There was over a hundred k.n.o.bs. She tried them all -- and got a hundred varieties of noise. Then she started over. On the second round the sounds were different; there were no repeats.

"This may be fun to you, but it's my turn to sleep," Veg said. He lay down on a raised platform that seemed made for the purpose.

Just as well. She could work more efficiently if he were safely out of mischief. She could have zeroed in on the sounds she was looking for much faster but preferred to wait until Veg got bored, for a reason she did not care to tell him. Now she got down to serious business. Still it took time. For two hours she tried new sounds until she got one vaguely resembling human speech. She turned this off, then on again -- and it was a different, yet similar patter. She tried again on the same k.n.o.b, but though the human-sounding voice continued, it was no closer to anything she understood.

"Have to find the key," she murmured inaudibly. "Not getting it yet."

She left the k.n.o.b on and turned to the next. The voice modified, becoming less human. So she went to the k.n.o.b on the other side, and now the voice became more familiar.

In this manner, slowly, she centered on a language approximating contemporary English. She knew she could narrow it down to her exact dialect but refrained.

Veg woke with a start. "Hey -- that's making sense!"

Tamme warned him into silence with a fierce gesture. Now that the language was close, the machine could probably identify their precise alternate -- which was the point of all this. She wanted communication without complete identification, lest her world be in peril.

But the machine -- actually it was an input to the main hive intellect -- had heard. "Curminicate, yez," it said.

"Yez," she agreed, while Veg looked bewildered.

"Ujest noob; abdain edenddy."

That's what you think! she thought. I'll unjest your noobs but not to abdain edenddy. I want an approximation, not ident.i.ty.

She adjusted k.n.o.bs, bringing it closer. She pretended to be trying to obtain ident.i.ty while actually adapting herself to the new pattern so that the machine would be satisfied the language was her own. This was a clever trap: letting the captives pinpoint their own alternates so that their worlds could be nailed.

Meanwhile, she hoped Veg had sense enough to keep his mouth shut. A few words from him now could tip off the machine.

"Now -- gestons," she said.

"Esk."

"Furst geston: wheer or we?"

"Machina Prime, sender of ralofance."

Mentally she translated: Machine Prime, center of relevance. No modesty about this alternate!

"Wat wont with os?" Already the artificial speech pattern was becoming set so that she could think in it and use it automatically. So while Veg's brow furrowed in confusion, to her it was like an ordinary conversation: What do you want with us?

"Merely to identify you and to establish amicable relations between our frames."

Tamme was glad Veg could not follow the machine's dialect readily, for he would have laughed aloud. Amicable relations between the home-alternate of the killer machines and Earth? Unlikely!

Fortunately, she was an expert liar. "This is what we want, too. We shall be happy to cooperate."

"Excellent. We shall send an emissary to your frame and establish an enclave there."

Which enclave would be blasted out of existence -- if it came anywhere close to true-Earth. But it wouldn't. "We shall make a favorable report on our return," she said. "But at present we must continue on through our pattern of frames."

"By all means. We are conversant with your pattern. In fact, we have entertained many of your life-forms before. But we must advise you: There is danger."

Friendly advice from the machine? Beware I "Please explain."

"Your form of sentience is protoplasmic; ours mechanical. Yet we have many similarities, for we both require physical housings and must consume matter in order to produce functioning energy. The enemy is not physical, consumes no matter, and is inimical to rational existence. No physical being is secure on any frame, for the enemy is far more skilled in frame-shifting than either machine or life. But your pattern takes you through an enemy home-frame, and there the danger is magnified."

Oho! So the machines sought liaison against a common antagonist. This just might be worthwhile. "We do not understand the nature of this enemy.

"Its nature is not comprehensible by material beings. It resembles a cloud of energy-points, sustained on a framework of nodes."

The sparkle-pattern! This was an insight indeed! "We have encountered such ent.i.ties but did not appreciate what they were. They moved us from one frame to another involuntarily. From that frame we escaped and are now attempting to find our way home."

"They do this to our units, also. We are able to resist to a certain extent, but they are sronger than we in this respect."

"Stronger than we, too," Tamme said. "We are very clumsy about frame travel." All too true -- which was one of the things that rang false about this proposition. If the machines had true alternate-travel, as this one implied, they had little need of human liaison. If they didn't, there was not much help Tamme's world could offer.

"Two frames are stronger than one."

"We agree. What next?"

"Will your world accede to a contract?"

Contract? What was this? Now she wished she could interpret the physical mannerisms of the computer the way she did with men! "That depends on its content."

"Agreement to interact for mutual benefit. Establishment of interaction enclaves. Transfer of beneficial resources."

Now she was catching on. "I believe my world would be interested. But once our government has ratified the contract -- "

"Government?"

"That select group of individuals that formulate the mechanisms and restrictions of our society so that there will not be chaos."

"Individuals?"

Oh-oh. "Your machines are not separate ent.i.ties?"

"They are separate physically but part of the larger ent.i.ty. Separated from the society, our units become wild, subsapient, without proper control. Only in unity is there civilization. This is why we are unable to travel far between frames; our units become separated from the hive and degenerate into free-willed agents."

"That is a difference between us. We are distinct sub-ent.i.ties; we retain our sentience and civilization when isolated from our hive." But privately she wondered: did human beings really prosper in isolation. Agents certainly did not! For normals it might take a generation, but individuals cut off from their societies did degenerate. Apparently the effect was more intense with the machines. That would explain why this hive-computer was rational, while the machine Veg had met was vicious. Without its civilized control, it had reverted to primitive savagery.

"That is now apparent. It explains what had been a mystery about your kind -- though you behave more rationally than your predecessors."

So some had tried to fight "Perhaps you have made it easier for us to be rational by providing an avenue for communication. It would also help if you made available those substances we require for our energy conversions -- organic materials, water, clean air."

"This we shall do on your advice."

Very accommodating; she almost wished she could afford to trust the machine. Aspects of its society were fascinating. "How should we reach you again? Our meeting here is random; we would not be able to locate your frame again." Maybe she could turn the tables, identifying the machine-alternate without giving away Earth.

"We shall provide you with a frame-homer. This is a nonsentient unit that will broadcast a signal across the framework. We shall be able to locate it by that signal, once it is activated."