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like that, even if I agree? It's not a piece of nonliving metal."
"I'm not sure it'll work, but I think it might if you'll do your part," she
said patiently. "You see, we still really don't know how Raoul's mind-what's
left of it-became part of La Chasse Gallerie. All we ever had was our guess
that two things, his love for his ship and his physical contact with it over a
period of time, caused the two to blend. Even the physical contact may not
have been necessary. That, like the scrapings from AndFriend we put under your
skin, may be only a sort of black magic, a symbolic sort of thing that helps
the mind believe it can migrate to what it's touching. But we do know that the
mind has to want to go where it goes-want it badly enough to make the change.
Everything else may be so much mumbo jumbo, but you wanted AndFriend more than
you wanted life."
"That's true enough," he said soberly. For a second, he remembered his
exhaustion and his desperation just before he had left his human body behind
for what he now was.
"Also," Mary went on, "there could be other factors we can't even guess at.
The fact you and Raoul had spent time in interstellar space may have something
to do with the ability to move your mind. The fact both of you and your ships
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had fought for your lives together could have something to do with it. For all
those reasons, there's not much more than a hope you can shift your mind into
this alien animal, as you call it. But I've got a few things I haven't told
you about. We knew I'd be helpless, physically, once I inhibited your command
of AndFriend. So, the command that took your ability to control away was
designed with exceptions-what you could call holes in it; or perhaps "windows"
would be a better word. If I turn you loose to use a particular window-and I
can with the proper hypnotic command-you can give one, but only one, series of
commands through it; and one of those windows lets you use your ship's robot."
"The robot?"
"That's right. But don't get your hopes up," she said. "You'll only be able
to tell it to do certain things, none of which are going to help you get back
command of the ship as a whole, or do anything to help you to phase-shift it.
As it happens, most of what the robot needs to do to try putting your mind
into Squonk has already been done. Before we left Earth it was equipped with
scrapings from the interior of AndFriend, and these've been stored in him all
this time. What you'll be able to do if I open one of those windows for you is
use Fingers to inject some of that scraping under the skin of Squonk."
"Inject? What makes you think, even if Fingers can do it, that Squonk isn't
going to feel the scrapings being injected and immediately head to the Laagi
equivalent of a veterinarian to have them taken out?"
"We don't, of course," said Mary. "But the scrapings are microscopic, and
the process of injection wouldn't be felt by a human. We just have to hope it
won't be felt by Squonk, either."
Jim sat thinking about it.
"Craziest thing I ever heard of," he grumbled. "If, if, and if... if right
is left and up is down, then maybe we'll all turn into orange trees with the
next word I speak."
"That's not the point," said Mary, still patiently. "The point is, will you
try it? Will you try, honestly try, to consciously move your mind into
Squonk?"
"You'll turn me loose if I do?"
"I didn't say that. I said I'd start to believe that you wanted to stay and
find out about the Laagi, if you try-really try. Remember, if you're not
trying, I'll know it. That's the advantage of my mind being in yours, the way
it is."
"I'll try, of course," said Jim. "I don't have much choice."
"Jim, of course you've got a choice! If you simply sit here refusing to do
anything, and I finally become convinced you never are going to help, and so
we'll never learn anything more about the Laagi and Squonk and the rest of it
than we do now, then I'll turn you loose and we'll go home with that.
Maybe back there there's some other pilot who'll bring me out to be captured
again and-"
"That's a low blow," he said.
"Well," she answered, "if you're the one that doesn't want to stay, can you
complain if someone else does want to?"
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"I told you I wanted to stay," said Jim. "It's just that-forget it. I'm
willing to try putting myself into this creature with the maniac housekeeping
tendencies. What do I do first?"
"Nothing," she answered. "First, I have to open up the window for you to
command Fingers to inject the scrapings. Which I will now do. Go-Cane! Now,
first you'll find you can give the robot the order to inject the material. But
it'll have to wait for a chance to do it when Squonk's close but unsuspecting.
Second, once the material's in Squonk you try to make the connection. Ready to
try it?"
"Ready," answered Jim.
The robot was standing motionless tucked into his storage niche at the back
end of AndFriend's interior, as it had been ever since it had last been put to
use. Squonk had started its cleaning down the side of the ship from the entry
port and would apparently be cleaning up the other side in due course. Before
that he would reach the robot and clean it.
Jim concentrated on the small scrapings from AndFriend that were to be
injected into Squonk. He must, he told himself, have been feeling them there
in the robot all the time, but paid no attention to them since Fingers himself
was part of AndFriend. But now that he knew they were there...
With the ability to feel, rather than see the ship around him, he searched
the robot for something that was not part of Fingers' normal working
equipment. It would be very tiny, but different... ah, he had located it. It
was in a tiny drawer hidden under the end of one of the multiple arms used by
the robot, at the end of the lowest of the extensions at the end of the arm
extensions, capable of taking as attachment any number of small tools.
The scrapings were from the control console in front of the pilot's seat;
and they were already loaded into a tiny, hollow, diamond-pointed needle that
should be able to penetrate any living substance, even horn or bone, to a
depth, if necessary, of fifteen millimeters.
Jim's point of view was now within the scrapings them selves, inside the
robot. Once he would have told Mary about this, but now there was a barrier
between them. If there were things she had seen fit not to tell him, he
thought, there could be things he saw fit not to tell her. From the
motionless, silent mechanical, Jim watched the alien cleaner getting closer
and closer. Even at the slow, careful, deliberate pace Squonk was maintaining,
it was now very near to the robot.
"All right," said the voice of Mary. "Prepare the robot to inject the
material. Tell it. Say 'on the words "Go in," inject the ship's material, now
in the second finger of your lowest right hand, into the living creature
before you. Inject to a depth of nine millimeters into the upper part of one
of the folds of living tissue on the creature's left leg, just below the shell
on its back. Do this as quickly as you can and if possible without attracting
the creature's attention. Then return to "Still" position."'
"I can give the order with a lot less words than that," said Jim, still
holding his point of view inside Fingers.
"Just repeat the words I gave you, please," said Mary. "On the words 'Go
in,' inject... "
"I remember. You don't have to go through it again," said Jim.
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"Good," said Mary. "Because unless you use the words I just gave you, the
window won't work and the robot won't act. So you've been warned. If your
memory does fail you, just pause, and I'll prompt you. I'll also tell you when
to start giving the command. So wait for my order."
"Yes, ma'am!" said Jim.
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