"I cannot give the name of my world, or where it was in your sky. We have lost track of the time that has passed since we left. Memory of the world is dimmed by long cold sleeping. The first ships arrived and hid themselves within ice masses that filled the valleys of one continent. They took what they needed from these ice masses, and parts of them worked their way into the world. We did not know what was happening. In the last times, this ship, newly made, appeared in the middle of a city, and did not move. Plans were made as the planet trembled. We had been in space, even between planets, but there were no planets that attracted us, so we stayed on our world. We knew how to survive in space, even over long times, and we built a home within the ship, believing it would leave before the end. The ship did not prevent us. It left before the weapons made our world melted rock and gaseous water, and took Us with it, inside. No others live that we are aware of."

Crockerman nodded once and folded his hands in his lap. "What was your world like?"

"Similar. More ice, a smaller star. Many like myself, not in form but in thought. Our kind was many-formed, some swimming in cold melt-seas, some like myself walking on ground, some flying, some living in ice. All thought alike. Thousands of long-times past, we had molded life to our own wishes, and lived happily. The air was rich and filled with smells of kin. Everywhere on the world, even in the far lands of thick ice, you could smell cousins and children."

Arthur felt his throat catching. Crockerman's cheek was wet with a single tear. He did not wipe it away.

"Did they tell you why your world was being destroyed?"

"They did not speak with us," the Guest said. "We guessed the machines were eaters of worlds, and that they were not alive, just machines without smells, but with thoughts."

"No robots came out to speak with you?"

"I have language difficulties."

"Smaller machines," Rotterjack prompted. "Talk with you, deceive you."

"No smaller machines," the Guest said.

Crockerman took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a moment. "Did you have children?" he asked.

"My kind were not allowed children. I had cousins."

"Did you leave some sort of family behind?"

"Yes. Cousins and teachers. Ice brothers by command bonding."

Crockerman shook his head. That meant nothing to him; indeed, it meant little to anybody in the room. Much of this would have to be sorted out later, with many more questions—if the Guest lived long enough to answer all their questions.

"And you learned to speak our language by listening to radio broadcasts?"

"Yes. Your wasting drew the machines to you. We listened to what the machines were gathering."

Harry scribbled furiously, his pencil making quick scratching noises on the notepad.