he mechanics--very gently--aside and were
doing their work for them. Ignoring the hoist, one native had picked the
tube up and was holding it exactly in place on the Mayfield. The other,
hands moving faster than the eye could follow, was locking
it--micrometrically precise and immovably secure--into place.

"How about this?" one of the mechanics asked of his immediate superior.
"If we throw 'em out, how do we do it?"

By a jerk of the head, the non-com passed the buck to a commissioned
officer, who relayed it up the line to Sawtelle, who said, "Hilton,
_no_body can run a Mayfield without months of training. They'll wreck it
and it'll cost you ... but I'm getting curious myself. Enough so to take
half the damage. Let 'em go ahead."

"How _about_ this, Mike?" one of the machinists asked of his fellow.
"I'm going to _like_ this, what?"

"Ya-as, my deah Chumley," the other drawled, affectedly. "My man
relieves me of _so_ much uncouth effort."

The natives had kept on working. The Mayfield was running. It had always
howled and screamed at its work, but now it gave out only a smooth and
even hum. The aliens had adjusted it with unhuman precision; they were
one with it as no human being could possibly be. And every mind present
knew that those aliens were, at long, long last, fulfilling their
destiny and were, in that fulfillment, supremely happy. After tens of
thousands of cycles of time they were doing a job for their adored,
their revered and beloved MASTERS.

That was a stunning shock; but it was eclipsed by another.

* * * * *

"I am sorry, Master Hilton," Laro's tremendous bass voice boomed out,
"that it has taken us so long to learn your Masters' language as it now
is. Since you left us you have changed it radically; while we, of
course, have not changed it at all."

"I'm sorry, but you're mistaken," Hilton said. "We are merely visitors.
We have never been here before; nor, as far as we know, were any of our
ancestors ever here."

"You need not test us, Master. We have kept your trust. Everything has
been kept, changelessly the same, awaiting your return as you ordered so
long ago."

"Can you read my mind?" Hilton demanded.

"Of course; but Omans can not read in Masters' minds anything except
what Masters want Omans to read."

"Omans?" Harkins asked. "Where did you Omans and your masters come from?
Originally?"

"As you know, Master, the Masters came originally from Arth.