be able to give you a great deal more information on
the Nipe than I can."

VI

The Nipe squatted, brooding, in his underground nest, waiting for the
special crystallization process to take place in the sodium-gold alloy
that was forming in the reactor.

_How long?_ he wondered. He was not thinking of the crystallization
reaction; he knew the timing of that to the fraction of a second. His dark
thoughts were focused inwardly, upon himself.

How long would it be before he would be able to construct the communicator
that would put him in touch with his own race again? How long before he
could discourse again with reasonable beings? For how much longer would he
be stranded on an insane planet, surrounded by degraded, insane beings?

The work was going incredibly slowly. He had known at the beginning that
his knowledge of the basic arts required to build a communicator was
incomplete, but he had not realized just how painfully inadequate it was.
Time after time, his instruments had simply refused to function because of
some basic flaw in their manufacture--some flaw that an expert in that
field could have pointed out at once. Time after time, equipment had had
to be rebuilt almost from the beginning. And, time after time, only
cut-and-try methods were available for correcting his errors.

Not even his prodigious and accurate memory could hold all the information
that was necessary for the work, and there were no reference tapes
available, of course.

He had long since given up any attempt to understand the functioning of
the mad pseudo-civilization that surrounded him. He was quite certain that
the beings he had seen could not possibly be the real rulers of this
society, but he had, as yet, no inkling as to who the real rulers were.

As to _where_ they were, that question seemed a little easier to answer.
It was highly probable that they were out in space, on the asteriods that
his instruments had detected as he had dropped in toward this planet so
many years before. He had made an error back then in not landing in the
Belt, but at no time since had he experienced the emotion of regret or
wished he had done differently; both thoughts would have been
incomprehensible to the Nipe. He had made an error; the circumstances had
been checked and noted; he would not make that error again.

What further action could be taken by a logical mind?

None. The past was unchangeable. It existed only as a memory in his own
mind