The room was in uproar. “It’s the only way,” Ferine gasped as he pushed past O’Neill. “We’ll have to destroy them—it’s the network or us.” Grabbing down a lamp, he hurled it in the “face” of the factory representative. The lamp and the intricate surface of plastic burst; Ferine waded in, groping blindly for the machine. Now all the people in the room were closing furiously around the upright cylinder, their impotent resentment boiling over. The machine sank down and disappeared as they dragged it to the floor.

Trembling, O’Neill turned away. His wife caught hold of his arm and led him to the side of the room.

“The idiots,” he said dejectedly. “They can’t destroy it; they’ll only teach it to build more defenses. They’re making the whole problem worse.”

Into the living room rolled a network repair team. Expertly, the mechanical units detached themselves from the half-track mother-bug and scurried toward the mound of struggling humans. They slid between people and rapidly burrowed. A moment later, the inert carcass of the factory representative was dragged into the hopper of the mother-bug. Parts were collected, torn remnants gathered up and carried off. The plastic strut and gear was located. Then the units restationed themselves on the bug and the team departed.

Through the open door came a second factory representative, an exact duplicate of the first. And outside in the hall stood two more upright machines. The settlement had been combed at random by a corps of representatives. Like a horde of ants, the mobile data-collecting machines had filtered through the town until, by chance, one of them had come across O’Neill.

“Destruction of network mobile data-gathering equipment is detrimental to best human interests,” the factory representative informed the roomful of people. “Raw material intake is at a dangerously low ebb; what basic materials still exist should be utilized in the manufacture of consumer commodities.”

O’Neill and the machine stood facing each other.

“Oh?” O’Neill said softly. “That’s interesting. I wonder what you’re lowest on—and what you’d really be willing to fight for.”

Helicopter rotors whined tinnily above O’Neill’s head; he ignored them and peered through the cabin window at the ground not far below.

Slag and ruins stretched everywhere. Weeds poked their way up, sickly stalks among which insects scuttled. Here and there, rat colonies were visible: matted hovels constructed of bone and rubble. Radiation had mutated the rats, along with most insects and animals. A little farther, O’Neill identified a squadron of birds pursuing a ground squirrel. The squirrel dived into a carefully prepared crack in the surface of slag and the birds turned, thwarted.

“You think we’ll ever have it rebuilt?” Morrison asked. “It makes me sick to look at it.”

“In time,” O’Neill answered. “Assuming, of course, that we get industrial control back. And assuming that anything remains to work with. At best, it’ll be slow. We’ll have to inch out from the settlements.”

To the right was a human colony, tattered scarecrows, gaunt and emaciated, living among the ruins of what had once been a town. A few acres of barren soil had been cleared; drooping vegetables wilted in the sun, chickens wandered listlessly here and there, and a fly-bothered horse lay panting in the shade of a crude shed.

“Ruins-squatters,” O’Neill said gloomily. “Too far from the network—not tangent to any of the factories.”

“It’s their own fault,” Morrison told him angrily. “They could come into one of the settlements.”

“That was their town. They’re trying to do what we ‘re trying to do—build up things again on their own. But they’re starting now, without tools or machines, with their bare hands, nailing together bits of rubble. And it won’t work. We need machines. We can’t repair ruins; we’ve got to start industrial production.”

Ahead lay a series of broken hills, chipped remains that had once been a ridge. Beyond stretched out the titanic ugly sore of an H-bomb crater, half filled with stagnant water and slime, a disease-ridden inland sea.

And beyond that—a glitter of busy motion.

“There,” O’Neill said tensely. He lowered the helicopter rapidly. “Can you tell which factory they’re from?”

“They all look alike to me,” Morrison muttered, leaning over to see. “We’ll have to wait and follow them back, when they get a load.”

“If they get a load,” O’Neill corrected.

The autofac exploring crew ignored the helicopter buzzing overhead and concentrated on its job. Ahead of the main truck scuttled two tractors; they made their way up mounds of rubble, probes burgeoning like quills, shot down the far slope and disappeared into a blanket of ash that lay spread over the slag. The two scouts burrowed until only their antennas were visible. They burst up to the surface and scuttled on, their treads whirring and clanking.

“What are they after?” Morrison asked.

“God knows.” O’Neill leafed intently through the papers on his clipboard. “We’ll have to analyze all our back-order slips.”

Below them, the autofac exploring crew disappeared behind. The helicopter passed over a deserted stretch of sand and slag on which nothing moved. A grove of scrub-brush appeared and then, far to the right, a series of tiny moving dots.

A procession of automatic ore carts was racing over the bleak slag, a string of rapidly moving metal trucks that followed one another nose to tail. O’Neill turned the helicopter toward them and a few minutes later it hovered above the mine itself.

Masses of squat mining equipment had made their way to the operations. Shafts had been sunk; empty carts waited in patient rows. A steady stream of loaded carts hurled toward the horizon, dribbling ore after them. Activity and the noise of machines hung over the area, an abrupt center of industry in the bleak wastes of slag.

“Here comes that exploring crew,” Morrison observed, peering back the way they had come. “You think maybe they’ll tangle?” He grinned. “No, I guess it’s too much to hope for.”

“It is this time,” O’Neill answered. “They’re looking for different substances, probably. And they’re normally conditioned to ignore each other.”

The first of the exploring bugs reached the line of ore carts. It veered slightly and continued its search; the carts traveled in their inexorable line as if nothing had happened.

Disappointed, Morrison turned away from the window and swore. “No use. It’s like each doesn’t exist for the other.”

Gradually the exploring crew moved away from the line of carts, past the mining operations and over a ridge beyond. There was no special hurry; they departed without having reacted to the ore-gathering syndrome.

“Maybe they’re from the same factory,” Morrison said hopefully.

O’Neill pointed to the antennas visible on the major mining equipment. “Their vanes are turned at a different vector, so these represent two factories. It’s going to be hard; we’ll have to get it exactly right or there won’t be any reaction.” He clicked on the radio and got hold of the monitor at the settlement. “Any results on the consolidated back-order sheets?”

The operator put him through to the settlement governing offices.

“They’re starting to come in,” Ferine told him. “As soon as we get sufficient samplings, we’ll try to determine which raw materials which factories lack. It’s going to be risky, trying to extrapolate from complex products. There may be a number of basic elements common to the various sublets.”

“What happens when we’ve identified the missing element?” Morrison asked O’Neill. “What happens when we’ve got two tangent factories short on the same material?”

“Then,” O’Neill said grimly, “we start collecting the material ourselves—even if we have to melt down every object in the settlements.”