoke puffed out the port, dissipating into space about the ship.
"I think that Band interfered with the wrong circuit," Cirl remarked. "They weren't supposed to do
that much damage." But she did not seem unduly disturbed.
Rondl gave her a satisfied flash. His prior efforts to stop the Monsters had been failures; this abrupt
success was highly gratifying. But he was not sure how long it would continue. The Monsters were
gruesome, but not stupid; they would investigate, and eventually catch on. What would happen then?
As it turned out, the confusion caused by the series of accidents prevented the Monsters from
concentrating on the origin of those accidents. The Band connection remained undiscovered. Signals
flashed from ship to ship, comparing sites and actions-and the orbiting Bands were able to intercept
and modify some of these signals, causing further mischief. One command ship changed its orbit
when it was not supposed to, disrupting the shuttle schedule again.
Rondl could not resist participating. He located the laser-signal lenses and positioned himself
carefully between the lenses of two ships. This was the sort of maneuver a Band was naturally
equipped for. Laser beams were narrow and plainly visible to Bands; it was child's play to intercept a
fixed beam, as though talking to a distant Band.
Sure enough, messages were crossing. Rondl expected to intercept gibberish, for the Monster
language differed from that of the Bands, and even when translated into light it should not be
intelligible. But to his amazement he understood it. Was this another dream? Surely not! But he
refused to be concerned at the moment; he would exploit this anomaly to the utmost while he could.
By rotating in place he could pick up both sides of their dialogue. The Monsters were very crude
conversationalists; first one would transmit a complete thought, then the other would. That gave
Rondl plenty of time to reorient.
"...thought that was the directive, sir. We have it on recording. 'Correct orbit to Specification DL-11.'
We did not question-"
Here the signal was interrupted by an imperious override beam from the other ship. Quickly Rondl
reoriented.
"...should have questioned, Major! You know we have not completed Stage Four of this assignment.
Now get that tub back to the Stage Four rendezvous orbit!"
Rondl reacted with the ability of his kind, modifying the message as though he were participating in a
circle-communication. He did not need time to reflect; the message he relayed became part of his
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thought, and his input was automatic. The tiniest, most precise flux in his magnetic lens modified the
light passing through it very slightly. Thus the second "four" became "five," changing the directive a
little bit.
"Return to what stage, sir?" the major queried, confused. Rondl did not know what the numbers of the
stages signified, but he was sure that the wrong number would make further mischief.
"Are you deaf?" the senior officer retorted with typical Monster courtesy. "I told you four!" Only
Rondl changed it again to "five." It was so simple to add one light-bit to the relevant sequence.
"Yes, sir," the major replied dubiously. This was all in laser, which was the machine-translated form
of the Monster's verbal communication, but Rondl could almost see the creature's mobile, fleshy
mouth-orifice rims rippling and his liquid-centered eyeballs squishing in confusion. "Five." And, of
course, Rondl converted that back to "four."
That out-of-place ship shot out its voluminous gases in the clumsy way these machines had, looking
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