Now it was out. Tamme, seeming relaxed, was poised for action -- and Cal, both mantas, and the informal Aquilon were ready to follow her lead. There would be violence in an instant -- the moment they were sure there was no better course.

"The term 'takeover' is inapplicable," the unit said. "Machine Prime now serves as coordinator for existent frames. This will be clarified in a moment."

"Let it speak," Cal murmured to Veg. "This is a most revealing dialogue." And now Veg also was ready for action.

"The follow-up mission of the agents was delayed for a year, in that frame where Aquilon was gravid. When the agents came, the mantas and sapient birds died, Vachel Smith was captured, and Miss Hunt projected to this frame: a world in the human neolithic. She found the projector left here by another party -- "

"How many parties are there buzzing around?" Veg demanded.

"An infinite number. But most were incorporated into the pattern arranged by the pattern-ent.i.ties; there was no mechanical way to break out of those loops. Miss Hunt experimented with her projector, visited her counterpart on the desert setting, inadvertently destroyed the egg, and returned here in remorse to destroy her projector."

"You did that?" the informal Aquilon asked. The robed Aquilon nodded sadly. "What happened to my baby?"

"The bird Orn attempted to save both his eggs and your baby. He was stalked by an agent whose a.s.signment was to recover both for return to Earth. The agents did not believe there had been time for a human infant to be conceived and birthed, so it was important for them to investigate the phenomenon fully. Orn perished -- but a pattern ent.i.ty salvaged one egg, the baby, and a fertile spore from the deceased mantas. These were conveyed to a restricted locale with a newly manufactured machine ent.i.ty -- "

"The scene we saw on the stage!" the informal Aquilon cried. Now her resolve to fight was wavering. The machine seemed to know too much to be an enemy.

"A nascent pattern was also created there," the unit continued. "Small, mindless shoots of the type generated on Mr. Potter's three-dimensional screen were sent across the limited element accesses in such a way as to combine and form a complete, sentient ent.i.ty. This is the way new patterns are formed; they do not reproduce in the fashion of physical ent.i.ties. There is a certain parallel in the manufacture of sentient machines, however. Such a machine had just been fashioned on the so-called Desert frame; one of its builders had obtained the necessary ingredients from the human supplies projected there -- "

"So that was why it was hungry!" Veg said. "It was a mother machine." Now he, too, was wavering as further comprehension came.

"The a.n.a.logy is inexact," the unit said. "However, the new machine was the one transferred to the enclave elsewhere on that frame. That enclave was then complete. The patterns, observing, hoped to ascertain the nature of the physical ent.i.ties. They were not successful in that -- but the enclave nevertheless achieved success of its own."

"But the enclave-baby died!" Informal Aquilon protested. "We saw the horrible machine slice it up -- "

Robed Aquilon froze.

"The pattern-ent.i.ty, reacting to the need of the other ent.i.ties, restored the infant," the unit said. "Its death became apparent but unreal -- as was Mr. Potter's death in your frame. You called that a nightmare."

"My baby -- lives?" robed Aquilon asked.

"Yes. The component ent.i.ties of the enclave combined their resources and developed a system of intercommunication that is now transforming sentient relations in all alternity. The adult enclave then a.s.signed the duty of application and coordination to Machine Prime, and this duty we are now executing."

There was a pause. Then: "Why tell us all this?" Veg asked. "Why not ship us back to our homes, or execute us, or ignore us? What do you care what happens to us?"

"Machine Prime does not care. It merely honors the terms of the agreement. The enclave specified that those of you who were instrumental in its formation be catered to. Now it is being dismantled, and we -- "

"Dismantled?" informal Aquilon asked. "What's happening to -- to Ornet and the baby -- ?"

"The baby grew up to be a remarkably capable man," the unit said. "This was because the enclave pattern ent.i.ty, OX, utilized special properties of alternity to age the entire enclave twenty years. The other inhabitants matured similarly. In fact, OX arranged for a baby girl from your home-frame to enter the enclave, and she also matured. She was intended as a mate for Cub -- the man -- but that did not occur. It seems your kind, like machine units, can not be raised in isolation and retain sanity. OX therefore arranged for the return of the girl and reverted the enclave to its original status after issuing the report of the five sentients."

"So the baby is -- still a baby," informal Aquilon said. "And Ornet is a chick, and -- "

"What's going to happen to them?" robed Aquilon demanded. "My baby -- "

"Their disposition is for this party to decide," the unit said. "We suggest that the baby be returned to its natural parents -- "

"Oh-oh," informal Aquilon said, looking first at her alternate, then to Cal.

Cal put his hand on hers. "I may have strayed once -- but this was a confusion. At any rate, the matter is academic. I am not the father."

"You are the father," the unit said.

Veg chuckled. "Machine, if you can win an argument with Cal, you're a d.a.m.n genius. Because he is." He shook his head. "Never thought he'd be involved in a paternity suit, though."

"It is not a matter for debate," the unit said. "We have verified the information."

Even Tamme relaxed. If the machine were ready to quibble about details, force might not be necessary. But if force were called for, it should be timed for that instant of confusion when the machine realized its mistake. For Cal had to be correct; Tamme antic.i.p.ated the point he was about to make and recognized its validity. When it came to intellectual combat, Cal was supreme, as she and the other agents had learned on Paleo.

"Let me explain," Cal said. "According to you, I crossed over, impregnated this woman -- " he indicated the robed Aquilon -- "and returned to my own frame in time to encounter the agent mission there. Meanwhile, in the other frame, she carried the baby to term and gave birth to it, subsequently becoming separated from it when it was about three months old. That baby entered the enclave and is now available for return."

"Correct," the unit said.

"Therefore, approximately a year pa.s.sed in the other frame. But in my frame, a week has pa.s.sed." He frowned. "Correction: two weeks. Time has become confused -- but hardly to the extent of a year. My companions will verify this."

Veg's mouth dropped open. "That's right! Tamme got better in a week on Fognose, and there weren't many other -- "

"True," Tamme agreed. She had a.s.sessed the mechanisms of the machine and judged that one projectile fired to ricochet off the treads and into the mechanism from below would cripple it. Slowed, it could then be reduced by a concerted attack. It was a small machine, not as formidable as some.

"Yes," informal Aquilon said. "How can he be the father -- from two weeks ago?"

"He is the father," the unit repeated. "I am undoubtedly the father of a baby in some other alternate -- or will be some eight months hence," Cal said. "But some other Cal, from a frame running a year or more ahead of us -- because this other Aquilon, in addition to her Paleo adventure, has evidently been here at catal Huyuk some time -- is responsible for the enclave baby." He turned to informal Aquilon. "There is no question of my leaving you even for your double."

Veg smiled triumphantly, while Tamme made ready to act. "What do you say to that, machine?"

"We have mentioned that the agent mission was delayed for a year in this woman's frame," the unit said, making a gesture to include the robed Aquilon. "The patterns were responsible for that. This occurred in the course of the inst.i.tution of their holographic representation, the enclave. Time travel is not possible within frames, but the appearance of it can be generated by phasing across frames, as you found on Paleo. By inst.i.tuting a type of feedback circuit, a pattern ent.i.ty is able to accelerate a portion of a limited complex of frames. This occurred in the enclave. But that portion is then out of phase and can not interact effectively with normal frames until it reverts. The only way to adjust the time-orientations of individuals so that one ent.i.ty may interact with another in a different frame despite a dichotomy of time is to enable that individual to cross on the bias. That is what the patterns did with you. When you crossed from Paleo to Desert, you jumped forward more than a year in time."

"But we used our own projector!" Tamme protested, still trying to catch the machine in its error.

"Your projector is a toy compared to the ability of the patterns. They altered your route during transit."

Tamme saw her chance going. The machine was not at all confused and showed no weakness. From what she had seen of the patterns, they could play tricks with time...

"However, such bias must always be balanced," the unit continued. "The patterns could not jump you forward a year in one frame without performing a similar operation in the other. Therefore, the agents, similar in number and ma.s.s to your party -- "

"Equations must balance!" Cal exclaimed. "Of course! We jumped to the desert, hurdling a year, while the agents hurdled the same year jumping from Earth into the other Paleo. So those agents lost a year without knowing it, and so did we."

Tamme relaxed. The seemingly impossible had happened. Cal had been outlogicked, their chance to strike eliminated. That machine really had control over the situation!

"Now I remember," the robed Aquilon said. "Tama said there hadn't been time, and I didn't know what she meant."

"But we were in different frames," Veg said. "Our year couldn't balance out the agents' year, when -- "

"Parallel frames -- linked by Cal's brief crossover," the unit said. "For that purpose, with Cal in one and his child in the other, the two frames amounted to ident.i.ty. By this device you were restored to phase with that Aquilon you impregnated, though she has lived more than a year longer than you in the interval between your encounters."

Now the machine was so confident it was even waxing informal, Tamme thought. It had started calling them by their group-given names instead of their legal ones.

Cal spread his hands. "I will, of course, a.s.sume responsibility for the baby -- "