“Don’t kid yourself,” Glen Belsnor said. “If it shot at your wife it’s because that loopy dame, that Susie Dumb or Smart, whichever it is, wanted it to. She taught it. They can be trained, you see.” He sat holding the tiny structure, staring down at it, a brooding expression settling by degrees into his long, lean face.

“If I hadn’t grabbed her,” Seth said, “we would have had a second death tonight.”

“Maybe yes, maybe no. Considering the meager output of these things it probably would only have knocked her out.”

“The beam bored through the wall.”

Belsnor said, “The walls are cheap plastic. One layer. You could punch a hole through with your fist.”

“So you’re not upset by this.”

Belsnor plucked at his lower lip, thoughtfully. “I’m upset by the whole thing. What the hell were you doing with Susie in her room?” He raised his hand. “Don’t tell me, I know. She’s deranged sexually. No, don’t give me any details.” He played aimlessly with the replica of the Building. “Too bad it didn’t shoot Susie,” he murmured, half to himself.

“There’s something the matter with all of you,” Seth said.

Belsnor raised his shaggy head and studied Seth Morley. “In what way?”

“I’m not sure. A kind of idiocy. Each of you seems to be living in his own private world. Without regard for anyone else. It’s as if—” He pondered. “As if all you want, each of you, is to be left alone.”

“No,” Belsnor said. “We want to get away from here. We may have nothing else in common, but we do share that.” He handed the destroyed structure back to Seth. “Keep it. As a souvenir.”

Seth tossed it onto the floor.

“You’re going out exploring with Susie tomorrow?” Belsnor said.

“Yes.” He nodded.

“She’ll probably attack you again.”

“I’m not interested in that. I’m not worried by that. I think that we have an active enemy on the planet, working from outside the settlement area. I think it—or they—killed Tallchief. Despite what Babble found.”

Belsnor said, “You’re new here. Tallchief was new here. Tallchief is dead. I think there’s a connection; I think his death was connected to his unfamiliarity with the conditions on the planet. Therefore you’re equally in danger. But the rest of us—”

“You don’t think I should go.”

“Go, yes. But be very careful. Don’t touch anything, don’t pick up anything, keep your eyes open. Try to go only where she’s been; don’t tackle new areas.”

“Why don’t you come too?”

Regarding him intently, Belsnor said, “You want me to?”

“You’re the settlement’s leader, now. Yes, I think you should come. And armed.”

“I—” Belsnor pondered. “It could be argued that I ought to stay here and work on the transmitter. It could be argued that you ought to be at work composing a prayer, instead of tramping around in the wilderness. I have to think of every aspect of this situation. It could be argued—”

“It could be argued that your ‘could be argueds’ may kill us all,” Seth Morley said.

“Your ‘could be argued’ may be correct.” Belsnor smiled as if at a private, secret reality. The smile, with no amusement in it, lingered on his face; it remained and became sardonic.

Seth Morley said, “Tell me what you know about the ecology out there.”

“There is an organism which we call the tench. There are, we’ve gathered, five or six of them. Very old.”

“What do they do? Are they artifact makers?”

“Some, the feeble ones, do nothing. They just sit there here and there in the middle of the landscape. The less feeble ones, however, print.”

“‘Print’?”

“They duplicate things brought to them. Small things, such as a wristwatch, a cup, an electric razor.”

“And the printings work?”

Belsnor tapped his jacket pocket. “The pen I’m using is a print. But—” He lifted out the pen and extended it toward Seth Morley. “See the decay?” The surface of the pen had a furry texture, much like dust. “They decompose very rapidly. This’ll be good for another few days, and then I can have another print made from the original pen.”

“Why?”

“Because we’re short on pens. And the ones we have are running out of ink.”

“What about the writing of one of these print-pens? Does the ink fade out after a few days?”

“No,” Belsnor said, but he looked uncomfortable.

“You’re not sure.”

Standing, Belsnor dug into his back pocket and got out his wallet. For a time he examined small, folded pieces of paper and then he placed one in front of Seth. The writing was clear and distinct.

Maggie Walsh entered the briefing chamber, saw the two of them, and came over. “May I join you?”

“Sure,” Belsnor said remotely. “Pull up a chair.” He glanced at Seth Morley, then said to her in a leisurely, hard voice, “Susie Smart’s toy building tried to shoot Morley’s wife a little while ago. It missed, and Morley poured a plate of water over it.”

“I warned her,” Maggie said, “that those things are unsafe.”

“It was safe enough,” Belsnor said. “It’s Susie that isn’t safe … as I was explaining to Morley.”

“We should pray for her,” Maggie said.

“You see?” Belsnor said to Seth Morley. “We do have concern for one another. Maggie wants to save Susie Smart’s immortal soul.”

“Pray,” Seth Morley said, “that she doesn’t capture another replica and begin teaching that one, too.”

“Morley,” Belsnor said, “I’ve been thinking about your thoughts on the whole bunch of us. In a way you’re right: there is something the matter with each of us. But not what you think. The thing we have in common is that we’re failures. Take Tallchief. Couldn’t you tell he’s a wino? And Susie—all she can think about is sexual conquests. I can make a guess about you, too. You’re overweight; obviously you eat too much. Do you live to eat, Morley? Or had you never asked yourself that? Babble is a hypochondriac. Betty Jo Berm is a compulsive pill-taker: her life is in those little plastic bottles. That kid, Tony Dunkelwelt; he lives for his mystical insights, his schizophrenic trances… which both Babble and Frazer call catatonic stupor. Maggie, here—” He gestured toward her. “She lives in an illusory world of prayer and fasting, doing service to a deity which isn’t interested in her.” To Maggie he said, “Have you ever seen the Intercessor, Maggie?”

She shook her head no.

“Or the Walker-on-Earth?”

“No,” she said.

“Nor the Mentufacturer either,” Belsnor said. “Now take Wade Frazer. His world—”

“How about you?” Seth asked him.

Belsnor shrugged. “I have my own world.”

“He invents,” Maggie Walsh said.

“But I’ve never invented anything,” Belsnor said. “Everything developed during the last two centuries has come from a composite lab, where hundreds, even thousands of research workers work. There is no such thing as an inventor in this century. Maybe I just like to play private games with electronic components. Anyhow, I enjoy it. I get most if not all of my pleasure in this world from creating circuits that ultimately do nothing.”

“A dream of fame,” Maggie said.

“No.” Belsnor shook his head. “I want to contribute something; I don’t want to be just a consumer, like the rest of you.” His tone was hard and flat and very earnest. “We live in a world created and manufactured from the results of the work of millions of men, most of them dead, virtually none of them known or given any credit. I don’t care if I’m known for what I create; all I care about is having it be worthwhile and useful, with people able to depend on it as something they take for granted in their lives. Like the safety pin. Who knows who created that? But everyone in the goddam galaxy makes use of safety pins, and the inventor—”

“Safety pins were invented on Crete,” Seth Morley said. “In the fourth or fifth century B.C.”

Belsnor glared at him. “About one thousand B.C.”