"Excellent. We shall activate it when the contract is ready."

A slot opened below the k.n.o.bs. Inside a little drawer was a lentil-sized b.u.t.ton. "No need. This will activate itself when the occasion is proper."

So they weren't gambling overmuch on the good faith of the other party, either! Tamme took it and filed it away in a pocket. "Good. Now we must proceed."

"We shall provide you with your material needs if you will explain them."

She hesitated, then decided to gamble. Why should the machine poison them when it already had them in its power? More likely it would do them every possible little service in the hope of getting them and its unit safely to Earth, thus making firm contact. So she described the type of vitamins, proteins, and minerals that life required.

After some experimentation, the machine produced edible, if unappetizing, food synthesized from its resources. Tamme and Veg were hungry, so they ate and enjoyed. She kept Veg silent while she gave advice for future cuisine. Though she did not regard any human beings that might follow as her friends, the common enemies were a greater threat; let the humans settle their differences in private. Also, let some other Earth be taken over if that was the way of it.

"You understand," she said at the conclusion of the meal, "we can not guarantee when we will reach our home-world, or if we will. Alternity is complex."

"We understand. We shall conduct you to your projector."

"Thank you."

A truck appeared. The bars lifted. Tamme gestured Veg inside, at the same time touching her finger to her lips. She did not want him blabbing anything while they remained within the hearing of any machine, which she now knew to be no more than a unit of the hive.

They rode out of the giant complex, and she felt a very human relief. Shortly they were deposited at a platform. Set on a pedestal was a projector.

Tamme wasted no time. She activated it. And they --

-- were standing in mist again.

"Okay -- now can I talk?" Veg demanded.

"Should be safe," she said. She had considered whether the lentil-signal could overhear them but decided not. If it were sentient, it would lose its orientation away from the hive-frame, and if it were not, it would probably be inactive until activated. Why should Machine Prime care about their dialogue when their world of Earth was so near its grasp? Calculated risk; she was not ready to throw it away yet but did not want to keep Veg silent forever.

She forged through the mist toward the next projector.

Veg followed her with difficulty. He had to crawl on hands and knees, taking deep breaths from air pockets near the ground. "That pidgin English you were jabbering -- sounded as though you made some kind of deal -- "

"The machine culture wants permission to exploit Earth," she said. "Apparently they have very limited alternate-transfer capacity, hardly ahead of ours, and unless the whole hive goes, the machines become wild. So they want to place an identifying beacon on our alternate -- they call it a 'frame' -- so that they can zero in with a full self-sustaining enclave. That means a hive-brain. They say they need a contract between alternates, but I don't believe that. Who would enforce such a doc.u.ment?"

"Yeah, who?" he echoed.

She found the projector and activated it.

They stood within the closing walls.

"I don't think it's smart, showing them where Earth is," Veg said.

"Don't worry. If there's one thing I'm not going to do, it's take their b.u.t.ton to Earth. I'll find a good place for it -- somewhere else in alternity."

"Yeah." He was right behind her as she moved toward the next projector, avoiding capture by the walls. "But what was this about a common enemy?"

"The sparkle-cloud. They can't handle it, either. It is the ultimate alternity traveler. But the fact that we have a mutual enemy does not necessarily make us allies. I played along with the hive-brain only to get us out of there. Which it probably knew."

"Then why did it -- ?"

"That beacon-b.u.t.ton is probably indestructible short of atomic fusion. We're traveling through alternate frames. It's bound to key the machine boss in somewhere even if we throw it away -- and it could pay off big if we actually get it to an exploitable world."

"Like Paleo?" They skirted the burned-out decoy projector, mute evidence that this was the same frame they had visited before.

"Like our Earth. From what I observed, those machines with their physical power and hive-unity could probably devastate Earth. Our population would become an organic source of nutrition, and our terrain would represent expansion room for their excess units."

Veg scratched his head. "Are we sure they would do that? Maybe they really are trying to be -- "

"It is what we would do to them."

He nodded. "I guess so. The old omnivore syndrome. Do unto others before they do it unto you. You know you agents wanted to save the alternates for Earth to exploit. Now that we're running into tough civilizations, or whatever -- "

"Right. It may be better to close off the alternate frontier entirely. I shall make a complete report on my return. It may be that your dinosaur worlds will be saved after all."

"That's great!" he exclaimed, giving her arm a squeeze with his big hand. He was so strong that she felt discomfort, though no ordinary man could harm her. "Even though it's too late for the real Paleo."

"There will be countless alternate Paleos -- and it is not certain that we eliminated all the dinosaurs from that one. It was the manta spores we were after, you know."

He was silent. She knew the memory of the destruction of the Cretaceous enclave of Paleo still tormented him, and she had been one of the agents responsible.

They reached the projector. This one was charged, though it would not have been had they not spent that time interviewing the hive-computer. Sooner or later they would return to a frame too quickly and be unable to project out despite pressing need to do so. She would have to prepare for that, if possible. What would be the best way to survive for two hours under pressure? Educate Veg?

Meanwhile, they both needed some rest, and they could not be a.s.sured of getting it on an untried world. Veg had slept in the hive, but he was still tired, and she was not in top form. She activated the projector.

They stood in the forest again, as she had antic.i.p.ated. "I believe this location is secure," she said. "We'll rest for six hours before continuing."

"Good enough!" Veg agreed. But he hesitated.

"You will not be able to relax here while I'm in sight," she told him. "Short of obliging you or knocking you out -- "

"Uh-uh! I'll take a snooze down beside the other projector. That way we can guard both spots."

She nodded acquiescence. His discipline in the face of his powerful pa.s.sion for her body was remarkable, if somewhat pointless. He had indulged himself with the woman Aquilon and had been unsatisfied, so now he was doubly careful. He wanted more than the physical and was content to gamble against the odds in the hope of achieving it. Unfortunately for him, the odds were long -- perhaps a thousand to one, against. She was human, at the root, so theoretically could fall in love. But agents were thoroughly conditioned against irrelevant emotion, and they had virtually no subconscious with its attendant ghosts and pa.s.sions.

It would be better for him to accept the reality and indulge the pa.s.sing urge he felt for her, knowing that there was no deeper commitment. That would abate his tension and make this alternate tour easier. Yet she had learned just enough respect for him to let him do it his own way. His human capriciousness and curiosity had already opened several profitable avenues, such as the hexaflexagon parallel, and might do it again. They were a good team: disciplined agent, variable normal.

If his indecision became a threat to her mission, she would have to act to abate it. That could mean seducing him directly or stranding him on some safe alternate. Neither action would leave him satisfied, and that was unfortunate.

Perhaps she would have to deceive him, pretending to love him. She could do it if she really tried. But she did not care to. "Maybe I'm getting too choosy, like him," she muttered. "The real thing, or nothing..."

Now she needed rest. She slept.

They stepped from the forest into a forest. Flexible green plants stood on a gently sloping bank of black dirt. As trees they were small, but as vegetables, large. In either case, strange.